San Francisco Food Blog

Missy Buchanan

​Spotted this afternoon at King of Falafel (1801 Divisadero at Bush): Holes for sale! Or something.

Admittedly, the idea of an independent produce pimp is kind of alluring. Can he get strange and exotic offerings? Is there a black market for veggies? Do you have to meet him in some dark alley to make the exchange?

Anyway, when you do call Muneer to get your spring or summer fruits  -- he did say he sells "produce of all seasons," after all -- you might want to tell him that he lost his dub somewhere along the way.

T. Palmer

Nobody beats our crabs.

​Hey, like we told you earlier, we want you to enjoy Dungeness season. Just don't forget who your Daddy is, okay?

M. Ladd

The condiment station at La Boulange could make a Converse low-top palatable.

​So civilized, so French, so tasty. We've always been amazed at the lavish spread of savory and sweet condiments La Boulange lays out in French glass canning jars: Nutella, a mix of meaty olives, cornichons, jam, honey, mustard. The condiment bar is available to all customers -- show up with anything from a pressed sandwich to a pastry, and you can smear it with whatever's essential for keeping palate fatigue at bay. On Monday morning, Noe Valley residents should be able to construct their own Nutella-slathered creation when the newest, purplest Boulange is slated to open at 3894 24th St. (at Sanchez).

M. Ladd

Salty-sweet and sexy.

​La Espiga de Oro's cheery Mission storefront stays busy with a steady stream of to-go customers getting their fix of chicharrones, Sinaloan tamales, handmade tortillas, pupusas, and lard, but it's the taste of freshly made chicharrones -- with meat attached to the skin -- is unforgettable. Order the chicharrones at Espiga's counter. After snacking on them recently, this blogger spent days remembering the salty-sweet, alternately crisp and deliciously soft pork treat. They're melty, even sexy, literally oozing off the lips -- our dining companion was clearly delighted to indulge in the fatty, slightly messy drippings.

It's possible to go whole hog here and have the meat and skin chopped up into a burrito ($4.95 regular, $5.95 super), or keep it simple, devouring the chicharrones as a rich snack. Bottles of Valentina hot sauce grace the table, or you can try a spicier tomato salsa kept in plastic bottles in the self-serve refrigerator.

La Espiga de Oro 2916 24th St. (at Florida), 826-1363

J. Birdsall

A fusion of atole and tamal.

​Dish: Tamal Dulce de Calabaza y Nuez ($5)

Source: Nopalito, 306 Broderick (at Oak), 437-0303

Breakdown: A silken single tamal, made from house-made masa, enriched -- like all of Nopalito's vegetarian tamales -- not with lard, but butter, and, in this case, kabocha squash. The filling is butternut squash. The tamal is scattered with bits of pecan, plumped currants, and more squash, with a sauce that's an adaptation of atole, the masa-thickened drink that's a breakfast standby in Mexico. Here, the sauce contains ground pecans, piloncillo, and cinnamon. A collaboration by co-chefs Jose Ramos and Gonzalo Guzman, the tamal showed up on Nopalitos' menu last weekend, and will stay there at least through November. Starting today, the kitchen is putting currants in the butternut squash filling, too.
Note: Our pic omits the crema, which is normally squeeze-bottled over the tamal in a crisscross (we ordered it on the side). By the way, Nopalito approximates its own crema (a cultured cream, like crème fraîche) with a mixture of Greek yogurt, lime juice, and salt.

