69. Foccacia at Liguria Bakery

Transpo Mode: #2

The foccocia at Liguria has been a staple of every family (Mom/Italian side) wedding and funeral for as long as I can remember. I think its a North Beach Sicilian tradition….

Our cousins Vincenzo and Sarah Jane are still in charge of getting it as they are the only ones who still live in the neighborhood. They actually own the place I was born in (Francisco and Grant). Well, specifically the hospital was Mt. Zion, but I had the living room (alt. title: “the front room”) all to myself for the first 2 years of my life. No wonder it’s my favorite room! My entry into the family forced the move into bigger digs down the peninsula, which sucks cause I would have loved to have grown up calling this city home.

Nani made two kinds of home-made foccacia. The margarita (which is the standard flavor of awesome at Liguria) and anchovy. The only thing wrong with the anchovy kind was…well…the fucking anchovies….I’m not sure if the fond memories of grandmother cooking and cleaning for us (man, that lady could iron!) lean me towards any bias or not, but I’ll note here that Liguria comes a close second. You see, my grandmother never had to use words to tell us she loved us. She just fed it to us.

And that’s that for the wistful melancholy…

I kind of fell into this entry on the list. My sister Stephanie’s surprise 25th anniversary (holy shit!) party was a couple of weekends ago and this was being served in plentiful doses. Once the surprise ended and the drinking started, I got to mingling with old family. As far as my mom’s family goes, I’m known by two characteristics:

1) “Sarah’s Son” which may make it onto my epitaph.
2) “Computer guy”

Only Vince allows me a third dynamic. Now, I haven’t played league soccer in 20+ years. But our conversation since the time I was ten has always been (verbatim, I’m not shitting you):

1)Sarah’s Son: Hi Vince, good to see you.
2)Vincenzo: How are you? You still likedah soccer?

Now from the age of 15 to about twenty-five, I argued my case:
I do not play soccer.
I do not enjoy soccer.
I do not likedah soccer.

Around my mid 20′s (someone’s funeral or wedding likely) the battle of wills had been lost and Vince could claim victory. I now answer that I love soccer, and play it every chance I get…

I also no longer have any convictions about anything else. At least Vince doesn’t gloat. He’s a good man, Vince.

Overall – the party was a success. Tears were shed for those who left us in the last 25 years and toasts were made over those we welcomed into our lives.

And – I got to take home about 30 pieces of foccocia! It only lasted about 2 days between Earl and I.

Must go back there soon.

Summary

Food: I likedah foccacia! 5/5 2nd cousins on my mother’s side twice removed.
Drink: I fluidly eased between beer and wine like a gazelle sprinting on the safari plains. I don’t know where that came from either… 3/5 irrelevant analogies.
DB factor: Love seeing old family, unless they ask me to fix their computer. Sarah’s son can be kind of a DB sometimes, but he’s cool enough to have a beer (or 6) with. 4/5 jars of anchovy paste.

43. An Old Fashioned at Alembic

Transpo:

The Chevro-Legs

Ranya and I headed out from Nopalito with the intent of meeting Linda to check off: 24. Blue Bell Bitter from the cask at Magnolia Pub.

If you’ve never been to Magnolia, its a little corner brewery/pub in the Haight. The owners labeled it as a “gastropub and brewery” I didn’t have get to sample any brew, but I can certainly attest that at least one person had a bad case of the gastro that night. The place smells like straight butt. Linda noted it smelled like someone had flouped the cribbage board. I don’t know what that means either. Luckily, it did not last long… We had to endure about 15 minutes of it only to find out that the Blue Bell Bitter was not being brewed that night. Frankly, I was relieved. And by relieved, I don’t mean taking a piss in the corner. Granted, it seemed all 4 were already spoken for. All night, it seems…

So we headed down the street and hit the Alembic for an Old Fashioned… When we got there, a well-wishing employee informed us of the rules on drinking at the bar. Honey, I’ve been drinking in bars a long time, and I don’t need more rules on top of the ones I already live by:

1) Get Piss Drunk
2) Stumble Home

Apparently, her list extrapolated on those quite a bit. I picked up a couple of good pointers. How to suavely lean against the back bar with beer in hand will definitely come in handy for future reference, let me tell you.

