San Fran is For Foodies – Just getting started!

I can’t not even believe the number of restaurants in this city alone, not to mention the ones we have eaten at in wine country! I think we are already planning a trip back here in early November. I know there is a Food Buzz waiting list, but we were told that early November is gorge in Napa, so I may just come out anyway, see if I could grab a drink with some of you, then head up to wine country for some autumn wine drinking 🙂 More on that later, after we look at the financial damage of this trip!

For our first dinner in San Francisco, I booked a little Mexican restaurant that I found on Open Table, a site that I sometimes seem to live on 🙂 Colibri was only a few blocks from our hotel, off of Union Square, and it was adorable. It is always a good sign to me when I see a restaurant packed with people in work clothes. If locals are flocking there after work, one would hope the place is good!

We started with the house made guacamole. They actually make it to order, so you can choose your level of spiciness. We chose medium, and it had a nice little kick. It was served with the BEST tortillas ever. Not the chips you see in the basket, which we were also good, but the hot, fluffy, homemade corn tortillas kind of hidden by my water glass. They were so warm and pillowy soft that I really can not imagine store bought tortillas ever again. I just need to learn how to make my own.

The guac was chunky with excellent flavors of fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers. We devoured this bowl over the course of the meal. It wasn’t as deep as it looks! We ended up splitting a bunch of appetizers as we often do. We ordered the fish tacos, the jicama salad, and Colibri’s famous Tamales Oaxaqueños with their legendary mole sauce. The fish tacos were my absolute favorite, with lightly breaded tender fish, onion, cilantro, and pineapple. They also served us 3 ramekins of various salsas, one of which was pineapple. I feel as though the pineapple made all the difference in making this dish really stand out. It brought the flavors together and gave them zing!

The tamales were interesting, in a good way. The flavors were definitely intense, the tamales themselves were soft and full of chicken, and the mole just had a complexity that I liked most of the time, but found almost too sweet at other times. This would definitely be a dish I would order again, I think I need a second round to decide!

For dessert we saw that Colibri served caramel-filled churros rellenos. Our Brazilian waiter at Upstairs on the Square told us about this deliciousness from his homeland, so we had to try them!

Hot, crispy, filled with real caramel, not the grocery store, cloying stuff! Topped with dulce de leche ice cream.

I am so glad that I found Colibri and that we were able to get a reservation. The food was top notch, our server was sweet and accommodating, and the prices were totally reasonable which was key as you will soon learn about our wine country splurges! I would definitely go back to Colibri next time I visit San Francisco which I hope will be soon!

I am off to enjoy our last day here, but I can assure you that this is just the beginning of my CA recap. Question- do you prefer to read long posts about multiple things or shorter ones that zoom in on one event, like this one? I have so much to write about this week (ha, very unusual!), and sometimes I hate going on and on. Just curious to see what your reading styles are.

Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day!