Backstory: "The dulce tamal is popular in regions all over Mexico, but mainly from the north. This is typical of something served around Christmas, a sweet tamal served with atole as a beverage. It's kind of a play on a holiday breakfast, only we made it more lunch-friendly. " --Allyson Jossel, Nopalito manager and co-owner

J. Birdsall

​Dish: Shredded pork shoulder, served with Vietnamese pork quiche with duck egg (chá truong vit) ($12)
Source: Out the Door, 2232 Bush (at Fillmore)
Breakdown: This is two dishes in one: a tangle of cold pork and pork skin sanded with toasted rice powder, served with a wedge of cold pork cake (the "quiche," in menuspeak), a mass of even more pork gilded with bright-yellow duck egg yolk. You eat both with mouthfuls of rice, dipped into nuoc cham.
Backstory: "In Vietnam, that's a classic pork rind dish, a classic street food dish in the south. In the south they have this thing with broken rice, pork mixed with roasted rice powder. It's like eating sand. Actually, calling the chá truong vit 'quiche' is kind of a misnomer. The Vietnamese call it cake, noodle cake. It has mung bean noodles, mushrooms, an egg binding, and the yolk on top to give it that bright yellow color." --Charles Phan, Out the Door owner and executive chef

T. Palmer

​The business of San Francisco's Ma-adi Foods is built off of one main product called munga (moon-gah) flour, which it sells in one-pound bags on its Web site. The high-protein, fiber-rich, and gluten-free blend of brown rice and nuts (they use peanuts or almonds) is a recipe adapted from the Saramacan tribe of Suriname, who live in the South American rainforest.

We tried Ma-adi's peanut munga cookies ($1.19 at Other Avenues, 3930 Judah at 45th Ave.) and loved the ginger snap-esque texture and subtle flavors of peanut and cinnamon. Ma-adi has the basic recipe on their site; they were so good out of the bag that they must be fairly phenomenal straight out of your oven.

T. Palmer

​Benkyodo (1747 Buchanan Mall at Sutter) is a serious old-school San Francisco institution. The confectioner survived both the 1906 earthquake and the 1942 Japanese internment (though the latter did admittedly force a nine-year closure). Today, Benkyodo is still run by the founding Okamura family and still serves traditional sweets like manju (pastries made of flour, buckwheat, rice powder, and bean paste) and mochi (chewy rice flour balls with various fillings)

The mochi are magically delicious -- and beyond a bargain at a buck each ($1.10 for fresh strawberry, well worth the extra dime). What's most exciting is that Benkyodo isn't resting on its laurels and has introduced a new and decidedly modern flavor in its chocolate marshmallow mochi, which actually contains a fluffy surprise inside the rich cocoa-flavored casing.

T. Palmer

A taste of New Mexico by the Bay.

​Satisfy your jones for the food of New Mexico at Green Chile Kitchen (601 Baker at Fulton). There, every day is Christmas (the name for the combo of the restaurant's red and green chile sauces).

It's advisable to go with an empty stomach. You'll need a big appetite to devour the large menu's salads, burritos, nachos, and platters. When we're less hungry, we find simple pleasure in bowls of green chile mashed potatoes with cheese and calabacitas ($3.95 each). The latter -- a zucchini, yellow squash, corn, and green chile medley -- is credited to the Pueblo Indians and is a staple of the New Mexican diet.

T. Palmer

Churchkhela unleashed.

​Churchkhela is a confection native to Tbilisi, the largest city in the post-Soviet state of Georgia. A string of walnut halves that have been dipped in a grape juice concentrate and hung to dry, churchkhela looks like a sausage (if you're hungry) or a candle (if you're not).

Yank the string to unleash the nutmeat; it's fun. The dried juice takes on an almost fruit leather-esque consistency, with only a muted sugar taste. One, erm, sausage candle could easily power an after-dinner nibble for four or five people. It'll make you appear well-traveled, too -- even if it's just to the Richmond District. Try it for $4 at the Moscow & Tbilisi Bakery Store (5540 Geary at 19th Ave.).

Jen SFO-BCN/Flickr

The eponymous dish: The pork is simultaneously crisp and chewy.

