Hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day. It's mark wiens, i'm in beautiful san francisco, california, and there are a lot of incredible historical and legendary seafood. Restaurants in san francisco, as well as some seafood dishes, such as chopino, just a gigantic bowl of smoldering chopino that were invented right here in san francisco, so today we're gon na go on a legendary seafood tour of san francisco. This is the oldest restaurant in san francisco, the oldest restaurant in california, and i cannot wait to share these historical, legendary restaurants with you and all of the seafood coming up in this video right now again good morning from san francisco, california, it is a cool slightly Cloudy day, but that's okay, it's going to be a perfect day for eating seafood and some of the legendary restaurants of san francisco.

I also want to say a big thank you to visit california for sponsoring my trip here and for arranging our schedule this morning. We're going first to a restaurant called the swan oyster depot, which is probably the number one place. I was looking forward to eating in all of san francisco nice to meet you. These are all fresh, baked shrimp from pork, great great, but really quickly before they open uh a chance to quickly share a little bit of history about the swan oyster depot.

It dates back before the turn of the 20th century, and it was started originally by four danish brothers but the actual original location burnt down in 1906. But then it reopened this location in 1912, and it's been here ever since in 1946, tom sensimino and the san simino family took over the swan oyster depot and they are still own and run and operate the swan oyster depot along with his brothers and family. I love how they take so much pride care and so much passion in what they do: sourcing the best seafood and serving customers with such a positive happy attitude, people they're still setting up and they're still organizing everything, but man first uh cured salmon. It's glistening and served with capers and onions men.

This is beautiful, oh wow, that just melts in your mouth, like it literally turns to salmon oil on your tongue that san francisco sourdough on the bottom - oh wow. Oh, that's! So good, oh man! That is the bite to wake up. Yes, sir, one of the main dishes that you have to get here is the crab louie, a dish that was invented on the west coast here in san francisco, highlighting the dungeness crabs fully de-shelled all over a bed of lettuce. I got the dressing on the side.

The dressing is a very thick, very creamy, looking dressing with some capers in it. I believe this is my gon na, be my first time to ever. Try crab louie, looks awesome, nothing on here, but shredded lettuce and all that crab dungeness crab wow, just the sweet, natural briny stringiness of that dungeness crowd with that bed of iceberg lettuce that just it's so refreshing and so crisp and so juicy the dressing. It does taste similar to a thousand island, not not too sweet, really thick, really creamy, really rich and then their bread here is specifically incredible as well brighter, so good, so perfectly airy and bubbly and chewy with that pinch of sour fermentation, some of the chowder i'll Sprinkle in some pepper - oh man, that's a great chowder.

Okay. So thank you very much what we got here. We got three different types of oysters: okay, two humble bay kumamotos. These are local california, oysters.

We've got two stellar bay, gold miyagis from british columbia. We've got two tamales bay miyagi's. These are all our locals caught about an hour north of here in marin, county, okay, great i'm gon na try, some of that vinegar. First vinegar is incredible with the crunch of the onions finely chopped up in there.

So perfectly balanced, not overpowering extraordinary, okay, one more oyster. I got ta try that hot sauce, some lemon they're hot sauce - and i think i might add a dab of horseradish to this - cannot go wrong with horseradish. I love horseradish. Well, that's real deal horseradish! All the flavor of that plus the hot sauce that is extraordinary, oh man, that horseradish is wonderful.

Okay, let's move into the shrimp cocktail. Oh so it's a combination of prawns. I think they call the big one prawns and then these little pink shrimp here i'll try. These little pink shrimp, these little shrimp, have some of the best flavors and just melt in your mouth, so sweet wow, that's delicious! Okay, we'll try the prawns next again.

Sweet firm mess, two totally different textures the crowns are more much more firm, the little guys, the little shrimp are just melt in your mouth guys. Thank you very much. We got scallops. We got salmon, we got yellowtail hamachi, we got california halibut, our local halibut.

