Thanks all for the information! Take care.

Thankyou!

Hello.
I finished off my jar of brer rabbit full flavor molasses and was just about to buy a new jar, when i realized, that maybe there is more to this sticky wonder than the usual? Anyone got any opinions? Favorite brands? Favorite flavor? I am mainly using it for sauces, both fresh and cooked, and marinades. I am not a big baker, but i am trying to change that.
Thanks in advance!

Mmm. Imperial garden. I will chekc it out! Thanks windy! I am excited to slurp some dumplings in our hood now too with the new sdk across from lucky river!

KHAO SOI

LOMO SALTADO

Wow, that winter melon soup looks so amazing and intriguing! i am glad to hear that it only took three days to make the flavors come togheter ;) just kidding, still looks amazing and something i would have oohed and aahed over. yum. thanks for sharing!

i like the LOMO SALTADO rec.

KHAO SOI

Hi.
My husband has decided that we should go out for valentines day dinner (something we never ever do) and that we should bring the family with us, and he has requested that we go to Beijing Restuarant

So, here is my slight predicament, i am NOT a huge super spicy food fan (at least not with chinese food, i am ok with indian, thai, bbq, etc but for some reason, not chinese i feel like the chinese version of "numbing this" and "exploding that" seem to really dull down the flavor of the ingredients and makes it hard to taste ANYTHING for my palate. I have had meals at Spices and Z&Y and i can usually make it through half of a dish before i need to start re-finding my taste buds with something plain like veg or rice or soup noodles)

anyway, he has requested that we try the general's chicken, but is there anything else we shouldn't miss? I have done a bit of research and the spicy potato tower fried thing looks great, as well as the eggplant with garlic sauce, egg surface tofu and preserved vegetable shredded pork noodle suop; but i have seen a lot of stuff written up about westernized chinese food on their menu and how to steer away from that. i am not sure if these three items are part of that calndestine group ;)
Any recommendations would be helpful.
Thanks in advance,
Jupiter

As i am NOT a big fan of going anywhere that i need to wait in line, and SF residents love reserving tables,i don't have a lot of experienc or patience, but if i did, i would start at 16th and Valencia and start heading south, you will have the folllowing restaurants all within a 4 block radius of you:

Locanda
Abbot's Cellar
West of Pecos
Maverick
Limon
The Sycamore
Wo Hing General Store
Bar Tartine
Hog and Rocks
Hi Lo bbq (new and lots of excitement on this board about it)
Tacolicious

also in this vicinity you will find Range, Commonwealth, Delfina (all of these are slightly more upscale and would probably need reservations, but are highly regarded)

While i can't vouch for all of these, i can say, that you will be in the center of the hot spot action with lots of booze, hipsters, good food and partying people. You can pretty much drink and snack hop at your whim as most of these places have bars, bar snacks, and specialty cocktails. Sounds like a fun night.

Droste pastilles! So good. We used to get the rounds of drops that were half milk and half dark chocolate and we would pull them apart and my dad would eat the dark and i would eat the milk. Yum. My sister was always a fan of callebaut, and i like it. i for a dark chocolate it has a great mouth feel and is nice and creamy, not chalky or brittle in any way. I usually use it for baking or sauces or drinking chocolate, but its good for eating too.

Since i don't live in Brookline anymore, i can't help you with the local chocolatiers (but i can absolutely vouch one hundred and ten percent for the mini eclairs from Virginia's in Brookline Village. and i am not sure if they are still there, but Serenade hand made chocolates were a staple in our house growing up and my dad swears they were the best.)

However, my favorite and i think completely underrated store chocolate bar is from Cadbury. I think Cadbury still makes an excellent milk chocolate bar. the Dairy Milk one. also, i think that the the cadbury dairy milk with caramel is delicious as well.
And maybe the whole foods or some other fancy storemight carry Scharffen Berger's chocolate bars, again, i am a fan of the milk chocolate, but their dark bars are good too.

Also, in a pinch i would never turn away a twix or a reeses peanut butter cup. :)

Hello Melanie,
i went and tried their Ramen and must say, it was pretty enlightening. i wrote about it here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/890005

(i had originally put a shout out to you about it in the title, but Ruth told me you don't respond to those, so i asked the administrator to take your name out. sorry if i offended in anyway, i don't know the rules yet.

anyway, it was a damn fine bowl of ramen, but i have never had tonkotsu ramen before, so it could just be so so. would love to know what you think and if there is a better version out there.

