Calling all seafood lovers. If you are ever in San Francisco, you have to try cioppino.
No, really. Do not miss the chance. When I knew I was coming here to cover the America's Cup, it was one of the first things I wrote down on the "to do" list.
Cioppino originated in San Francisco, part of the Italian-American heritage of this place, particularly around the suburb of North Beach.
North Beach used to be Little Italy but is far more ethnically diverse now and is a mix between Italian, red-light district (Larry Flynt's Hustler club is there) and social conscience (it's the home of the incomparable City Lights bookshop, in the heart of the quarter that used to house the Beat generation of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and which has books with titles like Why Marx Was Right) .
But it retains a strong Italian flavour and is the birthplace and stronghold of cioppino.