An old fashioned consists of bourbon whiskey with some sour and sweet shit thrown in. If you’re not a bourbon drinker, this means its basically bourbon over ice. Ranya had already checked it off so it was Linda (also a ‘lister’) and I splitting it. We each got a beer to throw it back with and commenced the swamping (next time I’ll be sure to bring my Linda to English dictionary)…

Ok there’s a reason I dont drink bourbon. No amount of sweet, sour, fruit (or even beer chaser) can help me get that stuff down easier. I think part of the problem was that we both tried to get it over with ASAP. In doing so, we chose not to sip but swamp.

The result:

Now that I think about it, I had the same look on my face as when I walked out of Magnolia.

Summary:
Food: I didn’t have any, so I’m not sure how I rate this. I think in the future, I’m going to make sure I get some kind of appetizer so this space isn’t neglected. 0/0 Urinal Cakes
Drink: Not a bourbon drinker, so I’m kinda biased…The beer I had (some kind of IPA ) was decent,but it was overpowered by the bourbon. Linda and I both had our one sip and were pretty much done with it. 2.5/5 Halimeters.
DB: I didn’t think I needed a “how to hang out at a bar” list, but it may prove helpful in the future. The place was kinda mellow and I liked the ambiance. If I lived closer, I would prolly frequent it semi-regularly. 3/5 Dr. Scholl’s® Odor Destroyers Super Comfort Insoles.

53. Carnitas at Nopalito

Transpo : #5

“I’m not really a cab driver. I’m just waiting for something better to come along. You know, like death.”  Alex Reiger.

I opted to cab instead of MUNI and I was happy I did. My cab driver didn’t take any mess and navigated the yellow lights and the “critical dispersals” (hey, it was only a Wednesday) like a pro. With visions of rodenticide and bustling parklets dancing in my head, I got out alive and headed to the first stop. I was meeting up with Ranya at her place and heading to Nopalito from there. I rang the doorbell and immediately worried I got the wrong house. After hearing the death knell of a doorbell, I was half expecting Nosferatu to creak the door open and peek his head out. Thankfully, it was just Ranya…

She opened the door and I was greeted by (besides her) a courteous sign requesting me to take my shoes off. Ranya insisted that there was no need, but I felt conflicted. I walked up the stairs (shoes on; not conflicted enough) admittedly a little excited. It’s a beautiful classic San Francisco flat with the possibility of more pleasant signs asking me to do things!

Almond Joy’s got nuts. Rat mounds don’t.

Ranya led me past her garden (sadly, no ho’s laying around) to the unincorporated/shared part of her inner block. As I made my way through the dense brush, I felt like I had lived it all before. This overwhelming sense of deja vu could only be attributed to one thing – yes, it was the uncanny accuracy of Ranya’s conceptual chalkboard masterpiece, right down to the hobbit entrance door! After the grand tour, we headed out to the first check off of the night. But not before sidetracking to NOPA’s very own parklet!

GO GO Blogging Conspiracy Theory!

OK – So San Francisco (city and county) is facing a budget crisis that could rival its worst since the Great Depression. With a 486 mliion dollar deficit, Newsom’s budget cuts have called for appx. 17,000 city employee layoffs with most of them hired back if they agreed to a shorter work week (which is politicese for pay-cuts)…Our schools, health care and all other departments (sans Fire/Police) are feeling it…

So how does a big city in financial crisis struggle to increase revenue?

Here are the Fiscal Year, 2007/8 numbers:

Parking Meters Annual Revenue: 32.5 million
City Residential Permit Revenue: 7.1 million
Parking Tickets Revenue: 93 million
Total Revenue from these fascist crusaders: app.112 million

But how can you increase this?