Take care,
Jupiter

Thanks Ruth. that is how long it has been since i have been posting.

i will take her name off the title.

take care, and if you get a chance, you should try the ramen too if you like porky soup noodles!

and i just read through your ramen rankings again, and i realize that i am now the second person to recommend this bowl of ramen to you. so i can't wait to hear what you think.

Hi, so last night, i finally made it ot Izakaya Sozai, and the food was fine. Some of it was exceptional, some of it was "meh" but the one thing that stood out the most, the best, was the Ritsu Tonkotsu Ramen. The menu even recommends that you end your meal with it. As there were three of us determined to try to eat almost the whole menu, we split one bowl three ways at the end.
That broth is revelatory. i have never had anything like it. I really want to know what Melanie thinks about it! (I looked over your most recent list from earlier this month and didn't see it anywhere on there. Have you tried it and hated it? Or have you not had a chance to try it yet?) The noodles were cooked perfectly and had a good toothsomeness to them. The egg was perfectly soft boiled and the roast pork was delicious. But really, it was all about that broth. I have never had tonkotsu ramen before, so i can't say. maybe this was a horrible version, but as it was my first, it was new to me and delicious as well. The broth was unctous with out being greasy. It had an abundance of black pepper in it, that i would normally be averse to, but with this creamy marrow broth, it worked.
The yakitori is good: the chicken skin and the enoki wrapped mushrooms were my favorite; And some of the small plates were decent: the clams with sake and the tofu steak with mushrooms were both good, but nothing amazing, and the special of sauteed ankimo was different, but what set it apart was the way they treated the peppercorns that accompanied it and the sauce. (and speaking of the sauce, it was the consensus of the table that their sauces and broths were really the most thoughtful part of the compostions going on.)
Anyway, i would whole heartedly recommend that everyone try this bowl of ramen if they are pork eaters.

Take care,
Jupiter

Izakaya Sozai
1500 Irving
San Francisco, CA 94122

Ah ha! yes, it was probably a very mild radish. i am not a jicama fan, so i am pretty sure i would have recognized that. and it had more snap than jicama.
Thanks! there wasn't a lot of it in the slaw.

Mmmm that looks close, but they didnt use red onions and there was definitely a nother whitish veg that i couldnt place. Time to go back again i guess!

Thanks!

Hi,
so last night after an emotionally gruelling two hours at the shelter meeting dogs with my family, we all rolled out of there hungry and cranky and confused. The man and i needed sustenance stat and the cranky 5 year old just wanted a plate of french fries.

We ended up at Mi Lindo Peru.

I hadn't been there in over 5 years and rememberd the food being delicious and the place being fairly busy, and i am sure it was, and i am sure i was there on a friday, so i shouldn't have been worried. We showed up on Tuesday at 6pm. There was NO one there. That made me a little apprehensive, but hey, a plate of fries is a plate of fries, and it's easier to eat bad food with a happy 5 year old then eat good food with a pissy one.

The menu came and i coudn't make it past the appetizers, as there are like 30 of them and they all sound amazing, so i went for small plates, the man went for a steak and of course the boy had fries.

We had:

Chicharron De Pollo - breaded pieces of chicken with lemon juice
Gambas Al Ajillo - prawns sauteed in a garlic sauce
Bistec Milanese
a side order of red beans
a side salad
a glass of wine
french fries.
Total 60 dollars with a 20% tip included. (pretty freaking good deal)

So, the chicken was amazing. chopped on the bone and deep fried perfectly, there were at least a dozen pieces on the plate with an AMAZING onion slaw and lemon juice sauce that both accompanied the fried pieces. Perfect. Even the boy ate some of the chicken. The onion slaw was lightly pickle flavored and had bits of tomato, cilantro, and something else that was failry innocuous and only added crunch, but i didn't pay enough attention to the components cause i was to busy eating it on top of my chicken pieces. so good. *If anyone knows how to make this pickled onion slaw, please let me know!

The gambas al ajillo were 6 grilled shrimp arranged butt side up in a circle with a humongous mound of what i can only describe as confit of minced roasted garlic, that was pouring out between the cracks in a pool of garlic oil. This dish would have been made infinitely better by being served with a full basket of bread to soak up the garlic and oil, but i didn't think to ask as i was still to busy inhaling them and eating the chicken.

The french fries were delicious and freshly cut and the boy said they were perfect and he ate the whole plate. The beans looked and smelled great, but Rob pretty much ate them all when i wasn't looking.

