City of small eats: We like Gene Miguel. So much we asked the Hoodscope blogger and Examiner Cheap Eats guy to do some posts for us. Miguel has a keen eye for the unspectacularly arresting, like these spicy fries from Java restaurant (or the prosthetic-size burrito he blogged for SFoodie). Not crazy-ass good, probably, nothing that'd ever rate Bauer notice. Just stuff that reveals the texture of life in the city.
Pry the fruit tree from our cold, dead hands: Bogus -- Noe Valley, SF says someone stole lemon trees right out their pots from a home on 29th Street. Maybe the thief was merely interested in a bit of urban homesteading, the kind Chron's Jane Tunks writes about today? Time to get out the shotgun. Just like homesteaders of yore.
| M. Brody |
| Snacking by the numbers: Useful information? |
So it came as a surprise the other night when we noticed calorie counts on the overhead signage at the AMC in Emeryville, where we saw District 9. (Apologies for the picture quality: We had time to snap off only a few before a staffer politely asked us to stop.)
The counts seemed less than helpful. Bottled drinks clocked in at a range between 4 and 275 calories, ice cream between 120 and 500, and popcorn -- a range of 271 to 664 calories -- seemed calculated without buttery toppings. The information that nachos ran between 1,390 and 2,310 calories -- about what an inactive woman or man should consume in an entire day -- did give us pause. (As did the candy prices, between $3 and $4.25. Yikes.)
AMC manager of corporate communications Andy DiOrio confirmed what we suspected: The chain added calorie counts to conform with the California law (SB 1420) that obliges food sellers with at least 20 locations to make calorie counts available, effective June 30 of this year. (AMC is ahead of the game; counts aren't mandated for menu boards until 2010.) When asked if sales had been affected, DiOrio told SFoodie that "sales have continued as expected."
We forgot to ask him if AMC was working on inventing noiseless popcorn, our movie-going Holy Grail.
Choosing Mexican food usually means heading to the Mission, where the choices are plenty and the competition is stiff. For residents in Ingleside and the Sunset, the choices aren't as many, but there are a few taqueria standouts. One of these is Ocean Taqueria, a hole-in-the-wall on Ocean Avenue that serves good, fresh Mexican food. The meal of choice here is the burrito, which comes in many different forms, shapes, and sizes. You can order the Baby Burrito ($5 -- no distinction in size or shape from a standard burrito), or go all out with the Jumbo Burrito ($10.50), which is about the length of a grown man's forearm.
hypermodern/Flickr
And you thought we were exaggerating.
Ocean offers different types of tortillas, including flour, corn, spinach, and tomato, as well as a variety of meats. Stick to the carne asada or grilled chicken, which are grilled to order, making it into the burrito hot and fresh off the fire. If you like, the cooks will grill the meat with red and green peppers and onions, a nice option most taquerias don't offer.
Ocean also lets you customize your burrito exactly as you want it, rather than defaulting to a regular set of ingredients. You get to choose from different types of beans, rice, lettuce, salsas, sour cream, cheese, guacamole, cilantro, onions, and jalapeños. Ocean Taqueria is a little gem tucked away on Ocean Avenue, a nice alternative to the Mission for people in Ingleside and the Sunset.
Ocean Taqueria 1941 Ocean (at Keystone Way), 586-7013
| Ash Fulk/Facebook |
| Ash Fulk: Will the Bay Area native prove a local fave? |
The field of contestants spans the usual Top Chef range: a jumble of the earnestly self-taught, stubby-fingered sous chefs from B restaurants, and guys seeping Euro swagger, with the odd wispy hottie to sex things up.
What about locals? There's 29-year-old Mattin Noblia of Iluna Basque (701 Union at Powell) -- we expect him to roll playerish, with a suave game we'll love to hate. Earlier today he composed a startingly existential tweet: A few hours before reallity [sic] starts. Watch me tonight on Bravo at 9 PM. Then there's earthy Cali-Med caterer Laurine Wickett, 38, of Left Coast Catering (2152 Third St. at 18th St.) in Dogpatch. And 33-year-old Preeti Mistry, exec chef at Google via Bon Appetit Management Company.
But we're all set to cheer on 29-year-old Ash Fulk, who -- despite having one of those names whose quirkiness ensures it'll roll around your brain long after you Just. Want. It. To. Stop., and a goateed superciliousness that's convincingly NYC (he cooks at Trestle on Tenth in Manhattan) -- is just a 'burban boy from Pleasant Hill in the Contra Costa. Plus he's one of three members of Team Gay (Mistry's another) and, well, apparently kind of a bear in the making. We're counting on you to represent, Ash! Grrr.
At a preview in the Panhandle last night, soon-to-launch underground street-food vendor Toasty Melts cooked up grilled cheese sandwiches for an invitation-only audience.
J. Birdsall
The Original boasts a gooey three-cheese blend.
