Tempura

Is this list organic, artisanal, free-range, small-plate, modernist, hand-crafted, small-batch, and 100% sustainable? Not quite. But it should be! 1 Juicy crab and pork bun. If you've spent much time eating in the San Gabriel Valley , you have probably become adept in the various rituals of the Chinese table. This food is meant to be wrapped in a pancake, that one to be seethed in broth, the other one to be extracted with a dental implement. But nothing quite prepares you for the signature buns -- tender-skinned water balloons stuffed with pork and crab -- at the Wuxi-style dumpling house Wang Xing Ji. If you try to lift it with a spoon, it disintegrates under its own weight; if you attack it with chopsticks, you are liable to be squirted with boiling juice.

San Francisco isn't really an underground kind of place. We don't go in for noir the way L.A. does. And unlike New York, we don't require a lot of insider knowledge to make it here. Truth be told, we San Franciscans prefer keeping our underground culture above ground, where everybody can see it. That said, we do reserve a few secrets for ourselves. Although we're not above sharing - another San Francisco trait - all you have to do is ask. Here are five insider tips to lead you to an underground San Francisco that really is - more or less - underground.

When you're 12, few things beat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich - If you don't count video games, spending your allowance on candy from the Sweet Factory or slurpees of course. But after a hard morning's work at school, there's nothing better than opening up your lunch pale to find a PB&J in a Ziploc bag. The combination of smooth peanut butter and sweet, sticky strawberry jam is comforting and filling. Tuesday happens to be National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Yes, there is an entire day devoted to the popular childhood sandwich.

PICTURE this: It's hot outside, that particular kind of hot that you seem to find only in late summer in Southern California. The sky is beige, and the air seems so thick you nearly swim through it. Even after you're inside the air-conditioned restaurant, you feel the residue on your skin. But there in front of you is a reed mat.

No reservations. Loud. A gastropub from the Counter owner Jeff Weinstein and a consulting chef known for his vegetarian cooking. In theory, Freddy Smalls didn't sound all that appealing. Plus, it is small, making it almost a guarantee that you're going to have to wait, except on an especially slow night. And my dining crew is generally more impatient than I am. I finally risked it on a weeknight. We had to wait. I didn't mind, entertained by the hoard of photos pinned to a board in the entryway, all Freds and Freddys.

If you have trouble making up your mind about what you're going to eat, head for Aoba, a Japanese restaurant in Glendale. There you can put together a combination lunch that allows you to choose not one, but two main dishes from a list of 10. You could, for example, combine salmon teriyaki with California roll (six pieces, packed to go with wasabi and pickled ginger).

In his Weekend Escape to Berkeley ("Food Quest," Jan. 21), Michael Krekorian missed one of the best Japanese restaurants at which I have ever had the pleasure of dining. Genki Restaurant, 1610 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, opened last June in the refurbished space that used to be the Golden Bear Restaurant. It serves a good variety of Japanese lunches and dinners, from udon to tempura, and excels at sushi. JOHN L. HAMILTON Ventura

At the heart of so much of Japanese cooking is the fragrant broth called dashi. And at the heart of dashi are the delicate pink petals of katsuobushi, shaved flakes of dried bonito fish. When steeped with the dried seaweed called konbu, katsuobushi gives dashi its irresistible aroma and deep umami flavor. Despite being made in minutes, the stock is the foundation of many Japanese dishes -- miso soup, salad dressings, sauces for noodles, even meat stews. " Dashi is like the key actor in a movie," says 83-year-old Chobei Yagi, whose 275-year-old store, Tokyo's Yagicho Honten, specializes in katsuobushi and other dried foods.

As if restaurants in Beverly Hills, New York, Aspen, London and Tokyo weren't enough, Nobu Matsuhisa has just opened another, this one in Malibu. Like restaurateur-entrepreneurs Michael Chow and Sir Terence Conran, Matsuhisa has the attention of the bicoastal and international set. The same faces pop up in Beverly Hills and London, Aspen or Malibu--or at Nobu in Las Vegas' Hard Rock Casino. All are avid fans of the L.A.-based chef's eclectic take on Japanese food.

A purist setting out to find authentic Japanese food might skip Penny Lane because of its name, but that would be a mistake. Finding the restaurant isn't easy either; it's tucked into a complex whose address is on Manhattan Avenue--but the main entrance is on 9th Street, a few doors off Manhattan Avenue near the pier in Manhattan Beach. Nevertheless, once you find it, you'll see it was worth the trouble.