​If you've slept on Poc-Chuc, the pretty Mayan joint on 16th Street, now is as good a time as any to wake up. Three square meals a day aren't always enough to keep an active San Francisco going. If you eat here, one is all you'll need. The almost two-year-old restaurant's namesake is the first dish you should order, an inviting platter of thin-sliced pork, simultaneously crispy and chewy, draped around a mound of lightly dressed cabbage and a steaming expanse of buttery rice ($12 at lunch, $14 at dinner). Drop spoonfuls of smooth, rich black beans on the pork and scoop with the fresh corn tortillas. The appetizers are phenomenal, especially the panuchos (slightly crunchy tortillas layered with shredded turkey, black beans, avocado, and pickled onions), flaky empanadas, and tostadas. A bonus, in the event you're dining alone, or with someone you don't want to talk to: Sweet Mexican cowboy flicks sometimes play on the nice big flatscreen positioned above the doorway.

Poc-Chuc 2886 16th St. (at S. Van Ness), 558-1583

Can you handle another bacon dessert?

​"We inhabit a subculture peculiarly steeped in pork fat," blogged SFoodie editor John Birdsall earlier this afternoon, speaking of the porcine pleasures available in the Ferry Building. To that we humbly add the bacon peanut butter brownie, available on select Thursdays (when there's a street food-focused Farmers Market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) at star butcher Ryan Farr's 4505 Meats stall.

Bacon sweets may have jumped the shark a long time ago, but this is certainly more sophisticated than most of the mass-marketed products out there that we've tried. Served in a small cup, it's not an exaggeration to say that this brownie almost tastes more like a savory appetizer than a dessert simply because that thick, meaty slab on top (pasted on by rich, creamy peanut butter) dominates the other flavors. If you don't pick it off and eat it first, that is.

mightyohm/Flickr

The artery-crushing Belfast Bap.

​The Belfast Bap may sound like a long-lost sequence of Michael Flatley-meets-Gene Vincent dance steps popularized by a no-hit-wonder Irish rock-and-roll band in the early 1960s, but, in fact, it's breakfast -- a big, artery-crushing one, to be frank: Irish bacon, Irish sausage, scrambled eggs, and cheddar cheese folded into a fluffy roll the size of a boulder. You can get a $6 bap to-go at John Campbell's Irish Bakery (5625 Geary at 21st Ave.), or you can pop next door and have one at the 'Stone.

The Blarney Stone hosts one of the Richmond District's best soccer-watching scenes. Come in the evening and enjoy a mellow pint as jersey-clad football fans slap each other's backs, suck down cigs on the back patio, and frequently bellow at the televisions hoisted above the bar. You'll soon find it's an even better place to get roaring drunk, slumping in the corner, staggering out at closing time to face the salty needles of moisture swirling through the neighborhood's empty, shrouded streets. Thankfully, you can stagger back in eight hours for a full-blown Irish breakfast, or, perhaps, just a little bap to soothe the strife your excesses have wrought.

Chances are, before you're through with your meal, a game will come on the television. You'll watch it for a few minutes and, before too long, you'll want a pint to go with it, a little something to enjoy as you watch the game and finish chewing your delicious bap. One pint will lead to another and another. More games will come on, but you'll pay them no mind as pints tumble down your gullet. Soon, you're slumped in the corner. Closing time arrives, and you're cast out on to the misty sidewalk, tired, and maybe a little hungry. You don't feel so great. Chances are, when you wake up, you'll want to come back and have another bap, so you can feel better.

The Blarney Stone (courtesy of John Campbell's Irish Bakery) 5625 Geary (at 20th Ave.), 386-9144
Brunch is served 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Sat.-Sun.

Gary Soup/Flickr

Sheng jian bao: Worthy of coronation.

Old episodes of Check, Please! Bay Area aren't always the best barometer of local restaurant excellence, but in the case of Shanghai Dumpling King, one came through like the Earl of Warwick. Local Filipino-American writer and St. Mary's College English professor Lysley Tenorio, the 2008 recipient of a Whiting Award, appeared on the show back in March, and effectively made his case for the eatery's xiao long bao, or soup dumplings. 

