Not to the Future, nor to the Past; No drink of Joy or Sorrow; We drink alone to what will last; Memories on the Morrow. Let us live as Old Time passes; To the Present let Bohemia bow. Let us raise on high our glasses To Eternity--the ever-living Now. Contents Foreword The Good Gray City The Land of Bohemia As it was in the Beginning When the Gringo Came Early Italian Impression Birth of the French Restaurant At the Cliff House Some Italian Restaurants Impress of Mexico On the Barbary Coast The City That Was Passes Sang the Swan Song Bohemia of the Present As it is in Germany In the Heart of Italy A Breath of the Orient Artistic Japan Old and New Palace At the Hotel St. Francis Amid the Bright Lights Around Little Italy Where Fish Come In Fish in Their Variety Lobsters and Lobsters King of Shell Fish Lobster In Miniature Clams and Abalone's Where Fish Abound Some Food Variants About Dining Something About Cooking Told in A Whisper Out of Nothing Paste Makes Waist Tips and Tipping The Mythical Land Appendix (How to Serve Wines, Recipes) Index Bohemian San Francisco "The best of all ways To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours From the night, my dear." The Good Gray City San Francisco! San Francisco! Is there a land where the magic of that name has not been felt? Bohemian San Francisco! Pleasure-loving San Francisco! Care-free San Francisco! Yet withal the city where liberty never means license and where Bohemianism is not synonymous with Boorishness. It was in Paris that a world traveler said to us: "San Francisco! That wonderful city where you get the best there is to eat, served in a manner that enhances its flavor and establishes it forever in your memory." Were one to write of San Francisco and omit mention of its gustatory delights the whole world would protest, for in San Francisco eating is an art and cooking a science, and he who knows not what San Francisco provides knows neither art nor science. Here have congregated the world's greatest chefs, and when one exclaims in ecstasy over a wonderful flavor found in some dingy restaurant, let him not be surprised if he learn that the chef who concocted the dish boasts royal decoration for tickling the palate of some epicurean ruler of foreign land. And why should San Francisco have achieved this distinction in the minds of the gourmets? Do not other cities have equally as good chefs, and do not the people of other cities have equally as fine gastronomic taste? They have all this but with them is lacking "atmosphere." Where do we find such romanticism as in San Francisco? Where do we find so many strange characters and happenings? All lending almost mystic charm to the environment surrounding queer little restaurants, where rare dishes are served, and where one feels that he is in foreign land, even though he be in the center of a high representative American city.