Mission Cheese, the Mission

We've been walking by the Mission Cheese storefront for what seems like months. I loved the drawing and font they had on the sign in the window, and I love cheese and I couldn't wait for them to open. I figured though it would just be a cheese shop, so I was even more excited when I heard they serve food and wine and beer.

When we walked in at around 2:30, the place was full.  I loved the palette they chose in designing the space, and the Heath ceramic bar is just awesome.  We ordered two grilled cheese sandwiches: the Cheddarhead (2 types of cheddar with apple and ale chutney) and the Pork and Cheese (Gruyere, salami, mustard and cornichons).  Oh, and some coffee.

We loved our food, the coffee was great and it reaffirmed my love for this neighborhood. We spoke  to the owner, who was very sweet and also totally inspiring in that she opened this place in a year and a half without any previous cheese-shop or running-a-business type experience.  

I'm now plotting my return to try that mac n cheese. Yum.

Mission Cheese
736 Valencia Street
San Francisco, California

Ferry Building Goodies

A few little treats from the Ferry Building:

Why yes, that is a cone of meat. From Boccalone.

Finally tried the ramen from Hapa Ramen. This was the fried chicken bowl with a sous vide egg. Yum.  A little different than the top ramen of my college years. We also got the to go kit - basically they give you cold broth in one container and the noodles, meat and other fun stuff in a separate container with some instructions on how to put it all together.  Excited to try that later. 

And lastly, we picked up some chocolate, pear and red wine preserves (I know, it doesn't seem to make sense to me either, but I'm sure it's delicious) from the Tell Tale Preserve Company.

Happy eating.

The Summit, Mission

Valencia Street seems completely unaware that the rest of the country is still in the middle of a recession.  In the last six months or so, it seems like every time I walk along there I notice new stores and restaurants, and it's getting hard to keep up. I'm not complaining though, I love that this little neighborhood is thriving. 

On Halloween we headed over to the brand new cafe The Summit.

At 2pm the place was packed and it was hard to find a seat, which seems slightly strange because the place is so huge. I think they probably could have done a better job of laying it out to make better use of the space.

Fear the beard!

I wanted a coffee and Kev wanted some tea, but tea is only served by the pot, so I went with that too.  Check out the presentation: cute little tray with tea pot and cups and also a 1/3/5 minute hour glass timer.  FauxBrian Wilson instructed us to wait until the green sand ran out and our tea would be done steeping.

 

 

I wish I liked the tea as much as I liked the presentation, but sadly (or not, sadly for my wallet) I prefer good old PG Tips. 

I also ordered the pulled pork sandwich which was... ok. Not bad, but not great.

After a little while of sitting on a stool over by the window, the couch opened up and we headed over there.  I got the coffee I had wanted originally (they serve Blue Bottle, by the way) and we sat on the couch with our books and just hung out.  And the thing is, while I could sit on my own couch with my PG Tips and read a book, sometimes it's just nice to get out of the house - which to me is the appeal of this place.

Il Cane Rosso, Ferry Building

Last week I had a vacation day so we headed over to the Ferry Building to have lunch at Il Cane Rosso - Daniel Patterson's rotisserie/sandwich shop. 

I really love the Ferry Building, even if it is a huge tourist destination with really expensive food. But the thing is, the food is really good. And you can't beat it on a warm, bright, sunny day when you can sit outside and watch your favorite 1 year old show off her brand new walking skills. 

We were lucky to score a table outside - and even luckier that we didn't need a jacket. I love October in San Francisco. It really is my favorite time of year here.

All of the food here is straight from the farm - this is the Marin Sun Farms roast pork sandwich (with jalapeno pepper relish and cracklins’).  Don't be fooled by the look of this sandwich - it might look very basic, but the meat is juicy and tender and super flavorful. 

This is the beef tagliata sandwich (meat also from Marin Sun Farms), with aged cheddar, roasted onions, rosemary, lemon aoli.  I liked this one - but preferred the simpler pork sandwich in the end.