"This restaurant is indeed the king of dumplings, and we are its royal (and loyal) subjects," he wrote in his review. "You pick up the dumpling with a spoon, give it a quick dip into a bit of soy sauce and vinegar, and bite. Since we'd celebrated Christmas the week before, the soup dumplings were the perfect present to open on Christmas night. The slippery floury pouch and the tender bit of pork inside mix perfectly with the hot and just-salty-enough soup.... It was the gift that kept on giving."

A few recent visits bore out his observation, and unearthed a host of other delectables worthy of coronation. The hung zhou ($8.95), tidy steamed purses of crab and pork, hinge on the universally compelling union of rich swine and sweet, mild Dungeness flakes, a tidy, perfect surf-and-turf in miniature. The pan-fried chives and meat pastries ($4.65) are pale, puck-sized discs, crispy-brown on either side, the dough thick and wonderfully oily, like a good scallion pancake. No spurts of molten, slightly sweet soup slosh around the interior, just ground meat and snips of fresh green.

Some might balk at the distracted service and the inconsistent prices. As Tenorio pointed out, courses do not always arrive in logical sequence. Likewise, the puffy golden globes of egg and air circulating the dining room throughout the night may be gratis or an added expense -- depending, presumably, on the manager's temperament. You should grab a few regardless. They're even good with jam the next day.

Continue reading " In the Court of the"...

Tags: restaurant reviews

Meredith Brody

Hunters' special: duck livers alla veneziana.

 Da Flora (701 Columbus at Filbert) has one of the coziest, most charming dining rooms in the city: deep-red walls with interesting art, big windows topped with old ship models, lighting from a Murano glass chandelier and hanging Fortuny lanterns. It's a fantasy of a Venetian ostaria.

Owner Flora Gaspar and executive chef Jen McMahon have perfected two must-order dishes that are just as charming: sweet potato gnocchi in sherry cream with bacon ($12.50) and duck livers alla veneziana ($24), described on the menu as "seared till rosy with onions, sage, and pancetta, over crisp polenta."

Meredith Brody

The gnocchi: Fat, bacon-kissed pillows.

 Both are fantasies on classic Venetian dishes. "The sweet potatoes are a substitute for zucca, Italian pumpkin, much more dense than American pumpkin, which is too watery," Gaspar told us. "In the fall, in Venice, they sell patate Americana, pale yellow yams, which gave me the idea. And in Venice, of course, they make fegato alla veneziana with veal liver. But there are paintings where you see gentlemen hunting ducks in the lagoon, in the marshy part, with bows and arrows -- there's one example in the top panel of a Carpaccio painting. And so of course they must have eaten the livers!"

The gnocchi are fat little pillows that absorb a touch of bacon-infused cream. The duck livers are suave, slightly gamey, cloaked in sweet onions, their yielding texture nicely contrasted by the crisp edges of the polenta and bits of smoky pancetta. If only pictures did them justice.

Achtung, baby: Hasenpfeffer and spiced cabbage.

Mission neo-German würst hall Schmidt's (2400 Folsom at 20th St.) started serving dinner last night, a result of landing its wine and beer license. The expanded menu showed off more of chef Matt Shapiro's range. By 7 p.m. the place was roughly two-thirds full, a mark of just how many followers the place has corralled since opening two months ago.

We seriously hearted the braised, red-wine-marinated hasenpfeffer (leg and saddle of rabbit, $15) with juniper-spiked red cabbage, pan gravy, and shingles of coarse rye. "I told Matt the cabbage is almost as good as my grandmother's," co-owner Christiana Schmidt told SFoodie. "And that's saying a lot."

The Google award at Humphry Slocombe.

On Wednesday, SFoodie's Meredith Brody reported on Google mapping out Alice Waters' favorite places in the Bay Area. That same day, the tech company dropped off exclamation point-looking statues in front of the chosen places of Waters as well as the selections from the other San Francisco cartographers: Mayor Gavin Newsom, Michael Mina, Stanlee Gatti, Gary Danko, Elizabeth Varnell, Nate Valentine, Grant Washburn, Greg Farrington, Kevin Rose, Nate Query, Laura Morton, and Tiffany Shlain.

