Garden Bakery, SF

I get a lot of food inspiration from reading articles about the bay area.  One of them was about Chinatown.  I love eating in Chinatown.  First of all it reminds me of home.  Second of all I actually do love Chinese food, though as I get older I find the grease actually makes me physically feel not so good.  It is the little shops with small eats and street-like food that I love.  Check out the article here.

Lingon and I mutually agreed on Garden Bakery, since it had Chinese pastries and supposedly good coffee.  In addition to the spongecake, pineapple bun (right picture) and pork bun that the article recommended, I also got the wife cake, or lao po bing.  Everything was not bad, but nothing fabulous, except the pineapple bun which came hot out of the oven.  For those who have no idea what a pineapple bun is, it really has no pineapple in it, but the top is baked so that it supposedly looks like the exterior of a pineapple.  Wikipedia has a good article about it here.

I actually would go back here again for the pineapple bun, but definitely want to check out the other Chinese bakeries in the area!

Cotogna (booking on Sosh), SF

This is a long overdue email but I wanted to give a shout out to Sosh (which is a source of last minute activities, of which I am mainly interested in dining) and Cotogna.

Sosh send me a bizarre email, saying I was a VIP on their app, though the only time I had used their app was using a friend's account and even so I had only used it once!  Well, they were offering a free dinner and the Mushroom usually does not turn down free things.  I managed to secure the Al Prezzo Fisso menu with wine pairing at Cotogna and invited Tutu with me, since Lingon was out of town.  Value was $28 for dinner and $18 for wine, for 2 people, free!  Woohoo!!

For the starter, we had gazpacho, which was really good considering I like neither tomato soup nor cold soups in general.  The tomatoes had a good... tomato-y flavour, and was not too sweet.

For the main, we had ravioli di porchetta.  Rich and cheesy.  Super yummy.

For dessert we had what was basically a very rich chocolate mousse, with seasonal fruit, mainly figs and perhaps peach.  The chocolate mousse was SO good.  I cleaned the little canister.

I must say my relationship with Cotogna had started out a bit rocky, but the past two times I had been there it was great!  I'm starting to be a fan.  Keep on rocking, Cotogna!

Little Skillet, SF

My craving for fried chicken and waffles was finally satisfied.  Little Skillet had been on my to-go list forever.  I ordered through the Paypal app, got my $5 off, and drove to pick it up.  When I arrived at the counter, it was ready, and I took it home all excited!  Took it home and plated it beautifully.  The chicken itself was great, good tasty batter.  The waffles were a bit soggy, possibly by no fault of theirs (such goodness is always best eaten fresh), and even so I did not really like the taste.  The syrup was supposed to be some peach something or another syrup, and that I did not love either.  Glad I got that one off the list, but the next fried chicken and waffles will probably be Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland.

16th Avenue Stairs, SF

Not to state the obvious, but San Francisco has a ton of hidden gems.  I recently found this article (picture #5 in the article) that reminded me of the beautiful 16th Avenue Mosaic stairs, and decided as part of our Tuesday date I wanted to go there with Lingon.

Supposedly 163 stairs high, we went there and walked.  It was indeed very beautiful, brightly coloured tiles depicting a swirly picture of animals and plants.  Here is an article about the building of the stairs.

We then proceeded to the zig zag staircase which was tucked away behind the wall we were faced with upon finishing the first flight of stairs.

We arrived at Grand View Park and were greeted with MAGNIFICENT views of the north and west of San Francisco.  Wow!  The picture is not that big, but you can see downtown in the right background and the Golden Gate Bridge towards the left of the picture.  I am always amazed by this beautiful city I call home.

A little below the 16th Avenue stairs were the less-known Hidden Garden Steps.  Another neighbourhood initiative.  Impressive.  Hats off to the neighbours who put time and money into the project.

A fun little excursion for us downtown folks who find a trip even just to Pacific Heights a trek.