And what does a one-year-old from San Francisco eat for lunch? Iacopi Farm baked beans and polenta with sage brown butter and parmesan, of course.  Luckily this one-year-old is a good sharer, and she didn't mind me reaching in and helping myself. I'm normally not a huge fan of polenta, but this one was super creamy and lovely.

And, to make this meal even better, it was 50% off. Have you seen Scoutmob? It's awesome. Just download the (free) app and you can present your iPhone to the cashier and voila - 50% off at Il Cane Rosso through December.  And no, they aren't paying me to say that.

Il Cane Rosso
1 Ferry Building # 41
San Francisco, CA 94111-4231
(415) 391-7599

Baby Blues BBQ, Venice

Just your typical baby shower, at the BBQ joint.

More photos here.

Beretta, Mission

I was feeling a little stir crazy in our apartment this afternoon so Kev agreed to take a little walk with me.  We had both just eaten some cereal and weren't all that hungry, but like my mom always says, you don't need to be hungry to eat. We wandered on up Valencia Street and noticed all the new restaurants that have recently opened. We first tried to go to Heart, but they were about to close for an event. Instead we headed over to Beretta for some small plates.

We ordered the beets with ricotta salata and the eggplant caponatina with burrata.  The beets were nice and earthy and the cheese was really mild - I would have liked it with more cheese, but I think that about everything. The eggplant dish - which is composed of eggplant, tomatoes, basil, olives, capers, celery and pinenuts - was on the 2009 7x7 100 Things To Eat list.  I've ordered this before and I remember liking it more. It's really interesting, because some bites (tomato+basil+eggplant+burrata) are excellent, while others didn't work for me (any bite + olive and/or caper).  With fewer ingredients,  I think I would have really enjoyed the dish, but next time I'll probably order the pizza.

Beretta
1199 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 695-1199

Favorite Summer Meal for Reasonably Lazy People

Lately we've been obsessed with this salad. While it may seem like all we do is eat, during the week we are pretty lazy about making dinner. This salad is SO good and all the ingredients are so fresh and in season right now that it's become our go-to meal after work.  If you have some good bread around you can also do it as a sandwich.

I give Kev full credit for this as it was all his idea. All you need is some combination of arugula, nectarines or peaches (we've also used raspberries), avocado, tomato, prosciutto. I also put crumbled goat cheese on mine.   A little salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil and you're set.

Pizzetta 211, Outer Richmond

I first heard about Pizzetta 211 from this article in Sunset Magazine about the best pizza places in the Bay Area.  A couple of weeks ago I happened to be driving by and noticed it, and thought it looked so sweet - just a little storefront with a few tables and a tree with twinkly lights. So when it came time to pick a spot for a girls' lunch today, and one of the girls lives in the Richmond, this seemed like a good choice. 

We got there around 1PM, and there was no one waiting ahead of us. This was lucky for us, because with only seven tables total - inside and out - we could have had a long, long wait. 

We started off with some Limonatas, which is the best drink ever on a hot day, plus I love the little bottles they come in. The menu changes weekly, and I think this week must be goat cheese week, which is fine by me because I love goat cheese.  Usually when a menu changes regularly, there aren't any specials - but they always have an addition of a daily appetizer and dessert on the menu.  We had the special salad of beet, beet greens and crostini with goat cheese.

I really enjoyed this dish - it was really light and simple but incredibly flavorful, with little bits of chili  to give it some kick. This is one to remember, because it would be so simple to make at home.

We then moved on to the main course: calzone and pizza. The calzone was filled with  ricotta, tomato sauce and.... goat cheese! I really loved the calzone. The dough was chewy and had a great texture, and the sauce and the cheeses all worked really nicely together. 

The pizza was topped with  lamb sausage, roasted pepper, garlic confit and ricotta salata.  Oh, and that's not basil you see on top - that's mint.  It's really surprising when you take your first bite,  expecting to taste basil and to find that it is something else entirely, but I thought it worked really well.  The lamb meatballs were really juicy and flavorful and I liked how potent the garlic confit was. The crust on the pizzas here are much thinner than a lot of the other artisinal pizza shops in San Francisco.  I enjoyed it, but the others in my group prefer the lighter, fluffier dough at Pizzeria Delfina. 

