San Francisco

Last Year's Postcard

Dear Ones,

San Francisco is the most amazing of American cities; Everyone here is talking about coming-out as in announcing their true sexual identity, but the best shopping and hotels are well hidden, in the closet, so to speak. In fact, one of my favorite stores is called In the Closet, it's a chain of vintage clothing stores that also does free HIV testing in the rear of each shop.

HIDDEN CHARMS: The Union Square area is the best known, but the truth is that it's rather touristy and filled with the big names you'd expect to find in any international city. Some of my best discoveries were nestled into the Design District, where there's a newish design center, The Galleria. Almost next door is Forgotten Shanghai, a store that sells antiques and furniture and table top and gift items as well as a few pieces of specially made clothing, all with a Chinese chic that surpasses zen chic or costumey chinatown.

When it comes to hotels, those too are hidden. The latest trend is for apartment units and hotels to co-exist in a tower. The new Four Seasons Hotel, just one year old and already considered the hottest property in town, sits right on Market Street across from Emporio Armani and is barely identified as a hotel at all. You enter an office building then choose an elevator, one leads to the condos, the other to the hotel lobby which is a few floors above. The Mandarin Oriental is also in an office tower, but more toward Embarcadero and the business center of the city.

OUT OF THE WAY PLACES: Everyone knows that Napa and Sonoma are the two wine centers of two separate valleys near San Francisco, but few are onto the mysteries of Calistoga Ranch, newest member of Leading Hotels of the World and a century old mill property turned into a village of redwood luxury cabins for rent or sale, a spa, a restaurant lodge on a lake and a feeling of such serenity and peace that being there is almost religious. The Hollywood crowd of stars;the kind you know from their first names alone;have discovered the hideaway and are trying to keep the secret. The rooms are built around a private terrace with indoor-outdoor fireplace; the bathroom is large but also includes an outdoor shower. There are deep feather beds; the sound of the nearby creek gurgling to lull you into deeper slumber. The spa is fed by the local hot springs, or you can go into town to shop, buy wine from all the California big names or test the famous mud baths.

More well known than Calistoga Ranch is the Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, located in the next valley over, at the edge of Sonoma. Recently bought by Fairmont Hotels, the resort has been renovated and includes a well known chef, rooms with Jacuzzi tubs in front of wood burning fireplaces and miles of the famous apricot body lotion said to cure all ills. The spa gift shop is the best in the area for little known California brands of treatments and beauty cures.

HIDDEN HOODS: While all the big department stores and most designer shops are located in the central Union Square area, the up and coming nearby neighborhood of SoMa (South of Market) has much to know about. In a less than chic area at 9th Street and Brannon you can find Nordstrom's Rack, the outlet warehouse for Nordstrom's department store where unsold merchandise is sold at a fraction of the retail price. Next door are a few other worthwhile finds including Trader Joe's, a California style gourmet food and wine source not to be missed. Not far away, but closer to the new ball park, you'll find Jeremy's, a designer discount store that sells slightly damaged merchandise from big name stores like Barney's and Bergdorf's. I found a Giorgio Armani skirt for $13!

In fact, I'm dreaming of heading back to San Francisco to find my heart, to test more flavors of See's suckers (a local lollypop treat) and to go back to Crustacean, the restaurant where Asian fusion home cooking was invented. The new bloomingdales opens in two weeks; can't wait!

Love and peace, man,
SuzyKG

In the Closet, locations all over Bay area

Forgotten Shanghai
245 Kansas Street
tel: 415/701-7707

Four Seasons Hotel
757 Market Street
tel 415/633-3000
www.fourseasons.com/sf

Calistoga Ranch
580 Lommel Road, Calistoga, California
tel 707/254-2820; www.calistogaranch.com

Sonoma Mission Inn && Spa
Toll free in the US 800-441-1212
www.fairmont.com/sonoma

Nordstrom's Rack
555 Ninth Street
tel 415/934-1211

Jeremy's
2 South Park
tel: 415/882-4929

Here I am again- I’ve come to San Francisco and the Bay Area to do media, which means I’ve had to find some merchandise in stores dotted all over the Bay Area for my gig on View From the Bay, an ABC-TV show. You can see me by going to www.viewfromthebay.com and clicking on me.

Have been plugging Where to Buy the Best of Everything, my newest Frommer’s guide ($13.46 at amazon.com), so it was my job to show off the best of the Bay Area. Obviously I didn’t want to feature the well known icons, like Gump’s, but wanted to get into some of the unknown territory and maybe even surprise the locals.

BERKELEY SECRETS: As soon as I landed at SFO, I teamed up with Born to Shop Editorial Director Sarah Lahey who lives in Tiburon and has had a big hand in teaching me the area. First stop was Berkeley’s Fourth Street which alas, is well known by shopistas all over the world—there’s about two blocks of good shopping and a few extra shops tucked into side streets and set-back strip centers. There’s also restaurants and nearby Emeryville, home to big box stores and furniture warehouses. We quickly hit the sale at CP Shades and Lilith, two of my favorite stores for easy to wear and somewhat droopy chic, got to the Crate & Barrel outlet store (slim pickings that day). Then we were off to our secret source: Gilman Village Outlet Mall.

