Cheap Eats Near the Opera House

Suppenkuche ($$) (Hayes & Laguna): not only affordable, but also the best German restaurant and bierhaus in San Francisco. Like a traditional bierhaus, be prepared to share one of their long tables, and to take leftovers with you. Serves a large variety of German beers on draft. Usually three or four vegetarian options, including the salad, which is a meal in itself.

Il Borgo ($$) (Laguna & Fell): This quiet, overdecorated little Italian eatery is seldom frequented by the Opera crowd (it's just a little too far) and is a good fallback when the Hayes Street restaurants are overcrowded. Serves good, traditional Northern Italian standards, and serving sizes are generous.

Frjitz ($ to $$) (Hayes & Octavia): this Belgian beer-and-fries house suffers from painfully sterile atmosphere, having bizarrely chosen to re-do the entire place in melamite and plastic. Still, the Belgian beers and fries are quite good, even if the portion sizes on the salads and crepes are a little small for a hungry diner. Why don't they have mussels like they do in the Mission though?

The Crepe House ($) (Gough & Hayes): If you want more filling, if less exotic, crepes for cheap, this is your place. It's your standard SF creperie, with crepes, sandwiches and salad. The salads are better and have more non-lettuce ingredients than comparable cafes.

Stelline ($$) (Gough & Hayes): Caffe Della Stella's no-reservations no-frills branch, Stelline serves basic pastas and other Italian foods. It's not as good as Della Stella, but has the virtue of including parmesan bread with the meal, allowing you to get by with just an entree if you're into carbo-loading.

Canto Do Brasil ($$ to $$$) (Franklin & Oak): serves largely inauthentic, although still fairly good, Brazillian food. If you order carefully, you can get a filling meal here for $20 a person, but a couple of caipirinhas will put you over your limit. Still, a good option for when Hayes Street restaurants are overcrowded.

Arlequin ($) (Hayes & Gough): this gourmet deli shares space with a wine bar, so you can easily have your BLTA with a glass of wine which costs 3x as much as the sandwich. In warm weather, it has a very pleasant courtyard out back, but on a cold busy night you'll end up on a stool by the window counter.

Boulange ($) (Hayes & Octavia): identical to other branches of the French bakery chain, you can get a sandwich or quiche here in a pinch. However, their menu is limited to those items, and they close early.

Double Decker ($) (Grove & Gough): This burger place seems to have finally made a go of the odd two-story space attached to the Days Inn. The menu is very basic burgers, fries, chips and salad, but well-executed, fast and cheap. And the upstairs seating is quite pleasant, having been overhauled for a Cal Cuisine restaurant which flopped. A good option if everywhere else has long lines.

Places I Haven't Tried: Hayes & Kebab, Mama Toby's Revolution Cafe

Not Recommended: Blue Muse, Flipper's, Taqueria los Estrellas, Paxti Chicago Pizza, Sauce, Laurel's Cuban Restaurant

* Want the best deal in musical performance in San Francisco? Check out San Francisco Performances, which does internationally famous chamber music, jazz, dance, and vocal acts for $30 to $60 per ticket.