Then we got ahi tuna right here: okay, guys, okay, i'm gon na start with that. I believe that one is the hamachi yellowtail right here in the center: oh wow, the natural freshness that crunch of the onions and the capers and then actually there's no salt or anything. I think they have some condiments you can season with. But then, when is that fresh and that good, you don't need anything to cover up the freshness of it.

This one here is the halibut totally different texture that one just melts in your mouth so pure so silky try some of the aji next the tuna and just that little bit of saltiness coming from the capers, the pureness of the ahi, oh man, i can't put It down, we got to try a row of everything the salmon, oh, oh, you feel the oils of the salmon and then last one is the the scallops, splice crackers, so sweet and again that just oh man just completely melts in your mouth. You don't even need to chew the scallop okay crab back, so this is just all the tamale and the it's all the kind of glory great ripped off. Absolutely we've got the crab back. The dungeness crab head filled with its own tomatoey and juices, and oh man look at that.

It's thick, it's rich. It's buttery! Oh man, that's insane! Oh! It's sweet with that bitterness to follow. It's creamy! Oh man. It's almost like yolky tastings! I love how it's served.

Pudding style too: oh, we got some fresh cracked, black pepper, grab another bite and, i think i'll add a little scoop of hot sauce to this bite. I love how it's served. Pudding style, oh man, that is extraordinary the complexity of the flavor, the richness. Oh man, incredible: i love how everything is prepared in a way where you i mean it focuses on the quality, the freshness and the the natural taste of the seafood itself, final bite of the sashimi, and so that completes our meal.

An extraordinary meal at the swan oyster depot, even when i was leaving man, they shake your hand, they say thank you for coming and you can just feel the genuine friendliness, the delicious seafood that was so good from here we're going to the next restaurant, where we Are going to eat another dish that was invented in san francisco, a classic italian-american san francisco seafood restaurant, an oyster, ria and seafoods? Welcome to sotomare, i'm back in the kitchen now with the chefs they're, making a variety of seafood. The pastas, but first he's going to show me how they make their chopino and again chopino is one of the signature dishes of san francisco. An italian-american dish starts off with some oil. You smell the garlic in there.

Some green onions go in that mixture of seafood. Oh man smells so good fish stop. Okay, fish stock goes in once that seafood has cooked down a little bit. Then he adds in some tomato sauce adds in some fish stock lets that simmer down and then another thing i just love how this restaurant is open.

The kitchen is completely open to the dining room, so you can smell the aroma of the food. You can see the cooking as it happens before you eat. Okay and the last dish we got. Is this pasta linguini with some muscles in there? Oh nice? Is it mostly muscles muscles? Oh, it makes it seafood yeah all right.

All the food is at the table. I think i've said this before, but any table any restaurant that has paper towels on your table. That's automatically a good sign. You want to be eating at a restaurant that serves paper towels on your table.

I mean the dish that you have to get among everything else. Here is the chopino and really quickly before we start digging in we've got ta quickly talk about chopino and its history. It's a dish that was invented here in san francisco, it's an italian-american dish and it has a very cool history. A lot of italian immigrants came to san francisco as fishers.

They brought their fishing expertise from italy to san francisco and they harvested crabs. The dungeness crabs, the the fishing off the coast, the west coast of san francisco, and so what would happen is the fishers would come together at the end of the day after the end of maybe maybe it wasn't the most successful fishing day and they would all Pool together what little remains of seafood that they had and so they'd put that all together into one uh, pile small pile of seafood. They'd boil it down into a kind of like a soup for stew, with tomatoes, maybe with some wine, maybe with some fish and then they'd have a sharing meal all together, and i mean it's the ultimate example of sharing a meal together, and so that's how chopino Was invented in san francisco and i think that's important because we're gon na eat at least one, maybe probably two or three bowls of chopino, not forgetting the crab bib, i'm just going to try some of that soup. First, oh man, it's such a soothing tomato you're, not totally sure.

