‘Tis that time of year. The time when I evaluate my San Francisco worth based on my new total of restaurants of the Top 100 visited. Ok not really, but I do tend to feel like it’s been a good year if I’ve eaten some good food out and in SF that’s an easy thing to do whether or not I cross more restaurants off my official list.

This year with 18 new entrants that means some of the previous entries had to go. Although I ended last year with 52 visited, as of this week I am knocked back down to 46. And that’s with catching new entries A Mano (yummy local Italian), The Morris (made a fine birthday treat), and RT Rotisserie (a great pop by on my way home), as well as credit for not new to me but new to the list Locanda.

Other endeavors this year included fine Indian fare and cocktails at August1Five, tasty tapas at Bellota, yummy Mexican seafood at Cala, and finally timed a visit to Ramen Shop for a pop in with only a slight wait at the bar.

Let me know what you’ve eaten that’s good in the comments, I’m always plotting my next meal out!

It’s that time of year again, San Francisco Chronicles Top 100 Restaurants! As most folks who know me are aware I managed to make 50 on this list a priority a few years ago. Ever since I have tried to make it less of a serious goal and more of a consideration. This last year I somehow managed to work my way up to 53 before this year knocked me back down. Fortunately, with the eleven removals from my accomplishments I managed to hit a few new and old introductions to keep my number at 47. I’m pretty sure I can work 3 in at some point since I’ve already got a few on my radar.

Some of the noteworthy deliciousness of this year included the super fresh Cotogna and Octavia which didn’t disappoint. State Bird Provisions spin off The Progress made a non Spanish tapas style sampling a win. Plus cute and tasty pizza-licious Del Popolo was good that night and made amazing leftovers.

My second annual wine country restaurant trip hit lunch at Oso Sonoma which made me thankful I risked going cocktail instead of wine for the blood orange margarita to go with my also Mexican slanted shrimp tacos, and after working off a bit of that on to Bistro Don Giovanni for some of the freshest tasting pesto pasta I’ve ever had.

Oh and I can’t forget about Petit Crenn‘s seven course meal, which for a fixed menu did a great job of accommodating a non dairy slant (no cream or cheese but said butter was aok). I also made a couple trips to old faves which have stood the test of time, Zuni Cafe and The Slanted Door.

And my jump on this year includes the return of former faves La Taqueria and Seven Hills to the list and new picks Corridor and In Situ as well as Souvla. Where to next?

A few years ago I made it my goal to up the number of restaurants that I had visited on the San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 list. I was counting restaurants I’d visited in years prior to the current list and since there are 100 restaurants all over the Bay Area I had what seemed like a manageable goal to up my number to 50. And I did!

Though once that goal was complete, a new list came out and with new restaurants introduced and others removed from the list I was back in the situation I find myself at with each new list, less than 50 attended. So moving forward I’ve refrained from making it an official goal but do tend to take a look each year. This year not only did I up my number back up to 49 including some new faves The Cavalier, Oenotri, and surprisingly now dropped from the list Farmshop, I also attended a couple of old favorites that I hadn’t been to in a while, Delfina and Boulevard (yum).

So with the new list out this year my number is back down to 39:

http://projects.sfchronicle.com/2016/top-100-restaurants/ 

Where to next?

Another year another bay area top 100 restaurant list! For those of you who missed the year I focused on this you can check out the page or the post. And here’s the latest:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/food/top-100-2015/

And no I didn’t focus on this list last year, though I did manage to hit Monsieur Benjamin, Poggio, Tosca Cafe, and Trou Normand as well as a long awaited return to Slanted Door. With this year’s updates that brings me back down to only having visited 40.

While I won’t necessarily focus on conquering any number of these, it does make a handy reference. And who knows maybe this will be the year for Gary Danko or French Laundry, or maybe I’ll just try for The Progress. I’m getting hungry just thinking about more restaurants! Where to next?

Well the year is complete. The new list is out, I’ve upped my numbers to 50 and just for the sake of continuity I’ve included next year’s list. Check out my Top 100 page to see what’s what.

But now that I’ve done it, what everyone wants to know if I’ve learned the best? And as much as I’d like to answer that with the straightforward name of a restaurant mostly I didn’t find any one restaurant blew my mind. But I did experience what I had hoped: I tried new restaurants all of which were good, I enjoyed restaurants I wouldn’t normally go to, and I experienced a great range of kinds of food, styles and old and new choices. Plus I learned a lot of other things:

• Setting a very specific goal and talking to friends about it really increases the chances I’ll do something
• Not working makes it easier to have time to plan to and then to actually eat out
• Eating out doesn’t need to cost a fortune but it can
• It’s better to enjoy the journey than evaluate ‘does this place deserve to be on the list’
• I don’t like all kinds of foods and ingredients and I like some more than others
• I could, but I might not always want to go to a super fancy fixed price single seating kind of meal
• The more people you go with the more representative options you get to experience
• It’s both easier and harder than you think to go to good and new to you restaurants
• It’s both easier and harder for your friends to join you than you think

Ok great, that’s mostly not revolutionary, what do I really have to say about the restaurants on the list. Hog & Rocks and Plaj are great examples of restaurants that I might not have gone to based on description alone but were delicious and made even better by the service. Restaurants like Ler Ros represented something that was good, but perhaps we didn’t order anything amazing because we just didn’t see what people were talking about. Locations I branched out to and am glad for it, Piccino in Dog Patch was a pleasant surprise with everything interesting and great and Sushi Ran in Sausalito for some reason just has fresher better sushi without varying much for the standards. As to the difficult reservation and wait time, Rich Table took a glass of wine around the corner to accommodate a walk in but Ramen Shop’s two hour wait couldn’t be overcome, though I’m committed to giving them one more try. And honestly price point is something that came up at a few places, I don’t have a problem spending a bit of dough on a dinner, but food that might have been fantastic at a lower cost got held to a slightly higher standard at places like The Abbot’s Cellar and Central Kitchen.

While I’m not officially continuing in this goal I really enjoyed the process and I will continue to try new restaurants. I also hope to revisit some of the classics I haven’t been to in forever like Delfina, Boulevard, and Slanted Door. And maybe use this list and many others as inspiration for my trips out. And of course there’s bars…