13 posts tagged “san francisco”

Our cool, grey City of Love, San Francisco. Gee, we're lucky.

Grasshopper Pie, please. With just a touch of extra hot fudge.  Thanks for the impromptu Mitchell's run, Eric & Stephen!

Not shown...  the double-parked fire truck (heroes like ice cream, too) and me collapsing into a sugar coma. Wotta way to go.

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That's right... I've finally done it. I've applied to be on Check, Please! Bay Area, a restaurant review show on our local public TV station, KQED. What with this being declared (by me) the official Year of Restaurant Eating and my growing intense jealousy of Brett's star turn on the show something had to give.  So I applied.

If you've never seen CP!BA, you really should. Three ordinary schmoes go on the show and each recommends one of their favorite places, and the other two visit and bring their own reviews back to the table, which is presided over by the cheery and amiable Leslie Sbrocco, an apparent wine expert and restaurant lover in her own right. It's totally fun and mimics that conversation you've likely had with friends and acquaintances when either you all agree a place s phenomenal, or there is bitter disagreement.

They ask you to submit your top 3 eatery choices, and write at length about one of them.  I tried to choose places I go back to time and time again, and places that had never been reviewed on CP!BA. Even after  considering all that, I still had a list of 14 places. I think I truly have a sickness.

My #3 choice, The Mission Beach Cafe made it on my short list even though I'm sure it wouldn't qualify: they only go to places which have been open at least 3 years -- it's too excellent not to include, though.

I stuck my #2 choice in there since there have been a dearth of taquerias on the show: Papalote (on 24th & Valencia). It might be THE gringo-friendly taqueria, but it's delicious, it's family-owned, and that salsa (a secret recipe!) is worth the price of admission alone. Also, I am a gringo.

Note to self... research to see if there is a word for "gay gringo."  Gayringo? Ga-ringo?

There was never really any doubt about what #1 would be. Ti Couz... hands down. I took the essay I wrote for CP!BA and posted it on Yelp, so you can read what I had to say there. It truly is my favorite SF restaurant.  Wish me luck!  It's an honor, though,  just to nominate... myself.

In a related story... last week: drinks and small plates at CAV Wine Bar and Kitchen with the visiting Simeon, last night dinner with Skinny Jane at Zuni Cafe (my first ever visit), this Saturday, a lovely lunch and/or dinner somewhere in Napa (TBD), and on Sunday, brunch at Kate's Kitchen in the Lower Haight. Official Year of Restaurant Eating: officially begun.

I mentioned in my last post that the Quizno’s on Golden Gate near Van Ness in Civic Center that I *ahem* used to frequent has been closed under mysterious circumstances. I wonder if I should alert the good folk at Eater SF?

I have lately become pretty obsessed EaterSF, a website that offers the kind of restaurant gossip you won’t find in, say, the Food section of the Chronicle.  Sure they’ll talk about what chef is going where (only mildly interesting to me), but they really go on a lot about what new places are opening, what has closed, and what places are mysteriously “closed for renovation” and why. It’s become THE source of news about the haps behind items like the lease-loss over at Powell’s Place and what restaurant that crazy bitch Luisa Hanson is ruining lately.

Thanks to receiving my awesome iPhone for Christmas from Mom and Dad (a shocking and fantastic gift I hardly deserve but was delighted to receive), I am now armed with a quick camera at all times, and thereby consider myself a member of Eater SF’s roving band of tipster shutterbugs. Notice the photo and quote from me they use in a post from January 7^th. 

Please do NOT notice that I seem to be drawn, for good or ill, to chain sandwich shops. I can haz Classic Club with Bacon.

A Belated Happy 2008!  As you may have noticed, I look a little blog-cation during the month of January (and the first half of February!), but now I’m back, and finally, after much committee discussion, amendments from the floor, and last-minute reprieves from the Governor, I am ready to declare 2008 The Year of Restaurant Eating.

