I admit to being a bit of a design snob. I initially judge blogs on the way that they look or their terrible photos rather than the quality of their writing. And I often want to avoid restaurants whose websites have irritated me in one way or another. Of course, once I look further into some of those blogs I find writing I love, and once I actually go to some of those restaurants I find I enjoy them. But first impressions mean a lot.

A couple of days ago, a friend was asking me for a restaurant recommendation. Easy task, I thought. I had some restaurants in mind and just needed to check and see if they were open and send her the websites. What should have been a 5-minute email turned into a half-hour nightmare as I slogged through websites that are more intent on impressing me with movies, music, and other annoyances than on giving me direct information.

Hear this, restaurants: We are not looking to your sites for entertainment. We want to get our information, get out, and get back to watching Eli Stone. Noise of clinking glasses or a dull roar or fancy music does not make us want to go to your restaurant more, it just tips off our employers that we are making dinner plans instead of filing our TPS reports. We don't want to sit through 30 second flash movies of how happy we'll be if we go to your restaurant. We just want the facts: When are you open, what's for dinner, and how much does it cost. And I want to do that in as few clicks as possible.

Oh, and also? We are in the Bay Area -- arguably the technology capital of the world. How difficult is it to learn to code up a simple HTML page? Why are you still making us click through to PDF's of your menus or (horrors) Word documents? It's all about time for me, and opening up the pdf takes up my precious seconds.

MY FAVORITES

Some of my favorite restaurant websites are super basic, nice to look at, and tell me all I need to know.

Spork. Looking at this website makes me want to spend my hard-earned money to hire this designer to redo all other restaurant websites. It's gorgeous.

Bar Jules. The lovely Bar Jules site changes daily and tells us what's for lunch and dinner.

Slanted Door. Chock full of information, and has a handy plug-in to make an Open Table reservation.

Arizmendi Bakery. Arizmendi's pizza changes daily, and Arizmendi has a calendar for the whole month of delicious flavors.

SITES THAT MAKE ME WANT TO SCRATCH MY EYES OUT
(warning, many of these have music)

Bix. I want to send a friend directly to Bix's list of cocktails, as I had an excellent one there the other night. Oh wait ... the whole site is in FLASH so I can't send a direct link!

Market Bar. Don't. Resize. My. Browser. Ever. (And while you're at it, you might want to get spellcheck. Mediterranean is spelled with one "t".)

Spruce. Let's review how many steps I have to go through to find the Spruce dinner menu:

1) wait for flash site to load
2) click "menus"
3) click "food"
4) click "dinner"
5) change my browser to allow pop-ups for this site
6) PDF!

House. Give us prices. Seriously. Not having prices reeks of pretentiousness and is absolutely useless.

And then we have a "bandwidth exceeded" message over at 1300 Fillmore.

Fortunately for us consumers, there are ways around these horrid websites. Menu Pages, while not the prettiest site out there, lists over 4000 menus in San Francisco. And Yelp is the easiest place I've found to figure out restaurant hours.

Let's call out all the bad restaurant websites -- which would you nominate? What are your pet peeves?

When two longtime friends decided to come to San Francisco for the weekend, the first thing I did was plan our meals. I had approximately a day and a half with them, and I wanted their food experiences to be memorable. I had an added benefit of knowing my audience very well and being able to customize the trip to their taste.

When I first heard they were coming, I made back-up dinner reservations at A16 and The Slanted Door. In the end, however, I ended up scrapping both of those reservations (and calling to cancel!) a few days before my friends came. The weekend came together very nicely and we went to the following places:

SPQR. My love for this new restaurant has already been documented, and I've been back three times since that initial report. This trip was fun, as I got to watch Anna as she tasted beets with ricotta, chanterelles and sunchokes, and the panino dessert -- which was groan-causingly good.

The Alembic. After dinner, we cabbed it over to The Alembic so that Anna could share in my love of this wonderful bar. I've been talking up the emphasis on amazing mixology that has been happening in San Francisco, and the Alembic is the perfect example of this. My fellow bloggers agree -- the Alembic is a destination bar.

Saturday morning, Amanda arrived and it was off to ... where else?

The Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market. A must stop for any visitor staying at my house. When we were through, we met up with a couple friends for wine. The Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant was busy, so we lounged in the Slanted Bar lounge very comfortably for a couple of hours. On Saturday afternoons, there is not table service in the lounge until 2 pm (though you can eat at the bar). No bother, we ordered bottles of wine at the bar and by the time table service arrived, we ordered some delicious SD snacks. My friends had a good time wandering the Ferry Building afterward. Anna bought a lot of cheese to take home with the help of our favorite cheese expert.

Then it was home to rest before heading off ...

To Bodega Bistro. This was the dinner originally planned as The Slanted Door. But the girls were insistent that they wanted to experience San Francisco the way that I usually live it. And the truth is that you are much more apt to find me at Bodega Bistro than The Slanted Door. Bodega is known for some of the best Vietnamese food in the city, and the Cha Ca Hanoi there -- a dish of fish with dill and spices and peanuts -- is more to my taste than the Cha Ca Hanoi that I ate in the most famous place in Hanoi.

Happily, the Bodega Bistro dinner went over very well and we went home full and sated. The weekend was a great mix of different bites, tastes and meals and both Anna and Amanda are talking about the trip weeks later.

Last month, Catherine posted her recommendation list for visitors which I will likely refer to in the future. And a while back, Michael posted his visitor list.

When I was in college, my roommate introduced me to Kierkegaard's theory of the despair of infinitude. It was complicated in an existential sort of way, but over the years, I've adopted a variation on the term -- the despair of infinity -- to refer to the overwhelming sensation I feel when faced with too many choices. Trying to pickout an outfit for the first day of work after a big shopping spree? Despair of infinity. Time to whip up dinner and the fridge is full of food? Despair of infinity. Back from a year in Russia and sitting at a bar, perusing a beer list of 6 drafts and 20 bottles? Praise capitalism in all its glory -- but that's despair of infinity nonetheless.

The despair of infinity comes upon me almost anytime I have to decide where to take visitors to dinner. When I was new to San Francisco, it was easy. We simply went wherever I had not been and, especially if it was my folks, could not afford. Over the years, I've exhausted most of the San Francisco icons with repeat visitors, and moved on to personal neighborhood favorites.

Since Indian summer is the best time for visitors, I thought I'd share the places on my short list. Where do you like to take visiting family and friends out to eat?

The Icons

Zuni Cafe A perrenial favorite. Who doesn't love the copper bar, the Caesar salad, and the roast chicken? 1658 Market Street, (415) 552-2522.

Slanted Door Some people complain that it's gotten too big for its britches since moving into the Ferry Building, but the shaking beef still rocks, and the Bay views can't be beat. 1 Ferry Building #3 at the Embarcadero, (415) 861-8032.

Boulevard This feel-good brasserie sticks to seasonal California classics, and it has an old-world elegance that's irresistable. 1 Mission Street, (415) 543-6084.

The Regulars

Vivande This was a weekly stop when I lived in Pacific Heights. The pasta is handmade, the sausage comes from a 150-year-old family recipe, and the lemon tart is worth the visit alone. 2125 Fillmore Street, (415) 346-4430.

1550 Hyde The philosophy here is to cook with the Bay Area's best sustainably raised produce and meats, like cult favorite Hoffman Gamebirds' chickens. I've never had a meal that was anything short of extraordinary. 1550 Hyde Street, (415) 775-1550.

Antica Trattoria Though the atmosphere isn't as convivial as it is at Ristorante Milano, another favorite haunt, the food is more rustic and the servers remember their regulars. 2400 Polk Street, (415) 928-5797.

The Current Favorites

Nua This relatively new addition to North Beach is fast becoming a destination. I crave the roasted cauliflower with capers and pine nuts on a regular basis. 550 Green Street, (415) 433-4000.

Terzo If I lived in the Marina, I'd come here all the time for small plates like succulent, spicy chicken spiedini and the addictive crispy fried onion rings. As it is, I'm on a first name basis with the hostess. 3011 Steiner Street, (415) 441-3200.

Bourbon & Branch -- This modern speakeasy may not serve a single bite of food, but it is the coolest bar in town. Okay, so the secret password is a bit hokey, but once you're inside, inventive cocktails and the 1920's-inspired atmosphere cast their spell. Visit bourbonandbranch.com for reservations.