Gettin' paid: S.F. protoblogger Pim Techamuanvivit trumpeted an endorsement deal today with Rachel's Wickedly Delicious to flog cottage cheese and other goodies. The NY Times' Kim Severson suggests she may be the first cyber foodscribe to go from amateur observer to de facto flack -- read all about it at Chez Pim. We're not sure what to think about passages like this: My life as a foodie is all about having fun with food, about trying new things, and about expanding our foodie horizon. It's also about eating food that's good for us, and about making smart choices that respect the environment. That's precisely what Rachel's products are all about, and that's why I've found such synergy in working with them. Read like marketing copy to you? Are ethics even an issue in blogs these days?
According to the report, a San Francisco breakfast of two eggs with bacon, toast, orange juice and coffee costs more than $18; lunch of a sandwich, slice of pie, and soda cost more than $25; and dinner of steak, soup, wine, pie, and coffee cost more than $76.
As Smith points out, just escaping the ka-ching-ka-ching comforts of the Fairmont and strolling to Sears Fine Food on Powell could shave something like eight bucks off that two-egg breakfast. But the thing that leaves us scratching our heads is all that pie -- a slice for lunch and a slice for dinner. Something tells us that, besides having expense-account management issues, the researcher for the Institute of Management and Administration is a total fatty.
There can't be too many German restaurants in San Francisco to suit us -- we're BIG schnitzel fans! -- so learning that Christiana Schmidt and Isabell Mysyk (owners of the gemütlich East German Walzwerk on South Van Ness) were opening a deli on Folsom brought a tear of joy to our eye.
So did the choice of eight different sausages ($8 each), served with sauerkraut, potato salad, and two kinds of mustard (hot and grainy). Pictured above is the excellent, smoky-yet-mild Thüringer bratwurst. We also tried a delicious dark, coarse, and slightly gamy boar sausage.
The menu is not just a meatfest. Exciting salads included this one, crunchy and slightly spicy celery leaves and thinly sliced raw asparagus with quail eggs in a light vinaigrette ($4.50; we added sliced poached chicken breast for $2). Another combined mâche and pea tendrils, topped with purple chive blossoms.
| Top: The Ba Le contender. Bottom: The Saigon sammy. |
A product of French colonialism in Vietnam, the banh mi is classic street food, a sandwich that combines elements of both nations' culinary traditions - France's baguette and pâté, usually, and Vietnam's cilantro, chiles, and pickled vegetables. One of the most popular banh mi sandwiches contains grilled pork. SFoodie tried versions at two highly touted spots, Saigon Sandwiches in the Tenderloin and Ba Le in Oakland, in our own take on the Bay Bridge Classic.
Baguette: Saigon's bread, toasted on the outside, wins points for crispness. Ba Le also toasts, but the overall effect is softer. Both scoop out some of the insides to allow more room for fillings.
Meat: Saigon serves tender strips of pork, hands-down better than Ba Le's odd, pressed composite of mystery meat, which has good flavor but weak texture. And Saigon stuffs in more meat than its Oakland rival.
| The first one is free; the second'll cost ya |
SFoodie doesn't know of any new-crop Mission vendors who have permits to hawk food. What's the likelihood that city authorities will stage a crackdown on scofflaw entrepreneurs, especially in the face of mainstream buzz? Conversations with officials from both the police and the Health Department suggested that while the city doesn't currently seem to have much appetite for busts of vendors like Curtis the Crème Brulee Guy, Cookie Wag, Amuse Bouche, or Sexy Soup Lady, the possibility of future action is real.
A friendly rep is not exactly a hallmark of the original South Berkeley store, which continues to operate. Shopping there can be like navigating an obstacle course, especially in the produce aisles, and checkout lines can be ridiculous. Still, it's got a chaotic neighborhood feel and a cast of eccentric shoppers many find lovable.
Enter the new store, which features pristine aisles clear of carts. When we arrived at 9 a.m., there wasn't a single parking space in the ground-level lot, though one soon opened up. There are more than a hundred spaces underground, so parking may not prove as difficult as it is in South Berkeley.
Curious about pig-spiked hooch? Steer your Hyundai to the semi-wilds of Alameda in the East Bay, ask the right barkeep, and it's likely you'll be able to score a slug. Melanie Hartman, an owner of the restaurant BarCeluna (2319 Santa Clara at Park, Alameda), has an off-the-menu stash of bacon bourbon she's been quietly experimenting with. "I've just kind of been playing around with it," Hartman told SFoodie. For her first batch, Hartman used Jim Beam. The latest effort contains Four Roses, steeped overnight with the fat from applewood-smoked bacon, refrigerated, and strained through a coffee filter. "Bourbons with a really smoky flavor to begin with don't work so well," Hartman said. "A sweeter, mellower, less complex one really lets the taste of the bacon come through."
