By Alison Bing, Cooking Light Magazine1. Start your day out right: Enjoy an authentic dim sum brunch in the outer Richmond district at Ton Kiang. Diners summon servers who navigate carts like gourmet bumper cars, plying such treats as elegantly folded rice paper dumplings packed with minced leek, shrimp, and fresh bamboo shoots.
2. Pause for a breath of fresh air: Golden Gate Park is carpeted with exotic flowers 365 days a year, but at 3,000 acres, it's easy to lose your bearings. Start at the M.H. de Young Museum, a copper-clad building gradually oxidizing to match the park's green color scheme. The museum features arts and crafts from Africa to contemporary California. Visit on Sundays, when the park is closed to traffic and you can easily stroll past jazz trios, waterfalls, and grazing bison (the first domesticated herd in America).
3. Enjoy the view: Diners at James Beard Award-winning Gary Danko are often captivated by the panoramic scene of the sun setting over the Golden Gate Bridge through the restaurant's smoked glass picture windows-that is, until their attention is diverted by scene-stealing dishes. Scallops and striped bass are obvious choices here within view of the Pacific, but don't overlook the Sonoma duck breast with a compote of California rhubarb-at the peak of its sweet-tartness in August. As you head for the door, the California-casual-but-always-attentive staff will send you off with miniature chocolate cakes for sweet San Francisco dreams.
4. Make your stay smarter: The Orchard Garden Hotel (415-399-9807) is the fourth hotel worldwide to earn Silver Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certification for its health-conscious, energy-wise design, with Bay breezes instead of recirculated A/C cooling the building and a keycard energy control system that powers down all but one outlet (available to charge cell phones and laptops) upon leaving the room.
5. Seek a city escape: For an oasis of peace and quiet near the city, head 18 miles north across Golden Gate Bridge on Highway 1 to Muir Woods Road, which leads two miles to Muir Woods National Monument. Muir Woods is one of the last remaining old-growth redwood groves on Earth, and through a network of shallow, intertwined roots, these trees literally support one another to reach staggering heights of up to 285 feet and ages of 600 to 1,200 years.
6. Ply the perfect picnic: After you've scoped out the perfect picnic spot, grab gourmet fare to go from Out of the Door (415-861-8032), the takeout outpost of James Beard award nominee Charles Phan's acclaimed Slanted Door. Located in the main hall of the Ferry Building, it features portable versions of Phan's signature dishes, such as steamed rice-flour buns stuffed with lean spiced chicken, or a Vietnamese-inspired sweet-and-sour salad of grapefruit, candied pecans, purple cabbage, and jicama.
7. Master the stairs: No stair machine in any gym can compare to the Filbert Street Steps in the Italian North Beach neighborhood, which reward with glimpses of pocket gardens, rock sculptures, and 19th-century cottages clinging to the rocky cliff. Don't be surprised if the surrounding Monterey cypress trees speak to you-they're full of wild parrots, as featured in the award-winning documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.
8. Savor the region's flavor: The Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market overflows with picnic-worthy picks on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Locally grown must-samples include fresh butter from Andante Dairy, which also supplies the famous French Laundry in nearby Yountville; ollalieberries (oversized blackberries); Acme's sourdough bread, which has improved San Francisco's original 150-year-old recipe with a golden crust that always stays crisp; and organic tomatoes raised with minimal water and maximum sun for a burst of earthy flavor.
9. Stroll through history: Chinatown Alleyway Tours are led by high school students raised among the neighborhood's 41 historic alleyways, from Waverly Place's pagoda-topped temples with altars charred by San Francisco's 1906 fire, to the basement mah-jongg parlors of Spofford Alley, where local revolutionaries plotted the overthrow of China's last dynasty in 1911.
10. Visit a San Francisco landmark: To see all of San Francisco in an afternoon, scale the Greenwich Street stairway to Coit Tower. This round, nozzle-shaped monument to firefighters was financed by eccentric heiress Lillie Hitchcock Coit and lined with radical Depression-era murals honoring workers and unions-San Franciscans joke that this tower leans further left than the Tower of Pisa. You could ride the elevator, but taking the stairs to the top-floor viewing deck makes Golden Gate Bridge views even more rewarding.
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