Toasty Melts vendors Andy and Lisa (not their real names -- drama, right?) offered a sneak peek of the four sandwiches on their roster. On a rolling cart fitted with a butane-fired pancake griddle, with a pair of enameled cast-iron sauté pans as lids, Lisa fired an Original Toasty Melt ($3), a gooey blend of white cheddar, Gouda, and Jack between thick slices of fine-textured white bread.
J. Birdsall
Heavy saute pans serve as grill lids.
SFoodie also sampled the ABC Melt ($4), a mashup of white cheddar, bacon, and apple slices on sourdough. It had a smoky deliciousness, with slices of skin-on Galas cut as thin as a Visa card -- perfect, since they added acidity and a blur of sweetness without stepping on the bacon.
The Strawberry SweetMess ($4), a dessert sandwich, combined Nutella, vanilla-laced cream cheese, and strawberry slices between the same dense and fluffy white bread that brackets the Original.
Toasty Melts is planning its official launch at the street-food party organized by Little Skillet in Ritch Street this Friday night.
J. Birdsall
The dessert sandwich Strawberry SweetMess contains Nutella.
The best anchovies in the world come from the Iberian peninsula, particularly from L'Escalaon the Mediterranean coast of Catalonia, where the little fish are known as anxovas, and from the region of Cantabria on the Bay of Biscay west of the Basque region, where the fish are called bocartes. The best examples from these regions are invariably filleted and packed in extra virgin olive oil... If you have never liked the taste of anchovies, the bocarte or anchoa del Cantábrico, more widely available than those from L'Escala, will be a revelation. It is the José Carreras of anchovies. Its rich, bold flavor expands across your tongue just as the Catalonian tenor's notes fill an opera house. These anchovies are not for the meek.A swift, deeper dig unmasked the blogger as Brett Emerson, chef of the cozy, newish restaurant in Noe Valley -- naturally, called Contigo.
Right now at Contigo, three slender fillets of these wonder-fish will cost you $5. Go there and get them, along with everything else on the menu. They arrive suspended in an incandescent slick of fruity, salt-suffused olive oil, dense and meaty, the kind of explosive, aggressively flavorful substance only a perfect alliance of nature, time, and human experience can create. You'll want to slice the fillets into small bits and very slowly transport each one to your mouth via toothpick. A fork will have to do, but be snail-like in your pacing and drink plenty of Cava. Then, when you run out of bread for sopping, you'll want to hoover the plate until no trace of neon oil remains. You won't give a shit who sees you.
Contigo 1320 Castro (at 24th St.), 285-0250
First, another Pig + Booze dinner goes off tonight between 5 and 10 p.m. at Orson (508 Fourth St. at Bryant, 777-1508). Wallow through a pork belly amuse bouche, a first course of pig's ear with charred escarole and melon, followed by slices from a whole wood-fired pig with Gigantes beans and heirloom tomatoes. Even dessert is porcine -- a pork bistella with plum ice cream. The cost is $35, and there's an optional cocktail or wine pairing for an additional $20. And you can listen to a special pig music mix from DJ Stef. Check out Orson's Web site for more details.
Next, MarketBar (One Ferry Building at The Embarcadero, 434-1100) is putting on a lush weekend three-course called A Carnivore's Dilemma. After a chopped salad dressed with bacon vinaigrette, served with garlic toasts, choose your entrée: roasted prime rib, Prather Ranch organic roast pork coated with garlic breadcrumbs and mustard, or game hen seasoned with rosemary salt, served with parsley potatoes and a fresh vegetable.
We suppose that's where the dilemma of the title sets in, though since your entrée can consist of a single portion of one or smaller portions of two, or even all three, we fail to see any problem. Our choice would be clear: More is more. Dessert continues the theme of indulgence with rich chocolate pot de crème. Available Saturday and Sunday from 5 p.m. on, for $34.95. And there's a stimulus package, too -- 30% off all bottles of wine, with dinner.
Let's do lunch:
Do oysters make you horny? Better take the rest of the afternoon off, just in case. SF Weekly restaurant critic Meredith Brody suggests a dozen local specimens (four each of Hog Island Sweetwater, Hog Island Atlantic, and Hog Island Kumamoto) at Hog Island Oyster Bar, One Ferry Building (at The Embarcadero), 391-7117.
Drink therapy:
Keep an eye on the Giants-Reds game on the flatscreen, while doing some budget drinking in a room that pays homage to Japan's baseball heroes. Get $3 drafts, wells, and house sakes, 5-7 p.m., at O Izakaya Lounge in the Hotel Kabuki, 1625 Post (at Laguna), 614-5431.
Get stupid on two-for-one well drinks from 9 p.m. to midnight. Starting at 10 p.m., restore at least a veneer of braininess by experiencing the 16th and Mission Poetry Showcase: the Stud Bar, 399 Ninth St. (at Harrison).