Those of you who know me (and who else is reading this… let’s be honest) will be surprised that 2008 should deserve that distinction considering how large a portion of my income sits in the tills of various eateries in San Francisco and beyond. Well… something occurred to me yesterday as I was signing up for the tablehopper e-newsletter. In a brief questionnaire when you sign up, tablehopper writer Marcia Gagliardi asked how many lunches or dinners I ate out each week. When I realized that I fell into the “6-9 per week” category (I eat lunch out pretty much daily, and that we often have dinner out or takeout once a week), I thought “I have a problem.”

Then, almost immediately, I thought, “how is having food this great a problem?”  Aside from my waistline, I mean.

I thought back on the past 6 weeks and realized that not only had I had ridiculously good food for lunches (La Boulange de Hayes, Modern Tea, Momi Toby’s), I had also managed to make it to some excellent neighborhood favorites (Range, Ti Couz, Mission Beach Café), and even tried out some great places that were new to me (Frisee, The Monk’s Kettle).  This doesn't even count our mid-month trip we made to San Diego! Factor in all the amazing raw materials we have to make food at home, and you can see that, truly, our gastronomic life here in San Francisco does not suck.

The jewel in the crown of the past few weeks, though, has to be our anniversary dinner at Incanto. As many know already, C’pher and I have a tradition going all the way back to the anniversary of our first date: each year we switch off surprising the other with a fantastic meal out at a great restaurant, often beginning with drinks out with friends at another location. 

This year, our 13^th, it was my turn to pick the place. Since we had an amazing trip to Italy this past October, I wanted someplace Italian, preferably Tuscan. I studied the Chronicle’s list of the 100 Best SF Restaurants, and there were several excellent contenders in the City. Once I started investigating and reading up on reviews and blogs, the field was severely narrowed, and I made our reservations. I knew it was a good sign when the very DAY I made the res, we watched an episode of Check Please, Bay Area, and the fabulous Incanto was featured and loved by all three amateur reviewers. That’s what’s called a bulls-eye people. Nailed it!

After a lovely round of drinks at Dalva on a terribly rainy night with the intrepid Mary, Nicole, John, Cricket, and Jason, C and I jumped in the miracle cab that appeared right outside the bar door and got to Noe Valley in no time. The room is comfortable and stylish without being overdesigned. The staff treated us very very well, and we tucked into some house-made salumi, great wine, excellent bread and some very delicious and inventive seasonal dishes. For his main, C’pher had a braised Tuscan-style stew with meat so tender it actually was falling off itself, not to mention the bone. I had two great dishes; salt cod ravioli as a pasta course, and stinging nettle and chard risotto – tasty, seasonal and very well prepared.

Chef Chris Cosentino has a blog called Offal Good wherein he extols the virtues of the leftover parts of the cow, pig, and other animals, both as a way of talking about good eats and as a way of using all parts of the animal in an environmentally-friendlier and animal-respectfuller way. It’s neat reading as he loves showing pictures of exactly how our food animals are raised, slaughtered, and prepared. Everyone should see that.

Since I haven’t done it for a while, maybe it’s time for me to update the list of places C and I have had our anniversary dinners. So, for your edification, here is the list. Vive la Café!  Vive le Bistro! Vive la Brasserie!  Vive la Year of Restaurant Eating!

• '96  1^st  Hyeholde, outside Pittsburgh, PA (K)
• '97  2^nd  A SF gay-owned Italian place on Polk that's closed now, SF (C)
• '98  3^rd  Chez Panisse, Berkeley (K)
• '99  4^th  Hawthorne Lane, SF (C)
• '00  5^th  Boulevard, SF (K)
• '01  6^th  JohnFrank, SF (C)
• '02  7^th  Hyde Street Bistro, SF (K)
• '03  8^th  Evvia, Palo Alto (C)
• '04  9^th  Chez Spencer*, SF (K)
• '05  10^th  Farallon, SF (C)
• ’06  11^th  Chenery Park, SF (K)
• ’07  12^th  The Public, SF (C)
• ’08  13^th  Incanto, SF (K)

In a related story, the Quizno’s I used to frequent so often I became a regular has closed. The Pepper Bar is Dead!  Long live the Pepper Bar!