Starting April 1st (no joke), here are some devious ways to milk more money out of citizens:
* There will be a $3 fee charged at the Customer Service Center. Yes, if you want to walk into the building to pay a fucking ticket – you must pay a 3 dollar fee.
* Parking citation fines will increase by $2 to offset pass-through fees to offset mandatory debt service costs related to State courthouse construction.This is a
constructive way of saying: ‘tickets will cost 2 dollars more’. Don’t give me this courthouse construction bullshit. It’s insulting.
* Annual Residential Parking Permits will increase from $76 to $96, as will a **variety of other parking related permits issued by the SFMTA. Internally city hall labeled this the ‘get a garage, fuckface’ memo

**Variety is the spice of life!

So Mark, thanks for the exhausting data – but what the fuck does this have to do with parklets?

Parking and ticket revenue = easy money (average meter maid salary = 23,000)
Parklets cost somewhere between 7K and 35,000 depending on size and location.

Oh and where do these parklets take the place of? Why: Existing parking spaces, of course!

Newsom shoots! He scores!

Now I could go the Avatard route and hammer the themes of this rant over your head with a crowbar…but I respect you too much…

Apparently, some tool named ruggy j. gave it 5 stars, so what do I know?

So where was I?

Oh, right – food!

Lanya, table for 4

So we got to Nopalito (its a little slice of the NOPA neighborhood, hee) and peeked at our place on the “waiting list”. Apparently, this place is so hip it doesn’t take RSVP’s. You have to call at a certain time to get placed on this waiting list. Trust me, this place isn’t good enough to justify that kind of ostentation…Reminds me of the Sushi Zone, whose shtick is “we only seat 6 people at a time, so we must be worth the wait!” Um no, there’s at least 5 other places that have better sushi (that I can think of) in the city. In the immortal words of Flavor Flav: “Don’t Believe the Hype”. Either way – they got her name wrong. Thank god she wasn’t carded for proof of identity!

While waiting for our precious table, some lady (who from what I could tell, could see fine) with an apparent guide dog in training. Well, he was sporting one of those green bibs – so I can only assume he was a guide dog or just got back from a crab feed… Anyway – from the way he was leading her up to the restaurant, he was obviously new. From the looks of it, the first steps in training consist of guiding your human into 1) oncoming traffic, 2) other people, and 3) lamp posts. We were having a good time watching this lady get “guided” into things…. Good thing Ranya is so adept at sly snarkiness – or else our cover would have been blown!

My 2 Moms

We were offered to share a table with a middle age couple and took them up on it. Judging from their immediate unfriendliness, it seems this couple wasn’t asked the same question we were. Not even a hello! So we settled in next to the Ropers (they got more table than we did) and scoped the surroundings. It was costume night for the 21st century family in front of us (21st SF = 2 Lesbians/2 kids/Broken Grandfather with just a shattered dream of the good old days (when men were men, and lesbians stayed in the convent)… Anyway the little girl was dressed as Dorothy (complete with stuffed Toto) and the little boy was dressed as an air force pilot. This kid’s outfit looked a little too elaborate/pricey for something he will likely grow out of by summer. Anywho – we split the list’s carnitas and a taquito type appetizer. I got a beer (death and taxes) and Ranya ordered some fruity wine spritz. By the time we got our food – the post nuclear family was packing up to go home. I’m not really sure what ignited the conversation, but Mom#1 mentioned it was costume night for the kids (no shit?). Dorothy was really shy and Air Force ranger seemed a little cranky. Grandpa looked like he was resigning himself for another night of reading “The Berenstain Bears: Sister is different, and that’s OK” ad nauseam. God bless their little hearts…

Whenever I eat carnitas, I always compare it to my fathers. The recipe (not many ways to cook it, is there?) was given to him as he grew up in my nani’s kitchen. I lament the fact I can’t cook, or have no desire to and just hope these family traditions continue to get passed on somehow (sisters, are you reading this?)…Anyway – regardless to what you compare it to – it really wasn’t that special any-which-way. The taquitos were also just ok.

Summary:
Food: I’m gonna give this just 2 out of 5 fascist meter maids. It was just OK. Not sure why it made the list. Perhaps the owner knows someone over there at 7×7?

