Fair Weather Vegan

Does Glen Park Need Another Coffee Emporium?

A new coffee shop called Cup has opened at the very start of Monterey.  Given that we already have three dedicated coffee shops (I actually typed two at first because I forgot about Higher Grounds, which means we have enough coffee shops to have them slip our minds), a grocery store that sell specialty coffees, a diner, and a bakery that sells coffee, all the in space of the three blocks of greater downtown Glen Park,  it seems a bit of an unnecessary addition.  However the upside to the location is when people head down the hill during rush hour it will also be the first thing that they hit, and the more established coffee shops are actually past the BART station and the bus stops, which means commuters coming from that direction have to pass their destinations to get coffee and then double back.  So in that time window it has a certain advantage.  Otherwise, though, there is much less foot traffic on that block than in Glen Park proper, and it's even out of the sightline of the rest of downtown, which is not a good portent.  If it set itself apart by selling coffee that's known in SF for unusual quality, like Blue Bottle, that would be something to hang a hat on.  I will report back.  But I'm only 50-50 about its survival given the challenges at this point. 

Embarcadero!

I knew I'd forgotten a neighborhood in that Food Tour 2011 post. Of course we stopped at the Ferry Building, where the San Francisco Fish Company made an unusual misstep with its fish tacos.  Or at least I found them difficult to eat because of the overlapping taco presentation and somewhat dry in the fish department. Those who have puzzle-solving skills involving spacial manipulation would probably find these tacos a fun challenge to eat.  Then there was another dilemma at Ciao Bella, where my usual habit of getting two flavors so I can try as many as possible was thrown into disarray by the most appetizing flavor of the day being cookie dough.  Nothing goes with cookie dough!  In the end I had it by itself.  It was delicious, but I still had the feeling I was missing out. 

The main piece of advice I can give you from that day, other than you can't go wrong with the SFFC's fried offerings, is not to be in SOMA during rush hour.  Especially when there's been an accident on one of the approaches to 280. I spent a long time convincing my folks that we don't have a traditional rush hour in the city, but this happens to be one of the two neighborhoods where that spectre does exist.  It's no joke. 

BiRite Chocolate Section: A Correction

The gourmet ghetto happens to be on my way to shul.  There's nothing quite like passing Tartine when you're not carrying money.  So this week I ducked into BiRite just to have a second look at the chocolate bar selection, and I was wrong: the average is four to six varieties of the brands they carry.  it's just they tend to choose the varities I don't want, which isn't their fault. Lots of bars involving a very high cacoa content and nibs.  I bet these sell well to hipsters and professional chocolate-tasters, and they've got to move the merchandise after all. 

House Of The Mouth

Maison Bouche, the East Bay Chocolatier, has come tantalizingly close to creating a lavender chocolate bar that works, and by works I mean doesn't remind one ineluctably of soap.  The most impressive thing about its Lavande des Hautes-Alpes et Fleur de Sel bar (and no it is not going to translate for you) is how succesfully the flavor layers hit.  First comes the intense lavender, then a wave of sea salt, then the creamy milk chocolate.  Whole milk powder is used and it really shows.  Unfortunately I don't know that it's possible for lavender in a foodstuff to completely escape the curse of the bath product, and adding extra lavender flavor to the alleged high alps lavender itself doesn't help.  So as usual with these types of bar, only real floral lovers need apply.  The question you are probably asking yourself is 'if you feel this way about lavender, why did you buy the bar?' and a fair question it is.  The fault lies with BiRite, and the way it deals with its space constraints.  BiRite is, of course, tiny. One of the things that suffers is its selection of non-BiRite products.  When it carries a brand it generally only carries a few examples at a time.  Maison Bouche makes a bar with tiny bits of crumbled crepes in it (crepes!) and yet BiRite chooses this variety instead, among the piffling two it carries.  So strange. 

Neighborhood Eating Tour 2011

I was briefly convinced that I should tell you about the giant octopus that might block your way or pick up your car during this tour: he seems fierce but it's really only because he's shy.  Then I realized I must have been dreaming about writing this post.  That was followed by a dream about finding Little Debbie snack cakes at my local Safeway.  I leave it to you to decide which is more improbable. 

