🚗 Peak-Summer Pick: This classic drive-in, complete with old-timey carhop service, is my favorite pit stop en route to North Tahoe or the South Yuba River’s string of picturesque swimming holes. The burgers are huge, with crunchy, well-charred edges, and the beer-battered onion rings are phenomenal. But what really sets Big A apart is its bracing house-made root beer—especially the root beer floats, which come in frosted mugs with unlimited refills (!): the perfect thing on a scorching-hot day.

🥝 Peak-Summer Pick: La Michoacana sells a little of everything: fresh-baked breads and pan dulce in the mornings, gigantic tortas overflowing with meats and queso fresco, and an assortment of fancy custom cakes. But what I come for almost exclusively, on a hot summer afternoon, is their specialty: paletas, or Mexican ice pops, made with an assortment of fresh fruits. The most stunning popsicles are as gorgeous as they are refreshing, with jewel-like strawberries or kiwi slices suspended inside.

🥢 Peak-Summer Pick: Anytime the weather creeps over 75 degrees in the Bay Area, I declare it COLD NOODLE SEASON and refuse to eat anything touched by the flame of a stove. If I’m feeling fancy, I head to Soba Ichi, the region’s only soba shop that makes its buckwheat noodles in-house, for the ten seiro: springy, supremely slurpable cold soba served with a refreshing, dashi-based dipping sauce and an assortment of crisp tempura. For dessert, cool down further with gelato made with buckwheat tea

🦀 Peak-Summer Pick: No beach day is complete without a lunch plan. If you’re spending the afternoon at Rockaway Beach (a picturesque, low-key spot on the peninsula coast), you’ll want to stop at this old-fashioned chowder shack and cocktail lounge for the area’s best crab sandwiches and clam chowder. The sammies are gorgeous in their simplicity: a generous mound of cold Dungeness, a tomato slice, and buttery grilled sourdough. You could eat in, but this food is made for a beach blanket picnic.

🧋Peak-Summer Pick: Soyful is the glorious love child of the Asian diaspora’s most refreshing, icy-sweet treats. It’s best known for soy pudding (aka tofu pudding), which it serves cold and jiggly soft, doused in gingery syrup. But the best item is the kitchen-sink #8 combination, which blends the best parts of Hong Kong tofu desserts, Taiwanese boba, and Vietnamese chè: The mix of pudding, shaved ice, and assorted chewy toppings (pandan, grass jelly, red beans, and more) is delightful.

If you rated Bay Area restaurants on the ratio between culinary ambition and effort put into self-marketing, one of the top spots would have to go to this little takeout lunch spot with no signage and nearly no social media presence — even its name is just the street address. But the quality of 2207’s fried chicken, patty melt, and yakiniku-inspired ribeye donburi speaks for itself. My go-to order? An impeccably fresh grain salad topped with crisp-skinned harissa chicken.

What’s not to love about a friendly, family-run Thai Chinese spot that cranks out solid renditions of at least three different cuisines and stays open until 1 a.m. to boot? Located across the street from a casino and just minutes away from the airport, A One is the ideal late-night restaurant, known for flavorful Thai curries and stir-fries spiked with Malaysian shrimp paste. Mostly, I come for one of the most addictingly savory, decadent versions of garlic-butter crab around.

My favorite Eritrean breakfast spot is this humble coffee shop locally famous for its shihan ful, a garlicky, olive oil–slicked fava bean dip that you scoop up with hunks of warm, crusty French bread. It’s a rich dish, spiked with enough berbere and fresh jalapeño heat to leave your tongue tingling. In fact, Alem’s dominates the entire category of foods you can mop up with crusty bread: The Eritrean-style egg scramble and the fata (a spicy bread salad) are also outstanding.

The family that runs Antojitos Guatemaltecos got their start selling tamales from the trunk of their car, so it’s no surprise that exquisitely tender, banana leaf–wrapped renditions of this Central American staple are the star of their new restaurant. This is a rare destination for homestyle Guatemalan cooking in the Bay Area: seared steak and plantains over rice, hot mugs of atole de elote, and perfectly seasoned Pollo Campero–style fried chicken.

The joys of this 24-hour Indian market include its sweets displays, tidy produce bins, and free chai while you shop. But the biggest selling point? The hot food counter, featuring a dazzling array of vegetarian curries and chaat that hit the spot at any time (literally). The vibes are especially immaculate around midnight, when the outdoor tables throng with hungry night owls stuffing themselves with generous thali platters, bite-size puri puffs, and fat, well-spiced samosas.