jupiter's Profile
Where to buy fresh Castelvetrano Olives?
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.
Chocolate Covered Bacon?!? YES!
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.
Chocolate Covered Bacon?!? YES!
it ws thick cut bacon that was fried pretty well, so there wasn't a lot of play in it. and then dipped in a thick coating of dark chocolate.
Dungeness crab price $/lb for '09 season
Manila Market at Silver and Mission had them for 3.99 a pound when i was there on Sunday (11/30/09). The tank was packed, and so was the store with Sunday shoppers.
Chocolate Covered Bacon?!? YES!
Ran over this afternoon to Bristol farms in the basement of the westfield to buy some milk and decided to take a break and see what they had dipped for the day at the chocolate fountain in the other half (the half with the flowers and toothbrushes and all that...)and my firend and i were intrigued to see big thick slab bacon dipped in dark chocolate. of course we had to try it. And of course, it was totally awesome. we bought 4 more pieces to share with everyone in our office.
Just thought i would let you all know.
1.30 a piece, but totally worth it.
Happy Holidays
Where can I get good challah bread in San Francisco???
i second the recommendation for the plain. Haven't treid any others.
Arancini: savoury balls of goodness in the City?
The canyon market ones are decent. they are pretty plain, saffron flavored and come with some good marinar on the side. I usually pick them up cold on hot days and let them come to room temp for eating on picnics. I can't vouch for how they taste if you were to put them in the microwave, but for a cold rice treat, they are pretty good.
Farmers Markets - Live Chickens
I am not sure if it is still open, but Bay Game Birds on 20th avenue (20th between Irving and Judah) has all sorts of live poultry (ducks, hens, geese, etc) that you could pick out and they would clean and dress it for your (more expensive) or you could take it home live (less expensive).
I haven't been by their in a few years though, so i don't know if it is still open, but they have a phone number online you can check : 1 415.731.3268
Peaches [split from SF ChowDown thread]
Last saturday i went to the Alemany farmer's market looking for squashes and found a booth that had a sign : "voted best peaches at the farmer's market" and i tasted something fantastic and floral and sweet and i bought 3 and they lasted for three days without bruising, denting, rotting, or otherwise losing any good flavor.
The season may indeed be over, and i have NO idea the name of the vendor, but those peaches were excellent. Yellow peaches with a perfect balance of sweet and acid that gives a good peach that certain mouthwatering appeal.
Little Skillet - The Cobb Salad
too true, it was more like a BLT salad with fried chicken. How can that be bad?!?!?
Little Skillet - The Cobb Salad
It's awesome.
I want to keep this brief, but suffice to say, the day was hot, fried chicken seemed like overkill, and the cobb salad was calling.
I double checked to make sure that it was the fired chicken that they chopped up and put on top and the woman in the window insured me that it was with a big smile.
the descriptioin described corn bread croutons, which i was dubious about, but what showed up (after a fairly long wait due to them frying hte extra thick slab bacon fresh for the salad) was awesome:
crisp romaine and cherry tomatoes tossed in a restrained amount of ranch dressing, topped with half of a perfect avocado sliced, the equivalent of 3 peices of slab bacon chopped up and still warm, and a juicy chicken breast off the bone and cut into 5 large wedges. I shook some hot sauce individually on to each peice of chicken and headed for the loading dock across the alley. and there was not a croution in sight. instead i got a corn bread biscuit! which was overkill in my opinion but helped to sop up some of the remaining dressing.
Lemonade, salad, good friend, sunshine, i almost don't want to go back so that the memory of that perfect salad stays for ever cherished in my mind.
but that is foolish. i will be back.
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Farmerbrown's Little Skillet
330 Ritch Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
Humphry Slocombe vs. Bi-Rite Creamery... Help me decide
I suppose that you have already chosen, so this is too late, but I am NOT a fan of HS. i think that Bi-Rite is superior in every way, from tastier icecream to friendlier staff.
call me crazy, but no matter HOW strange you want to be with your flavor experiments, you should at least try to have some sort of chocolate on your menu when you are making icecream.
also, the iceream i got was grainy and clearly hadn't had enough chruning happen to mix all the ice crystals back into the icecream.
Bi-Rite icecream, while it is (in my book) insanely expensive, is totally worth the treat.
and yes, i am a huge fan of the salted caramel icecream.
Needless to say, if you DO go to HS, you can wash it down with an organic home made donut around the corner at dynamo.
Town Hall lunch options
right! thanks for pointing that out. The chicken is indeed cooked ahead of time, so the chicken is cold, but the sandwich is put together fresh when you order it. and they manange to store the chicken so that the batter is not wilted and mushy when they make the sandwich for you. The chicken manages to stay as crunchy as possible even with the vinegar slaw.
and on another note, i ate this sandwich almost 3.5 hours ago and i am still totally full.
Town Hall lunch options
Went today for the fried chicken sandwich. So good.