Ramen Bar, SF

Finally a ramen place close by to me!  Ramen Bar, by Michael Mina.  Collectively the three of us ordered:
SF CHASU MISO-BUTTER HOKKAIDO: braised pork, garlic, sweet corn, soy-cured egg (richer, bolder flavor)
TOKYO-STYLE KUROBUTA PORK: wakame, soy-cured egg, spinach (lighter, aromatic broth)
GINGER-BRAISED CHICKEN: soy-cured egg, bamboo, spinach, yuzukosho (lighter, aromatic broth)

I did not love the noodles, felt a bit like instant noodles, but the broths were pretty good.  At $14, $12 and $12 a bowl the portions were decent too especially for downtown.  Special shout out to the ginger-braised chicken broth.  The broth was as described, light and aromatic, and I was pleasantly surprised by how flavourful yet clean tasting it was.  Yeah I think I would go back again when the craving for ramen returns and I do not feel like going somewhere far away.  Might be interesting to try the donburis, or add on a braised pork belly.

Plin, SF

I had a friend tell me recently that he liked my travel posts but my food posts were boring.  Well cheers to you too!


Here is a fairly recent restaurescape at Plin, which has been opened for a couple of months now.  The chef, Alexander Alioto, was formerly at Seven Hills which we loved, and when I read he moved, I just had to try is new place!  We decided the pastas were probably the stars of the menu, so we ordered only a couple of appetizers, almost all the pastas, and one entree.  After the first pasta came, it looked so tiny since we only ordered the half, so we asked for everything else to be changed to the full portion.  We were 5 people.  Bad mistake.  We did not finish our food and I think we were mostly uncomfortably full after the meal.  :-(

Now for pictures and review...

Top left: Cold Spaghetti and Raw Wild Halibut - fresh heirloom tomato puree, basil.  Not bad but nothing spectacular.
Bottom left: Fried Chilean Seabass - black bean sauce, green onions, lemon vinaigrette.  The fish was very nicely fried but I cared not for the black bean sauce.
Top and middle right:  butter perfectly salted, bread.  Did I say perfectly salted?
Bottom right: New Zealand Smoked Salmon and Potato Cake - zested salt cured egg yolk, onion gelatin, caper leaves, lime juice.  Nothing special, I hate ordering smoked salmon at restaurants but they wanted it.  Shrug.

Spaghetti with Grandpa George's sausage - green bell pepper, caramelized onion, tomato sauce.  Great, hearty spaghetti.
Raviolo al Uovo  - Parmesan cheese, spinach, ricotta cheese, brown butter, truffle oil
parmesan chip.  This is what he is famous for.  It was delicious and decadent.
Risotto with Fontina Cheese - chicken skins, Thompson grapes, veal demi, citrus zest.  Rich and creamy and delicious.
Fettuccine Carbonara - Fra ‘Mani pancetta, egg yolks, black pepper, Parmesan cheese.  This seemed to be the table's least favourite thing - lack of richness according to the Dawg.  We rarely order cream based pastas since Lingon likes to pretend to be healthy, so I really enjoyed it and the pancetta had a nice ZING! to it.
Confit Chicken Cannelloni - tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, chicken demi, lemon zest .  This was well made but I did not find it particularly innovative or special.
Grilled Hawaiian Walu - eggplant puree, blended heirloom tomato, Jimmy Nardello Italian peppers, fried capers.  Like I said, the pastas are what you come here for.  Pass.
Seafood Risotto with Uni and Mussels - chives, croutons, parsley.  Now, I like uni with everything.  This was sublime.
Gnocchi with Stracciaella Cheese - chili flakes, fennel pollen.  Like the cannelloni, well made but nothing too special.

I really enjoyed the meal.  Some of the more special items were a delight, and if someone is just looking for good ol' traditional pasta, this place is great for that too!  I would definitely go back, though probably not too soon, since my stomach is still digesting that food days later...  Consider this my carbo load for tomorrow's half marathon.  :-)

Maruya, SF

A friend brought up Maruya a few months ago, which I had never heard of before.  After that, though, I started reading about it left, right and center.  Finally made it out there last night!

We took the BART since it's the best way to get to 16th and Mission without dealing with creepy people standing around the streets, worrying about whether they will smash your windows in with a hammer.  Also fastest, maybe 10 minute BART ride from Embarcadero to 16th and Mission.  Walked on 16th to find the restaurant, which was mostly unmarked but looked Japanese.  We were unsure but then I saw the small paper menu posted right outside the restaurant, confirmed that was it, and then went in.