We ended the meal with a piece of flourless chocolate cake and fresh cream, and really, what better way to end a meal than with a piece of chocolate cake? 

With all of the amazing pizza places in San Francisco, and so many in my neighborhood, I don't know that I would go all the way across town to come back here.  But next time I'm in the Outer Richmond I'll know just where to go. 

Pizzetta 211

211 23rd Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94121-2008
(415) 379-9880

San Francisco Food Crawl Part 2: The Mission

After a fun - but rained out - first attempt at a food crawl, we finally settled on a date for round two.   This time we decided to keep it all walkable, so all of the places we went were in the Mission. I like the idea of doing a food crawl by region anyway - San Francisco has so many different neighborhoods with great food, plus it's a good excuse to keep doing more of these crawls and exploring different areas of the city. 

Our first stop was The Monk's Kettle. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I like a good font and logo, and this place has both.  Even though they are known for their huge variety of beer - both on tap and in bottles - we were there specifically for the giant pretzel. And since our group was bigger this time (we lost one person, but gained three, for a total of seven) we decided we needed to order more food at each place.  

On the left is the mac and cheese made with house-made cheddar ale sauce and toasted bread crumbs.  We didn't love the mac and cheese - it was ok, but we all wished it were a bit heartier (the non-vegetarians were specifically mentioning it'd be much better with bacon).  The pretzel lived up to it's reputation. It's served with stone ground mustard and more house-made cheddar ale sauce and it is so much better than the pretzels you get from street carts. 

It's a little bit awkward going into a restaurant with seven people and then telling them you aren't really there for a meal - just to try a couple of things. Our waiter totally went with it and was very sweet about having us taking up a whole table.  We definitely could have eaten more there - and I fully intend to go back to try the lobster pot pie - but we were pacing ourselves for the rest of the day. 

Round two was easy enough to get to - across the street from The Monk's Kettle is a Pakistani/Indian restaurant called Pakwan.  We stopped in here quickly to get some chai to go.  I have to admit that I am used to the American-ized chai from places like Starbucks and Peets.  This was so much more subtle and not nearly as sweet - and at $1 a cup, it's also a way better deal. We took our chais and headed down 16th Street to our next stop, Balompie Cafe. 

So this place is tricky to find if you're like me and rely on Google maps, because Google maps will tell you it is on 18th Street and Alabama.  Ignore that, because it isn't there. We were lucky because as we headed down 18th Street we happened to find it in front of us (it's at Capp, between Mission and Van Ness, if you're wondering). 

There are a few locations of Balompies, but this one is the oldest one. The 7x7 list tells you to go to Balompies #3 (in the outer Mission/Bernal Heights area) but that wasn't walkable for us and really, I don't know how necessary that is because we all loved the papusas here. We ordered three different types - bean & cheese, zucchini & cheese and the loroco con queso, which was "native Salvadorean vegetables & cheese". Are you seeing the cheese theme here? Our group was comprised of cheese lovers, so we were all very, very happy.  Each order comes with two papusas and costs $2.50. I really don't know of a cheaper meal than that.

This was my first ever papusa, and I am now a big fan. Usually if we want cheap eats in the Mission, we go to one of the many taquerias in the neighborhood, and I'm so excited to have a new option. We all left here talking about how we want to come back.

Next up on our list: Dynamo Donuts. By the time we got there - around 2pm - they were sold out of all donuts except the cornmeal rosemary cherry and lemon thyme. I was slightly disappointed because I had wanted to try the spiced chocolate donut. Once we tried these two though I didn't mind missing the chocolate - they were both incredible.   The owner was also there and very friendly: he told me that on any given day they have about 7 - 10 different varieties, and that the spiced chocolate is not one of his favorites. The most popular donut, which they have daily, is the maple glazed bacon apple. I guess I'll have to go back for that one too.

He also took me out back to show me the patio that they were just finishing getting ready to debut - it opens tomorrow!

Our group had dwindled by this point, but our group of four persevered and headed back up 24th Street to Humphry Slocombe.

