100 Things to Eat Before You Die

In general, I'm not the biggest fan of Top 10 or Top 100 lists. They're pretty artificial, right? Things inevitably get left out, and maybe other things get artificially elevated to the top of the heap. But then I discovered, with the help of my attending in the ICU last week, this amazing list from the San Francisco Chronicle. (It was a slow day in the ICU.)

First, we salivated over it, all the restaurants we wanted to try and all the restaurants we had already tried. Then, we started strategizing. The pulmonary fellow who was part of the conversation has only lived in San Francisco for two months, but she made plans to drive home via #9 (tofu soup with kimchi at My Tofu House) for lunch. I was on call, but already thinking about coming home post-call for #36 (dry-fried chicken wings at San Tung).

So I e-mailed the list to people I thought would appreciate it, and printed out a copy of my own. When I got home last Monday, I put it up on the fridge.

B and I had already decided that we were going to systematically check off highlights on the list. I hadn't decided about blogging the results though, since it seems like one blog is probably enough. However, I'm plunging ahead. This new blog is going to be more literally a log than the other blog: the restaurants we hit and our experiences at them. It'll be for just the two of us, though any followers are welcome as well; maybe we'll also be able to use it to guide the restaurant choices of visitors to our foggy city. There will be no artificial deadlines, and, though it would probably be delicious, no plan to complete all the check-boxes in one year (shades of the Julie/Julia project, etc.). Here are the ground rules:

1. We will visit every restaurant on the list, regardless of whether we've eaten there before. We will re-evaluate the recommended menu selections in a new, "Top 100" mindset. We will order what is suggested, even when we're skeptical and would never previously have ordered the dish, like, say, #69 (licorice parfait at South).

2. We will not hit the restaurants in any particular order.

3. We may eat take-out instead of dining in the actual restaurant. Obviously this is not reasonable for many on the fancier end of the spectrum, including #100 (cheese course at Gary Danko) or #90 (slow-cooked egg at Coi).

4. B may end up being the blogger on this site sometimes. He hasn't quite decided.

5. We may occasionally write about other restaurants, as I do think the list leaves off some obvious favorites (Foreign Cinema, anyone? Or our new favorite, the tamal de puerco from the adorably-named Nopalito? Or, for that matter, the food from parent Nopa?). Overall, however, B and I are extremely excited about having a new guide for our restaurant adventures.

So, here we go!

Mmm.