San Francisco Food Blog

T. Palmer

Fried Gulf shrimp po-boy: Worthy of devouring.

​After long and careful planning, Queen's Louisiana Po-Boy Cafe (3030 San Bruno at Paul) opened its doors Nov. 6.

J. Birdsall

Display plates behind the sneeze guard.

​Shouldn't every micro-neighborhood have its own Mission-style burrito place? The kind with a sneeze guard, pump tortilla steamer, and lady burrito makers with a flair for creative cosmetology? It's arguable.

Today saw the launch of The Iron Cactus (683 Fourth St. at Townsend), a taco-burrito joint adjacent to The Creamery, and from the same owners. We toughed out the opening-day line for a spicy chicken soft taco (the kind that comes with beans and rice, like a little open-face burrito -- $3.50) and carnitas burrito ($6.95). Solid eating, nothing we haven't scarfed before, hunched over, at Pancho Villa, site of the chef's last gig.

For nearby condo dwellers, office workers, and Academy of Art students sick of the limited offerings at the nearby Tacos Goza Goza truck, Iron Cactus is probably a blessing. But you probably won't be taking a cab here from the Marina for the nachos.

T. Palmer

Eloise and Dennis Leung: A sweet couple.

​DeLise Dessert Café (327 Bay at Powell), which opened Oct. 16., is a new venture from Dennis and Eloise Leung, pastry chefs for the shuttered Bong Su.

"They let us create whatever we wanted," Dennis Leung told SFoodie of the couple's former employer. "It was a really great place to work." But the Leungs have a lot to celebrate these days. Besides opening their first café, they're also expecting their first child next month.

T. Palmer

Chocolate and blueberry muffins, tomato scones, and banana coffee cake.

​At DeLise, expect an array of small, artful bites. Most offerings are sweet, but we did sample a lovely tomato scone. We adored a sugar-coated blueberry muffin that was just bursting with juice, and similarly rationed a couple of miniature pecan-chunked banana coffee cakes. A chocolate chip cookie captured that elusive combo of soft and chewy. Four Barrel coffee drinks are also on offer.

The selection of frozen desserts usually includes a mix of regular, sugar-free, and vegan options. On opening day, we delighted in vegan coconut-kaffir lime sorbet, peach frozen yogurt, and -- the true star among stars -- pesto ice cream, deep green in color and studded with whole pine nuts (pic after the jump).

T. Palmer

​No longer the exclusive province of cities such as Tokyo, London, New York, and, um, San Jose, San Francisco is now home to the newest location of Minamoto Kitchoan (648 Market at New Montgomery). The Japanese confectioner (Wagashi-ya) makes seasonal wagashi, which are sweets and snacks for tea, and packages them in gorgeous box and paper creations that will tempt even the slightly crafty among us to save for potential art projects. While some of the selections are self-serve, everything is displayed under glass jewelry cases, a touch which elevates these treats to Tiffany status.

Accordingly, don't expect to get out of the door cheaply here, unless you have remarkable self-restraint. This SFoodie clearly did not possess as we filled up our basket with Fukuwatashisenbei (vanilla cream cookies; $2.50), Kohakukanume (plum wine jelly with green plum; $4), Shimizukage (mochi and red bean jelly; $2.80), Yuka (yuzu flavored bean jelly; $2.50), and the irresistible Hakuto (white peach jelly; ($11), encased in an adorable plastic white peach and basket which we refrigerated and then spooned out like a delicate pudding. The price was worth the transport to another land.

fraicheyogurt.com

Dairy-free froyo is available at Fraiche.

​A San Francisco location of Palo Alto frozen yogurt shop Fraiche (1910 Fillmore at Bush) might be open as soon as Friday. With approximately 50 million froyo joints in town, this probably doesn't sound too exciting. But, as local vegan chef/blogger the Urban Housewife reports, there's one big reason to rejoice Fraiche's S.F. debut: Vegan froyo.

The 99% fat-free, lactose-free soy yogurt is in the tart vein (as popularized by Pinkberry). Fraiche's toppings sound pretty good, too, with options like fresh fruit, local honey, and Callebaut chocolate.

Hannah K./Yelp

Where do you plug in the earbuds?

​Just when you thought frozen yogurt shops had reached their saturation point, Blush Organic Frozen Yogurt decides to open up a brand new shop right next to AT&T Park (219 King at Third St.). Blush makes its all-natural, organic frozen yogurt in-house every day, and provides a variety of toppings, including fresh, organic fruit. It's an old formula, but one that's proven to be successful. The grand opening is tomorrow (Saturday) at noon.

