Our favorite food blog items for Wednesday, May 20, 2009
What the f***?: Seriously, who knew GI Joe had such a potty mouth, or was such an aficionado of the pork chop sandwich? YouTube reveals the filthy truth here. Credit the find to a Tuesday tweet from Hot Food Porn.
Poison pen: C'mon, organophosphate lovers, let Michelle Obama know about the pernicious influence in the LACK of pesticides on the organic White House veggie garden! Grist's Tom Philpott reveals the letter-writing campaign by the agrichemical industry to urge the First Lady to spray, baby, spray: What message does that send to the non-farming public about an important and integral part of growing safe and abundant crops to feed and clothe the world -- crop protection products?
So serious is this list that its creator, whose own label is featured as an affordable option, twitters about his Last Bottle Board, a vehicle for promoting the restaurant's wine program, unparalleled in the city. (The wines are from the collection of Wilf Jaeger, an RN74 partner.) The board looks like a train schedule in a French railway station, the kind that flips rapidly through the alphabet until it lands on its destination city. Only in this case, the destination is the very last bottle of something fabulous, like a 1983 Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese for $110. Of course, you have to be able to translate the tweet, which reads "Prum Weh Son Spat 83 $110." And you have to get to the restaurant before it's gone.
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
But when friends from out of town visit, all bets are off. Especially when, as in the case of recent house guests from NY, they've never been to the Bay Area before (well, one had visited SF briefly, 20 years ago, as an impecunious student).
As bartender Edgar Kennedy replied to Harold Lloyd when he said he'd never taken a drink in his life in Preston Sturges' The Sin of Harold Diddlebock: "Sir, you rouse the artist in me!"
They were here for only a few days. Still, we managed to squeeze in croissants and pastries at Tartine, a Ferry Building stroll, dim sum at Yank Sing, drinks at the Alembic, and a dreamy walk through the produce aisles at Berkeley Bowl.
For the last several weeks, a dead-end block in the Mission (which we'll protect for the sake of the underground) has been host to a Friday night street supper. Last week, we arrived 15 minutes after it began and found nearly 50 people there already. And most of them, it seemed, had signed up for some Thai green curry with chicken or tofu ($5), made fresh on the spot by Magic Curry Man.
Generously portioned and served over rice in a to-go container, it had a nicely spicy kick and luxurious creaminess.
"I don't want to be known as a chef," said Magic Curry Man, who we hear is actually a psychoanalyst by day.
"Nope, you're a magician!" we replied. He smiled affirmatively, then mentioned he'd been thinking about recruiting an actual illusionist to perform magic tricks while people wait.
Monsieur Amuse-Bouche, who often greets morning commuters at the 24th Street BART station with what he calls the "original, recession-buster breakfast" (a mini-muffin and hot-beverage-filled Dixie cup for $1), was offering zucchini muffins and Turkish black tea, which he swore wasn't strong, but was stiff enough to put big-time pep in our step for the rest of the evening. We also tried a heavenly strawberry tart ($3) while gazing longingly at bubble-like pita pockets stuffed with feta. We're still kicking ourselves for not getting one.
Kronner cheffed at Slow Club and Serpentine before partnering up with Sam White and other restaurantistas in the conceptual OPENrestaurant project. Last week in Bruno's 40-seat Pussycat Lounge, Kronner's kitchen team did 110 covers -- a slam, more or less. On May 7, the pop-up's opening night, Kronner didn't leave the kitchen till 5:30 a.m.; last week, he slipped out at 3:15. But he's hardly crying about a 20-hour-plus day or two.
"We're doing it for ourselves," Kronner said, speaking for the pop-up's team. "It's total freedom, a creative outlet. Everything about it is intentional - that's what drives us." For Kronner, the Thursday night dinner is essentially a full-time gig, which makes him unique on the team. White still works on the floor at Chez Panisse, while the rest of the staff punch the clock at places like Pizzaiolo and Beretta.