* We didn't actually go there, though... C got sick and we never did reschedule. Maybe 2008 will be the Year of Chez Spencer?

As most of you know, I am incredibly lucky enough to live in one of the jewels in America's urban crown. To say San Francisco is an amazing, beautiful, constantly surprising, occasionally frustrating but always a "pinch - me - I -can't - beleive - I - live - here" kind of a place is rather an understatement. I've been here 10 years now, and can honestly say I can't imagine living anywhere else.

However... the summers can be a little, oh, atypical, weatherwise.  Here's how it works: it's pretty much always spring here. It's either a really quite hot spring day, or it's a really rather freezing spring day. Sometimes these things can occur in the SAME day. In fact, that pretty much describes summer here to a "T."  That's right... when most other parts of our proud nation (including Oakland, Berkeley, Marin County and almost everywhere around us that's not San Francisco) starts sweltering in summer high temperatures, we are experiencing the cooling, calming blankets of summer fog banks each morning and afternoon.

From my description, you can tell I don't mind it so much. I'm partial to cool weather without the horrors visited on people by actual winter. That said, theres nothing like enjoying a downright hot day here in the Mission, and then looking west toward Twin Peaks and seeing an impossibly huge wave of dark, foreboding fog spilling down into the Castro to make you feel very cold indeed.  This year is the 40th Anniversary of San Francisco's infamous "Summer of Love," but I know what all that so-called Free Love was about... those Haight-Ashbury hippies were just trying to keep warm!

When winter weather hits, or at least really rather freezing spring weather, I want comfort food. I decided to marry this Summer of Love vibe with the cold-weather/warm-food jones by sharing one of my favorite new cookie recipes. I'm speaking, of course, of World Peace Cookies.

I got this recipe via Lynn Rosetto Kasper's The Splendid Table Bakers Chronicle newsletter (say that three times fast) just before Christmas last year, and so I worked them into my repertoire, and boy was I glad I did. For Christmas, I ended up getting the cookbook that was the ultimate source of the recipe,  the wonderful Dori Greenspan's gorgeous and delicious new book Baking From My Home To Yours.

I am not overstating things when I say that these are possibly the best chocolate cookies ever known in the History of Man.  And for God's sake... don't bother with milk chocolate! I don't care if you're Swiss.  I don't care if your beloved Nana is Swiss.  I don't care if you're the owner of Nana's Swiss Milk Chocolate, Inc.  USE DARK CHOCOLATE FOR THESE COOKIES. The first time I made them, I actually used Scharffenberger 99% Cacao -- unsweetened. That's the kind of ballsy baker I am. And you know what?  These cookies were the fucking BOMB.  A chocolate Bomb, as it happens. Kinda made me cough a little.

At any rate, they are delicous regardless of the time of year, but if you happen to serve them after a meal of Cream of Tomato Soup with and a toasted cheese sandwich, who am I to say thee nay?

In a related story: USE DARK CHOCOLATE FOR THESE COOKIES or the terrorists have already won.  I mean it.

WORLD PEACE COOKIES

World Peace Cookie Dough

OK, so these cookies are chocolatey. Really chocolatey. Really really chocolately. Especially if you USE DARK CHOCOLATE, and possibly Dutch-process cocoa powder, which, by the way, you most definitely should. No, the really surprising part is that they are also salty.  I am really into the really sweet/salty contrast these days, and these cookies fit the bill beautifully. They are definitely dessert and go nicely with a cafe au lait or perhaps a cold glass of milk, but if you are sick of overly sweet desserts, brace yourself for the perfection of these cookies.