Mission Mission reports this morning that these heavy statues haven't been immune to vandalism: The award placed in front of the St. Francis Fountain (2801 24th St. at York) has been tagged with graffiti.

A recipient of Best Weekend Restaurant in SF Weekly's annual Best Of issue, Cajun Pacific (4542 Irving at 47th Ave.) is a sweet little taste of Louisiana in the decidedly non-N'Ahhlins avenues of the Sunset.

While the menu changes from week to week, the fried green tomatoes with remoulade ($8/$12 with grilled shrimp) is likely to star throughout the summer while tomatoes are around; the ever-lovely host Stacey is hand-picking them herself for maximum flavor. The appetizer joins other CP staples like gumbo, Creole crawfish and pasta, and po' boys as well as playful one-off ideas. 

The restaurant will be open most Thursdays through Sundays through the summer, but will be closed on the weekend of July 30. Reservations aren't required for this teeny tiny place, but they're an awfully good idea unless you want your flaggin' fanny to wait in whipping wind.

Meredith Brody

The corned beef and cabbage: Impeccable.

What are the chances that a venerable institution is forced to vacate its beautifully preserved location of 50 years, only to find another historic venue right next door? Last October, family-owned Brennan's -- Berkeley's beloved cafeteria and hof brau -- moved across the parking lot to the Southern Pacific railroad building, built in 1913 as the city's main train station.

Hof braus once peppered the Bay Area, but most have disappeared, and survivors such as S.F.'s Tommy's Joynt (1101 Geary at Van Ness) are shadows of what they once were. Nostalgia isn't enough: We want really good food!

On a recent visit to the new Brennan's, we missed the carefully waxed wood paneling and Chinese chefs of the old place. But we loved the impeccable corned beef and cabbage, served with boiled new potatoes ($13.25), and a hearty open-faced sandwich of brisket with homemade mashed potatoes and gravy ($9.15). And roasted turkey wings ($8.95), necks ($8.75), and legs ($8.95) were so good, they just about trumped nostalgia.

Brennan's 700 University (at Third), Berkeley; (510) 841-0960

Janine Kahn

Pastries from Arlequin Cafe: Huckleberry scone (left), rhubarb-ginger scone (center), and filled beignets

When a chef jumps from one upscale eatery to another, it's usually good news for, well, upscale eaters. But when high-style pastry chef Luis Villavelazquez left Orson for Absinthe in April, the move came with a bonus for lovers of the humble jelly doughnut. Turns out Villavelazquez is also in charge of the breakfast pastries at Arlequin Café (384 Hayes at Gough), Absinthe's casual spinoff next door. As a result, Arlequin's breakfast pastries are now some of the best in the city. No, Villavelazquez hasn't gone all deconstructed on the blueberry muffin -- the morning goods at Arlequin are accessible even before the coffee's kicked in. They're simple, buttery, and well made, with straightforward flavors you don't have to struggle to understand. Huckleberry scones ($2.75) have a nicely shaggy crumb and a plenty of musky berry flavor. Rhubarb-ginger scones ($2.75) are subtly electric with spice. But it's the filled beignets ($2 each) that are enough to make us take a long morning detour on Muni just to gorge on. The raspberry jam filling is tangy and a tad bracing, while pillowy, vanilla-scented custard is capable of soothing even the ride downtown in a packed and lurching J car.

m.bibelot via Flickr

Doughnuts from Dynamo: The maple-bacon is in the top row, center

There may be no American food more enduring than the doughnut. Food snobs, vegans, cops -- who doesn't love a crusty sinker or a fat glazed dunker? In honor of National Doughnut Day, we thought we'd offer our guide (listed in no particular order) to the city's five best. Grab an extra napkin -- this could get messy.