If it's a it's kind of like the texture in between a soup and a sauce, you really taste the garlic in there that hint of white wine, the depth and complexity of the fish broth, as well as as well as all of those shellfish. The juices seeping out of them and just infusing into that beautiful sauce, oh man, that is so warming so comforting. I like the handful of parsley, oh the green onions in here, and you got to be careful because it stays hot. Oh shrimp is really bouncy and i like how i mean you can take a bite of seafood.

You can chase with some of the tomato soup or you can use this big spoon to just get tomato soup with every single bite. Oh, here's a clam but filled with shrimp filled with tomato sauce filled with, i think, there's some little baby scallops in here too, the ultimate dish of rehydration, oh yeah, the clam is sweet. Let's move on to the the dungeness crab i'll submerge it! Okay! Oh! No! It's pretty, you can crack it with your teeth. It's not very strong.

Oh there we go. Crackle can open that. Oh did i splash it. It's the spoon, reducing technique, dungeness crabs, just never gets old again.

For me, i love the the texture of dungeness crab. That's it's so stringy and silky so sweet and then i think the last seafood in here that we haven't tried there might be some hiding seafood, but we haven't tried the squid. Yet man delicious and another thing you can do is take a piece of bread. Are they two different types of bread? Oh no! I want the sourdough.

This should be sourdough, i think, and then you can just dip up into the chopino just mop it up. It absorbs all of that delicious flavor, okay. So next up for the steamers uh, there's a combination of mussels and clams in here so much garlic, some green onions, a sprinkle of parsley and that sauce of wine and probably lemon on the bottom. There try one of these clams.

Oh man, look how much garlic! I'm gon na scoop up some of that at the bottom as well: wonderful, the sweet complexity of the actual clam itself, white wine reduction, and then i love how much garlic they use with every bite. I think you have to scoop down and fill your cup fill your shell and slurp it up. Those are sweet too, and we got one more dish, which is the pasta and again it's a huge mix of seafood in here, almost like the chopino itself, just in pasta form again the garlic. I love the tomato sauce, it's not too tart, but you taste the like the chunkiness of it.

Maybe the onions and some peppers uh simmered down until they just kind of liquefy and do the tomato sauce. So it has this lovely natural sweetness to it, and i do think that when you think about the history of chopino very good, yes very, very good - and i think, knowing the history when you're eating it makes it even more special from here to continue on with This legendary seafood tour of san francisco we're heading on to the next restaurant and we're definitely gon na have another bowl of chopino. So in between mules, we stopped by what is definitely the most famous and the most iconic street in all of san francisco lombard street. Where it just snakes its way down the mountain uh, the view from up here is beautiful, the flowers, the gardens it's also a great place to get some exercise in between meals, welcome to anchor oyster bar.

This is an extremely popular restaurant. We got here in the middle of the afternoon and luckily we got the last table. The main thing that you have to come here that this place is most well known for is again their chopino and i got the large size. Thank you, boston, clam chowder.

That is like a perfectly creamy, slightly buttery full of clams, the starchiness of the potatoes, oh man, that is a chowder right there, but i know what would make it better. Oh yeah, thank you and that's a nice coarse grind the way i love. It stir that in sometimes chowder can be almost goofy. This one is thick, but not goopy, caesar, salad, creamy and cheesy.

The oysters are here, i think, there's actually three different types of oysters on this tray on this dozen tray of oysters, but look at these i've. Never seen i've never had an oyster like this. With really look at that exterior shell, that's really ribbed purest way to eat an oyster i mean, apart from just the oyster itself, is just with a squeeze of lemon wow. That's briny that melts in your mouth wow! That's a beautiful seafood flavor and for this one i'll go horseradish and cocktail sauce well totally different flavor from the other one.

This one has a hint of a bitterness to it along with a sweet, finish last type of oyster, and these are probably the biggest ones on the tray i'll go in with this one, with a little bit of that vinegar, oh, that vinegar is nice. I think that's the apple cider vinegar, so it has this sour, yet sweet slightly fruitiness all at the same time, all right! Thank you very much so here we go just a gigantic bowl of smoldering chopino. Thank you very much. Oh yes, okay even got a catcher.