Drink: I liked my beer. Death and taxes is a dark lager, which is not my first preference. But it did complement the salty meat I was eating. 2.5 out 5 invitro’d embryo transfers.

DB Quotient: Yeah, this place is a big fail. Not only is it pretentious enough to forgo RSVP and do a waiting list thing-a-ma-jig – this same behavior seems to attract douches of all ages. The demographic ranged from Gen X/Y’s to the middle age DB’s sitting next to us. 1 out of 5 cold shoulders.

Next up: 24. Blue Bell Bitter from the cask at Magnolia Pub (or is it???)

84. A margarita at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant

Transpo Mode: #5

And for the record: Two of my least favorite entertainers. In a move. Together. I guess it could have been worse. With Ben Stiller…

I-dont get it:
Since the evening would be well out of my zone (Sunset/Richmond) Earl, Kelley, and I decided a cab would best serve our needs. We piled in and picked up Rachel (also a Mission* resident) on the way.
Now, I had never been to Tommy’s before but I had definitely had heard of their (at least bay area) famous Margarita’s. So famous in fact: there’s even an IPhone app called (I shit you not) IMargarita which teaches you Tommy’s secrets in making one. Anyone who knows anything about slick marketing grifts knows you are nothing until you have your Iphone app. And its just 99 cents.

But I digest…um, digress.
The plan was to hit Tommy’s for a margarita or two and then Underdogs for the main course. Since it was sposed to be quickstyle – the bar was the goal. When we walked in, a nice little old lady greeted us at the door. She didn’t look like a Tommy. We informed her of our intentions (bar, STAT) and made our way to it. The first end of the bar was impenetrable so we opted for the other side. Also packed, and the 1 foot spacing between the patrons in the bar stools and the coat rack made for a crouching good time. We didn’t even wait for our first pitcher before we starting thinking plan B.

(Pronounced ‘Lĕh-’nérd ‘Skin-’nérd)
Ok – so if there’s no place to stand at the bar, the next logical step would be to get a table and order some food with our margaritas. We went back to the nice hostess grandma (who was now joined by her husband (Tommy) and she starting shuffling through her RSVP notes to accommodate us. Just then, Tommy Jr. (or something) stepped up and led us to a table. I had a feeling this was a family establishment (judging by Tommy and Thomasina running the front) , which led me to wonder how many family members actually gave a shit and how many were just there to milk the family business out of a paycheck…So I was enjoying my margarita and trying to figure out how much/little we could order (foodwise) to justify a table – when we started on our second pitcher. The tequila we chose was “reposado” (rested) which sounds nothing like that when Kelley orders it. Pronounced: “Ræ-PØh-sÅ-dÖh
It was quality stuff and tasted like kool-aid for adults. (notwithstanding the Jonestown incident)

Come for the Margaritas. Stay for the…Margaritas
As we were making our way through the second pitcher, Rachel was wowing us with stories from her adventures while backpacking in the Himalayas**. The quesadillas and nachos came and I was assured we had not ordered enough food to justify a table when Thomas slammed our plates down. Either that, or he was one of those free-ride relatives…The menu claims the food is based on cuisine from the Yucatan Peninsula and if its in any way authentic, I’m make sure to avoid eating the next time I’m down in those parts.

I can’t remember if we had a 3rd pitcher or not – but it was good stuff and I was adequately prepared (read: buzzed) for the next stop in the nights excursion… We got our check from Tom-Tom and thanked Tommy and Thomasina as we exited. She reminded me of my grandma – and I just wanted to give her a big hug.

Summary:
Drinks: I have to admit, I’m not big on margarita drinking. But as far as my woefully inadequate palette is concerned, this shit was worth the hype. I’m going to give this 5/5 cyanide laced paper cups.

Food: Crap. (pronounced: “Yuck-a-tan”; arr-arr) Gotta go with 1.5 out of 5 cans of Old El Paso refried beans.

