The debate rages back and forth between the two coasts. Which city has better food, San Francisco or New York?

As a diehard San Franciscan, I maintain that we have the best food because we're the source of the finest raw materials in the country. We get beautiful fruits and vegetables the same day they're picked. A vital network of artisan producers send everything from dairy to olive oil, to our market. And of course, we're at the epicenter of one of the greatest wine producing regions in the world.

While we have the ingredients, New York has the people, a density of population that keeps restaurants full. Many New York restaurants are able to turn their tables three times a night with the early, pre-performance crowd; then the prime time diners; and then a late dining group of Europeans and tourists from the West Coast. (It's easy to book a usually hard to get table for 10 p.m. New York time, and if you fly out from San Francisco, you'll really be eating at 7 p.m.) With this kind of customer base, more restaurants, and more ambitious restaurants thrive, which gives New York the edge--at least according to East Coast food writers.

I will concede that New York wins on super high end dining with the likes of Jean-George, Ducasse and Daniel. New Yorkers support expensive places. But I've always felt that San Francisco's many moderately priced restaurants, our culinary strength, win out over New York's because our ingredients are better. Also our kitchens have to work harder to woo and keep customers.

But after a recent trip to New York, I've had to reassess my position a bit. I ate delicious and exciting food at all price levels for four days, non-stop. You can do that here without question, but New York has some unique restaurants that I think could not survive in San Francisco. One of them is Craft (43 East 19th Street, New York, 212 780-0880) another conquest in the Union Square Cafe empire started by Danny Meyer. Chef/partner Tom Colicchio, is the chef at both Craft and Grammercy Tavern, two of New York's best restaurants.

I ate at Craft after the theater one night. I had seen Twyla Tharpe's intense all-dance show Movin' Out, which I highly recommended if you're a dance fan. At 10:30 p.m. the large, sweeping room with hand crafted wooden tables and polished wooden floor was discretely full of diners-- the tables at Craft are spaced luxuriously far apart, a rarity in New York. The daily menu lays out a list of unadorned foods, which you mix and match to make a meal. Everything is served family style; and the portions are neither big nor small. They're just right.

I ran my eye down the list of main courses-- five kinds of roasted fish; two braised fish; nine roasted birds and meats; two braised meats; and stopped at squab. My chicken-loving husband went for roasted organic chicken. The waiter recommended three side dishes for the two of us from a long list of roasted, sauteed, braised and pureed vegetables, five kinds of roasted mushrooms and six different potato preparations. With a satiny, juicy, meaty squab in luscious natural jus; and a crisp skinned, super flavorful chicken, each bird cut into easy to eat pieces, we had cauliflower browned on the top with a little puree underneath; meltingly soft braised escarole; and the airiest, potato gnocchi in rich cream I've ever tasted. I kept filling my plate with little spoons of each thing. Every preparation was simple and delicious, just what you dream each could be. So many choices of such perfectly realized meats and vegetables made me want to eat at Craft every night.

Our meal for two at Craft with one raw and one cured fish dish as a first course; the birds and vegetables as a second; a three cheese plate (chosen from six on the cheese board); a roasted banana in caramelized syrup; a scoop of coconut sorbet, and a $50 bottle of savigny, came to $130 a person with tax and tip. For a peak culinary experience, that's a bargain in my book. It could happen no where else. There are enough people willing to spend the kind of money to fill Craft two or three times a night, so that all the many foods on the menu stay pristinely fresh; enough cooks can be employed to make every single item to order; and an intelligent, professional, highly trained dining room staff can support themselves by working there. A critical mass of diners who appreciate an experience like this exists only on Manhattan.

If you want one of these peak culinary experiences but don't want to drop a hundred bucks, head to Pearl Oyster Bar ( 18 Cornelia between Bleecker and West 4th Street 212 691-8211) for the ultimate lobster roll, warm, steamed lobster chunks napped in home made mayonnaise piled onto an airy but thick bread loaf bun that has been toasted in butter in a frying pan. The bun overflows with the sweet lobster mixture. A pile of hot shoestring fries come on the side. This simply is the best sandwich in the world so it's worth $17.

Pearl also makes the ultimate clam chowder with briny, meaty, littleneck clams, potatoes, celery and thick cream. I personally have a half dozen east coast oysters before my lobster roll and try not to eat the shoe string potatoes. I drink Sancere, a crisp, grassy, white wine from the Loire that goes with oysters; and I cannot resist the excruciatingly sweet praline caramel pecan sundae, no matter how hard I try. Always go for a late lunch, around 2 p.m. when you have a better chance of nabbing one the twelve or so stools at the marble oyster bar. (There are only about 24 seats in the whole place and some are at a counter that runs along a wall. The wait outside on the sidewalk can be long if you don't time it right.) Pearl is another restaurant that does what it does better than any other place. I'm still deciding whether it would work in San Francisco. Certainly the lobsters wouldn't be as fresh.

Finally, one other place in New York represents the highest expression of its kind: Kalustyan's, (123 Lexington between 28th and 29th, 212 685-3451) a spice shop and imported foods store that carries the widest range of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Indian ingredients in their freshest state. This is the place to find the indispensable maras pepper--natural sun dried Syrian pepper-- that renowned cookbook writer Paula Wolfert gives me every year at our annual Cantonese Christmas banquet. I use these medium hot, fragrant, moist, red pepper flakes in everything I cook, from clams to potatoes. Kalustyan's knows the source for the highest grades of spices and mixtures of spices; as well as every other imported food from the Middle East, the Mediterranean and India. We have the estimable Haig's on Clement and Milan International specifically for Indian spices and groceries in Berkeley, but Kalustyan's, which opened in 1944, is the most complete. I spend hours there imagining all the dishes I could cook if I had this store as a resource.

New York doesn't come close to our dim sum; our farmers' markets reign, and let's face it, our weather is much better. But New York currently has a lock on big, ambitious, upscale restaurants and maybe lobster rolls (better than Rhode Island's though much more expensive). Then there's pastrami, but that's another story.

Read another article: Hog Heaven

One-year subscription is only $30. Six issues, 16 pages on paper, delivered by US mail.

Send a check for $30 to: Patricia Unterman c/o Hayes Street Grill 320 Hayes Street San Francisco, CA 94102