not so secret secret places

No Name Sushi: so the sushi here isn’t the best but it’s cheap, decent & the waitress is always outside smoking cigarettes & wearing tiger strip pants. Awesome. It’s BYOB, and it’s encouraged. That’s probably the only reason anyone really likes this place.

Han’s Coffee Shop: This is another place my brother and I ate at, because it was cheap. People like to go here for the “hole in the wall” factor, but the food is just regular crap diner food and the french fries are crinkle cut, which I hate. However, once we saw Bruce Vilanch eating a hamburger there, and it was probably the only time I actually laughed at anything he’s done. 900 Sutter St in the Tenderloin

St. Francis Fountain & Candy Store: Classic diner food that’s damn good & the interior is super cute. Take your out of town friends here, everyone loves it. 2801 24th st in the Mission

La Rondalla: Everyone thinks they discovered this place, and consequently it’s cheap, strong and delicious strawberry daiquiri pitchers, but they just read about it in some hip magazine or had one of their hipster friends bring them there. But despite that, it’s pretty fucking fun to go there because it looks like Christmas had too many pitchers and barfed all over the ceiling. Don’t eat the food though, it’s all made from a huge bucket of lard that you can see when you go to the bathroom. It’s good for going to in the summer during happy hour, and then stumbling over to Dolores park to sleep it off. 901 Valencia in the Mission

Valencia Pizza and Pasta: Mission on the corner of Valencia and 19th.
I hesitate to put this restaurant in here because I used to work there, and it was a miserable, lonely and completely insane job. There was one waitress on the floor, managing a packed and chaotic restaurant. I had to deal with removing bums and panhandlers all by myself (I’m 5’2, 110lbs) while able bodied men sat idly by, watching and eating pork chops. Delicious, delicious pork chops. Over the course of one year, I’d been bitch slapped, hit in the head by a violently shoved door and bled on. But the money was good and it was impossible to get fired because, despite my abhorrence toward waiting tables, I’m damn good at it. Which meant I could wear what I wanted, swear at customers and cut out early.
But about the food: it’s huge portions of classic American style food (I wouldn’t recommend the pizza, unless it’s the pesto combo) but they have great meat and fish dishes. I’d highly recommend the tuna (request it very rare) the salmon, meatloaf, mustard chicken and pork chops. The portions are huge and come with buttery garlic bread and salad. The deserts are all poo except for the tiramisu. The best part is that it’s super cheap, beers are $2 (and they have 24 different kinds, ask to look in the fridge) and the wine is $2.95 and totally drinkable. The service will probably be horrible but tip well because, like I said, it’s the worst job ever. 801 Valencia in the Mission

Sam Woo: This “top secret” Chinese food restaurant in Chinatown is anything but and all your out of town friends will want to go there. But it’s like, if I want to be ignored, eat crap Chinese food and feel like I’m eating in a trailer, I’d have fucking moved to Alabama.  That said, it’s still totally fun to go to.