His steak was a perfect version of a chicken fried steak without the gravy (which i am pretty sure he poured the beans on top of to act as the gravy component.) The steak was served on top of white rice and was twice the size of his head. Pounded nice and thin and perfectly fried.
He finished it before i even had a chance to finish the chicken appetizer.

All in all i was surprised by how good the food was for how few people were there. A family of four came in and were seated right as we finished up.

A few parting thoughts:
Since we were the only folks there and the kitchen door was open, i appreciated that we could hear the cooking process and know that everything was being prepared fresh. we could hear the chef pounding the steak out for the cutlet, and chopping the chicken pieces up. And we could hear the deep fryer go off once everythign was cooked off.
The restaurant was clean and the staff were friendly without being crazy over attentive when there is no one to wait on.

If you find yourself having a bad day in Bernal/Mission area and are with a super picky 5 year old that needs fries, and you don't like Good Frickin chicken then this is your spot!

Take care,
Jupiter

i work with some serious old fogie archtiects and engineers that used to LOVE having lunches there when our company would foot the bill. I think the ambience is awesome and always loved going if someone else was paying. The group i went with always ordered two dishes, and almost never veereed from those, and they were always consistently good: the lambchops and the lamplighter.

i was part of the sam spade lamb chop team, and loved them and still crave them (baked potato, sliced tomato and veg.) The rest of my fellow compatriots always went for the lamplighter or the seafood canneloni.

I had the jack lalane salad once and only once as it stank. i hate bay shrimp and it was loaded with those little suckers...

However, if you want something less kitschy and more delicious, youa re really not in a bad neighborhood for business lunches: Nordstrom Bistro Cafe has delicious food and big banquettes, Straits in the Westfield is good and quiet enough to talk work. two more options for your to consider with the other recs.

OOPS and now i just realized this is a really old post and doens't matter anymore, so ignore me.

this might be the innapropriate place to post this, but Roosevelt's Tamale Parlor is doing mexican breakfasts now and their chilaquiles come as a side with the platter of whatever, and they are VERY good. better than most everything else on the plate. ;) at least i think they are good, cuase i do not normally like chilaquiles, and i ate all of them! So if chilaquiles wins, i suggest you try them there.

Thanks Melanie. It's nice to be remembered. ;) and nice to see many of the same folks still posting.

I am partial to Greek Gods brand and also Liberte brand. but both are pretty high calorie wise, but oh so delicious.

Do you mean "grana padano?"
The costco 2 year aged grana should be salty and crystaline and have an almost nutty flavor for a parmesan hard cheese type. Even close to the rind it should not have a moldy flavor as the rinds are great to flavor stocks with.
"Parrano" cheese, on the other hand, is a dutch cheese and should taste like a creamier version of an aged gouda. (I haven't seen it for sale at my costco, but that doesnt mean any thing...)
Either way, neither of these cheeses are washed rind cheeses, so neither should have a moldy taste anywhere through the cheese, so i would take it back and get another one. Both are exceptionally great and a great price for the quality from costco.

I live a block away from Lucky River and have to say, that while i have never eaten there, i am consistently underwhelmed with the takeout. i keep going back hoping that it will be great, but it is always just so so. I find the takeout at Hong Sing in Glen Park to be better.

Across from Lucky River further up monterey is a japanese place called K's kitchen, and while they are not the most amazing sushi, they do have a few standout rolls and appetizers like the "killer hamachi" and the "good roll". service is very hit or miss though.

Here is a link to my experience with Sea Garden on Ocean ave. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/857114

Also Pho Ha Tien on Ocean serves consistently good bowls of pho and bun, not a destination spot per se, but the best pho i have had in that neighborhood. They have a deep fried quail appetizer that i really like and haven't seen at many other places.

Unfortunately you missed the hey day of Ocean Taqueria, which had the best freaking steak nachos! but for some reason they shuttered their doors about 6 months ago without any notice as to what was happening. alas...i keep hoping they will re-open, but i am starting to lose faith.

One of the posters also mentioned Viking subs. i have not eaten at the one on Ocean, but the one in Glen Park does some killer teryaki subs! even though you are not interested in GP, i thought i would mention it.

Have fun exploring!

Hi. My parents were in town this weekend and we have driven by this place many times and decided to try it out for dim sum on saturday.

