Color in the City- B Street Food Crawl

It's easy to blink and miss San Mateo, a sleepy city sandwiched between San Francisco to the north and Silicon Valley towns in the South Bay, and tucked in the shadows of affluent hillside areas like Hillsborough and Woodside to the west.

I know. I live here and often berate myself for leaving the greener pastures, er uh, brighter lights of 'the City' for this.

So, to adjust my attitude, I invited (perhaps begged) some friends to join me on a food crawl up B Street, an unassuming little boulevard of international restaurants- mostly individually owned- here in downtown San Mateo.

[caption id="attachment_8574" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="That's my brother-in-law Andrew, sister Paige, and friends Meghan, and Carrie warming up at the Downtown Tiki Lounge. (I think I owe them something for making the trip out here, but shhh, maybe they'll forget)"][/caption]

From the Tiki lounge we headed straight for adventure at Street Food, a Chinese restaurant, firing up a long list of skewers.

[caption id="attachment_8647" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="(thanks for ordering the bbq squid, Andrew. I just love chewing through rubbery food)"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_8562" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="("fish balls and cilantro rolls, eh?... ok, we can do this")"][/caption]

Next up, Peruvian faire at Las Americas...

The food was delicious but this was such a 'hole-in-the-wall' situation that when Paige asked to use the restroom she was directed through the liquor store next door.

[caption id="attachment_8591" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="I think you had to be there to fully understand why she documented the event..."][/caption]

 

and why, in an effort to stay focused on the benefits of living in San Mateo, we won't speak of this further. ;-)

Suffice it to say, we were all happy to move on to Kingfish, an upscale Louisiana style restaurant in this iconic art deco building.

[caption id="attachment_8593" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="(You can't see it, but the oysters, cornbread and burrata were all big hits here at Kingfish! The martini was awesome too- olives count for food, right?)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_8660" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="(I love the art here too)"][/caption]

We headed for a new Hofbrau next, but it was closed so we ended our crawl, appropriately, at 31st Union, a delicious little farm to table (of course) bistro for people like us who can't help but 'heart' California.

[caption id="attachment_8615" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="(another of the many art deco building dotting downtown)"][/caption]

and by now, we're not even taking pictures at all- I 'borrowed' these. That's what happens when you get to the 'crawl' part. And, we didn't even make it to the Indian, Italian, Japanese, Thai, Mexican, or Irish spots on B street!

So, if you're coming to San Francisco and have even just an extra half day or so, come to downtown San Mateo (caltrain stops right here!) and fill your belly with your friends. Or call me, I'll do the crawl with you. San Mateo is definitely (finally) growing on me :-)