They are always so nice there and let you sample all of their crazy flavors. I tried two that I would never want to have a whole cup of - golden beet safron sorbet and thai chili lime sorbet. The beet one really tasted of beets, probably not something you'd really want for dessert. The chili lime was surprising - at first I didn't taste much, and then it really gives you a big chili punch. 

In the end, we picked three: Secret Breakfast (cornflakes and bourbon), Balsamic Caramel and Chocolate Smoked Salt. We were too late to try the Harvey Milk & Honey Graham Cracker ice cream, which was only available today, for Harvey Milk Day.   None of us liked the Balsamic Caramel - too much balsamic, not enough caramel. We all liked the Secret Breakfast but our favorite was the Chocolate Smoked Salt.  

We left there full but not yet done with our mission: we had one last stop, at Anthony's Cookies. 

I'm not sure if this is true in all cities, but I love that in San Francisco you can find, in walking distance from each other, shops that specialize in just donuts or just cookies.  I wouldn't think that would be a sustainable business model, but Anthony's has been around since 1997 so they must be doing something right. We ordered three different types: Cookies and Cream, Toffee Chip and German Chocolate.  Much like with the ice cream, the one we liked best was not the one on the 7x7 list: the toffee chip was the hands down winner. We all liked the cookies and cream and none of us liked the German Chocolate,  which didn't really have much flavor.

Though we could have followed up our cookies with pie from Mission Pie or cupcakes from Mission Minis, we decided to call it a day here. We walked three miles, spent about $15 each and consumed more calories than those three miles could possibly offset. What a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

(for restaurant addresses and phone numbers, click below)

Nordstrom Cafe, Union Square

I debated if I should post this or not, because eating lunch at the mall is not usually something to write home about. But I seriously love eating at the Nordstrom Cafe. I don't know that I would make a special trip down to the mall just to eat here, but if you are out shopping and want a quick and reasonably priced meal, this is the place to go.

The picture above - that is the reason to go here. The French Onion soup is salty and cheesy and incredible. It really is one of the best French Onion soups I've ever had, and what I order every time I eat here. The french fries, which are great on their own, come with an amazing garlic aioli dip. We also ordered the chicken club sandwich so our meal would have some semblance of nutritional value.

The other nice thing about eating here is the view, which looks over downtown San Francisco.

Let's Be Frank, Crissy Field

Only in San Francisco can you find a hot dog cart that sells hot dogs made from cattle "raised on pasture in California"and that contain organic spices and Omega 3 fatty acids.  This cute little cart sits just outside the Warming Hut at Crissy Field. They have a few different varieties to choose from - uncured beef, pork bratwurst, spicy italian sausage and uncured turkey dog - and though it isn't the best hot dog (or tofu dog for that matter) that I've ever had - it really hits the spot on a nice day when you're wandering around Crissy Field.

Guaymas Restaurant, Tiburon

Yesterday we made like tourists and took the ferry over to Tiburon for lunch.  It's nice to have visitors in town so you can do things in your city you wouldn't ordinarily do - like going to Fisherman's Wharf, for example.  The ferry to Tiburon drops you off right in front of Guaymas - very handy if you are bad at directions.

My experience with restaurants directly on the water - especially in touristy areas - is that the food is generally bad. I was really pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food here - especially the guacamole, which was really flavorful. I prefer guac to be a little more chunky, not so smooth, but the flavor made up for the texture.

There were 8 of us, so we ordered the appetizer platter which included these tamales wrapped like little presents.  There were also flautas, empanadas and chalupas.

By the time the entrees arrived, I was already pretty full.  I'm not sure why I even bother to order at Mexican restaurants, because this happens nearly every time I go to one - I eat WAY too many chips and then don't want the rest of my food. I ordered shrimp fajitas, which I didn't love. They weren't bad,  but they seemed to lack some flavor.  To be fair,  I will say that everyone else that ordered fajitas seemed to like them more than I liked mine. The best dish at our table was the Camarones Rellenos - giant grilled shrimp with cheese and jalapenos, and wrapped with bacon. 

While this certainly wasn't the best meal I had this weekend (see here and here) it was a really good time and great for such a large group. Go here for that - the food is really secondary.