The fried chicken is a boneless breast (not pounded out so it's very thick) in an excellent crunchy batter. cooked perfectly, very juicy. with a great tangy sour vinegar based coleslaw that balances out the grease perfectly. the bread is a soft enough roll that the whole thing just meshes together perfectly with a glass of their lemonade. (tart, with grapefruit juice and ruby red grapefruit slices in it.) all the sour and tart counteracted with the grease to make the sandwich delicious and consistently edible (sometimes, fried things lose there glamour haflway through).
the ribs smelled good, but i was there for the chicken and was glad i stuck to my guns. they also had a special of the day, a bbq'ed beef loin, (i thought the guy said prime rib, but it was boneless and looked like an extra long pork loin. it also smelled amazing.)
2 people : 2 fried chicken sandwiches, 2 lemonades and a side of homemade potato chips,: 22 dollars. not cheap, but for the fidi, cheaper than most for what you get.
Looking for an awesome porkchop
I can highly recommend the Pork Chop at Chenery Park.
Favorite menu item at Zuni Cafe?
I was just there two weeks ago and between the three of us we ordered 4 appetizers and the roast chicken. The dishes that stood out the best were the house cured anchovies appetizer and the roast chicken. my mouth just started watering thinking about it.
i even have a picture of the chicken (which i tried to attach, but failed somehow) it was that delicious.
Dining alone, Fri night in Union Sq
please let us know how the meal went.
i left work one day in a huff of bad mood and walked up to canteen and sat at the counter by myself and before long i had had one of the more memorable lunches in a long time. It helped that the place is crazy tiny and you have no choice but to get to know the person sitting next to you. And everyone is just to damn happy because the food is so yum.
make sure you have a glass of wine, it puts a strange spin on everything to be sitting at what looks like Sealy's lunch spot eating something that is a far cry from the spa luncheonette fair.
(yes, i grew up on the brookline/allston line)
have fun!
L'Petit Laurent, Glen Park - total dissapointment
Just to be clear, i pan sear steaks often in my home and we serve them shockingly close to what most people would consider between medium rare and rare. still, they are cooked through enough that the protiens are not still stringy and chewy.
I have never been to France though. maybe it was the cut of steak, it certainly didn't look like new york strip, nor did it resemble a bavette cut, which seems the usual option of steak in most bistro's. who knows. But when i say "that steak is raw" believe me, it was raw.
it was not even seared on both sides.
it was like they forgot to cook it, and so they just covered it with some sauce.
and while the soup and the desert were good, i still consider the dinner unsalvageable cause a.) i picked the wine and b.) if less than half of the ordered items are considered unedible at any given point throughout the meal, well then, that isn't a very good track record in my book.
Honestly, the service wasn't outstanding, but they weren't mean, and therefore (having been in the service industry for many years) i will always tip 20% if you are nice to me, even if you aren't very good at your job.
it's a hard job.
anyway. thanks for all the responses.
take care all,
J
L'Petit Laurent, Glen Park - total dissapointment
actually, the prix fixe looked great, but unfortunately, it was a friday night, and 7:30 and for some reason, the prix fixe wasn't available, either due to the weekend night, or the time, i can't remember.
And to be fair, the wine was 45.00 dollars. but it was a GREAT wine.
totally worth it, and trust me, if we hadn't had that great bottle, that meal would have been disastrous! as it was, we were happy and entertained by our fine buzz.
L'Petit Laurent, Glen Park - total dissapointment
So maybe my expectations were high, cause lots of people in my neighborhood have been raving about this place, but i have to say, my experience was pretty terrible across the board.
My husband and i decided to go there for our valentines meal (which we always celebrate the day after, cause valentine's is just silly madness for restaurants)
Anyway, we arrived at 7:28 for our 7:30 reservation and we were promptly seated.
The waiter came over and took our order:
onion soup
frisee salad with lardon's and poached egg
roasted monkfish with sauteed green cabbage and a truffle oil sauce
steak frites (ordered between medium and medium rare)
and one bottle of gigondas syrah
the wine came. it was awesome.
the appetizers came
the onion soup was very good, executed like a traditional french onion soup with nice cheese, good beef stock, tons of onions....
the frisee salad looked fantastic, but the first bite went down like a sour acid and stayed that way the whole rest of the way through. The salad was so overloaded with vinegar that any and all flavor or texture that the poached egg or lardons would have added to the salad was just gone. It was awful, but i shrugged it aside and left half the salad on my plate and eagerly awaited the entrees.
and so they came:
the roasted monkfish was put down in front of me and i almost cried. it was 3 chunks of monkfish totally covered in breading and sitting in a bowl of brown gravy with a lump of overcooked cabbage mounded up in the middle of the plate. My husbands steak looked much better (even though it was also covered in the same brown gravy, but more sparingly than the fish) and the fries were cooked nicely, not to greasy. We started to dig in, i ignoring the fact that my food looked and smelled like a cafeteria lunch. i tasted the monkfish. it was cooked perfectly, except the breading tasted pretty much raw and the thick gooey brown gravy just overwhelmed everything on the plate. i scraped off as much gravy and breading as i could and looked up to notice that my husband was scowling at his plate as he tried in vain to cut through his steak. "this steak is all fat!" he said when he finally got a peice cut off and began chewing and chewing and chewing, and then spit it out in his napkin. I pulled the plate towards me to inspect it closer, and replied "it's not fat, it's totally raw."
