Jonathan Kauffman

Happy Bakery's soy sauce chicken plate, $6.

SFoodie's countdown of our favorite 50 things to eat and drink, 2012 edition ​With the exception of a good egg, Western cooks seem to have lost the art of poaching. Sometime in the 1970s, restaurants supplanted their pike quenelles, suprèmes de volaille (chicken tenders), and poached salmon with herbed mayonnaise -- which once represented the height of fine dining -- with grilled pork chop, pan-roasted wahu filets, and long-braised meats.

At Happy Bakery and Deli on Ocean -- a de facto canteen for SF State students -- there are roast ducks hanging in the window and rice plates piled high with BBQ pork. But the soy sauce chicken is the restaurant's best dish, delicately poached in a master broth deepened with soy, sweetened up with sugar and wine, and inflected with ginger and star anise.

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Gil Riego Jr.

Broken Record's crawfish grits.

​SFoodie's countdown of our favorite 50 things to eat and drink, 2012 edition

​On New Year's Eve of 1973, the Allman Brothers put on a legendary, marathon show at the Cow Palace. Nearly four decades later, up Geneva at The Broken Record, Georgian Shane LaValley creates something just as unapologetically Southern and perhaps even more epic: his crawfish grits. LaValley's recipe has been passed down and tinkered with by many generations of his restaurant family. "I've been making these grits my whole life," he boasts with the slightest twang.

Before digging in, stick your nose right into the bowl and inhale the lingering perfume of homemade shrimp stock and Cajun seasoning. Load up a spoon with velvety, Cheddar-flecked grits, crispy bacon threads, and plump, nickel-sized crawfish, proudly dubbed "Low Country lobster" on the menu. A concentrated hit of corn gives way to the smokiness of the bacon and then finally the slight pungency of the moist crawfish, seemingly prevalent in every bite. Leftover is a pool of fiery broth, more than worthy of some offensively loud slurping.

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Man v. Food, the outer Mission edition

Cross-posted on The Snitch.

​Dave MP is new to San Francisco but it hasn't taken him much time to note the stretch of Mission between Cortland and Cesar Chavez is sadly underrated, especially in the food department. As Bernalwood points out today, Dave MP has pledged to chomp his way through the strip, investig-eating the overlooked restaurants of the outer Mission just along the border of Bernal Heights. 

For every restaurant he dines at, he will post a review of his meal on Chowhound, the food-lover discussion board. He's asking for locals to advise him where to go, and come along as his dinner companion if they wish. He's dubbing this project the La Lengua Chronicles.

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Gil Riego Jr./Gil Photography

ICHI Sushi's tai nigiri with yuzu kosho, $5.75.

​SFoodie's countdown of our favorite 50 things to eat and drink, 2012 edition ​No one -- certainly not in San Francisco, possibly in the country -- is making sushi quite like Tim Archuleta at ICHI Sushi. For the past two decades, the American approach to sushi has been moreish -- rolls with more fish, more flavors, more cute gimmicks, seemingly to trick the public out of remember they're eating raw flesh. But Archuleta and his staff do their best work with nigiri, incorporating elements of modernist cuisine in the subtlest of ways. More >>

Jonathan Kauffman

903's tsukune sandwich, $8.

​When SFoodie called Mutsumi Takehara, owner of Sandbox Bakery, last week to find out more about 903, the cafe she opened on January 21, we got a funny little message in response. "Well, it just got a little crazy, so we closed for a week to make sure it's perfect," she told our voicemail, laughing.

It seems Bernal Heights residents who have been going to Sandbox for rice burgers and bento boxes were a little too eager to follow the dishes when they moved to the old Maggie Mudd's space, which Takehara took over a few months ago. The opening of 903 has all been a bit of a whirlwind, really. When asked to define the food, Takehara laughed, saying, "Basically anything we want to eat." She laughed again when SFoodie asked whether she had a website. It'll be eat903.com ... someday.

But anyone who's tasted Sandbox Bakery's immaculate pastries knows that Takehara is far more careful a cook than she makes the project sound. After a week-long "tune-up," Takehara re-opened 903 on Saturday night for its first dinner service. As of today, the 15-seat cafe will be be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with a short break between 2 and 4 p.m.

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