DB Quotient: As busy as they were at the bar – they looked like they were having fun and served our first pitcher pretty quickly. Mama and Papa Tommy looked like a nice couple and she reminded me of my grandma’s 500 Sq Ft apartment with the 80 Jesus candles. The patrons were pretty cool and one lady recommended the type of tequila to order. Aside from disgruntled nephew slapping down plates, this looks like a nice place to hang out with friends over a few pitchers of awesome margaritas. 4.5 out of 5 deadbeat relatives leeching off their family.

* Which is really cool. And hip.

** Septic inspection in Grygla, Minnesota (Pop: 2 BART Trains)

23. Beer sausage with sauerkraut and grilled onions at Rosamunde Sausage Grill

Transpo Mode: See here

Bias. It’s the new black.

So we headed down to Rosamunde from the Monk’s Kettle and it was pretty empty. There may have been about 10 -15 people in it total. Let me tell you about this place, as I see it. When it opened up (I’d say 4-5 months ago) it took over some random tapas place. It’s right off the Bart line so I walked by it pretty much every night since the grand opening. Each night I walked by (seemingly random) the place would be packed to capacity of people standing around. I presume eating sausages. Yeah, I know. Sausages… So that must either make it really good or really over-hyped. I never tried the one in the Haight – so i figured I’d wait a few months for things to calm down and then try it out. When I finally did – I was thoroughly unimpressed.

DB’s (douchebags) and dB’s (decibels)

Apparently, to compensate for the lack of patrons on a random Tuesday Night – someone decided it was a great idea to crank metal (the music, not the um…noun) to conversation-killing levels. Had it not been for one song of my youth (Rainbow in the Dark/Dio) this would have been the focus of my review. Well, that and the over-rated mediocrity of the food…

The Theory of Relativity, Darwin’s Origin of Species, and The Meaning of Life.

If we would have been able to hear each other, these could have been some of the topics we would have likely touched on. As it was – it was mostly relegated to a series of “WHAT’s?” and “Huh’s?” and a couple of “Do you know who sings this?”

Mustard, hold the Sausage please

They have 2 kinds of ketchup (regular and curry), at least 2 mayos, and like 4 or 5 different mustard blends. We had to order (dictated by the list) a beer sausage with sauerkraut and grilled onions. It was decided to split that and order another one to split. so we went with the Italian sausage. I dislike onions (too overpowering) and hate sauerkraut (way too overpowering) on my food but I threw a tad on there to comply with the fasc-list. Apparently, Ranya feels the same – she doesn’t like overpowering the taste of mustard with anything that may interfere. Like food.

Summary

Drink: It was a Stella. And they went in the back to grab two Stella glasses to serve them in. I like that. And I like Stella. 5 out of 5 ruptured eardrums.

Food: Its over-rated and therefore: not to die for… I liked the Italian better than the Beer. Ranya liked the mustard. I brought a 6 pack home (uncooked;to go) for Earl and he liked his Knackwurst just fine. 2 out of 5 cooling agents.

DB rating: I think I went over this. If you can’t hear the person next to you talking, its too fucking loud. I’d almost rather hear the regular room-full of mission hipsters that seem to love this place on the weekends… I said Almost. 1 out 5 Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorders for that asshole (besides myself) who thinks he can work faster with his favorite song on. You know who you are…

50. An obscure Belgian beer at The Monk’s Kettle

Transpo Mode: BART

Stain Free. To do what I please…
I had to get home and change my shirt before meeting up with Ranya (honorable mention) at the Monk’s Kettle. Coffee Stain…sense a theme here? So I left work around 5:30 and skittered home, then hopped right back onto BART and got off on 16th. Monk’s Kettle is about 2 blocks up from the BART station, and while passing by the establishment many times, I never even thought of sauntering in for a random, obscure Belgian beer before The List. Run-on sentences, FTW…

I got there first – so I grabbed a spot in the back and hung out. Instead of overlooking the bar (or whatever kitchen they may have) my seat was facing directly into a chalkboard. whenever there’s a partition put up between employees and patrons, it raises my suspicions… It also made me feel like I was back in a classroom. I hated classrooms.

