San Francisco is My Home

27
Mar

Boulange de Cole

Author: kris, Category: Food

It’s a bit gloomy out this morning. Don’t worry, it’ll burn off. After all my blathering about spring yesterday, I know the weather gods won’t let me down. However, in the meantime we are left with an overcast morning, the perfect weather to cozy up in a smart little cafe somewhere with a soup bowl full of coffee and something recently out of the oven.

I recommend the Boulange de Cole. This is one of those SF bakeries with the perfect lazy morning vibe: just enough people rushing in and out on their way to work that you feel like you’re getting away with something, but enough people settled in for the morning with a newspaper and a brioche that you don’t get lonely. Plus, the food is amazing.

This place is good for: trying every baked good on the menu, playing hooky from work, giving yourself an inexpensive treat when you’re unemployed, blissfully wasting a morning.

17
Mar

Weekend preview

Author: kris, Category: Events, Food, Movies, Weekend preview

Friday, March 21

This is the last weekend of the Asian American Film Festival. Now is the time to catch the last showing of all those shows you were too lazy to go see during the week. There are just a few films playing on Friday, but one of them is The Unseeable, a ghost story from Thailand that I am definitely hauling myself out to Berkeley to see. And if I can do it, why can’t you?

Saturday, March 22

I am pretty excited about this, even though I cannot go: the Falkirk Cultural Center in downtown San Rafael is hosting an Alice in Wonderland Spring Faire. Actors from a local theatre troupe will dress as characters from the books, lead a parade and perform scenes from the musical Alice. There’s also the usual host of musicians, magicians, clowns and puppets, along with fun kid activities like contests and Mad Hatter hat making. It’s $5 per person and you can bring your own picnic lunch if you want to.

Sunday, March 23

Sunday is Easter, and even if you don’t believe in the Bunny or that Son of God business, it can still be a fun holiday. Why? Because unlike, say, Thanksgiving, the central meal of Easter is brunch, which to my mind is the best of all possible meals. Check out a long list of great Bay Area brunch spots here.

27
Feb

SF loses a character

Author: kris, Category: Celebrities, Food, News, People

Famed restaurateur Tommy Toy died. He was known around town, and catered to several local celebrities including Coppola. His food was art (so I’ve heard), and the fact that his haberdasher described him as “outgoing” is way less telling than the fact that he had a haberdasher at all.

(If you are wondering, haberdasher = a retail dealer in men’s furnishings, as shirts, ties, gloves, socks, and hats.)

You can read the full article here, but I especially liked the ending:

“Mr. Toy is survived by his wife, Veronica, a son, Darrick, and a grandson, all of San Francisco.”

31
Jan

Fentons

Author: kris, Category: Food, Oakland

I went to Fentons last night. Sometimes I forget that such awesomeness exists just on the other end of the bridge, but there it is.

Fentons is one of the last old-fashioned ice cream parlors in the area. It’s so old-fashioned that I want to spell parlor as parlour, but of course I can’t. Spellcheck won’t let me. At any rate, they serve extremely high quality ice cream in a huge variety of flavors, as well as many, many toppings. You can get one of their sundaes or, and I can’t recommend this enough, create your own. Do not miss out on the peanut butter chocolate fudge topping. Seriously, you will kick yourself for weeks if you don’t order it.

Fentons also serves diner food, which is perfectly fine, but the ice cream is where it’s at. The diner food just confuses me. I order a huge sundae and suddenly I’m craving onion rings when the air from the kitchen wafts out to my table. Fortunately, you can also take stuff to go.

Image is from the Fentons website. That’s me on the left. I don’t even need a spoon, I’ll just shove my face right in there.

31
Jan

The Parkway

Author: kris, Category: Food, Movies, Oakland

The Parkway is maybe the best thing ever. I’m not sure, because I don’t know everything there is in the world, but I think it’s at least in the top ten.

What makes this movie theater so good? Here is a small primer:

1. It’s independently owned.

2. Rather than showing commercials or previews before movies, you get a video of two of the owners — at least I think they’re both owners; Kyle definitely is, but I’m not sure about Will the Thrill — chatting about upcoming films and events and joking around with each other.

3. There are several two-person (three if you’re cozy) couches at the front of the theater where you can kick off your shoes and snuggle like you’re in your living room.

4. The theater is combined with a full-service restaurant. You can get good beers and excellent thin-crust pizza (now with vegan cheese available, made right on the premises). They deliver it to your table while you watch the movie. There’s a lot of other food available, but for me the Parkway will always be about pizza.

5. They show a fantastic selection, from blockbusters to classics, from cult favorites to little-known monster movies.

6. They have great deals and themes. Wednesday is 2-for-1 night, and the first two shows on Mondays are always Baby Brigade — bring your tots. They also do Superbowl and Oscar nights, Rocky Horror shows, and frequent showings of favorites like Joss Whedon shows (i.e. Buffy, Firefly).

7. When you email Will the Thrill, he always emails you back. Immediately and personally. Can you think of any other movie theater where that is true?

They’ve also opened a second theater, the El Cerrito, but I haven’t been there yet. Thoughts on the new place? I’d love to hear a review.

30
Jan

Luna re-opens!

Author: kris, Category: Castro, Food

Sometimes, without warning, the gods drop a gift in your lap. This time it happened to me as I was walking up Castro Street. I passed the site where Luna, my favorite neighborhood restaurant, once stood, before it closed about a year ago, and while I normally avert my eyes out of respect, this time I forgot to. This time I glanced in, and found — Luna? Open? What?