We arrived on satruday at 11:30 and asked for the dimsum menu (no cart service). We ordered 11 dishes off the menu, and the dimsum for the price was above average. (the total came to 40 dollars plus a tip) i thought the wrappers on the steamed dumplings were too thick for my personal taste, but my parents enjoyed them. The shrimp fillings were fresh and seemed to be purely shrimp and no added fish fillers. The pork siu mai was very good. We had rice crepe with cilantro which my parents loved, but i am allergic to cilantro, so i didn't try it. The steamed spareribs were very good. The egg rolls were supposedly excellent (but i dont like egg rolls, so i didn't have any) but my very favorite was something we ordered out of interest called "maggies bean curd skin roll". oh my god that was good! it was tightly wrapped tofu skin with chopped bits of shitake wrapped in it and then the whole roll steamed sliced up and fanned out on the plate and it was crazy delicous! I loved it. i will totally be back for that!
We also tried the standards we are familiar with and everything was good to excellent: gai lan, steamed pork buns, baked pork buns, har gow, shrimp noodle, stuffed eggplant (probably the worst thing on the table due ot the heavy oil content, but it was still good)
Most of the tables around us were ordering dim sum, but some tables were ordering full menu food that looked amazing. The table next to us ordered a soup that looked so fantastic i asked the waiter what it was ("salted pork bones with greens" he said) i grabbed a menu from the hostess and was looking for it on the menu, but couldn't find it. So i asked another waiter where the soup was on the menu and he said "not that menu" and came back with a chef special menu that had some amazing looking dishes on it. So of course, after persuing that menu we had to give dinner a try!
Oh, and when we left the restuarant at 12:30 ish almost every table upsatirs and down was full.

So, having had the dim sum and really enjoying it we of course had to go back on sunday night to try it out for dinner. And some of the chef specials. My husband is not so adventurous of an eater, so it was left up to my mom and dad I, and we ordered some standard fare: rock cod filet with veg, clams in wine sauce (which were awesome by the way) and dry fried beef chow fun (for the husband) and of course, the egg rolls again, which were deemed better at dinner as they are fatter for dinner so you can taste more filling. and we also ordered pea pod stems with tofu skin and debated a clay pot, that we had to eventually pass on, as it would have been just my father and i eating it. So here are my thoughts: The food is very fresh and the sauces are extrememly light. nothing was overwhelmingly gravy oriented, and even the thickened sauces were not so thick to be borderline gloppy. the food reminded me a lot of the cantonese food of my youth from the chinese restaurants on the east coast (boston and new york chinatowns have very different food than the chinatowns here in SF). When we arrived at the restaurant at 6 we had to wait for a table as the restaurant was hosting a baby shower and having a banquet in the upstairs section, and ALL of the large tables were reserved for family dinners! the food coming out of the kitchen was excellent, especially for the fact that they were hosting a banquet at the same time. the majority of what i saw ordered from other tables were anything served in broth and a ton of fish dishes (jelly fish, lobsters in ginger and scallion, whole steamed fishes, etc...) also,, and i haven't seen this on a menu in a while, they had beef steak in nest and the banquet up stairs was having it so i saw a lot of it go by from the kitchen and it looked excellent. Honestly, i wsh my brother had been with us so we could have ordered twice as much food!

so, that is that. it was delicous, i would recommend it. Also, even though the majority of staff doesn't speak english, they were still very accomadating and helpful with us when we just pointed at other tables to show us what we wanted on the menu. i always appreciate that!

If anyone else goes, i hope the experience is as enjoyable for you. i have seen mixed reviews on yelp, but i thought it was a very solid performance for two very different meals.

Take care all.

The olive bar in Bristol Farms in the westfield mall has them consistently and they are consistently good. firm, buttery, not too briny. I have gotten them at the Moliie Stone's on Portola and at the Whole Foods on 24th street, but they weren't as good.
the problem with Whole Foods, you have to buy them prepackaged, so you are not sure of the firmness of each one, and then Mollie Stone's let's them sit in metal tins and too much brine, so they get sort of soggy and pick up the flavor of the metal.
bleach.
The Bristol farms serves them in plastic tubs, don't know how great that is, but they don't get flabby and darkened like the ones in the metal tubs do.

and i just realized you wanted fresh ones, so this reply is sort of useless, sorry.
but if you want decent already brined ones, you can get them at bristol farms.

sorry for the super late reply, i would say no, but i am sure if you wrapped it up in some wax or parchment paper and padded the box well and sent it during the colder months, it would be ok. The pieces i brought home from the store made it in tact with minimal melting of the chocolate. but they definitely need to stay on the cool side.