Just in case you drop a piece of crab, it will catch it in your bib and then you can re-eat it and as i dig into that broth, i can smell almost a almost a licoricey aroma to anise seed in here too, or could that be coming From some of the herbs in there, the greatest pool the greatest bowl of seafood that you could possibly eat in san francisco, and it's what you want to be eating when it's cloudy when it's drizzly outside in san francisco. I just have to try some of that tomato sauce. First loaded with herbs, you can smell the garlic in there and those spices. Oh man, the vibrancy of the tomatoiness, the herbs that oregano parsley that hint of sweet bitterness from the shellfish in a very good kind of way.

That's contrasting the tartness of the tomato sauce. One of the great things about chopino is again: the ultimate in reducing wow down is so hot. Actually, okay, i'm gon na skip that one and i'm gon na go to mussel the ultimate in reducing techniques. You could possibly have again just the broth that seafoody tomato herbal broth.

Now the clam should be cool enough. Oh yeah, okay, we're good re-dip submerge! You want to submerge every single bite. Oh yeah clam actually has a totally different texture than the muscle. The muscle is smoother softer.

Clam is a little more chewy a little more elasticy. Oh such good flavor from that clam, and i think i'm ready to try that garlic, bread, man, everything has to be dipped. I will not take a bite without it being fully dipped and yeah submerged herbaceous and crispy, and then another option is to just rehydrate with a spoon to pour over the pour over technique i'll try that shrimp. Next, oh, that's, pretty big! That's pretty meaty! Well! That is a muscular shrimp.

You can feel that the tightening of the muscle as you bite down and then again it's just absorbed that soup - that herbaceous tart tomatoiness re-stir just a little bit um, because i've heard that the bottom is some of the best. Oh yeah. There's even whole tomatoes in here i've heard that the bottom is the best, because all of the seafood juices accumulate um, okay, fish, here's, a big piece of fish right here, i'll try fish next um a really firm meat fish, i'm not totally sure what type of Fish, that is, it's very firm um, like a like a cod or a halibut, very firm, neutral, tasting again just absorbing the tomato garlic herbs. I think the final seafood we have is the the crab the dungeness, the famous san francisco dungeness crab.

All bay leaves in here um i'll, grab this the cloth rehydrate. Oh man, the crab is extraordinary yeah, it's so good. I mean, i think the thing about this massive bowl of chopino is, i mean it's delicious, but it's also just so much fun to eat because you get to drink soup drink that broth eat a shellfish crack. Some crab get your fingers all tomato.

You splatter on your shirt. Oh here we go. That's a fully loaded muscle, there's some fish caught up in there. That's a perfect bite, i'm gon na just completely submerge submerge and shot, and i think that's my first drizzle down the chin.

Let's see what else we can dig up here. Oh you know, we haven't tried the crab body. Oh yeah, you just got ta suck. You got ta.

Oh that's amazing, because it's absorbed everything so juicy so much crab, flavor yeah! That's that is delicious i'll. Do a dip of this and a chase with that your hands are guaranteed to smell, like chopino for the rest of the day and you're going to be totally okay with that, oh man that was delicious. Oh whoa, almost bumped over the table, okay, we're moving on! Finally, to complete this historic seafood tour of san francisco, we are going to what is it's: the oldest restaurant in san fran. I mean not only in san francisco, but the oldest restaurant in all of california, one of the oldest restaurants in the united states and we're going there next welcome to tadich grill since 1849, classic restaurant downtown san francisco known for their seafood.

They have a cool history right here on the menu that says it. Uh 1849, during the california gold rush, three croatian immigrants began a business which later became the tadic girl, very good, very good pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much i look different. I look different more handsome.

Oh thank you. Thank you very much. You sit down. You immediately get a half a loaf of sourdough.

I think it's sourdough. Look at that. Bread looks that crust that inside look at that. Oh man, that bread looks so good.

