SF Trip Meal #3: Boudin Bakery

I figured you can’t be a San Francisco culinary tourist without getting a sourdough fix. And Boudin Bakery by Fisherman’s Wharf, an old, local bakery cum tourist bread factory, is the place for sourdough. But a chowder bread bowl? I thought chowder was a New England thing, and considered just getting a loaf to stand on its own. But a bread filled with soup, for only $6.99, seemed like the right food tourist thing to do.

I should have stuck with my gut. Go to Boudin for the bread and skip the chowder. They ladle the stuff out by the gallon for the hordes that come and you can even buy the chowder by the can in their shop. I envision the chowder coming more from a can than a chef slaving away at vats of large soup pots in the kitchen. My clam chowder comes lukewarm, and with a few potatoes here and a few less clams there, suffers from a creamy blandness of mediocre chowder.

The loaves come in all sizes and shapes (including crocodile shaped). It's not just the smell of fresh-baked bread that fills the air; bread is constantly buzzing above your head. The bakers are constantly churning the stuff out, and a suspended conveyer system hooks bread baskets from the ovens overhead to the shop below.

http://www.boudinbakery.com/