Ferry Building Marketplace

The Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco is truly a Food lover's paradise, especially on weekends when the awesome farmer's market also comes full force.  I enjoyed a fun morning roaming these markets with Hong and Kim from Ravenous Couple and Cindy from Chubby Chinese Girl. If you are ever in San Francisco on Saturday morning, you just have to check this place out!  And come hungry!  There are many free samples to try!

Outside: The Market 

Incredibly beautiful yellow oyster mushrooms, baby corn (with the husk still on!), and gorgeous strawberries with stem - these were super sweet! I tried a sample. There are tons of free samples here!  I also tried the pineapple guava (not pictured), which I wrote about a few days ago.

There are also some amazing vendors selling delicious food outside. Together with Hong, Kim, and Cindy, we shared some great street dishes such as a pizza with a real cornmeal crust (delicious!), tamales and pork sopes from Primavera Tamales, and a refreshing pineapple celery drink which was incredible (and also incredibly expensive at almost $4 a pop!).

Inside: A Foodie's Paradise

Inside the Ferry Building are more mouthwatering shops.  Everything from ACME's freshly baked bread, to Blue Bottle Coffee, to Boccolone's "salted pig parts" and more.  I highlight just a few here.

Boccolone: Tasty Salted Pig Parts

Cindy, who loves meat, was totally set on checking out Boccolone, a shop that sells various sorts of pork-themed cured meats.  Hong was somehow able to convince the store owner to let him handle the blade and cut some meat!!!  He did a fine job and cut some beautiful samples (see pic above) for us to try.  Yum . . . . the meat here is pretty good.

Here is Cindy super happy because she got her "cone" of cured meats.  Funny enough, they also sell caramels and cookies made out of lard! I believe Cindy actually purchased a few lard cookies. Carolyn from Food Gal has written a funny post about these porky baked goods.

Chocolate Covered Paper Thin Pears

I really really really really wish I had bought these. They were sooooo good. They are super thinly sliced pears covered in dark chocolate. They were super expensive - $23 for a small box of a handful of chips. But looking back, I keep thinking about them. That one free sample I had was sooo good. Oh well, next time!

Blue Bottle Coffee

Finally, I really really wanted to try this coffee.  I got in line with 15 minutes to spare (before I had to catch the bus to the Outstanding in the Field dinner (more on that next post!).  Alas, that was not enough time.  I didn't know it was typical to wait 15 minutes in line for coffee here!  And yet everyone says it's worth the wait!

Sad . .  on the bright side, I picked up a few ACME loaves of bread instead, which were fabulous.

I guess I'll have to try Blue Bottle coffee the next time I'm in SF.  I'll be sure to allot plenty of time to wait in line.