Cantina revelation: We missed it last Saturday, and, well, it was first published last October (an editor's note explains that, since Mission Loc@l didn't have many readers back then, they decided to re-publish). Still, Wes Enzinna's peek inside El Tin Tan bar on 16th Street is as fresh as anything we've read about the Mission. Nah, it's not remotely about eating. But Enzinna's brief report on this first stop of immigrants from Yucatan is as engaging as our favorite pieces of food and travel writing, illuminating a part of the city that might've existed forever for us as nothing more than a blank façade. Nice job.
Nope: Mission Mission's Allan Hough hearts the chocolate babka at Pal's Take Away. Yep, it's imported from New York, where they know from babka. Gotta say we didn't love the hunk we tried -- the chocolate filling is excessively sweet, Hershey's-bar sweet, and what should be a textural interplay (can't believe we just pulled that out) of shaggy skin and tender crumb was merely doughy. Though Hough suggests that importing it from Brooklyn might not make a difference, we're guessing the journey west pretty much turns the texture to crap. Fail.
| sarahmroos/Flickr |
| The Civic Center Eat-In harks back to last year's communal potluck in Dolores Park. |
Organizing a potluck can be headache-y -- you've got to do a lot of e-mailing to avoid ending up with a table crammed with hummus and Toll House. Imagine, then, what Dava Guthmiller is going through. The president of the city's Slow Food chapter is throwing a Labor Day potluck for 500 outdoors in Civic Center, noon to 3 p.m. But a little more than three weeks out, Guthmiller seems completely chill.Dubbed an Eat-In, the Civic Center potluck is one of about 230 communal meals planned nationwide for Labor Day, under Slow Food USA's national day of action for its Time for Lunch drive. The campaign seeks to bring what Slow Food calls "real food" to the nation's public school lunchrooms. Tactics focus on letter-writing campaigns and petition drives to pressure Congress to improve standards under the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, due for action this fall. The Labor Day Eat-Ins were inspired, in part, by last year's communal potluck in Dolores Park during S.F.'s Slow Food Nation festival.
The Civic Center potluck is expected to be the largest of three Eat-Ins in the city on September 7th. Smaller meals are planned for Ingleside and Potrero Hill, with 11 more Eat-Ins in the wider Bay Area, from San Jose to Santa Rosa.
Though the S.F. event is expected to be sprawling, Guthmiller isn't stressing about who's bringing what. "Everyone's free to bring what they like," she told SFoodie. "We will have some food provided, some people who are bringing large-portion items for those who just happen to forget and show up with nothing. But we're asking everyone to bring picnic ware -- plates and forks -- and a dish to share of whatever size." Attendees will drop off their dish at a central food table, where volunteers will check it out to determine whether it'll need to be iced. Dishes will be distributed among several communal dining tables set up in Civic Center Plaza.
| nilsrinaldi/Flickr |
| Yeah, it's as pristine as that. |
A special menu at Waterbar devoted to pristinely wild arctic char will put your conscience at ease, at least for one night. The restaurant's executive sous chef is orchestrating a menu built around char hand-fished by Inuit people from waters above the Arctic Circle in Canada. For the three-course menu plus dessert (wine pairings included) -- served in the private dining room upstairs at Waterbar on Monday, August 31st, at 6 p.m. -- Justin Baade is adopting a kind of nose-to-tail approach.
"We want to try to use every part of the fish," the exec sous chef told SFoodie. Baade noted that wild char is noticeably firmer than its farmed cousins, whose flesh can skew mushy. Appetizers will include spring rolls filled with char scraped from the bones after filleting. First course is hot cedar-smoked char with a salad of waterceress and fingerlings and blackberry mostarda. For the second course, Baade plans to bake the fish to preserve it's pure taste. He'll serve it with classic salmon accompaniments, including blue lakes and a leek soubise. A crème fraiche panna cotta with local berries brings it all to a close.
The cost? $125 per person. Which, if you've got it, might not be a bad thing to spend on helping to preserve the oceans. Buy tickets and read full details (including wine picks) at the Waterbar Web site.
| M. Brody |
| Josh Harris of 15 Romolo strains his berrylicious creation. |
| M. Brody |
| Jackie Patterson of Heaven's Dog shakin' it. |
Voting on the audience favorite resulted in a tie between H. Joseph Ehrmann of Elixir's Mountain Peach (we posted the recipe on SFoodie a couple of days ago) and the berrylicious Tuscan Smash from Josh Harris of 15 Romolo (our personal fave). Harris has so far been mum on his recipe, but we did score a list of ingredients for another of our favorites, the Green and Orange from Jackie Patterson of Heaven's Dog (recipe after the jump).
When an admirer asked Patterson if the Green and Orange would be showing up at Heaven's Dog, she cheerfully replied, "If my bar backs had to juice carrots and melons every night, they'd kill me!" Looks like you're stuck making it at home.
| La Copa Loca's Ice Spaghetti Pomodoro. |
Frjtz's dipping sauces range from Thai chili ketchup and Parmesan-peppercorn ranch to tamarind-cashew and smoky honey mustard -- the menu's jammed with lots more, too. La Cocina's calendar is just as jammed, what with the first-ever San Francisco Street Food Festival it's organizing, including a scavenger hunt, silent auction, street-food photo contest, and -- oh yeah -- plenty of street food. The one-day extravaganza hits Saturday, August 22. Spread the word -- maybe while scarfing fries at Frjtz.
"Julia had many Bay Area connections," Balboa owner Gary Meyer told us. "She went to high school at the Branson School in Marin County, and she started the American Institute of Wine & Food in Napa." On Saturday, bring a home-baked birthday cake to the Balboa and you'll get free admission to any screening of Julie & Julia that day. Afternoon and evening show times are 1:35, 4:20, 7:00, and 9:25.
Oh, and the cakes? They'll be shared by your fellow filmgoers.
The chefs plan on highlighting menu favorites from the restaurant's last decade, paired with libations that include specialty house cocktails. "Exciting performers" include: musicians, dancers, magicians, acrobats, henna artists, and more -- no word if the fire jugglers who whooped it up for Foreign Cinema's eight-and-a-half-year anniversary will make another appearance. Maybe the quirkiest nonfood event is the auction of skateboards designed by 16 local residents, including skateboard photographers and comic sketch artists. Check out the decks on display (through August 18th) at Laszlo Bar, which is next door to Foreign Cinema.
To purchase tickets for the anniversary bash, call 648-7600. Space is limited.
Let's do lunch:
Who knows, might even be hot in the Sunset today. SF Weekly food critic Meredith Brody says cool off with vegetable tempura and cold zaru soba at Hotei (1290 Ninth Ave. at Irving).
Drink therapy:
No DJs tonight, but who cares? Console yourself with $4 well drinks and an ambience that's part louche, part glam: Bruno's (2389 Mission at 19th St.), 7-9 p.m.
It's got glittery black chandeliers and a whiff of Euro voguishness. Take it all in while throwing back $3 Paulaner drafts, $5 house wines and the pastis and absinthe drinks called St. Tropez, and $6 cocktail specials: Chez Papa Resto (4 Mint Plaza at Fifth St.), 5-7 p.m.