we both put our knives and forks down and waited for the server. when we finally managed to catch his eye, and expalin to him the rareness of the steak he whisked it away with many apologies and said he would have the kitchen finish cooking it.
and so we waited. i sat with my barely touched fish in front of me congealing in the brown gravy while we waited for the steak to come back.
so we drank more of our fabulous wine and then the steak returned with more fresh fries and cooked to the correct doneness.
i left my fish on the plate and proceeded to just eat some french fries.
the steak dinner was finished and since i was still starving we moved on to dessert.
The dessert was most definitely the highlight of the meal! we ordered the creme caramel and it was PERFECT. warm all the way through with a perfect burnt sugar crust. we were still scraping up the burnt bits on teh side when the waiter appeared and said "well, you certianly enjoyed that!" and i agreed whole heartedly.
the waiter was very nice. i know it was not supposed to be fine upscale dining, but still, there are a few things that would have been nice during the evening, mainly taking my fish away to keep it warm while the steak finished cooking.
we still tipped the waiter 20 % and deemed the wine and the dessert the saving graces of the meal. total with tip and tax: 160.00
unfortuantely, with limited funds, and no access to familial baby sitters, we won't be back.
i wish i could report otherwise. Chenery Park is still our favorite local restaurant in that hood.
Sangha - upscale sushi in Glen Park Village
The new italian place is supposed to be opened by manjel, the owner of Higher Grounds. apparently, he was trained in Rome as a chef when he was youner and wants to start cooking roman style food again.
I hope that doesn't mean his crepes will suffer....
The french place, l'ptit laurent, was a comple dissapointment when i went with my husband on Friday.
i will post an announcement about it on the board.
Really Good Fried Chicken at T-Rex (
I would love for you to try Maverick's version and tell me what you think.
i was not impressed with the Front Porch at all and Farmer Brown's didn't really do it for me either.
i know i will never ever make it up to yountville for fried chicken, so it would be nice to know how maverick's version stacks up in your ranking.
Favorite Neighborhood Lunch Spots?
abig part of my dining out for lunch experience usually means that i like to be outside, and i like to be somewhere i can linger.
i love pizzeria delfina and Mario's cigar store (which isn't really outside, but they have those great windows...) for these reasons, and second their recommendations
i would also add to the list:
Chow or Park Chow (both have outdoor areas)
Universal Cafe
Cafe Flore
Toast (not fantastically great food, but will suffice for the price)
XO cafe (good sandwiches)
The Cravery
walking down mission between 5th and 4th, i saw a new store front that i coudln't pass up.
The Cravery - Hand Held potpies.
they let me sample the chipotle chicken pot pie and i was totally impressed.
the crust was light and flaky and the filling was prety tasty.
i will be going back.
6 bucks for a pot pie to go!
i guess they are a chain from Irvine, but i don't care, chain or no chain, all pot pies are fattening, so if i am going to pig out, it may as well taste good...
Just thought i would share the news.
J's Pots of Soul, and a poem!
This is my favorite stanza:
So next time you have guests who don’t eat sushi
Arugula, abalone or any animals with a tushy
Who won’t take the train and can’t abide smells
And must sit in a booth with their baby who yells
And insist that they want to experience the delights
Of the Castro or the Mission, but not Bernal Heights
i have many non-tushy eating friends....
Good Cheap Eats by the S.F. Zoo
There is also a cheap-o sort of diner type restaurant that does breakfast all day sort of food at 46th and Taraval called Bull's Head Too.
They are alright. i have eaten there a few times and it is definitely better food and more variety than what you will find at the zoo, and it is very kid friendly and they make good ice cream shakes also.
Good Cheap Eats by the S.F. Zoo
probably too late to help you, but at Taraval and 41st there is a whole block of chinese restaurants and i can vouch for two of them : Win's and the one at the very corner of 41st that i think is called Old Shanghai, or something like that.
good cheap chinese.
Win's specializes in chinese Barbecue and has FANTASTIC Ribs.
Over-budget already
well, to be honest, the salad was a dungeness crab salad and was pretty bleah
and i think that the other dish was a very boring version of sand dabs. and i like sand dabs.
but not there.
the burger was for my s.o. that doesn't eat fish.
but the pie was definitely very delicious.
i could have just gone at a bad time, on a bad day, etc...
but my experience was definitely not one i would return for. oh well.
el metate - bistec a la mexicana
good to know! it was certainly delicious, and next time i will ask them to hold the rice and beans.
Thanks for the info.
Over-budget already
i have to admit, that i did not have the soup. i guess i should have.
i had the deep fried artichoke hearts. tasted like they were frozen and then dumped in the deep fryer and way over fried.
then we had a very unmemorable burger, salad, some other thing i cant remember, and then we had ollallieberry pie a la mode. now THAT was good!