This isn’t really a mall, it’s a strip center with only six or seven outlets, but boy oh boy, each is a gem and this is the place to track down, at Gillman and Tenth. My favorite store here is the Territory Ahead outlet, which sells the current clothes in the front of the store with a 20% discount and the older stuff in the rear room (men’s and women’s casual clothing with a rustic touch). Their $79 shirts were marked down to $29 and they had a special promotion that if you bought three items, you got an additional 20% off. Twist my arm! (territoryahead.com)

Other outlets there include Travelsmith, the travel catalogue for gadgets, travel clothing (doesn’t wrinkle) and even some luggage, as well as a tiny store that specializes in luxe and fluffy Turkish towels ($25 each) and Trove, a true treasure trove of table top and home style at marked down prices (1310 Tenth Street, Berkeley [tel]510/525-7991; trovehome.com) . There’s also a Smith & Hawkins outlet, but frankly, every time I’ve been inside it’s been a waste of time.

MARIN MY LOVE: From Berkeley we took the ‘back road’ over the Richmond Bridge to get to Marin County and one of my favorite shopping developments, Vintage Oaks which is a village of strip centers and big box stores that has everything you could want or need. I don’t normally tell visitors to stop at malls, but every rule was meant to be broken! This is also a good place to know about for those who might be taking a weekend break in Sonoma or Napa, as you have the pass the mall enroute and there’s good shopping for real people needs. There’s a COSTCO and a Target as well as Ross and Marshall’s and many local heroes to break up the I-could-be-anywhere feeling. Our stop was Target.

I don’t need to tell you how much I love Target stores, but I will admit that we were two days in advance of the launch of the new John Derian line and I wanted to beg, borrow and buy product to show on TV. Now that it’s official, it might be easier to shop online, www.target.com and you certainly don’t have to go to San Francisco or Novato to buy this line, but as I said, I was ahead of my time.

John Derian is my artistic guru—he’s the king of decoupage who began his artistic career selling handmade plates to Bergdorf-Goodman in NYC. Plates then cost about $400. Derian’s style was so unique that he actually began a trend, so there are today several Derian wannabes, but they are only valuable if signed by John Derian. Meanwhile, this cut up king was so successful that he opened his own store in Manhattan, in The Bowery of all places. And now Target has signed him up for an exclusive deal to do prints of his work on melamine, so it’s collectible, affordable ($16.98 ) and the kids can’t break it. Is it the same as the real thing? Get real. But it’s fun.

By chance I saw a small, original Derian plate in a fancy pants store in Mill Valley for $113—the real thing (with a bird in the center) was enormously similar to a bird print I had already bought at Target. For picnics or play time, make mine melamine.

WHERE TO SLEEP: I stayed at Sarah’s house in Tiburon this trip, but when we saw the new InterContinental Hotel San Francisco, we flipped and decided that next visit, we’ll stay there. InterConti already has the iconic Mark Hopkins, but this is a new build high rise tower in SoMa (South of Market), the hot new area near the Convention Center.

Normally, I prefer my secret finds, such as the Warwick Regis, two blocks from Union Square . This is a small European style hotel, one of my best finds in the world, where rooms are $200-$250; 490 Geary Street; [tel] 415/928-7900; warwickhotels.com. My girlfriend Penny Goldman just told me her secret find: The Larkspur, where she paid $239 for a two room suite with huge marble bathroom; 524 Sutter Street [tel]415/675-1443, larkspurhotelunionsquare.com.

PARKING AT UNION SQUARE: I’ve been shopping the stores in the Union Square area since I was 15 years old. In those days we had a zillion flower stands that were charmingly European and I. Magnin (with it’s famous smoked mirror ladies room) as well as Blum’s for chocolate sundaes. Now I shop Neiman’s for a few seconds to drool over the jewelry and accessories but mostly consider this a great parking destination for getting to the hairdresser.Some left their heart sin San Francisco, i want to leave my hair.

For several years I have been heading to The City for a snip snip from Dante at Frange Blue. Not only is Dante a genius (make that a shears genius) but he’s an insider’s secret—hidden away in an office building on Market Street, right across from the Four Seasons Hotel. A cut (and blow dry) costs $90 which is less than many stars in other U.S. big cities charge, but more than I used to pay at the strip center I went to in San Antonio, Texas where $90 got me color and cut and streaks! Oh well, big city and big prices offer big time talent; 760 Market Street, Suite 1038 [tel.] 415/398-2887; www.frangeblue.com.

KGO 2 GO: After my TV show, Sarah and I always head to Chinatown for our ritual bubble tea. We got hooked on ‘boba cha’ (Boba is the Chinese word for the tapioca bubbles that make the drink so unique; cha is the Chinese word for tea)in Taiwan about two years ago. We’re so hooked that we even have a web site that offers the supplies you need to make this at home (bubbleteasupply.biz).

Sarah likes mango bubble tea (cold) and I like almond bubble tea (hot) so it’s easier to head to Washington Bakery & Restaurant (733 Washington Street; [tel]415/397-3232). If we can’t get a parking space, one of us runs to get the tea to go. If we can park, we also shop on nearby Grant Avenue, the main drag of Chinatown. There’s a store called Peking Bazaar right around the corner from Washington Street (#826) that is one of three stores owned by a group we like. The other two stores are closer to downtown shopping, so if we’re in a tea to go mode, we just dash in here. I buy little Chinese silk pouches to wear around my neck to carry my telephone when my clothes have no pockets. I’ve just switched to a BlackBerry so I needed a larger size pouch. At $5.99 each, I bought a color range and will hang them from a lariat since they come with a wrist handle but nothing long enough to go around your neck.