What makes this grand opening special, however, is the massive giveaway that goes with it -- the first 100 customers will receive a movie pass for the AMC Loews Theater at the Metreon. There's also a raffle every hour starting at 1:00 p.m., with some amazing prizes: two iPhones, iPod Touches, iPod Nanos; four iPod Shuffles and iTunes Gift Cards; two Sony Blu-Ray Players and Sony PlayStation Portables. Blush is also giving away two 50-yard-line 49ers tickets and two Warriors courtside tickets -- a total of four winners drawn at random every hour.

If all-natural, organic frozen yogurt topped with fresh fruit doesn't get you excited, a brand new Blu-Ray just might. Good luck!

T. Palmer

Mazu's good taste extends to the turntables.

​A fresh face in the former Rohan Lounge space, Mazu (3809 Geary at Second Ave.) has opened this week. The name refers to the Asian goddess of the sea, and is operated by three women: Chef Silma Salamin comes from East Bay stints at Mezze and Ozumo, while sister KK Salamin and Leah Abiol previously ran tings on the bar and floor at Rohan.

The restaurant will soon feature DJs, but for now, the proprietors have excellent sonic taste. We walked in to soul, funk, and hip-hop bubbling from the sound system, with James Brown, Bob Marley, and Erykah Badu albums on display in the booth.

The menu consists of pan-Asian small plates, noodles, and soups. On our visit, a fight nearly broke out over the juicy beef bulgogi rolls, wrapped with caramelized onions around skewers and dunked in spicy hoisin ($8). We immediately craved another order.

T. Palmer

Fried chili garlic wings.

​The fried chili garlic wings ($7) were a hit both for crispiness and quantity (at seven pieces, it was larger than any other dish we ordered). Soba noodles tossed with wakame, jicama, cucumber, red pepper, and crispy garlic ($7) offered some cooling relief from all the warm food. Dungeness crab cakes with sweet chili cucumbers, pickled ginger, and lime beurre blanc ($13) were hockey-puck thick, with what might have been considered an excessive amount of breading were it not so effing tasty.

T. Palmer

Cold soba noodles.

​A liquor license is still pending, but our Thai basil and strawberry lemonade was lovely, for what it's worth. Mazu will be serving cocktails (including soju favorites from the Rohan menu) as well as featuring appearances from local DJs once the license goes through. They're open from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.

Peep more food flicks after the jump.

​We stopped by the recently-opened Japanese pop complex New People (1746 Post at Webster) and found it to be a feast for the eyes, especially if you have a thing for the Gothic Lolita look. On the ground floor, the tiny Café serves Blue Bottle Coffee, light meals (pork cutlet sandwiches, bento boxes, and curry) from Delica rf-1, and truffles from XOX.

​There were also some new-to-us bites from indie S.F. kitchen Book of Tea, like the gobble-worthy kinako (soybean flour) and matcha green tea meringues, and organic popcorn spiced with curry, wasabi, and shichimi. We loved the latter's subtle heat and faint hints of mandarin orange peel and sesame. We also tried the Nutty Cake on the recommendation of a cashier, who confessed that he had eaten a whole display of them, and enjoyed its mild almond flavor and blend of walnut and chestnut chunks. These unique snacks (each $3) would be an ideal accompaniment to the anime and other modern Japanese films being screened by VIZ Cinema in the basement.

Three Twins on Fillmore: Sweet licks and good green karma

After opening his first shop in San Rafael in 2005 and another in Napa two years later, organic ice cream purveyor Neal Gottlieb finally has a presence in the city. On Friday, the lucky third outlet of Three Twins ice cream opened on Fillmore in the Lower Haight.

A former Peace Corps volunteer who once worked in Morocco, Gottlieb named his company for the nickname given to an apartment he once shared with his twin brother and wife, also a twin. Gottlieb is passionate about more than just ice cream: He offsets Three Twins' carbon emissions, composts, and uses only organic ingredients.

A new take-out and eat-in shop called Beautifull (3401 California at Laurel, 728-9080) opened last Thursday in Laurel Village. The space recently housed a Cuban coffeehouse (Cafe Lo Cubano), and before that a beloved neighborhood greasy spoon called Miz Brown's Feed Bag.