1. Raspberry bombolino ($2 for the small size, $2.50 for large) at I Preferiti di Boriana in the Ferry Building (One Ferry Bldg. at The Embarcadero). Maybe the ultimate jelly doughnut, made each morning by an Italian bakery in the FiDi. The flour and jam filling come from Italy, and they're baked before given a quick fry and a dusting with sugar. Other fillings: Nutella, custard, and dark chocolate. Bellisimo!

2. Vegan blueberry ($2.50 at various cafés in the city) from Peoples Donuts. Inspired by Portland vegan pioneer Voodoo, this Berkeley-based company churns out sturdy, dairy-free sinkers in a rainbow of flavors. One taste of the blueberry and you'll swear off muffins. A favorite guilty pleasure: Dunk it in cow's milk.

aloveletteraway via Flickr

The essence of Cali

As for the pizza wars of the Bay Area, our attitude is, Flame on! Let us just go on record as saying that the apotheosis of all that is great about California's big, sloppy love affair with Italian and Mexican cuisines is evident in the corn, cilantro, cotija, and lime pizza at the Cheeseboard Pizza Collective (1512 Shattuck at Vine, Berkeley). Delfina may try, Pauline's may try, Little Star may try, but nothing beats sitting on the grassy median in the Gourmet Ghetto on a hot day, biting into that first taste of fresh lime and tangy cotija and feeling it mingle with the exhaust of the cars going by. (Oh, Berkeley -- so pompously polarfleecy and environmental, so automotive!) Days when it's served merit a pilgrimage (interested parties should familiarize themselves with the Cheeseboard's schedule), with a stop at Comic Relief along the way to load up on Love and Rockets anthologies -- for those of you who like a little California on top of your California. Add one of the Cheeseboard's vaguely '70s-ish hippie salads, and you've got even more California on the side.

sneedy via Flickr

Victoria Pastry: Perfect for a brioche pit stop

One of the best ways to appreciate San Francisco is to cross it on foot, coast to coast, an ideal weekend activity. Of course an undertaking like this demands plenty of tasty vitamins and minerals, which are available in abundance no matter what trail you happen to take.

Last week we took the northern route from the Embarcadero to the Cliff House via Pacific Heights and the Richmond, and decided to kick things off with wonderfully chewy, savory asiago rolls from the Acme bakery in the Ferry Building.

By the time we got to North Beach it was time for a light-as-air brioche from Victoria Pastry (you can't have too many carbs on an outing like this), and after crossing Russian Hill at its most vertiginous we really needed a cup of joe from Peet's at Larkin and Vallejo.

Zipfly via Flickr

This is how you tell if you have the right out-of-town guest as opposed to the wrong out-of-town guest: "There is a place," you say, "where they have deep-fried pickles. Would you like to go?" This can also be used as a gauge of a) who gets to be the father/mother of your child; b) who is worthy to receive your kidney for transplant; and c) who can marry into your family. If they respond with childlike wonder and a sense of adventure, they're in.

So when you take them to Weird Fish and order up a plate of Yo-Yos ($6), a pickle spear coated in tempura batter and fried might seem like all kinds of terrible. But then you take that first bite, experiencing the crunch of batter and the dense vinegar tang under knobbly-smooth pickle skin, and your faith in culinary experimentation is reaffirmed. No longer do you feel stupid for all the godawful things you've tried over the course of your life because they looked "interesting." (Not even for that unfortunate experience with the truffled corn nuts at Alembic, when you should have known better.) All is golden under the battered pickle halo.

Weird Fish 2193 Mission (at 18th St.), 863-4744

Spotted: Curly's Coffee Shop (1624 Powell at Green)

What it all means: Apparently, you haven't lived until you've tried eggs the way of the samurai chef.

Where: Victor's Coffee Shop, 2166 Palou (at Industrial)

Notes: Victor, pictured in the sign, wandered out to the sidewalk just after we snapped this pic. "If you get rich from your picture," he said, "remember to give me some of the money!"