Where to eat at the Blogher Food Conference

I’m not gonna lie. I’ve got butterflies in my stomach. I can’t focus on my work. Rather than concentrate on the story I have to write, I’m day dreaming about the food I want to eat and hoping I get to meet all of my favorite bloggers while I’m in San Francisco for the Blogher food blogging conference.

Though I’m clicking away at my computer keys, my fingers direct research rather than writing. What else can I do? My inquiring mind needs to know each and every restaurant surrounding the conference site. And then, for convenience sake, I’ve charted a lean sampling of culinary locales and placed them on a Google map for easy access.

Food bloggers, on the whole, are a very special breed. We obsess over every morsel of food we eat and read about. We photograph and take notes on almost everything we put into our mouths. Our travel plans are based around meals. Considering that three hundred unique food blogging souls will be collected together in one place to discuss important topics like the ethics of food blogging, SEO, photography, Blogger vs. WordPress, organizing one’s time, and how to build a brand–it’s anyone’s guess what kind of a scene there will be.

Perhaps we will be well behaved. Perhaps not.

But put three hundred food bloggers in one place for one long day of conferencing, and talk will undoubtedly veer towards one common topic: Where should we eat?

Based on how late the Blogher conference events are planned to go, my choice will be to catch a cab and high-tail it to a late night restaurant located north of the Panhandle (NOPA).  Nopa, the area’s namesake restaurant, is an industry favorite for its late hours. Open seven days a week, Nopa serves dinner from 6 p.m. until 1 a.m. and offers a large community table and bar for walk-ins. Run by a passionate chef/owner Laurence Jossel, a former SF Chronicle “rising star chef,” Jossel serves rustic food, great drinks, and wood-fired cuisine. The entire menu is created with hand-picked, seasonal ingredients that have been sourced from local purveyors.
Nopa
560 Divisadero (at Hayes)
415.864.8643

*across the street, for a much earlier (and spicier) dinner, there’s Nopalito, a vibrant neighborhood restaurant that celebrates traditional Mexican cooking–with only local, organic and sustainable ingredients–seven days a week from 11:30 am to 10 pm. A late night

I’m going to guess that there will be some residual blurring on Sunday morning from a late night of “food blogging” (lots eating, drinking, photographing, twittering) so I’ll be sure to grab my friends Leah, Matt, Todd and Diane for a maple glazed bacon apple donut at Dynamo Donut.

Dynamo Donut
2760 24th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 920-1978

Once the caffeine hits and the donut’s magic powers kick in, I will be ready for a full day of eating at the Ferry Building. I’ll be sure to get a cup of Blue Bottle coffee, eat a steamed bao from the Slanted Door‘s take out window (if it’s open), an cone of meat from Boccalone , a wedge of cheese for the plane ride home from the Cow Girl Creamery’s Artisan Cheese Shop (sorry Southwest neighbors…it might get stinky) and a tower of oysters from the Hog Island Oyster Company.

Ferry Building Marketplace
One Ferry Building
San Francisco, California 94111
(415) 983-8000