Outer Sunset in July: Surfing the Fog for Dumplings on Irving Street

The fog rolls in off Ocean Beach around 4 p.m. most July days, and it doesn't ask permission. It just swallows the Outer Sunset whole — the pastel row houses, the surf shops, the dumpling counters on Irving Street — until everything smells like cold salt and you can't see two blocks ahead. People who've never been out here assume San Francisco in July means shorts weather. It does not. Not in this neighborhood.

I drove out from downtown on a Wednesday last July, and the temperature dropped eleven degrees between the Financial District and 46th Avenue. That's not a typo. The Outer Sunset runs its own climate, and if you pack for it, you'll have one of the best food-and-fog days the city offers. If you don't pack for it, you'll be shivering in a taqueria by noon.

1. Getting out here takes longer than you think

From Union Square, budget 45 minutes on the N-Judah Muni line. It runs underground through the city center, surfaces around 9th Avenue, then rolls west through the avenues at a pace that tests your patience. Driving is faster — maybe 25 minutes without traffic — but parking on Irving between 19th and 27th Avenues on a weekend is a blood sport.

The L-Taraval line drops you a few blocks south on Taraval Street, which is fine if you're headed to the southern end of the neighborhood. But Irving is the spine of this whole day, so the N-Judah is your line. Get off at any stop between 19th Avenue and the end of the line.

2. Dumplings on Irving, ranked by someone who's tried too many

Irving Street between 19th and 25th Avenues has more dumpling options per block than anywhere else in San Francisco. I'll die on that hill. Chinatown has history and spectacle, but for sheer density of good soup dumplings and pot stickers in a four-block stretch, Irving wins.

Kingdom of Dumpling at 1713 Taraval (technically one block south of Irving) sells pork-and-chive pot stickers for around $8.50 for a dozen. They're pan-fried to a crackly bottom and they don't need the sauce, but use it anyway. Dumpling Kitchen at 1935 Taraval does xiao long bao that hold their broth without splitting. Order the crab-and-pork version.

Here's where I get contrarian: a lot of guides send you to San Tung for their dry-fried chicken wings at 1031 Irving Street. The wings are good. They're sweet and sticky and people line up for them. But I think the actual dumplings at San Tung are average, and if you're here for dumplings specifically, you'll do better at the two spots I just mentioned. Go to San Tung for wings. Go elsewhere for dumplings.

3. Ocean Beach at dawn is the whole point

Walk west from Irving until the houses stop and the sand starts. That's Ocean Beach. In July, the morning fog usually burns off enough by 9 or 10 a.m. to let some pale light through, and for about two hours the beach feels enormous and almost empty.

This is not a swimming beach. The rip currents here have killed people. Signs say so plainly. But walking south along the waterline toward Sloat Boulevard with coffee in hand is one of the best free mornings in California. The surfers are already out — they paddle into fog so thick you lose sight of them thirty yards from shore.

Last time I was here in late July, a harbor seal surfaced about fifty feet from a surfer and neither seemed bothered.

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4. Coffee that isn't trying to impress you

Andytown Coffee Roasters at 3655 Lawton Street, a block south of Irving, makes a drink called the Snowy Plover — espresso, sparkling water, house-made brown sugar syrup, whipped cream on top. It sounds ridiculous. It costs around $6. It works.

The space is small, maybe ten seats inside, with a couple of benches out front where you'll sit in the fog and drink something warm. No laptop crowd, no waiting 15 minutes for a pour-over.

5. Golden Gate Park's western end is the quiet end

Most tourists enter Golden Gate Park from the east side, near the de Young Museum and the California Academy of Sciences. That's fine. But the western end of the park — the part that borders the Outer Sunset — is windswept, sparse, and more interesting if you like plants.

The Queen Wilhelmina Tulip Garden sits right at the northwest corner of the park near the old Dutch Windmill. In July the tulips are long gone, but the garden is still planted, and the windmill is strange enough to be worth the walk. Free to visit, always open.

Skip the park's bison paddock if you're pressed for time. Y'all, I love bison as much as anyone who grew up driving past them in South Dakota, but these ones are usually standing 200 feet from the fence doing nothing, and the walk out there eats 30 minutes you could spend eating dumplings.

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6. What to do when the fog wins

Some July afternoons the fog comes in so low and cold that being outside stops being fun. This happens. Don't fight it.

The Other Avenues at 3930 Judah Street is a worker-owned grocery co-op with a solid bulk section and good prepared food at the deli counter. A place to kill time and eat a $9 sandwich while the fog does its thing. Otherwise, wander into one of the used bookshops on Irving — there's a rotating cast of them, some more permanent than others — or sit in Andytown with a second Snowy Plover and admit that the weather won this round.

7. Dinner: Thanh Long and the case for garlic crab

Thanh Long at 4101 Judah Street has been doing roasted crab with garlic sauce since the 1970s. It's the original location of what became the Crustacean restaurant family, and the crab here is messy, butter-soaked, and probably $55-60 for the whole roasted Dungeness depending on market price. Not cheap. Worth it once.

Make a reservation. Walk-ins on Friday or Saturday nights in summer are a gamble I've lost twice. The dining room is plain — no design magazine is photographing this interior — and that's part of why I trust the food.

If crab isn't your thing, Noriega Produce at 3821 Noriega Street sells excellent prepared Vietnamese food at deli prices. Bánh mì for around $6.

8. Sunset on a sunset that may or may not show

Here's the thing about watching the sunset in the Outer Sunset in July: you might not see it. The fog bank often parks itself right at the horizon line, and the sun just vanishes into gray around 8:15 p.m. No color. No drama. Just gray getting darker.

But once or twice a month, the fog pulls back just enough, and the light turns the whole sky copper and pink over the Pacific, and you're standing at the end of Judah Street where the sand starts, and there are maybe nine other people there.

Bring a jacket with a hood. Not optional.