Flying & Overeating In San Francisco.

This is installment number four of a special edition of the Dining Diary, in which my family and I take a two-week vacation in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and I travel to the West Coast and back by way of the Sunset Limited--four days on a train. AT her request, today's report is written by my wife Mary Ann. Friday, June 23, 2017. 10:03 a.m. It's all hands on deck to get the group (Tom, daughter Mary Leigh ML, and me) to and from the Los Angeles airport to the San Francisco airport. And we were down two hands. Jude's wife left two days ago for a meeting (on which the entire trip was based). So Jude carried our grandson Jackson on the plane. Tom and I never traveled by air when our kids were little, so this was a new experience. The sheer amount of baggage generated by one little guy is staggering. I returned the rental I drove for the past few weeks. That maneuver was so complex and long that it made Jude nervous that his grand plan for us to sit together on the Southwest plane might be foiled. But we converged just in time. We boarded at the back of the plane and by using a quirk of the Family Group policy on Southwest, the four of us sat on two rows. Baby Jackson fell asleep right after takeoff. An hour later, when we touched down in San Francisco, Tom was consumed with desire to belt out Tony Bennett's classic SF song for the cabin. He knew how that would be received, and he didn't. He settled for serenading the crew as we left. It's been a long time since I was last in San Francisco, and SFO has really metasticized. Who were all these people? It was impossible to move a foot without bumping into someone. The car rental lines could not be believed. 1:21 p.m. As if we needed more difficulty, we had to find and collect Mary Leigh, who came in from New Orleans today an hour after we did, making it possible for her to get very well lost as we toured the airport looking for her. This didn't waste our time, because we would be in the line long after her arrival. We had to upgrade the size of the SUV. Jackson's car seat was so wide that it wouldn't allow the passengers in the reat to get into the back. The boarding process became an absurd situation developed. First ML and I slid over the seat like a chute. Fortunately, it was discovered that the last seat could fold down in two parts. This allowed the rearmost passenger to enter and exit by sliding up or down the back hatch. We didn't discover that problem until we had driven around the airport twice trying to find ML. By that time it was nearly 3 p.m., and we all were starving. We checked into the St. Francis Hotel, Tom's favorite hotel in the world. Only a block away, inside Macy's, was the Burger Bar. Seems every celebrity chef now has a specialty burger place. This one is the creation of chef Hubert Keller. Tom knows that chef for his gourmet place Fleur De Lys. So it had to be good, right? Besides, Keller's other locations are Vegas and Beijing, so. . . we sat down for what was intended to be a snack. We had three orders of sliders (including mine), an order of chicken nuggets for Jackson, and a real hamburger for ML and me. ML pointed out, not for the first time, that she doesn't understand the slider craze. I ordered nothing as usual, and ate most of the baby's huge order of chicken nuggets. I am the fresh-cut fries czar, and I was suspicious that these were not fresh cut fries, even though there was a French fry sampler on the menu, offering three choices of fries with sauces. A few shakes came to the table, and our "snack" totaled an even $100, including the tip. The food was good but not great, and who goes to San Francisco to eat burgers anyway? Ahem. We returned to the hotel to settle in. Tom took his sacred nap and the ML and I set off for the Ferry Building to look around. 5:30 p.m. We set off for the first "real" meal of the day. Jude found and made a reservation for the very hip Flour + Water in Mission District. How he knew about this place I don't know. It's in a neighborhood with many dozens of restaurants. A block away we saw a restaurant touting poor boy sandwiches, and jambalaya. It was distressing to learn that the the concept is changing next week. We settled into a large table in a rough-edged but pleasant room. A salumi pizza in the middle of the table set off a family style of dining with pickled shishito peppers was delicious. It worked very well. I am the queen of salumi, found the flavored intense, but still great. Next was a lamb and spinach agnolotti (little ravioli) with fennel, quite pretty with its perfect rectangles, and tastier than it was pretty. Jude was obsessed with trying a pasta that somehow incorporated Douglas fir. That ingredients was in porcini mushroom cappelletti with tiny flower blossoms. Spectacular! The third creation from flour and water was a corn and crescenza ravioli I which was also fantastic, but a little sweet. ML ate her favorite entree--a big salad. Both she and I thought it was among the best salads I ever ate. No one ate dessert, holding that until we made it back to the hotel. We also wondered how we would get into the car again, or out of it. Burger Bar. San Francisco (Union Square). burger-bar.com. Flour & Water. San Francisco: 2491 Harrison Ave. 415-826-7000.