Oh, that bread is so good san francisco sourdough that texture that flavor now i got to figure out what to order, but um we're definitely going to get the sand dabs, that's one of the main dishes. I wanted to try here. So what was your name again? Jose maximilian, yes, that's awesome. Yeah very cool seemed like yesterday and a young man.

This is the famous chimino. You know yeah beautiful. So what we do is i'm gon na. Just give you a little okay.

This is what we do. You cut the edges first like this. This is the method of eating it. Yes, and i hit him like about three times, then you go right in between see oh and the whole fillet pops up and then the bone very nice come out.

I always like to cut this a little belly on the side. Okay and there you go, you put a little lemon if you wish wow, and this is the taro sauce, any kind of broiler fish okay enjoy. Please. Thank you very much.

Thank you to jose. Who is taking such great care of us he's so friendly, so nice, great service um, and i just love how they wear white coats man, because it just fits the atmosphere perfect. The restaurant is packed now and that's just a testament of their history and of the quality of food that they preserve here. The dish that i'm most looking forward to eating here, which are the sand dabs, which is a type of flat fish.

But these are small. Like about about hand sized, let me just taste it with lemon. First start with that tail end beautiful oily, you can see the oily skin the oily flesh of the fish. My first time to ever have stand up.

Oh that's, delicious oily fish, a soft texture. You've got that deep, fried crust on the outside man. That's just like oily and buttery in texture. Oh man, look how it's just so buttery oily the fish oils just juice out of it, it's so good and so flaky too.

Oh, that's! Delicious next dish! There's prawns in here and jose said: there's a lot of paprika in here: big meaty, shrimp, oh there's, uh crab meat and then on. The bottom is rice. Rice crab all baked like a casserole: oh hot, very hot, a paprika seafood stew, all over rice and then just kind of like baked together. So it's hot, so it mingles all the ingredients.

All together, you taste the flavor of the paprika in there, which is not spicy but so fragrant, and all that shredded crab meat. In there we had to try one more version of chopino the signature dish of san francisco. I like how they pile the seafood high. I love again.

This is totally different from the other versions that we've had it's more. The the broth is more see-through, it's not as puree, not tomato puree, but there's chunks of tomato there's lots of celery. In here i mean this has been a tour where we've had some amazing chopino and learned about the history of chopino in san francisco, and so this is like bringing it all together in this historic dining destination girl, oh yeah, the seafoody broth, the fish in there. This one to me is lighter and again not as yeah it's not the tomato puree as many other versions that you'll eat in san francisco.

This is more eats like a soup, nothing overpowering, just the delicious taste of fresh seafood, all in a in a soup, so buttery crispy, oh the garlic and the herbs on there. I love the heavy fish content, but there are some shellfish. Here's a clam below here. That's just fully loaded with with the drippings of all the other seafood.

I love their giant cut vegetables, those kind of vegetables where you're not quite sure, if you should take it in one bite or not one buck, very good, very good. Look at the size of this fry you'll have a better comparison when it's up by my fish. That's what you call thick cup! It's like a one fry meal, it's more like a roast potato squeeze that with lemon. This is the dish of the meal.

For me, oh man that buttery texture that deep-fried skin - oh man, the oiliness. I think this is one of the the cleanest versions of topino. And for me, it's really all about the fish in their chilpino and as we continue to have dinner in here, the entire hall is packed. I love how it's so energetic it's just buzzing.

The waiters. The waitresses are just flying around in their white coats. Such a cool setting atmosphere and delicious seafood with that amazing celebration of a meal at tadich grill, the oldest restaurant in california, that wraps up this incredible historic seafood, tour of san francisco and then, finally again, i want to say a big thank you to visit california For sponsoring my trip to san francisco and for arranging this tour and also make sure we visited a couple different places with visit, california, we went to santa barbara, had an amazing trip and then also to napa valley, so make sure you go back and you can Watch all the rest of the videos as well, and so that's going to be it again for this video. Please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, leave a comment below i'd love to hear from you and if you're not already subscribed, make sure you subscribe for lots more food and travel videos, goodbye from san francisco, california i'll see you on the Next, video, thanks again for watching.