The restaurant itself was simply furnished.  A bar that seated maybe 12, and a few small tables in the dining room.  I heard the bathroom sink seems like a spa, with some kind of scented steam coming out when one washes one's hands, but my aversion to public-ish restrooms prevented me from visiting.

At Maruya, one can get the Maruya omakase for $85, which is a combination of cooked food, sushi and sashimi, or the chef omakase for A.Q. (gotta love this), which is mainly nigiri, or the sashimi moriawase (choice of $50, 80 or 120), which is mainly sashimi.  For the latter 2, you can tell them if you want more or less pieces, compromising or promoting the quality of fish, but otherwise it is about 10 pieces of nigiri and I counted about 15 pieces of sashimi on my other dining friends' plate(s).  One can also get an a la carte sushi menu with a minimum spend of $80/person, which no one at my table of 4 opted for.

We each started with a persimmon and pear appetizer, with cinnamon and lime salt.  The salts were great!  The persimmon was not as sweet and juicy as I had expected/hoped for, but the salt made up for me.

On to the Maruya omakase, which is what I got.  I had some trio of vegetable dish (so so and the thick dip whose consistency resembled hummus was fairly tasteless), prawn (amazing) and truffle tofu (not bad).  Then I had a fried eggplant topped with some greens and tiny little fish-looking things, I enjoyed this.  The cooked fish was rather dry, I would pass on this.  The sashimi was mixed - tuna was really great and super fresh, salmon was good, and the last fish, not sure what it was, tasted like wet socks (yucks).  Then I had 8 pieces of nigiri, for me the most memorable being the last 2 of 8 - chu toro which was fatty enough without grossing one out, and the uni (of Santa Barbara) which was the most creamy decadent uni I think I've ever had which grossed me out thinking about it but was really SUPER yummy.

2 people of the 4 at our table ordered the chef omakase, at A.Q..  They had an oyster with uni and roe, which they liked.  Then there was some vegetable wrapped in some pickled cucumber/vegetable of some sort, which I got to try a bit of, and it was very meh.  The next raw fish dish was so so, it's a fish whose consistency I do not love anyway, a bit chewy and springy, so that's just a biased opinion.  They had a few nigiri courses which Lingon enjoyed.  The second nigiri in this picture was mine, they had something that looked similar but I think I forgot to take a picture.  However, their uni was from Japan, which initially pissed me off because I felt I was getting inferior uni.  Upon eating mine though, nothing mattered, because I just went to uni heaven.  I'm sure theirs tasted good too, but without trying theirs, I would never have known.  So, the one thing about this was that when the bill came, there was an additional $50 (for 2 people, so $25 each).  I wanted to know what on earth this was for, and apparently it was the cost of the first 3 cold dishes.  Totally not worth it since it was nothing special or particularly delicious, so I would recommend to specifically request NOT to get this.  Waste of money, though not a fortune, can still buy you 3 cheap meals in the Financial District.

The last member at our table got the sashimi, requesting no mackerel and shellfish.  She had a cold dish or two, and then her sashimi bowl came.  Beautifully presented, the fish looked very bright and of high quality, and she enjoyed it.

We all then had a clam miso soup.  The clams were fat (that's a good thing) and I thought they were rather fresh tasting, but then I detected a strange after taste which told me either they were not super fresh, or I was being hyper sensitive.

We ended with a yuzu lemonade which was a nice surprise, well appreciated, and frankly really good.  I love yuzu, and this was a refreshing end to the meal and was even a bit fizzy!

I doubt I will be visiting Maruya again.  For some reason cooked fish has not been all that great lately in restaurants for me, and we can get great raw fish at Akiko's which is a walk vs a BART ride away.  As usual, I'm glad I visited, and some of the food was good, but it was not consistent enough for me to make the trek (yes, I'm lazy) out to the Mission.  Oh, but if you visit, don't forget, do NOT get that cold dish stuff if it is extra $!

