Check into Brisbane – it’s wedged in between the north side of San Bruno Mountain and SF proper; has kind of a small-town feel but with big city convenience.
Otherwise, another vote for Pacifica.
As much as Oakland does have its redeeming features, I can’t imagine that a commute from Oakland to Foster City would be any fun at all, except maybe by sailboat.
And we’re glad you found another option instead of trying to commute up here to Sacramento!
I’ll throw in another recommendation for Alameda. Safe, pretty, reasonable amenities, quiet and very central. Can catch both buses and ferrys that will take you directly to downtown SF. Just never drive faster than 25 within city limits - it’s speed trap city.
Albany, El Cerrito ( the parts closer to Albany ), Berkeley (parts ) and Oakland ( parts ) all work as well, but I’d check Alameda first.
ETA: Foster City, eh? Yeah, Brisbane might be worth a look.
I would second this.
Pacifica also can be a nice place depending on what is important to you. My own view is that it is pretty isolated, the traffic can be horrible as there are few alternative routes, and the weather is often lousy. It is like having all the downsides of San Francisco without the charm of the city. Unless you are really into cold misty weather, ocean breezes and isolation, I would live on the other side of the mountains.
If I were young and working in SOMA, the first place I would be looking to live would be in the SF Mission District. In the olden days (like when I was growing up not too far from there), it was thought to be a hippy, “colorful” place to live, where the rents were (comparatively) cheap.
Nowadays, the Mission is one of the most exciting and interesting places to be in all of SF - and the rents haven’t skyrocketed as much as other parts of the City. It has some of the best new restaurants (Delfina, Andalu), great bars and clubs, and is easy to get to anywhere else by bus or BART.
For the person working in Foster City, there are great “reverse commute” buses that go from SF down the Peninsula to San Mateo and points south (including Foster City). They have wifi, bathrooms, food & drinks available, tables to work on, etc. (I think Bauer is the name of the company running the buses.)
If you really don’t want to live in the City, I would also vote for Alameda, and (very carefully selected parts of) Oakland.
For the record, I was born in San Francisco, and have lived somewhere in the Bay Area for 44 of my 59 years. Currently live in Millbrae (think SF Airport) - nice city, but expensive, without really of the cultural advantages of living in the City. (True for most of the Peninsula, until you get down to the San Jose area.)
ETA - Stay away from Daly City. It has recently had a lot of crime. Pacifica is nice, but cold, wet, and very vanilla.
Lived in Alameda for the best two years of my life. I was heartbroken when we left, and I’d live there again in a heartbeat.
The ferry access to the City is great, but the commute to Foster City might be tough.
How much you want to pay is the deciding factor. For work in Foster City and SOMA, best bet to save money would be Hayward or San Leandro. Not a lot happening in those parts, but they are close enough to all the places you would want to go.
If you can afford it the Milbrae/Burlingame/Hillsborough area is great. Kinda have to be rich.
Personally, I’d stay away from Oakland since crime wise it tends to suck and is quite a drive to Foster City. Parts of Alameda would be even farther and I’d say not commutable to Foster City for any length of time.
If you like it foggy and cold.
If you have lots of money, and don’t mind paying $5 or $6 every day for a bridge toll (and guaranteed to keep going up).
If one of you is working is SF and one in Foster City, then geographically you would want to be somewhere in between the two, on the Peninsula. But finding cool and affordable in that area is a pretty tall order. Mostly it’s just suburban sprawl.
I very much like Brisbane, it has the cool factor, but I think it’s pretty pricy. It’s also isolated except by car, and the commute from there to Foster City would probably not be fun.
I think South San Francisco would be ok, you can find condos there that are pretty reasonable. But probably not so cool, if that means hip and happening and all that sort of thing.
Roddy
So I took a peak on a visit to California last week and definitely loved Pacifica, Belmont, and Woodside-though I wonder about the cost hehe.
Alameda, San Mateo, and a few others were also great. Alameda looks like it’s just a ferry away from SOMA which works for me.
Thank you for all of the suggestions 
So that was what had changed in the skyline this morning. You bring that mountain right back here!
haha…oops
Hums Zappa’s “Billy the Mountain”.
Beware of the fog in Pacifica, that’s all I can say. When you visit a part of the Bay Area be sure to visit at different times of the day. The weather can be that variable. A key consideration is the commute, not only the time, but the expense and the schedule of public transit. If you work near downtown SF, you really don’t want to drive if you can avoid it. Public transportation is fine in SF, but you have to know how the schedules of the buses, ferries or trains fit with your job hours. And nothing’s cheap. Fares are going up all the time because the state and counties have big budget problems. Frankly, if you work in the City, if you can find a way to swing it, it’s worth it to live in the City. The commute is easier and there are wonderful neighborhoods with great diversity in people and culture.
Foster City is right on 92, minus the “the”. You don’t want to sound like a SouthLander.
I work in Foster City (huh…you’ll probably wind up in the empty cubicle near me. :)) and live in Fremont. I’ve lived in Fremont, Oakland, and Mill Valley – the commute from Mill Valley (Marin County) to SF is quite manageable, but it’s pretty pricey. I would join the groundswell of support for Oakland.
Colma looks like a nice, quiet place…is it a good place to live?
A joke, right? Since Colma is the City of the Dead?
And the punch line:“Everybody living in Colma is dead!”
Oakland is not a good place for a newcomer to live, as it has some very bad areas, and you won’t know where they are.
Another suggestion is downtown San Jose, within walking distance of the CalTrain station. CalTrain is hwaaaaaay better than BART. Or any other stop along CalTrain where a “Baby Bullet” makes stops. Mtn View, maybe.
It’s not really true. Both SoCal and NorCal say “the 101”, it just that the SoCal dudes say THEE 101, whereas we say “thuh 101”. And they always say it, whereas sometimes we don’t.
One possible solution that might work for you.
If you choose to live in the East Bay, is for you to drive and pick up a third for casual carpool. Then your other half drops you and your passenger du jour in the City, and continues to their destination.
Prince Charming and I use a similar system and it works pretty well.
And the comment about weather is spot on. We have many microclimates in the region and even within the City. If you were in the SFBA in the last week you saw some very nice weather. Unfortunately, it is not like that all the time. Please don’t be like one of those tourists who thinks all of California is all Baywatch weather, all the time. Although we have palm trees and it is frequently sunny, it is not as frequently warm. Coastal cities including SF get a lot of late afternoon fog. SF merchants make a lot of money selling sweatshirts and windbreakers to shivering tourists in shorts and t-shirts.
You must be a spy from Ell Ay. I am a devotee of traffic reports on several radio stations, and none ever say “the” anything. I think Mr. Roadshow had a column stomping on people using that awful construction.