Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Exploring Clement Street


Haigs Delicatessen, originally uploaded by riptideredsf.
As is typical in San Francisco, it's summer in November. Yesterday I bungeed the market basket onto my bicycle and headed over to Clement Street to do a little shopping and take a little tour of the neighborhood I grew up in back in the 70's.
Haig's Delicacies (Clement at Eighth Avenue) is one of the remnants of that era and still has some old artifacts to prove it. For some crazy reason I've never stepped foot in there. I guess I just thought it was yet another place to get exotic Russian delicacies and seriously, in the Outer Richmond, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an Eastern European market or bakery.
My curiousity was piqued last week when I'd picked up a Greek cookbook and Haig's was only one of two listings for imported foods listed in San Francisco.
Walking into Haig's is like a room in the Smithsonian (or the Lower East Side) . It's rustic wood interior feels like an old country mercantile store. All of their spices, dried herbs and teas are bagged up with hand written labels. The cook books have been around as long as I have. Six bucks for an antique cook book. Score!
If you're in the market for a mother of pearl inlayed backgammon board they're ten percent off.

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