Blatz Beer. Blatz is German for Shit.
Ok so here are my thoughts on beer in general. I havent enjoyed a bud or coors or any other american (read: piss) beer since camping at lake comanche in ’93. Up until I was old enough to drink, my beer diet consisted of all the crap $7 12-packs. Blatz, Olympia, Lucky Lager (puzzles on the cap!), Regal Eagle, you name it. It didn’t really get you drunk, either. Each beer you consumed just seemed to make your headache a little bigger…But if it was cheap and I could shotgun it, I really didn’t give a shit…when you’re 18 and broke, splurging means paying 8.50 for a 6-pack of Michelob Light. Anyway – that was a long time ago – the point is, my taste in beer has been firmly established by now.
Current Favorites: Red Tail and Stella. I also like the occasional Guinness Stout.

Ranya showed and we ordered a Flying Dog’s Raging Bitch (get it!?!) each while splitting a jumbo pretzel. The only thing that seemed obscure about the ale was its name. It tasted pretty ordinary.

Summary
Food: 3 out of 5 Fascist Chalkboards…The Pretzel was pretty awesome & served with cheese sauce and dijon mustard. For some reason – when you mixed all 3 together, it tasted even better!

Drink: 2 out of 5 witty American naming conventions… The ale kinda tasted like sugar free maple syrup. Too sweet for my taste. Granted, they have a huge selection so the next time I feel frisky I will be back to try more. I also learned what the acronym ABV stands for (besides “absolute boundary value”).

DB RATING – the chalkboard was hiding something and it deserves to have 1.5 DB’s dropped just for the things I couldn’t see. However, it did come in handy. Ranya was able to draw the entire block where she lived (including rat mounds) to 1:000005 scale. Words just would not have been able to give the details justice. The staff was attentive (although lets face it: beers and a pretzel isn’t difficult to serve up) and friendly and the guy next to us gave up his chalk for the sake of art. Ill give it 3.5 out 5 Poisoned Children.

We payed up and headed down Mission Street for a 23. Beer sausage with sauerkraut and grilled onions at Rosamunde Sausage Grill.

Review coming soon…

92. Bacon-wrapped hot dog from a cart in the Mission

Transpo mode: Chevro-Legs

Pre-ramble:
Kelley’s Birthday at Andalu (and while not on the list, deserves its own separate write-up) and we did the 15 dollar bottomless booze deal. We got our money’s worth there and headed to Doc’s Clocks. After a few drinks and some birthday shots – we headed out and stumbled back to the pad. I passed about 3 of the stands before I remembered it was on the Big Eat List. Checking it later, I noted it said “preferably when you’re drunk”. I like the way you think, Big Eat ( Can I call you that? I mean, I realize I’m only 3% complete; I hope I’m not being too forward)… Anyway, it saved me from using a fat asterisk at the end of this review…

Now – I’ve eaten at least 20 of these things in my lifetime (living under drinking age in San Diego, these things were a staple of our weekend TJ outings) and I know exactly how I like them. I try to stay away from fatty foods, so no grilled onions for me! Bacon, Mustard, and Mayo is all I need… Jason doesn’t get up to the city much I reckon (dunno for sure, just met him), so he was splurging and got the works. Earl wisely stayed away. Nice work!

Anyway – Romero was cooking up our dogs and I decided to ask him some questions because A) I like talking to people and B) (for more selfish reasons) I needed some meat for my review.

Turns out Romero is a 17 year old kid who comes into town every night from Oakland with his mom (Julia), uncles and siblings. From the 5 of them, they set up shop and camp in their spots from about 6-7pm to 2:30 AM so they can make enough money to eat and pay rent. I am sure they run across their fair share of drunken idiots coming out of bars and for this – the stories they share around the dinner table must be hilarious!

So I’m BS’ing with this kid, asking him questions and throwing down the dog. I didn’t really have much to talk (for this review) about until I let it roll around the brain for a couple of days.

First of all. How lucky am I? I have a job that pays me well enough that I can pay rent, live comfortably, and do the things I like to do. On top of this, my health care benefits are excellent.

This kids probably going to school on top of helping the family income and he better not get sick…

Secondly…

Soap Box = ON!