Cole Valley- We chose to come to Zazie straight from the airport, on the off change that at lunchtime on a weekday there wouldn't be a line.  Unfortunately nowadays its reputation has gone so far that there's always a line at Zazie.  When we told the fellow in charge that my parents had been up since 4 a.m., however, he gave us a free bowl of fresh fruit to 'keep our blood sugar up' while we waited to be served.  The food was high quality as usual.

Sunnyside- You'd think K's Kitchen would hold no surprises, being my favorite restaurant and all, but I've discovered a new second-place roll here: the Super Dynamite.  It's a bit like a tuna-based version of the Volcano Roll, with tuna and jalapeno in a crispy tempura.  Plus for the first time ever we had a brief wait to get in. This historic moment hopefully means K's will be in business for a long time. Neighborhood standard Gialina has rolled out a superb chard and ricotta salata pizza; try calling for pick-up, it's much quicker. 

Bernal Heights- We went for brunch at Liberty Cafe, having also previously gone for dinner and its famous pot pies, and everything was perfectly fine (once we convinced my father that if he ate everything together he wouldn't even taste that the eggs in his huevos rancheros were over-easy).  But the lunch menu is much more diverse and interesting.  It was at this juncture that I experienced something I hadn't known existed: Benedict satiation point. 

Mission- Specchio's spinach pasta with salmon is still, I'd argue, the best pasta dish in the city.  It may be simple but it never disappoints.  Is it wrong that since we have three people we always grab a table while we're in line at Tartine? I'd been looking forward to Grub's mac and cheese bar, but it turns out that by planning the mac as a base for more interesting ingredients, the dish itself gets neglected.  It's serviceable but lacking in creamy decadence, even if you add truffle oil as I did.  Almost tastes like it's made with two-percent milk, and certainly with very toned-down cheeses.  Grub does serve sweet potato fries of such tastiness that even avowed haters will scarf them down, and the burger bar, with several vegetarian/pescatarian options, is a solid if less interesting alternative to The Counter.  Mission Beach Cafe is getting its own post. 

Noe Valley-Any day you can hit Chloe's and not stand there for an hour is a good day.  It's hard to be blown away a second time, especially given the number of brunches we'd been eating (see: Benedict satiation point), but everything was still tasty, especially my croissant french toast.  The trout sandwich is still the standout item here.  

Castro- It is a rare thing when you have a jones for a particular food item, can go and get it right then, and it's exactly as you imagined it.  I figured my parents wouldn't understand my need for Indian food for breakfast, but after our meal at Chloe's we headed over to the Castro Philz to pick up a few pounds of Tesora for the journey back to Indiana.  That Philz is, quelle surprise, right next to Kasa.  One karahi paneer kati roll later, I was a happy woman. 

Hayes Valley- The stories to be told about my parents' first foray into this neighborhood don't really concern food, but we did happen upon Christopher Elbow and buy some chocolates.  Despite having waited a year+ to try its wares, I was disappointed with my tupelo honey truffle.  Once I accepted it as savory rather than sweet it was interesting, but when I order a honey truffle I want a sweetness explosion, not an academic paper.  My parents really liked theirs, and they also purchased some bars which they selfishly saved until they got home to eat ;)  Apparently these were fantastic, and as specialty bars go they weren't insanely expensive.  I don't know how $7 got to be reasonable, but there you are. 

Russian Hill- The clash between my dietary restrictions and my mother's came to a head on our final evening.  Ethnic food is easiest and most satisfying for me.  She only eats it on sufferance, and loves classy New Americans, especially serving seafood which is hard to come by in the Midwest., If I have to face one more fillet of salmon or trout in some kind of sauce I shall scream.  A brief trip onto the tiny internets reveals Pesce, a relaxed but sophisticated small plate seafood joint where my father can get a dish with duck, my mother can eat scallops or sole to her heart's content, and they have something called tuna bolognese which creatively mimics one of the dishes I miss most in the meat pantheon. 

As my mother was pointing out that we'd visited almost all the neighborhoods in the city, we also noted we'd been to SOMA but not to eat (Asian Art Museum: go even if you think you wouldn't be interested), and even briefly to the Marina, although having been to Hayes Valley already that day our allotment of snotty was already filled.  On the other side of the socio-economic spectrum, my parents also drove through Ingleside one day to get to me.  It's rare we actually get to experience working-class San Francisco these days. 

