Foo - I need advice from San Francisco area Foo-ies

I'm planning a tour from Seattle to San Francisco in August. I plan to stay at least two nights in S.F. before I fly home. A couple of questions:

Is the Travelodge on El Camino Real in Millbrae a decent place to stay? If not, where should I look? (I'm considering it because of - free airport shuttle, adjacent to BART & Caltran Station, cont. breakfast, $76/night.)
What should I make time to see & do in the Bay area?
Is Alcatraz Island worthwile?

Thanks!

Hit Portland on a Sunday night for ZooBomb!

Anchorstein Brewery.

I'm planning a tour from Seattle to San Francisco in August. I plan to stay at least two nights in S.F. before I fly home. A couple of questions:

Is the Travelodge on El Camino Real in Millbrae a decent place to stay? If not, where should I look? (I'm considering it because of - free airport shuttle, adjacent to BART & Caltran Station, cont. breakfast, $76/night.)
What should I make time to see & do in the Bay area?
Is Alcatraz Island worthwile?

Thanks!
You should go to china town.

They have stink bombs there ;)

You can thank me later for the great advice :)

Will you have your bike with you? That could influence what you want to do quite a bit.

Some things to do/se in San Francisco (I worked in the city for a little over 3 years - although it was quite a while ago).

Embarcadero/Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf.
North Beach
Coit Tower/Telegraph Hill
Chinatown
Lombard Street

All that stuff is in the same section of town - you can make a circle through it all in one day. You could do Alcatraz - but something else might have to drop out.

Also:

Golden Gate Park
Haight-Ashbury (If you're into the retro/hippy/'60's vibe)
Presidio
Golden Gate Bridge
Sunset District

Not sure how much of the surrounding area you'd be looking to see.

Marin Headlands,
Muir Woods,
Mount Diablo,
Napa Valley/Sonoma

are also nice to visit.

If you are going to the city I would reccomend staying in the city. It would be a little more expensive but I think ultimately you aer going to want to be in San Francisco not Millbrae. On the other hand you would be able to hop on the bart and shoot down town in about 30 min. There are some realy cool boutique hotels that are not ridiculous. I have stayed downtown right off of union square for less than $100 a night.

Honestly, two days isn't enough time to see everything. So I'd suggest finding a tour/tourbus deal leaving from the Fisherman's Wharf area (or even from a hotel) and tour the city. That way you get a good tour of the city and get to see most of the popular landmarks around town like the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, Lombard Street, etc... Then when that's done you can walk around the Cannery, Ghirardelli Square, The Wharf and Pier 39. And from the Cannery/Ghiradelli area you can take a cable car downtown or walk to the North beach area and experience the Italian side of the city. Walk a little farther down and you'll hit Broadway and pass the famous Condor Club (a la Carol Doda) and other strip clubs, a little further and you'll hit Chinatown and a little farther you'll hit downtown SF.

But bring a warm jacket. Even if it's nice and sunny it can get real cold and foggy by the afternoon.

My wife used to work at www.hotelres.com (now in Oakland), so you might want to check their site for deals on local hotels. Although being in Millbrae near BART isn't bad either as you can get downtown easily as well. (see BART.gov for schedules, info, etc. as well as SFMuni.com for local bus and light rail schedules/info.

Good luck and have fun!
Gary

Don't forget to party at North Beach. The pub scene isn't as wild as back in the heyday of the dot.com boom, but it's still hopping...

Will you have your bike with you? That could influence what you want to do quite a bit.
Yes. I will be riding from seattle to SF. I will ride across the Golden Gate bridge. I also plan to ride a cable car while there. A coworker mentioned a tour boat ride around the bay and said it was the best thing he did while there. Anyone have any restuarant recommendations? (No foofoo stuff; I'm a seafood or meat & potatos guy...)

You could see Sonoma and part of Marin county on the way down.

The tour boats depart from in between pier 39 and Fisherman's wharf. The Alcatraz tour is right next to the Bay tour boat.

You could try riding the Tour of California prologue stage route. That wouldn't take very long.

I'll let someone who's been in the city recently give restaurant recommendations.

Anyone have any restuarant recommendations? (No foofoo stuff; I'm a seafood or meat & potatos guy...)
For a splurge, go to Tadich Grill (California near Front in the Financial Dist.) It's the oldest continuously operating restaurant in SF (it dates to the Gold Rush era), and has good seafood and meat-and-potato fare. This is old-fashioned, not nouvelle. (Not a comment on either, as I like both - just reporting so you can make the call.) No reservations, so be prepared to wait a bit. Also, cheap it ain't, hence the "splurge" notation.