This nation’s wealth distribution is as follows: (from 2007 figures)
Top 1% of the population owns 42.7% of the wealth
Bottom 80% of the population owns 7% of the wealth.

I am sure I sit somewhere in the shrinking middle class. But let me tell you this: If I knew for certain that 20% of my paycheck was going directly to better the health-care and education of the bottom 80% (and not to some lobbyists pocket) I would give it up in a heartbeat.

If that defines me as a socialist (which seems to be this years dirty word) then please label me as such. I accept that.

I’m quite positive Romero wouldn’t mind either.

The hot dog, as usual was excellent. I love bacon!

Summary:
Food: I’ll have to give this 4 out of 5 triple by-pass surgeries. Love this shit!

Drink: I give this 3 out of 5 artery stents. (gotta count the drinks at Doc’s at least)
I was pretty hammered and I’m sure I’ve only eaten these sober about 20% of the time..

DB quotient: I’m gonna have to give this 1.5 coronaries. Earl and Jason are good guys and Romero seems like a cool dude for chatting with my drunk ass. The 1.5 is all me, baby!

35. Salted-caramel ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery

Transpo Mode: The Putt Putt

How can I describe the flavor of salted caramel ice cream?

It was like a parade of panoply on my taste buds that hearkened me back to the innocence of childhood.

A caravan of unadulterated bliss where every lick only reinforced the previous rapture.

If I could only meet the person who unleashed this flavorful masterpiece, I could thank them by…

Sockin’ them in the mouth…

The Reeses Peanut Butter Suck…

“You got your shit in my crap!”
“Well you got your crap in my shit!

<tries sample>

“Well, together they still taste like shit!” <high fives>

Review Summary

Food – I give this one 0.5 out of 5 dessert doilies, only because the sugar cone was decent. I am positive I only finished it so I could complain louder (as Rachel can attest to). The only ice-cream worse than this could possibly be the UBE ice cream from Mitchells. Coincidentally, this is also on the list. Can’t wait!

Drink – Let’s just say 2 out of 5 offended taste buds.. Sure there was a leftover wine taste (see review on #11)  in my mouth, but I think the buzz only helped my get through it at all…

SF DB rating – The line was out the door when we got there. It went pretty quick and there were no DB’s that made the wait seem longer. I did notice the cashier who rang us up was pretty cranky and dismissive until it was time to give us the change back. Then she seemed a bit perkier. Hmm, that was weird…

11. Pork sugo with pappardelle at Delfina

Mode of transpo: The Putt Putt

The Speed of Ground.

So I wanted to meet my friend Rachel at Delfino about 7:30. I normally would have just taken BART from work to 16th Street station but an unfortunate turkey chili mishap during lunch forced a wardrobe change. No classy critic (such as I aspire to be) can walk into his first review with chili stains on the shorts. I needed go in with confidence and walk out with fresh stains. I got home about 7:10 and was worried I would be late, so I decided to dig out The Putt Putt to get there quick. The trick with the Putt Putt is that the electric starter no longer works. After a few days of not being used, it takes about 10 minutes and 30 kick starts before she fires up. But all the hard work is worth it once you feel the freedom that top speeds of 18MPH can give you. Ahem.

The Arrival

So I get there, parked the PP, and Rachel was nowhere to be found. I snapped a quick picture (for posterity/posting) of Delfino, and took note of the people fraternizing around it. Its the Mission, so I wasn’t shocked over the patrons. I was just hoping their presence wouldnt up the DB quotient (see here for details on how the DB quotient can affect the overall review score. Rachel showed and we checked out the menu. I didn’t see the menu item from the Big Eat listing and internally panicked. Eventually another look at the menu revealed it was indeed being served that evening.