This morning, I had a dream that I was on the Upper West Side at a sandwich shop that resembled a very frou-four Ike's (and in a gourmet ghetto in which many things from that neighborhood had moved onto the same street).  And I was walking the length of the counter back and forth, back and forth because I couldn't decide what kind of sandwich to get, veggie chicken?  What kind of veggie chicken?  How did I order since I could never find a counter person to pay attention to me?  Maybe I should get a cheesesteak instead, but did they have veggie cheesesteaks?  And then one by one the lights went off and they pulled down the shades and the place was closed around me.  I think this is a sign, but of what I don't know.  

A North-South Partnership

It's no suprise to those of us who live in the home city of Guittard that a swanky SoCal chocolate (pardon me, chocolat) company would be using its products.  Eclipse knows its business.  It knows Guittard produces a smooth confection that gets back to the roots of chocolate as candy and not wine.  That means it serves as an excellent base for creative flavor combinations like the one I tried, 55% dark with peanut butter toffee.  The toffee is salty rather than sweet, so at times this bar tastes like chocolate-covered pretzel, but after awhile a low note of savory peanut butter comes through (though it may not satisfy those who are used to the Reese's flavor).  Eclipse cleverly packages its 3 oz bars as long and thin, so you feel you're getting a bigger amount, but at no time does this chocolate get tiring.  The company also makes cupcakes at its San Diego cafe, as well as some even more fascinating bars I can't wait to try, like salty dulce de leche and gingerbread crumb.  A full-size bar costs six bucks on the website ( I remember it being seven at BiRite, but I may be maligning them unfairly) or the minis are 3 (2.50 locally). 

Really, Red Rock?

I begrudge no expense when it means seeing a friend, and it was my own choice to go with a medium drink since it was hotter than Satan's undershorts on the Peninsula yesterday (mid-nineties by some accounts).  But if you're selling smoothies and they cost $4.25, that should tell you something about your coffee and tea-based prices, i.e. they shouldn't be the same amount.  4 and change for an iced chai?  You're driving people into the arms of Starbucks. 

Pro-Union, Anti-Bad Development

By the time I'd gotten to the end of that Civic Center piece, I was so incensed about the Parkmerced issue that I'd forgotten the qualms I had at the beginning.  I didn't love the tone it took about unions.  Especially in this time of continued high unemployment, creating working-class jobs with good pay and benefits is no joke.  I don't think, though, that most rank-and-file union members have no other values, and would 'pave the Golden Gate bridge' for a union wage (also intimating that union wages are a bad thing, rather than something that every worker deserves).  There are some in union leadership that have gotten corrupt, and it's not positive to see white men setting themselves against old people of color in terms of supporting this project.  Union-bashing itself isn't the answer. 

Attention, SF District Seven Residents

There is serious sketchiness going on with regard to the redevelopment of Parkmerced by some of the most corrupt individuals and corporations going.  As much as those of us in the northern part of the district want to remain ignorant, Parkmerced is also in our district, so naturally our shill of a supervisor is right in the middle of this plan.  And now with David Chiu as head of the BOS, there's no stopping any giveaways to businesses.  Please get involved. 

20 Under 10

7x7 recently published an item called The 20 Best Dishes Under $10 in the Mission.  Too many of these dishes contain meat, although I suspose that's part of the selling point.  Meat at these prices really is a steal.  What is not a steal for people with actual budgetary constraints is one dish that approaches ten dollars, even if it is a sandwich from Pal's.  But 7x7 does do a good job selling many of the dishes as money-savers. 

To their credit, they include four vegan dishes: Idli vada sambar from Udupdi Palace (whose Peninsula location I wasn't thrilled with; I hear this one is better), cold sesame noodles from Mission Chinese Food (which seems expensive at $8 but the magazine assures us they are special and the ingredients are unique), Senroppen Salad at Cha-ya (if I had ten bucks for lunch I wouldn't spend it on radishes), and Gracias Madre's famous vegan pozole.  There are several other vegetarian and pescatrian options as well, none of which I have tried yet.  The one I'm intrigued by and wary of is the salmon Benedict at Valencia Pizza and Pasta, because who ever heard of a pizza place that serves brunch, let alone something that has hollandaise sauce, and it only costs $6.95.  I've had salmon Benedicts all over this fine city and the South Bay, and they're never less than ten bucks.  Lox is expensive.  Oh and 7 squared...cheese quesadillas?  Like ATM machine?  I know you want to tell us to get the vegetarian versions are the cheapest, but....