Now that burritos and falafel wraps cost $8 and a bowl of pho can't be found for less than $6, the under-$5 meal has become a rarity in San Francisco. Damn that Healthy San Francisco. (Kidding.) But the cheap meal is not a unicorn, and there's no need to resort to frozen burritos or step into McDonald's. It's still possible to find meals at local restaurants for $5, including tax and even tip.
Here is where SFoodie eats on the cheap:
5. Combination bun, aka dai bao, from Yong Kee Bakery (732 Jackson -- watch out, there's no sign in English)
Grab-and-go dim sum shops rarely advertise their steamed combination buns, or dai bao (big bun). But a few of them -- Wing Lee in the Richmond and Good Mon Kok in Chinatown, for instance -- make them. Yong Kee's dai bao is the largest. It's bigger than a grapefruit, heavier than a Big Mac, and stuffed with gingery chicken, shiitake mushrooms, Chinese sausage, and half a hard-boiled egg. If that doesn't seem like enough food, just double your order -- Yong Kee's combination bun costs $1.25 -- and then grab some mangos or apples from the Stockton markets to go with your bun.
4. Combination pizza slice from Golden Boy
Most slices of thin-crust pizza still cost less than $5, but in times of real hunger, you need two. Not with Golden Boy's Sicilian-style pizza, whose square crust is an inch thick and of sizeable dimensions. The combo slice ($3.75) is topped with multiple meat and vegetables -- that has practically the same nutritional benefit as a Stauffer's microwave-and-serve. Thin-crust pizzerias that dabble in Sicilian slices tend to serve dried-out, staled squares, but this North Beach pizzeria produces only foccaccia-like pies, and if you go late at night, the trays emerge from the oven and empty out at a rapid clip.
3. Super taco from El Toro or Pancho Villa
A taco from a San Francisco taqueria like Pancho Villa or El Toro is not the kind of taco you eat off the street in Mexico. It's not meant to be rolled up and downed in the matter of a few bites, or sold in threes and fours. A San Francisco super taco is a meal in itself, a mini burrito that is just harder to wrangle: doubled-up corn tortillas smothered in meat, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, salsa, guac, and sour cream -- all for $4, cheaper if you go super veg ($3.25). The savvy diner who no longer needs to eat half a burrito and wrap the other half in foil for breakfast the next morning buys a super taco and loads up the chips with salsas from the salsa bar.
2. Banh mi from Saigon Sandwiches
SFoodie remembers when Saigon Sandwiches' banh mi cost $1.65, because we are old. Now they're still less than $3, which means you can eat a sandwich and a soda for $5, Happy Meal prices. Even at twice or three times the cost, we'd eat banh mi as often as we can find them, never tiring of the crisp, warm bread, the caramelized marinade on the grilled pork, and the bright crunch of the pickled vegetables and cilantro sprigs. Saigon Sandwiches' most filling banh mi happens to be our our favorite: rich, fatty xiu mai (meatballs).
1. Pupusas from La Santaneca or La Santaneca de la Mission
For several decades now, SFoodie has made the mistake of ordering the pupusa combo platter because we feel too guilty paying three bucks for two pupusas revueltas -- thick corn cakes stuffed with pork, beans, and cheese. Every time, though, the refried beans, sour cream, and rice on the plate remain untouched, because pupusas need to be eaten first, while the cheese still oozes out of the corn cake when we touch it and the griddled edges are still a little crisp. And by the time we're done with the pupusas, we have no room left for the extra starches. Smothered in pickled cabbage slaw and mild tomato salsa, La Santaneca's pupusas -- still the best in town -- make for a complete meal, one of our favorite San Francisco dinners at any price.