For many years (say, between 1973, when Ed Moose opened it, and 1996) it seemed that no Herb Caen column was complete without a reference to "the Washbag," the nickname Caen himself had coined for the Washington Square Bar & Grill. Moose was himself a former newspaperman (a reporter for the St. Louis Post & Dispatch), and his old-fashioned bar and grill welcomed writers, politicians, neighborhood characters, and anybody interested in straightforward American cooking and even more straightforward drinking. (Caen liked to hang out over two or three icy vodka martinis, which he referred to as "Vitamin V".)

It's quite a schlep from S.F., but doughnut fanatics may judge the trip worthwhile for the unique artistic creations at Psycho Donuts (2006 S Winchester Blvd, Campbell, two miles south of the Winchester Mystery House). The creative inventions at this new shop, which doubles as an art gallery, include the Psycho, topped with pretzels, lemon glaze, chocolate, and cayenne; and the FungShui, with green tea and chocolate. If you can't make it down there, check out psycho-donuts.com for more fun pictures.

Inside Outerlands (4001 Judah), a welcome new addition to an increasingly more charming collection of businesses on the last few blocks where Judah ends at Ocean Beach, the use of mixed wood helps continue the feeling of water, sand and salty air.

Soups, salads and sides are the name of the game (for the moment at least), with a focus on organic ingredients from Northern California; the salad greens come from Heirloom Organics in Hollister, for example. There's also a rotating beer selection as well as organic, biodynamic and sustainable wine from France, Germany and Ukiah.

It's been an exciting couple of days for those of us who have to forage for food in the somewhat sterile section of SoMa known as Mission Bay. Just last Thursday we got Tsunami, a new Japanese joint for after-hours sake and sushi. And yesterday The Creamery opened its doors on Fourth and Townsend (a lovely spot for those of us who wait in the cold for the 47, 30 or 45 bus lines). We'd been curious about the coffee house --which we'd initially thought would be an ice cream parlor or cheese stop with such a name-- since we saw it on Eater's Plywood Report in January. So we dropped by for some caffeine earlier today.  

One would think even those with their hearts dead set on opening a restaurant would be lying low during these uninspiring economic times. So some of us were surprised to see the empty space between Panera Bread and Philz Coffee (right across the street from SF Weekly's world headquarters) evolving into a rather sleek restaurant named Tsunami -- which opened its doors to the public just this afternoon.

The owners of Oakland's deservedly ultra-popular Italian restaurant Dopo are opening a wine bar/small plates place called Adesso (in Italian, dopo = after, adesso = now) a couple of blocks down Piedmont Avenue in the new Il Piemonte complex at the corner of Hidden Valley Road. According to a since-removed Craigslist help-wanted ad picked up by Eater SF last month, they're planning to open in February.

Speaking of Dopo, since getting its full liquor license, it's been offering one of the largest selections of amari (Italian after-dinner drinks) I've ever seen in this country. The list includes hard-to-find bottles such as Ciociaro, Luxardo, Meletti, and Nardini.

Located on the northwest corner by Dolores Park, Lilah Belle's offers healthy organic single and family-sized meals to-go. The cute spot is named after the two-year-old daughter of chef/owner Traci Higgins, whom San Francisco named one of the "Top 5 Personal Chefs" in 2006 for her organic delivery service Dining [In!]. Her extensive resume includes working in the test kitchen for Weight Watchers magazine and contributing recipes to two of their cookbooks, and she keeps her creations here on the low fat and low calorie side without sacrificing flavor in the process.

By Tamara Palmer

Yesterday marked the opening of Nettie's Crab Shack, the new Marina eatery from Chefs Annette Yang and Brian Leitner that's been heavily anticipated by foodies. I was born here, but Union Street is still somewhat of a foreign land to me, part of what I call "the other San Francisco" when I drive out of the fog and into the well-heeled sunshine. But I'll also routinely travel down to Half Moon Bay for seafood, so a pilgrimage for fish is not a problem.

We were glad we made the trip.

I went to college in L.A. and still maintain close ties there. So when I heard that there was to be a Bay Area location of Sprinkles Cupcakes, the Beverly Hills treats that several friends and many media outlets have raved about, there was no question that I'd be there on the very first day, even if it was down in Palo Alto (at the Stanford Shopping Center). It would also be the perfect occasion to celebrate with Mike, whose birthday was yesterday and had the day off today, and Allison, whose birthday is tomorrow and managed to get off early this afternoon.

Lines form daily at the original 90210 location, so we knew we'd be in for a wait, but we didn't think about the weather.

After a 40 minute stay in 85-degree heat (which is withering for Franciscans), I happily took you with us on the first walk through the Sprinkles doors.