For Chinese, two options: Brandy Ho's, on Columbus near Pacific, and Hunan, Sansome just north of Broadway. Avoid the places in Chinatown proper - most of them taste as if the food came out of the same secret underground kitchen, with predictably blah results.

For cheap Chinese (lunch time on weekdays, only) - B&M, 2nd Street between Market and Mission. Eat like a king for $5 or so.

For just plain cheap (lunch time on weekdays, only) - Lee's - about 8 of 'em in the Financial District. Sandwiches, soup, salad bar, Chinese food bar (avoid that - overpriced and not that tasty - go to B&M instead). $3.50 to $5 should fill you up if you pick carefully.

For sushi, there is only one choice (no matter what anyone else says) - Kabuto, on Geary in the general area of 17th Ave. Small, guaranteed wait, simply the best. Definitely not cheap.

Northern Italian - Kuletto's, Powell Street just south of Union Square (Geary). Again, not cheap.

As for the cruise around the bay, it's called the Bay Cruise (catchy, huh?) I bet you can find it on line. Yes, it's worth doing. Bring warm clothing, regardless of what it is like on shore.

Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf are very touristy. If you like that sort of thing, cool. If not, don't bother. I've lived most of my life in the Bay Area and I still haven't made it out to Alcatraz, so I can't give you advice on that.

If you like art, try: the deYoung in eastern Golden Gate Park (newly remodeled in a pretty cool building); the Palace of the Legion of Honor out in the Richmond District (NW part of town) - good art, great views; the Asian Art Museum, near City Hall; the Museum of Modern Art on Third Street and Mission Street.

Unless you are dying for a video game fix, don't bother with Metreon - it is allegedly a shopping center, but it really exists to push Sony electronics.

As for where to stay, your idea sounds about as good as any. You can easily BART into SF or over to the East Bay from the Millbrae station. Just remember that you have to be on the train back to your motel by midnight at the latest. And be sure you have a reliable lock system, one that you would trust in New York City - the bike thieves are avery bit as active here as there.

Enjoy your trip. It should be beautiful.

Anchorstein Brewery.
That's actually the Anchor Brewery, makers of Anchor Steam beer, Anchor Porter, an annual limited edition Christmas ale, and a few other specialty brands. Anchor is owned by Fritz Maytag (one of those Maytags) who bought the company in the 1960's when it was literally days away from bankruptcy and built it into a very viable concern. Anchor is bigger than a micro-brewery, but is in large measure responsible for creating the micro-brew industry. De Haro Street in the Portrero Hill neighborhood. It's a fun tour (with beer tasting at the end of it:)) but you need to call ahead to make sure there is space on a given day.

Micro Brewery: Gordon Biersch Brewery at 2 Harrison St. off the Embarcadero/Waterfront area. I'm not a big beer drinker but if you love garlic fries this is the place. Also, 21st Ammendment is another micro brewery on 563 2nd Street that has great garlic fries! :)

This is old-fashioned, not nouvelle. (Not a comment on either, as I like both - just reporting so you can make the call.)

Thanks for all the restuarant info! I probably won't do any splurging, as I will have spent plenty of money by the end of this trip. I'm all about good food cheap, and plenty of it. Nouvelle pisses me off - I don't care anything about presentation.

I'll admit I had to Google nouvelle.:o I just call it foofoo....

I'm all about good food cheap, and plenty of it. Nouvelle pisses me off - I don't care anything about presentation.
Some nouvelle stuff is tremendous, but I'm with you when it gets so froo-froo that they forget that you are there to eat, not admire the design on the plate.

As for cheap, how could I have forgotten Clown Alley? An old-fashioned burger joint, cooked on a grill, not a griddle, and not a microwave in sight. Funky clown decor. Corner of Columbus and Pacific.

And how could I have overlooked Tommy's Joynt? This is an "only in San Francisco" place that serves sandwiches, soups, hot plates, their allegedly world-famous buffalo stew (never tried it), and a ridiculous number of different beers from around the world. It's a little bit overpriced for what you get, but not outrageously so, and it's a fun atmosphere. Corner of Van Ness and either Geary or O'Farrell. It has a big ol' mural on the north side of the building, so it's hard to miss, at least if you are going south on Van Ness.

Another good bet is to go to Boudin (there's one at Fisherman's Wharf and a couple others in town - check the phone book for the other locations) and get some clam chowder in a bread bowl. San Francisco sour dough bread is to die for, and Boudin is about the best of the major producers of it. Hollow out a small round loaf and fill it with pretty good chowder (or chili, if you prefer), and that's good eating.

Darn, now I'm hungry, and it isn't lunch time yet.