Author and baking goddess Dorie Greenspan says that her first version of this recipe called these Korova Cookies but when her neighbor Richard Gold said that "a daily dose of [these] cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness," she just had to change the name. Hopefully your mouth will be too full to call them anything but "Mmmmmm."

One note: when they say the dough is loose and crumbly, they mean it. It just barely holds together, but don't be discouraged! It just press a little and it'll all turn out fine in the end.

Oh, and also... USE DARK CHOCOLATE. If you don't I'll totally curse you or something. Seriously. A curse.

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

3. Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

Getting Ready to Bake:

5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

6. Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you're cutting them — don't be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

7. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won't look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

Makes about 36 cookies.

Today, the Places Rated Almanac (formerly run by Rand-McNally) named their Top 10 Most Livable American Cities, and C'pher and I are delighted: our current home, the wonderful, amazing, and fabulous San Francisco came in at number 2.  It's true people... it might be pricey, but it's worth it!

And what lucky city ranked at number 1?  Why, our old stomping grounds... Pittsburgh!  C and I often feel like we are Da 'burgh's ambassadors out here we're talking it up so much. It really is a fantastic place to live, and we try to visit as often as we can.  True... the weather in SF is much more hospitable, but anyone still making fun of Pittsburgh... well, maybe they're from Cleveland or something? Can't be sure.

The Top Ten Things I miss about Pittsburgh:

10. The South Side: In retrospect, I think I miss this bustling urban enclave so much because it’s the most like San Francisco.

9.  Local beer like Penn Pilsner, Penn Dark, and Yuengling:  Especially Yuengling.

8.  Gay softball league games on Sunday afternoons: Followed, of course, by lots of beer and lots of flirting. 

7.  The Carnegie Science Center: If you think it’s fun just to visit, you should try working there!  

6. A gay pride parade that doesn’t last for 8 hours: Seriously… our parade needs an editor.

5.  My amazing friends: From CSC, the RCC, Calvary, and of course, Bruce, Joey, Bob, and everyone who watched me navigate (often unsuccessfully) the waters of Single Gay Male-dom.

4.  Living in Regent Square : A single screen movie theater, a bakery, a pub, a coffee shop, a florist, a dry cleaner, and lovely little tree-lined streets. Near a big grocery store. Near Squirel Hill and Shadyside. Near the park and the Parkway. Near perfect.

3.  Driving north through the Ft. Pitt Tunnel:  Like Dorothy walking through that black-and-white door into technicolor Oz.

2.  Free outdoor movies on Flagstaff Hill: BYO Mineo’s.

1.  WYEP: What radio in San Francisco should be, but isn't.

It's true. I've been in a rather bad mood for the last few days. Post-holiday depression? Workaday malaise? A bad piece of fish? Who knows. But I have been rather a bitch. Sorry!

Today, though, I found something that really dug me, at least temporarily, out of the depths. Anyone who knows me won't be shocked to hear that it was lunch that did it.

Hayes Valley has been an up-and-coming neighborhood as long as I've lived in San Francisco, but the opening of Octavia Boulevard has sealed the deal. Now the restaurants and shops that were there seem to be doing a brisk business even when it's not concert season (the Opera House and Symphony Hall are very nearby), and new spots are opening up faster than Elton John musicals.

One of these new spots is where I found myself for lunch today. Patxi's (say "PAH-cheese") Chicago Pizza is in the spot where Powell's Place used to serve up delicious and authentic Soul Food with a... well, not exactly a smile. Anyhow, Powell's has moved up to the Western Addition, and their old spot got a nice modern renovation and is now home to Patxi's. I'm happy to report that exposed brick still looks cool! Their menu tells me there is another Patxi's (the original?) in Palo Alto on Emerson just off University. Not to sound TOtally elitist, but that's actually a good sign. OK, that did sound elitist.