Take note:
Big Eat lists it as – Pork sugo with pappardelle
Delfino menu lists it as – Pappardelle with pork sugo

A man with less willpower would have given up…

The Sitdown

We got a table pretty quickly considering there were a bunch of people waiting outside. It could have been because Rachel knew the hostess from school. Considering she forgot the chick’s name, I think its safe to assume they aren’t that close and we got lucky with a table…

It was a pretty nice table near the window but kinda chilly cause all 7 of them were open. I had my quote of “chilly” for the day, to be honest… We quickly went to work on the wine selection. and settled on a bottle of UNTI 2006. I don’t think the pictures will be as prevalent in future posts, but feel free to ignore them for now…Anyway – the wine selection was easy considering the prices on reds jumped from the UNTI (45 dollars) to about 80 dollars. I really wanted to try some Peter Cellars, if only because the name is clever. But alas, it was bit out of the price range…

I obviously knew what I wanted when I arrived, but Rachel finally decided on the Parsnip soup. When I ordered my Pappardelle, they told me it was cook to order and that meant it would be an extra 20 minutes. Pasta cooked made to order usually means its piping hot fresh out of the kitchen, so I didnt mind any extra wait at all.

The Drink

So we got the bottle cracked and it was a pretty dry syrah. I like my red a little more fruit forward myself but it seemed like right pick for pasta. Who am I kidding? It was cheap (for this place)  and it was a bottle of wine. Check. And Check.

The Big Stare 2k10

As we were waiting for our food, a middle age couple sat down at the table next to us. At first, I barely noticed. But as dinner went on, I slowly realized they were both staring at me whenever they got the chance. Maybe they appreciated my acerbic wit. Maybe they loved my hip, ironic T-shirt. Or possibly, they were just bored with their own lives and had nothing to say to each other. We will go with the 3rd option, considering neither my wit nor my t-shirt were in rare form. Any which way, it was kind of uncomfortable…

Food

I’m gonna say this to start. It wasnt to die for. It was hardly to live for. I did enjoy it, but I would have enjoyed it more if it had been more than lukewarm. It was rich and tasty and I think the 2 glasses of wine I had in preparation helped it go down. You would think if they cooked it to order, it wouldn’t sit around in a heat-lampless state to cool off before serving. This isn’t mom’s fucking apple pie. It doesn’t need to sit on the windowsill to cool off. It needs to be in my mouth. ASAP.

Rachel had the parsnip soup. Now that shit was good. It was less like a soup and more like a creamy pasta sauce. I could have had one of those and a half-load of bread and shit would have been good to go… And it was warmer than mine. I was jealous.

For dessert we ordered the “Warm Tcho Chocolate Torta” Maybe that was my problem. Big Eat didn’t tell me to order the “Warm pappardelle”…It was pretty much a small brownie with  rich sauce and cherries on the side. A nice blend of sweet and sour.  Not bad.

To review my um…review?

In Summary

Out of 5
Food: I give it 2.5 hot-plates. The pasta was good but could have been better if it was hot. The dessert was tasty and the parsnip soup was excellent! I also got out of there stain-free, which is a plus.

Drink: I give it 2.5 wine charms. I’m sure there was a lot better wine to be had at Delfino. I was just too much of a cheap bastard to go for a 100 dollar bottle. If the Big Eat gave me a list of “3 things try before I die in SF” instead of 100, I’m sure I’d have no problem slapping down the cash.

Service: 3.5 Douchebags. The mission hipsters hanging out in front didn’t really bother me that much. However, the Odd Couple almost stared me down to silence. Thank god the wine counter-acted that. The wait staff was pretty attentive so I feel the service was good.

After dinner we walked across the street to Bi-Right for:

35. Salted-caramel ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery
Stay tuned for that review…

Dems the Rules

Here is my plan:

Each review of the Big Eat will contain 3 sections:

1) Food. Yeah, its call the Big Eat. And this is a review blog about it. This section of the review will be about the item I was designated to eat from the list, and whichever other item I selectively try…

2) Drink. Must have one alcoholic drink if its applicable. They open up the taste buds. And stuff. I sense a lot of bloody mary’s in the future. Kind of exciting! Anyway – this section will review the drinks on the menu and/or comment on them.

3) SF Douchebag quotient . Lets face it. Its San Francisco. You’re gonna have the hipster factor. Whether they are servers or patrons, their ability to have an impact on the meal needs to be reflected on….