Linking fourth . . .

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” — Benjamin Franklin

• San Francisco Mission district murals : Ay candela!
• Portuguese influence on San Leandro : Bem-vindo
• China tourism to the city could double : ??
• Free San Francisco walking tours : Can’t be beat
• San Francisco webcams : We like to watch
• Interactive map of California fires and California air quality conditions and forecasts : Enough already
• Polk Street restaurants heat check : Where’s the action?
• SF tops for honeymoons : Or so this person says
• 10 Most Literate Cities in America : Are we really less literate than Pittsburgh?

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photo from tinou bao’s photostream

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We stopped in a Lukas taproom and lounge in Oakland on a recent weekend afternoon. It’s not a bad time to visit — it wasn’t too crowded. In the afternoon, you order from the bar. If you get the seafood platte (photo via Pieces & Bits) it comes on ice. But really the frites are all you need with a good Belgian beer.

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Taqueria Castillo is a little hole in the wall place near where I work in Civic Center. As you can see from the sign, this is Taqueria Castillo B — there is another branch on Golden Gate, and maybe more.

The decor isn’t much, I guess — and neither is the location, on McAllister near 7th, for that matter. I would say about 90 percent of the people who eat there or get food for take-out order burritos.

But a good value on the menu is the huevos con chorizo. For around six dollars you get beans of choice, rice, eggs with chorizo, salsa, a salad (with avocado), and jalapenos and other options, along with a basket of steaming hot corn tortillas.

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Okay, it will be called Tavern on the Green (I guess). Okay, it will be a branch of the pretentious New York restaurant (more frequented by tourists than locals). But there’s just no way the Metreon is by any stretch of the imagination green. It’s not remotely comparable to Central Park. The New York restaurant might be known for its ostentatious decor, but chandeliers and mirrors alone would not draw the out-of-towners — it’s the location that has made it a destination since the 1930s.

So now the restaurant is bringing its Eisenhower-era menu with its petrodollar prices to fill the top floor of the Metreon, maybe the phoniest, most soulless and artificial retail complex in the city. The Metreon experience is the equivalent of taking all the annoying cell phones and IPods that bother you on BART and packing them into one monstrous box intruding on what was formerly a pleasant part of the city.

I suppose in some cynical sort of profiteering way that’s perfect. But they should call it Tavern for the Greenback.

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• The Chronicle coverage
• Image from Visit-New-York-City.com

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For a few years running I printed books in Belgium (today the exchange rate is too unfavorable), and I developed a taste for Belgian beer, as one will. (Above is a shop window photographed in Bruges around Christmas 2006.)

Now Belgian beer establishments are springing up around the bay, a development to be applauded.

• The Trappist, Oakland, 460 8th Street Oakland
  The Trappist features “15 Rotating Taps and Over 120 Specialty Bottles.” They seem to carry all the real Trappist beers (see the menu on their website). A small place in an 1970s Victorian, remodeled and decorated to resemble a Belgian bar. No food. Yelp reviews here.
• Luka’s Taproom and Lounge, 2221 Broadway, Oakland
  Luka’s features mussels and oysters. The mussels aren’t quite to Belgian standards, but they are still good. The also feature DJs and dancing, and they have a pool table. The space is a bit cavernous and unfinished. Yelp reviews here.
• Monk’s Kettle, 3141 16th Street, San Francisco (in the Mission)
  Monk’s Kettle has a large beer selection, and it serves a full range of pub-style food. From the Yelp reviews it sounds crowded, and the beers seem overpriced. I haven’t eaten there, but I guess it offers an alternative to other restaurants in the area.
• La Trappe, North Beach, 800 Greenwich St. San Francisco
  This place opened recently near Washington Square. Consensus is that the sitting downstairs offers the most authentic Belgian flavor. Offers and excellent selection of beers and traditional Belgian specialties (frites, etc.). I’m really looking forward to checking this one out.

Curiously, neither of the SF places seems to have a website.

1. Be a party of four. Other sizes have to rely on phone reservation. The odds of getting a table for two within a couple of months by calling the restaurant are probably less than the odds of John Edwards becoming president.
2. Exactly two months before you want to eat, a little before midnight, fire up the OpenTable French Laundry reservation page
3. Enter your information and the time 7:15. Every midnight two reservations, one at 5:30 and one at 9:00, open up on OpenTable two months down the road. The 7:15 time puts you in the running for both.
4. Get your credit card ready to go.
5. Have some way of knowing exactly what time it is — for example, open up the official U.S. time clock in another browser window.
6. Finally (quoting from travelpost.com insider, the source of these instructions) “When the clock hits 11:59:56, click the red search button on OpenTable. If you get a page that offers a time, you’ve gotten in. Last night, my husband and I were using separate computers, but followed this method. He got the 5:30pm time, and I got the 9pm.”

The FL consistently scores at the top of Bay Area restaurants.

I hope it’s worth it.

B in the D, the Beach Chalet at the ocean end of Golden Gate Park housed a sketchy pool hall. But the place has been restored and turned into a decent restaurant with an excellent view. There is also a visitor center devoted to the history of the chalet. The walls are decorated with historic WPA frescoes created by Lucien Labaudt in the 1930s. Click the screenshot to visit the official site.

• Yank Sing (49 Stevenson St.)
• Hang Ah Tea Room (1 Pagoda Place) (yelp review)
• Imperial Palace (818 Washington St.) (yelp review)
• Koi Palace (365 Gellert Ave., Daly City) (warning: noisy website)
• Good Luck Dim Sum (736 Clement S.) (yelp review)
• S & T Hong Kong Seafood (2588 Noriega)
• House of Banquet (939 Clement St.)

It was true. Original Joe’s restaurant was shut down by fire and will be closed for at least a couple of months. The restaurant was a Tenderloin institution, having been in continuous operation for 70 years. This will be its longest shut-down ever.

Chronicle Staff Writers Kevin Fagan and Stacy Finz have the story at SFGate:

“The pipe from the charcoal burner started making a roaring noise, so we called the Fire Department,” said longtime waiter Roger Miranda. “That’s always a bad noise. When the smoke started, we ran out as fast as we could.” The charcoal burner is always lit on Fridays to cook steak and fish, Miranda said.

While Miranda was helping evacuate the 21 workers in the restaurant, waiter Sergio Morales dashed upstairs to the 30-room, low-rent residential Moderne Hotel that occupies the second floor of the two-story Original Joe’s building.

“I ran down the hallways, banging on doors and telling everyone, ‘Get out! Get out!’ and then I got out, too,” Morales said.

One man, however, headed up instead of down – hotel manager Dennis Rindell. He hit the roof, grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed its contents down the flue.

It didn’t work. He was pulled off the roof by firefighters using an extension ladder.

“The flames and the smoke kept coming, and I couldn’t stand it any more,” Rindell said as he stood on Taylor Street sucking air off an oxygen mask.