Yes indeed. It appears this peerless place had closed merely for renovations (man, I wish they’d posted a sign or something). It’s re-opened now under the best kind of new management: one of the former longterm waiters and his boyfriend bought the place. Now they’re committed to customer service in the way new restaurant owners often are. I had dinner there last night and my fellow’s burger came with a head-high stack of bacon, multiple slices of fresh avocado, sweet, non-mealy tomatoes, and so on. My glass of champagne was almost overflowing.

The things that are awesome about Luna are as follows:

• The restaurant is almost all patio. It’s covered in the rainy months, and liberally strewn with heatlamps. Even in the coldest weather, the Luna patio is warm and dry.
• The food is excellent: fancy fare but not overly-fancy prices. This was our favorite breakfast place in a three-block radius that’s almost entirely breakfast places, because you can get eggs and fruit and potatoes and bacon and a really good biscuit for fairly cheap.
• Right now the management is trying hard to woo new customers and retain old ones. If you don’t like anything on the dinner menu, you can always ask for one of their awesome burgers, something that used to be on the menu and isn’t now. They will cheerfully make this for you.
• Your waiter will probably be the owner, which means you get to have a normal human conversation as equals instead of getting that ishy feeling when you’re served by a customer-service automaton.

Luna is half a block up from Castro and 18th, and for some reason there is no sign out front except one that says “Heated patio dining.” It’s easy to miss. Just look for the Nirvana sign (another excellent restaurant, but not good for breakfast) and Luna is once door further.

NOTE: There is another restaurant in SF called Luna Park. Very different.

29
Jan

The Chalets

Author: kris, Category: Food

If you’re looking for the perfect restaurant, and you’ve got a car, check out the Chalets at Ocean Beach.

This double restaurant is nestled in what is essentially the perfect spot. One side faces the ocean — surfers, sunsets, bonfires, the occasional leaky tanker. This is the Beach Chalet. Perfect for first dates and romantic anniversaries, the Chalet’s view is stunning, its beer is home-brewed, and its food is good and reasonably-priced.

After you’ve had the first date, the anniversary date, the wedding and a couple of kids, you might switch to the downstairs Park Chalet. Facing, as you can imagine, onto Golden Gate Park, the Park Chalet has all the food and home-brewed drinks of the Beach Chalet. It also has a giant patio and lawn outside where antsy kids can run around.

You’ll often find live music in both restaurants, though I prefer the Park Chalet for performances and the Beach Chalet for staring out to sea.

As if this weren’t enough, check out the building’s lobby for a giant room-sized fresco on every wall. The fresco was painted under the WPA program, and it’s outstanding. Also check out display cases detailing the creation of GG Park, as well as a tiny, enchanting model of the park itself.

10
Jan

Dolores Park Cafe

Author: kris, Category: Food, Mission

When was the last time you ate at Dolores Park Cafe? I went for the first time yesterday and was delighted to find some top-quality sandwiches (they’re still not Ike’s, but variety is good too). Usually if I find myself on that block and hungry I wind up at Tartine, but sometimes what you want is a giant, messy turkey, bacon, avocado and swiss on inch-thick bread. Right?

Also, sandwiches come with free chips. They don’t even warn you. You just pick up your sandwich and there they are: half a plate of really good potato chips.

It doesn’t take much to make my day. A good sandwich, surprise chips and a view of the park: it’s enough.

Image courtesy of the Cafe website.

07
Jan

The Dish

Author: kris, Category: Food

Generally speaking, I prefer California-style pizza. In California cuisine you can be creative with ingredients, and you’ll usually find a lot of fresh veggies and other stuff not generally included on your average NY slice.

But even though I love Cali pies the most, even I recognize that there are times when you really need to dig into a deep dish pizza. sometimes you just need a foot-tall mound of thick, chewy bread and rich tomato sauce.

Used to be that the only reliably awesome deep dish was at Zachary’s in Berkeley. (They have a couple of other locations now too.) Zachary’s is still one of the top three reasons to live in that town, don’t get me wrong, but we city-dwellers are slowly coming up with a few deep disheries of our own.

My favorite is Little Star Pizza, and not just because one of the  pizza chefs is a friend of a friend. The pizza is excellent of course, and the atmosphere — at least at the Western Addition location — is one of those dim, hip vibes that makes me feel cooler than I am. It’s the tragedy of my life that Little Star does not deliver.

However, now The Lookout has started serving deep dish of a completely acceptable quality. They also don’t deliver, but they’re half a block from my house so I can’t complain. The prices are on par with Little Star, but my verdict is still out on which one tastes better. Check them out and decide for yourself.

30
Dec

Cha-Am

Author: kris, Category: Berkeley, Food

I have to say, if you’re looking for the perfect dinner in Berkely, Cha-Am is probably the spot for you. This is a Thai restaurant with the rare quality (rare in any kind of restaurant) of being perfect for just about any situation. You can take a group here and order a bunch of stuff to share (and you’ll want to share — it’s all excellent), and it’s casual and comfortable and quiet enough that you can all hear each other but no so quiet you feel weird laughing loudly. Or you can take a date here: it’s lit by tons of little twinkling lights and has a patio and is just kind of funky and interesting, architecturally speaking. It can be the perfect romantic anniversary date, or the perfect semi-romantic semi-casual first date. Plus, you can get a glass of house wine for $2.50, which is all you really need to lubricate any sticky eating situation.