Vintage discovery
Kothai Republic, The Future Past, Lake Merritt, Xies Sushi Rolls, digital nomads, Thanksgiving reservations, MORE
THE ASK • FOUND Contributors
We’re seeking to add to our excellent group of contributors to FOUND SF (and LA, NY, and Miami). These are very flexible freelance roles that don’t necessarily require a professional writing background — mostly passion and impeccable taste. (We’re also looking for contributors for our forthcoming Paris & London editions.) Is that you, or a friend? Drop us a line at found@itsfoundsf.com.
RESTAURANTS • FOUND Table
Merging cultures
The Backstory: When it opened in the Inner Sunset in 2022, Kothai Republic quickly became a sleeper hit. Self-taught chef Sung Park grew up in his parents’ Outer Sunset corner store, and has lived in the neighborhood his whole life. Over a decade ago, he partnered with chef Gof Sanguanwong to launch a popular food truck called Spork and Stix. For their first brick-and-mortar restaurant, they took the same mix of Korean and Thai flavors served truckside, transmuting them into a fine dining affair.
The Experience: There’s a new wave of Asian fusion dining in San Francisco, and Kothai sits on the forefront. It’s a pretty corner space a few blocks off the park, with floor-to-ceiling windows, blonde natural woods, and handmade ceramics. The dishes are stunners, too: On a recent visit, the menu included torched sea bream swimming in bright yellow gooseberries, Monterey squid and charred tomatoes tangled with tendrils of micro herbs, and spicy red shrimp ceviche in little gem leaves balanced on a mound of ice.
Why It’s FOUND: Everything is colorful, spicy, and funky, in the best way possible. Kothai is the rare the rare chill neighborhood spot that dazzles in the details. –Becky Duffett
→ Kothai Republic (Inner Sunset) • 1398 9th Ave • Dinner Wed & Thurs 530–9p, Fri & Sat 5–930p, Sun 5–830p; Brunch Sat & Sun 10a–2p • Reserve.
SF RESTAURANT LINKS: Verjus has risen from the dead in Jackson Square • A well-reviewed Nordic pivot for Nob Hill’s Sons & Daughters • Taishan is your favorite Chinese chef’s favorite Chinatown joint • Lazy Bear unveils renovated Mission dining room • Oakland’s lauded Jo’s Modern Thai loses marquee chef and much of staff • Dungeness season is delayed • At America’s great restaurants, great artists steal • What’s the cost of drinking bargain natural wine?
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Shop
True blue
The once novel idea of “sustainability” has been transformed into a tiresome buzzword in recent years, which is unfortunate — especially when someone’s executing on its core concept with excellence and style. That’s the case at Clement Street’s The Future Past, a business that marries the best bits of vintage discovery and an insightful tailor with deep and abiding denim nerdery.
Spin through its ground floor garment racks, packed with classic denim, ‘70s-’80s designer finds, and a smattering of new maker-created items. Then look upward to the studio, where its talented team reworks beloved garments that in other hands might be beyond repair. We all have that pair of jeans with an incredible, hard-won wash that’s falling apart or no longer fits the way we want. Bring those sad rags in and watch sergers buzz through selvage as staffers Sashiko-stitch pockets, posteriors, and patellas.
If this sounds like hyperbole, take a look at the shop’s Instagram, which features vintage jeans they’ve returned from the dead. It’s proof that true “sustainability” is alive and well in Inner Richmond. –Eve Batey
→ Shop: The Future Past • 12 Clement St (Inner Richmond) • Wed-Sun 11a-5p.
WORK • Wednesday Routine
Good taste
CECILIA PHILLIPS • coordinating producer / reporter • Check, Please! Bay Area
Neighborhood you live in: Lake Merritt, Oakland
It’s Wednesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
Wednesday is a wildcard day for me. I’ll be either at my desk at home overlooking Lake Merritt, or at my desk in the Mission in KQED’s new headquarters overlooking a Starbucks (still nice to be by a window), or out in the field filming at a brick-and-mortar restaurant for the 20th season of our television show, Check, Please! Bay Area. It’s also the day we film Cecilia Tries It, my segment in the show which takes the audience off the beaten path to find culinary spots outdoors. I’ll also work on a food game show I created called Chew on This, and a series I host on KQED’s website called Beyond the Menu.
What’s on the agenda for today?
Today, I’m heading to film my segment at the Fork’n Good Food Festival in Santa Rosa. I’ll walk around to peek into each of the 40-plus food tents, and will stop to talk to a woman who sells Mexican-style sushi at Xies Sushi Rolls, where I’ll try her fried nori roll with flavors of Sinaloa inside.
How about a little leisure or culture?
During the non-rainy season, I do my best to spend every free moment I can lounging by Lake Merritt. The scenes never get old. When I’m not sitting on a blanket by the Big Tree (that’s its official name on Google) I’m looking to see when the new Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts auditorium will be completed, I’m checking out the vendors who pop-up near the lake, or I’m stopping to have my favorite cuisine in the world at Coach Sushi.