They sell pizza by the pie or slice, Chicago Style deep dish or thin crust. Now I am usually a thin crust guy, but I hated to miss out on pizza that was obviously their specialty. And hey... I was hungry, and could take any leftovers home with me, and besides... I was depressed! One 10-inch ('serves two' says the menu) full-on deep dish for me with pepperoni (natch), spinach and Kalamata olives. Salty-licious! The staff is eager to please in that "we're a new restaurant, so tell your pals how great we are" kind of way, but that didn't detract.

It did take a while to make (about a half-hour, just as they said it would), so I had a small garden salad to prime the pump. When the pizza finally showed up, it was a marvelous sight to behold. The sides were, like, 6 inches high and it was piled full of cheese, rich tomato sauce and my chosen ingredients. I flung aside the Everyday Food I had been reading and dove in face first.

To put it mildly, this pizza was incredible. I suppose I should make the inevitable comparison to Zachary's, but I'd hate to say one is better. If anything Patxi's deep dish is just a little more... refined than Zachary's, and that may be the stylish environment talking. Whatever -- they're both great, but I don't have to cross over or under a major body of water to get Patxi's. Advantage: Patxi's!

I am hardly ever one to get pizza leftovers wrapped up to go, since no pizza slice is fully safe with me in proximity, but this pizza pwned me. I did manage to finish four elephantine pieces and there are two more are on deck for my next downward mood swing. I'm expecting one any minute now.

Let's get one thing straight: I love poetry. I love the fact that words placed together side by side in just the right way suddenly become more than a sentence, more than the idea or event they represent... they become Art. Take Edna St. Vincent Millay, for example. She's one of my favorites.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
(God's World)

Have you ever felt that way about something? Or someone? That you just can't get close enough to it? That you just want to say how amazing it is, but you can't put the words together -- at all, let alone beautifully? That's where Edna comes in.

Now, with all that said -- I hate poetry slams. They are so fucking boring and full of bad poetry and the subjects of said poetry are ALWAYS about how there's no peace without justice or how the world has beat the poet down or how badly it sucks to pay rent and try to make a living selling handmade wire sculpture at Fisherman's Wharf. Oh, and 80-90% of all those reciting are SCREAMING because they are ANGRY. Now all those things are well and good, but why can't angry people just dance instead?

But, I have found a poetry slam/art event I can really get behind. I work on Thursday nights until around 10, and usually come up to the 16th & Mission BART station at just after 10. Every Thursday without fail, I witness what is clearly an ad hoc group of spoken-word artists (ugh), musicians, freaks, dancers, and rappers doing what comes naturally. Having lived at a VERY loud corner in North Beach for years, I can imagine that if my apartment were within earshot of this weekly event, I might not find it so cool, but it's not and so I do.

I discovered today that this event is loosely organized by a group called The Collaborative Arts Insurgency, which is oh so very Mission, especially the "Insurgency" part. I stop sometimes to hear a little bit, and sometimes it's good stuff. More often it sucks and I get on my way, but I still love that I live in a place where this kind of thing can happen. I have as much in common with the Collaborative Arts Insurgency as a banana does with an orange, but it's still such a magical thing to come upon unexpectedly.

I guess what I'm saying is... I don't mind poetry slams as long as I can haul my ass out of there if it sucks. Is that so wrong?

----

* Speaking of E St. V M, you have to love a poet who can write this:

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
(Afternoon on a Hill)

And then turn around and write this:

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain, --
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.
(Sorrow)

Whoa. Bi-polar much, Edna? Today she'd be Prozac'd into a stupor and would probably spend endless hours watching Lifetime: Television for Women.

Things that are good:
· San Francisco.
· The annual Bay to Breakers race, where folks like to run in costume and, sometimes, naked.
· Boys with a blog who like to strip down to the altogether at the slightest provocation.
· Beer.
· The confluence of all these things near a working digital camera.

Things that are not good:
· View-obscuring black boxes.