Pizza. And beer: Wea culpa -- meaning we're as guilty as the next blogger in hyping restaurants not yet open. Restaurants that, well, shouldn't oughtta be hyped. When a place has a PR firm opening the throttle on the buzz machine, we can understand it. But when it doesn't, it makes us wonder just exactly what kind of clammy-fingered, Lord of the Flies-type group kill is going on here.
The latest specimen: Pi Bar. It's a pizza and beer place at 1432 Valencia Street in the Mission, or will be , after an opening slated for October 1. Pizza, beer. The owner is the guy behind Chenery Park -- that's pretty much all you need to know. A big deal? Well, it's pizza and beer, not like fucking Ferran Adriá packing up and moving to the Mission, right? Yet Eater SF listed the place as a Neighborhood Game-Changer, because, apparently, well, there'll be pizza -- East Coast pizza. And beer. Two points not overlooked by UrbanDaddy, which crafted a headline that read: "Your New Temple of Beer and Pizza." Really?
On Wednesday, Grub Street admitted it's been waiting patiently since March for, well, pizza. And beer. Burrito Justice excerpted UrbanDaddy's report, then expressed its own anticipatory schadenfreude: "I look forward to watching those lacking east coast pizza experience learn to eat a pizza with one hand." What about Mission Mission? Maybe all this Pi frenzy is traceable to blogger Kevin Montgomery, whose almost tweaked-out fascination about the place rated its own site tag: Bloggers Completely Uncalled For Obsession With Pi Bar.
In a situation such as this, when a public official -- a mayor no less -- wants to regulate what people put in their bodies -- directly, with the support of voters, or indirectly, by such a roundabout method only Supervisors must approve -- lawsuits are inevitable. Likewise, naysayers wonder why vendors should be taxed for selling soda, but not ice cream, or, say, sports drinks -- a slovenly vice New York City recently targeted in an ad campaign. The author of one comment on Ross's piece proposed a $25 tax on each bag of dog food sold in San Francisco, with the idea that the revenue could "fund a city-operated dog-shit clean up service" to mitigate the near-ubiquitous presence of canine feces on sidewalks and in parks.
Bam! Yum-O! We've been annoyed by the exaggerated catchphrases of Emeril LaGasse and Rachael Ray for many years, but they've got some serious competition in the annoyance department from these up-and-coming boob tube food-lebrities:
Crenn's biggest fan may be Esquire magazine's influential John Mariani, who named her a Chef to Watch in his Best Restaurants of 2007 and Chef of the Year in his Best Restaurants of 2008, as well as naming Luce the best new restaurant in San Francisco in Bloomberg News.
When she was 18 months old, Crenn was adopted by a French couple who raised her in Versailles, outside Paris. "I was accustomed to good food," she told SFoodie. "My mother was a great cook who took me to the farmers' markets. My father's best friend was a well known French food critic, and I hung out with them a lot, going to many restaurants. From the age of 8 I knew that I wanted to be a chef. I wanted to go to cooking school, but I ended up getting a bachelor in economics. But during the summers I cooked in little restaurants, and learned."
One of our favorites was the yellow fin tuna sashimi served atop a tiny slice of mini cucumber from Circolo. It was incredibly tiny but still managed to pack a lot of cool, crisp, and refreshing flavors. We also enjoyed the cheese pupusas from Balompie Café, which had a nice fluffy dough and hot gooey cheese, perfect. We also tried chicken tamales from Roosevelt Tamale Parlor, which were good, not great, though the house-made guacamole was. Not too chunky, and it had a nice subtle avocado flavor, just enough to not overpower anything it was served with.
Though most restaurants served bite-size portions, Papalote served full-sized burritos cut in half. The veggie burritos were packed with a lot of flavor from the seasoned rice and beans, and definitely filled us up compared to some of the other offerings on hand. For dessert we had incredibly tasty tiramisu from Gold Mirror. It was light and airy, with balanced hints of liquor, espresso beans, and cocoa.• Suppenküche (525 Laguna at Hayes) has lunch (in honor of Oktoberfest) and beer specials. More info here.
• Special German beer can be found at Toronado (547 Haight near Fillmore).
• In the Mission, Monk's Kettle (3141 16th St. at Albion) will have both beer and German food.
• Schroeder's German Restaurant's (240 Front at Sacramento) annual Oktoberfest kickoff is today. Take in the Joe Smiell's Fest band, folk dancers, and German elves -- otherwise known as hostesses. It is too easy to get completely sloshed here, and pacing is key. The festivities continue every Friday through October.
• If you're craving more crowds in a decidedly less intimate setting, Oktoberfest By the Bay at Pier 48 near AT&T Park is billing itself as "bigger and better" this year. Events run from October 2 to 4. Tickets are $30 to $35; beer, German food, music, and general festivities are scheduled. Happy guzzling.
It's all very high-end and minimalist -- customers carry little woven baskets to fill with treats. The uniformed employees are traditional and polite, offering to help the confused with any questions they might have. Luckily, each of the treats comes with an English translation describing the ingredients. It's all a bit on the pricey side (some treats cost upwards of $11 each). But the wagashi come straight from Japan, so the relatively steep prices are surely attributed to the overseas shipping costs.
Minamoto Kitchoan is a nice, albeit pricey, dessert shop, but you get great service and authentic treats straight from Japan. At least it's not another cupcake shop.
SFoodie's weekly look at some urban essentials offered up on Craiglist.
• Hundreds of Southern African goats are for sale in Corning at the price of $125 apiece. According to the vendors, they're "good for grazing, pets, or whatever else." We're thinking "whatever else" means a nice braise.• "Do you have a problem with pigs tearing up your yard?" asks this ad, sounding like a late-night infomercial host frothing at the mouth over the life-saving possibilities posed by some obscure kitchen gadget. If pigs are, in fact, your problem, or if you just want to buy a big cage -- you know, for whatever -- this might be your ticket to happiness. The cage can hold multiple hogs at a time. The asking price is $500. Just call Desiree in Oakdale.
• Our friend once wrote a nice song about Asian pears. We've always had mixed feelings about them. So frequently they're tasteless -- though it truly, as with most such things, likely depends on the variety and the grower. We don't really know; we're no professors of pear-ness. We've probably just had some particularly weak ones. Ditto for Golden Delicious. The so-called "delicious" apples populating our childhood grocery store's wane and waxed produce aisle -- both golden and red -- were usually mushier than a frozen margarita. Yet just last week, we accidentally ate a pale yellow specimen we actually really enjoyed. We thought we were tripping. We dug in the trash and double-checked the sticker repeatedly. Anyway, both Asian pears and Golden Delicious apples are $1/pound in Sebastopol.
