205 posts tagged “food”

Stewed beef pho from Turtle Tower for lunch.  It's Hanoi-style pho, so they use the flat egg noodles instead of the round kind.  All right.  Average.  Cioppino from Nettie's Crab Shack for dinner.  That was pretty good.  The piece of toast has shelled crab on it, and there was crawfish in the cioppino.  The gumbo at Nettie's (not pictured) was excellent.

Carnitas super burrito from the taco truck at the end of Gilman in Berkeley.  It was all right.  Super oily, and a little mushy.  I like the radish, carrots, and jalepeno on the side.  Curry ramen from the Ramen House off of Telegraph.  This was also just all right.  I liked the flavor of the curry and some of the veggies, but the noodles themselves were just so-so.  Like instant ramen.  I should have gotten the udon which (apparently) they make fresh on site.

I'm torn between thinking that the "Bienvenue ... Rue Fell" street address is pretentious and funny or just pretentious.  Unless there's actual French people living there.  Whenever I see "Rue X", I think of the "Murders in the Rue Morgue."

Okay pizza for dinner (still not happy with the bottom of the crust); so-so vietnamese sandwich from Java Source for lunch.  It was super black peppery (I love black pepper, but sheesh) and the chicken was a stringy.  A very delicious pan fried mackerel at Korean BBQ Plus in Concord last night.

The funniest book I saw today was Please Feed Me: a vegan punk cookbook.  It was for sale at Green Apple.  I, uh, didn't get it.  I liked reading the stories, but (not surprisingly) don't care for the recipes.

Garlic olive, mushrooms, and semi-dried tomato pizza.  This was cooked under the broiler (on high) for about three minutes.  I'm happy with the way the top turned out, but not the bottom.  I did not get a good charred crust.  I'll let the stone heat up more next time.  Or try the cast iron skillet trick.

A house around the corner had a bunch of dinosaurs on the brick railing by their front steps.  Guarding the house, I guess.  This is the t-rex.

Cheesesteak (double bacon with provolone, liberally trimmed with jalapenos) for lunch.  Post-anniversary dinner with Mom and Dad.

Mushroom tofu soup from My Tofu House for dinner.  My cousin didn't want his egg, so I cracked two into the soup to make it extra custard-y.  At least that was the theory.  In practice it didn't taste different from the one-egg-soup.  Random leftovers for brunch.

The Vietnamese place on Clement and 12th Avenue is called "Cali-pho-nia."  I'm still trying to decide whether I think it's clever or dumb.

Corn, feta, cilantro, and lime pizza from the Cheese Board in Berkeley.  Yes, corn.  Apparently the Cheese Board is stealing my pizza ideas down.  I sure do like the them.  Why didn't I go there more often when I was living in the East Bay?  A calabrese from Top Dog, as well.

The dinner pizza was corn and ground beef/ham (beef and ham mixed together into tiny meatballs.)  Instead of making the oven as host as I possibly can (550) and cooking the pizza as quickly as possible, I used the Cheese Board recipe of starting with a cooler oven (450), baking the pie on an inverted sheet pan for 15-20 minutes, then finishing it off on the stone for another three or four minutes.  It turned out ok (especially since I lightly oiled the sheet pan to give the crust that extra, erm, fatty goodness), but the crust turned out a little too crisp.  In particular, the edge was very hard and cracker-like.  Maybe the oven runs a little hot?  Or maybe I should just take it out a little earlier.

There's a new street sign on Minna, across the street from the SFMOMA parking garage.  "We reached the limits of poetry on the third day of the big sale."  I'm not entirely sure what that means, except maybe that Academy of Art students take a lot of drugs.

Burger and clam chowder soup from the Royal Exchange in the FiDi.  Both of them were pretty good.  The fried were so-so.  Nicely crisp, but a little starchy and lacked seasoning (i.e. salt!)  The service was competent, but lacked amiability.  It was my first time to the Royal Exchange.  I'm not generally a visitor to that (better dressed and educated than I!) part of town.

I saw the most optimistic thing on the bike ride downtown -- a missed connections note taped up to a telephone pole.  The layout, the colors he uses, even the little drawing of a feather boa on the right side make it all seem so sweetly juvenile.  I hope he finds his girl with the feather boa.

Vietnamese sandwiches from Saigon Sandwiches for lunch.

Mediocre sushi from Ai ♥ Sushi for lunch.  It wasn't super-bad, just mediocre and average.  The hamahi was watery and tasteless, but the salmon was good.  Curry chicken noodle soup from Pho Garden for dinner.  This was also average.  The soup looks good, but it just wasn't that tasty or creamy.  Bland.  Corn and ham pizza for, uh, dessert.  I know it's kind of arrogant to say (because I made the it), but this was my favorite today.  I had it four ways -- plain, with garlic powder, with Tabasco sauce, and with fresh, black pepper.  I like pepper best.  The corn gave the pizza a little sweetness.