What was your last great vacation?
I saved a bunch of pennies and headed to Germany for a two-week vacation a while back. I chose it randomly and decided that it’d be my mission to find the best pretzel I could throughout the country. I had no less than a pretzel a day over the two weeks, traveling from city to city, and can’t say that I definitively found it. What I did do was fall in love with was Baden-Baden, a very scenic spa town near the Black Forest. The spot to visit there is the Caracalla Spa Thermal Baths, a modern, gorgeous water world of relaxation with every spa experience and treatment you can imagine.
WORK • Field Report
Remote control
We’ve officially rounded the corner on autumn: Daylight Savings has come and gone, and a late Thanksgiving will soon slam us right into December (i.e. holiday party season). If you live in certain cosmopolitan environs — and if you’ve ever been on Instagram — you know damn well what this all means: An entire class of white-collar professionals attempting to sublet their places for winter, planning remote work anywhere from LA to Lisbon, from great surf to great skiing. And it begins… now.
Per an August 2024 MBO report, “digital nomads” now constitute one in 10 American workers, their numbers growing 147% since 2019. Their economic effects continue to be profound: Italy, Japan, and Thailand all introduced digital nomad visas this year, joining a slew of other countries who already have them on offer (along with, occasionally, economic incentives). Haven’t you heard? Digital nomads are great for the world. They’re also — haven’t you heard? — solipsistic, selfish perpetrators of a global housing crisis ruining regional cultures everywhere, who the locals openly detest. To be fair: Go to Mexico City in January, throw a rock, and you’ll hit a mezcal-sipping creative director from East LA or North Brooklyn.
But as the Great RTO Wars rage on, with companies trying to compel (or force) workers into the office with various levels of success, and those aforementioned local backlashes against nomads coincide with nomads’ burnout, depression, and anxiety from permanent destabilization, it’d seem the unmoored hordes may start to ebb.
I recently tried my own hand at international remote work for the first time, staying two weeks with someone working to open a hotel in Greece. On paper, it sounds phenomenally cool, and in some ways, it was. Ferrying to a long weekend in Sifnos was amazing, and in Athens (where they’re still adjusting to digital nomads), I’d spend mornings going into the city center, grabbing coffee, lunch at Feyrouz, walking through a city park, browsing record stores, seeing art — but then, at 3, it was back to the hotel for work, just as New York was waking up, breaking for dinner around 8, checking my phone throughout, sometimes not finishing meetings until midnight or 1.
Admittedly, less glamorous than it sounds. It’s hard to imagine keeping this schedule much longer than I did, especially somewhere I don't speak the language or have a network of friends on the ground.
Then again, I’d be lying if I weren’t hoping for either the FOUND London or FOUND Paris bureau posting when launch time comes — at least for a week or two. –Foster Kamer
SF WORK AND PLAY LINKS: Productivity startup Notion signs big downtown lease • SF’s cardio cartography artists • East Bay Booksellers set to reopen in a temporary Rockridge spot • The National Semiconductor Technology Center will be built in the Bay Area • Amazon workers 'appalled' by AWS CEO’s return to office remarks, urge policy reversal • Alphabet paid $607M in Q3 to shed offices • ETFs are where the fun is.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Dark Sky
Everest: Opera in the Planetarium • launch party • Morrison Planetarium (Golden Gate Park) • Fri @ 630p • GA, $157 per
Sabrina Carpenter: Short N’ Sweet • Chase Center (Thrive City) • Sat @ 7p • Sec 203, $451 per
The Postman Always Rings Twice • 1946 • Stanford Theatre (Palo Alto) • Sat @ 730p • GA, $7 per
GETAWAYS LINKS: Farewell to SFO’s bouncy walkway • Realm Cellars launches new tasting room in Calistoga • Napa winemaker Lindsay Hoopes profiled • Road closures needn’t kill a Big Sur trip • Revamps planned for PSP (Palm Springs) • Inside San Miguel de Allende’s reopened Casa Dragones.
ASK FOUND
First, a quick primer on how this works: You send us the pressing questions of the day (on dining, services, living in the Bay Area). We all put our heads together (us, FOUND, + you, FOUND subscribers, who are also FOUND) in search of truth and beauty.
Three FOUND subscriber PROMPTS for which we are seeking intel:
What warm weather winter getaways can I still book for the holidays?
What SF bar welcomes work groups the best?
Where should we host our office holiday dinner this year?
Got answers or more questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfoundsf.com.
RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Thanksgiving, ticketed
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of SF’s best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@itsfoundsf.com.
Top of the Mark (Nob Hill), slow-roasted turkey and prime rib, oysters, cheeses, dim sum, unlimited Champagne, penthouse views; $200 per, reserve