Amy Tan's San Francisco: Dim Sum and Then Some

Over lunch, Tan and Cao dish on some of their favorite San Francisco places. Best dim sum: Ton Kiang or Yank Sing. Best shopping: all around Union Square. Must-see museum if you have time for only one: Asian Art Museum. Best off-the-beaten-path restaurant: Quince.

You'll find mostly locals at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where artists, authors and thinkers offer talks and tours, among other events, many of them free, Tan says. The city's best regular free entertainment is on Sundays in summer at Stern Grove, where music and dance are offered in an outdoor amphitheater.

"Once a performer got sick, and he was replaced last-minute by Placido Domingo," Tan recalls. The San Francisco Symphony, she adds, is terrific, and she recommends eating beforehand at Hayes Street Grill. Be sure to order a cone of incredible fries, she says.

3,000 Kinds of Tea

After lunch, we stroll through the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, which is my newest reason for wishing I lived in San Francisco. The Ferry Building that houses the market opened in 1898 but eventually languished for many years because city planners decided to build a highway around it. After damage from the 1989 earthquake forced the highway to be torn down, someone recognized the potential of this old building along the water, with a clock tower modeled after the bell tower of the 12th-century Seville Cathedral in Spain.

On Saturdays and Tuesdays, farmers practicing sustainable agriculture display their wares in stalls outside, and anyone who doesn't like crowds might want to avoid it. Other days, visit for the restaurants or the gourmet food shops that inspire the wish to picnic or cook.

Cowgirl Creamery sells artisan cheeses made on nearby dairy farms. The aroma of fresh-baked Acme bread competes with the smells of the herb and flower store down the hall. The Scharffen Berger chocolates look as if they might even be worth the eye-popping prices. And where else do you find a store selling nothing but mushrooms?

The Imperial Tea Court sends out such an aura of calm that I'm immediately reminded of a spa. The store handles most of the 3,000 kinds of tea known in the world, including compacted cakes of pu-erh tea, which is aged in caves. It's the only tea that improves with age, Tan says, and is considered a fine gift for a host. "People in that store know tea like a sommelier knows fine wines," she says.

As we approach the opera house, also home to the San Francisco Ballet, Tan says she spends more time in the Civic Center neighborhood than any other, with its walkways lined with linden trees and fine old buildings, including City Hall, the Asian Art Museum and Davies Symphony Hall.

Built in the French Renaissance style and opened in 1932, the opera house was fitted with the latest in acoustic technology after the 1989 earthquake. On the stage, Cao belts out a few notes and says, "The Kennedy Center is very prestigious, but it doesn't have good acoustics for the artists. The sounds go out, but they don't come back. Here, they return to you. When you can hear yourself, you can experiment, take chances. It makes for a better performance."

She and Tan also praise the availability of cheap seats. Subscribers get first pick, and a ticket in a center box is more than $200. But there are student rush tickets for $25, and standing room is $10.

Cao appreciates the patrons in the boxes but loves those who stand. "I am very touched by the standing-room people," she says. "You can only see their heads, but at the end of the night, it might be midnight, and not a single head is missing. When I see people sleeping in the front row, I want to go, 'Stop the show. Send those people home to bed and let someone standing have their seats.' "

We pile back into Tan's Prius, and Cao points out the corner where she was recently stopped by a police officer for speeding. The mezzo-soprano told him she was rushing to her performance at the opera house. "Sing for me," he told her, and she did a quick aria. "That was beautiful," he said. "You can go."

"That story is so San Francisco," Tan says. "This is a city with a soul."