Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/67

 HOTELS RESTAURANTS CUISINE 47 Boarding-house terms range from $10.00 to $16.00 a week at resorts and in cities. Restaurants. The Seals' Roost, the Golden Gate itself was scarcely more renowned before the holocaust of 1906 than San Francisco's restaurants. Queer, gorgeous, or just epicurean, a Latin fla- vour pervaded them all from the Poodle Dog, whose morals declined as the stairs mounted and whose name even in New York is generic, to the bour- geois Louis' and the Palace grill. Eating was ever a fastidious rite to the true son of St. Fran- cis, it mattered little whether the tables were dressed with crystal and damask, or drawn in mar- ble lengths from wall to saw-dust aisle. Most of the old haunts have been restored, or imitated, in the risen city. But few have retained their aforetime ingenuousness or their benevolent prices. In mellower days the patron came to ask your wants because you had for so long dined be- neath his roof that you had become like a family friend. You inquired for the little Pierre and Zou Zou. . . patted the family spaniel. . . commis- erated the illness of Jacques, your waiter. . . greeted the chef who looked in to receive your praise for sauce or cobwebbed bottle. . . ex- changed a jest at the caisse with the well-bando- lined Madame beaming above her satin bosom. ..