San Francisco Food Blog

Hoodscope

Are you eating your colors?

​Our favorite morsel from the blogs.

Licked: New Hoodscope blogger Anne serves up a triple scoop of Mitchell's, the circa-1953 ice cream joint that, really, should be granted civic landmark status. Anne even whips out her calculator to come up with a figure we won't argue with: "The U.S. enjoys an average of 48 pints of ice cream per person, per year," she blogs, "more than any other country. That's over 30 million pints consumed in San Francisco alone!" Check out Anne's tribute here; then check out SF Weekly food critic Jonathan Kauffman's ode to Mitchell's langka (jackfruit), number 75 on SFoodie's list-in-progress of our 92 favorite local eats.

T. Palmer

Worth the hot mess.

​We ducked into Genki Ramen (3944 Geary at Fourth Ave.) on a recent rainy day, lured in by what looked like a snappy, grand opening-type sign out front. Turns out it's been open for five years and serves standout, fresh-tasting ramen. We're so used to getting ripped off when ordering items with crab in them -- either you get a paltry amount, or you get a ton of fake, thready krab instead -- that we were astonished when the crab leg ramen ($11.50 lunch, $12.50 dinner) arrived at the table with huge pieces of fried, meaty Dungeness hogging up the bowl (more than is evident by the photographic evidence). It probably takes some practice to learn the art of plucking out bits of limb out of the broth to remove the shells --  definitely a hot mess that'll have you constantly licking your fingers -- but we're more than willing to put in the time to master the craft.

J. Birdsall

Butter you grok in your sinuses.

​As a daily windup to the Weekly's Best of S.F. 2010 on May 19, we've teased out 92 of our favorite local dishes that taste like here. All the tasty details after the jump.

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SF Beer Week isn't just about celebrating the breadth of beers made and drunk locally, but the community that supports them. Their greatest cheerleader was journalist Bill Brand, who for 15 years until his death in 2009, wrote the "What's On Tap?" column in the Oakland Tribune.

Nick Lammers/Oakland Tribune

The late Bill Brand.

​(Adding insult to injury, Brand died as a result of an accident suffered during the inaugural SFBW.) Out of gratitude and friendship, many local artisans have brewed tribute beers, including Valley, Black Diamond, Triple Rock, and Ale Industries. Wednesday's tribute in Oakland is a chance to celebrate a true champion of craft brews while experiencing beer camaraderie.

Complete Wednesday event details on the other side of the jump.

C. Alburger

Only the predictably spare, wood-clad decor plays it safe.

​Jeff Segal named his Mission wine bar after the throbbing muscle, not the cloying shape that's everywhere this week, a signal he wants Heart to be the kind of essential organ that keeps San Francisco ticking.

The wood and concrete loft with requisite exposed bulbs and communal table might play it safe décor-wise, but with his wine program, Segal takes risks. "This is not a safe wine bar," he insists. Heart's wines are, in his words, visceral and raw, made with passion by small makers. What's more, Segal boldly strips the wine experience of its fancy accessories, serving wine in Mason jars unless drinkers request otherwise. The gesture has already met with protest. Yet a crowd sporting an exhausting array of Vans while looking at angular, amateur nude portraits makes way more sense with jars than with crystal stemware, doesn't it? And as Segal points out, winemakers and Europeans have been drinking grapes out of kitchen glasses forever. The Mason jar is merely his down-home American take.

The Hawaiian burrito: Just as lumpy-looking as the original.

​There's a special place in the firmament for restaurants that do side-by-side cuisine: Not Chinese doughnuts, say, but Chinese Food and Donuts; not Burmese curry turkey sandwiches, but Burmese Kitchen and Larkin Deli. In the early part of this decade, there was a German-Mexican restaurant in Contra Costa County with side-by-side menus cooked by a husband-wife team, but it proved too short-lived to try out.

Which is why the brakes screamed carpe diem! when a sign reading "Hawaiian-Mexican food" was spotted hanging in the window of Taqueria El Sol (warning: turn your speakers down before you click), located on the corner of 19th Ave. and Taraval. For better and worse, it's a taqueria, with a separate Hawaiian plate-lunch menu, that also serves all-American breakfasts late into the night (4 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays). There is only one area of the menu where the three cultures meet, and fittingly, it is the burrito.
 

Shirley M./Yelp

The patio at Miss Pearl's.

​Right after Sunday's game ended, our friend, a New Orleans native, slumped up against a wall, eyes closed, smiling tightly. "Is he gonna cry?" whispered someone at the party. The crawfish were really good ― salty, peppery, and sweet ― but not quite delicious enough to warrant a muddy Mississippi of tears. Our friend opened his eyes. "Do you realize that no one in New Orleans is going to work this week?" he said, laughing. "We just won the Super Bowl. Mardi Gras is next weekend. The party won't end. I'm flying there tomorrow, and I can't wait."

Michael Berch/Flickr

​If you want to tuck into a farm-to-table lunch cooked by students from the California Culinary Academy, prepare to face the kind of crowds you have to battle on a typical weekend night at Nopa. Thursday's collaboration by CUESA and the CCA is fully booked ― both lunch and dinner ― but organizers tell us they are leaving tables open for walk-ins at both meals. The meals at campus restaurant Carême 350 are being prepared by graduating CCA students with CUESA-sourced farm ingredients. Into planning ahead? The next CCA-CUESA mashup happens March 24. Thursday event details after the jump.

InfodivaMLIS B./Yelp

The custom winemaker is gettin' the hell out of Dogpatch.

​S.F. wine writer W. Blake Gray dropped the news on his blog yesterday that DIY winemaking company Crushpad is leaving its facility in Dogpatch (2573 Third St. at 22nd St.) for more idyllic surroundings in the Napa Valley. In The Gray Market Report, Gray reports that the custom winemaking company has its sights on the Silverado Trail Wine Studio in Napa's Oak Knoll District.

Crushpad CEO Michael Brill fleshed out further details via e-mail, calling the move an "opportunity of a lifetime." The Silverado Trail facility is owned by Premier Pacific Vineyards and is surrounded by 25 acres of vineyards. Each company will have its own entrance, and Crushpad is keen to use the new winery's larger tanks. "Throughout February, we'll be doing some minor upgrades such as paint," Brill writes, "landscaping and, of course, a new Crushpad sign. We should be up and running the first week in March." Crushpad Napa will have a tasting room, and be open seven days a week; viticulture, cork, and barrel sessions will also be part of the new space. More details are spelled out on the FAQ page on Crushpad's site.

Hopefully you'll still be able to eat sushi after seeing this.

​This Google ad popped up during a random session of surfing local food blogs. It has managed the nearly impossible feat of putting us off of sushi for a minute, while evoking scenes from numerous bad horror movies from the '80s. And it makes us realize we'd actually be willing to pay more for food that's not quite that fresh.