Pabu, SF (A Revisit)

Take 2 at Pabu.  We had heard numerous people tell us how wonderful it was, people whose food recommendations I somewhat trusted.  What we were told was that the omakase was really good.  Despite my lack of love for Michael Mina, I felt like I had to give the restaurant a second chance and try this much-raved omakase.

So off to Pabu we went.

According to the website, the tasting menu changes daily, but the date on the page as of today said August 27, 2014.  Seemed similar with variations.  I guess I cannot tell you exactly what we ate but here is my attempt.

Happy spoon - kusshi oyster, uni, ikura, tobiko, ponzu crème fraîche.  This dish is not pictured below, but we had it the last time and it was rich and delicious as we had remembered.
Some kind of raw fish, maybe kanpachi - great
Sushi courses - I would say this was truly the highlight.  The menu currently posted on the website shows 4 sushi courses, but I only have 3 pictures, which makes me think I got cheated and makes me angry.  However I think we did get tuna, which is what's missing in my photos, so maybe I was too greedy and ate without snapping a photo.  My favourite was the very fishy fish course, mackerel and all that.  Coming a close second was the shellfish course, clams, prawn, etc.  Normally I don't like the sweet raw prawn but this was exceptional and I think I'm ready to order this on my own!
Shabu - OK, something has to be done about this sad tasteless dish.  I love shabu.  But this extremely expensive shabu had no flavour whatsoever.  The sad little rolls of meat were very tender but seriously lacking flavour.  The dipping sauces were not particularly tasty or unique, I know I can buy that from Nijiya and it will taste better with my homemade broth and dipping sauce from a bottle.  I had contemplated requesting for something else instead of the shabu, but Lingon did not want me to confuse the server too much because we were eating with other people.  Should have listened to my gut, as usual.  Barf.  The vegetables were very sad too.  So I'm going to stop beating on this poor dish, but please do not order eat.
Dessert - I see Asian pear and some ice cream which may have been berry-like.  The pear was amazing, except I hated the fact that they poured sake into the dish.  Had I known that was what they were doing, I would have stopped them instantly.

So in conclusion (I feel like I'm writing an A Levels paper or something), the happy spoon and nigiri was fabulous, shabu sucked (which was sad since this course took a long time) and the dessert could have been nice for other people except I did not love the sake.  Order the nigiri portion of the tasting menu but don't waste your time with the shabu, seriously

Lazy Bear, SF

Disclaimer:  We have a tiny stake in this restaurant, since getting a reservation was impossible, we decided to put some money into it and have access to reservations.  Expensive way to get a table, hopefully it pays off.

Lazy Bear started off as a pop up by chef David Barzelay who wanted to find a new direction in life from his previous job.  I believe he taught himself to cook, and did not receive any, or much, formal cooking education.  After a few years of pop up restaurant-ing, and a few failed attempts at getting a restaurant space, he and his team finally did it!  There are 2 seatings each night, and each guest is served the same dish at the same time.  Here is a photo of the interior of the restaurant, located in the Mission district of San Francisco.

There is an upstairs lounge area that you are escorted to to enjoy some snacks before the dinner formally starts.  Here is a photo of our snacks.  I found them to be very innovative and delicious, except for the cocktail which I found pretty gross but it may be because I do not drink much.

Some cocktail, whipped scrambled eggs (bacon, maple, hot sauce), shigoku oyster (tomato water gelee, fennel pollen, jalapeno oil, cherry tomatoes, black salt), damson plum brulee (chicken liver mousse, brioche, sorrel), sweet corn custard (american white sturgeon caviar), charred tomatillo (beef jerky, creme fraiche, radish)

Then we headed downstairs for the main courses.  Each guest was given a Lazy Bear book with a description of each dish inside.  As they served each dish, a member of the kitchen would come out to talk a little about it.  The pastry chef was a sweet-looking girl and she presented the last 2 dishes, which were the desserts, but she seemed very nervous or at least she was extremely fidgety and she really needs to work on presentation.  Everything was interesting and seriously delicious, and I think I say this without much bias since I am usually pretty objective.  My favourite was probably the shellfish course with the grits.  The only dish I found a tad boring and unfun and not the most yummy was the meat course, right before dessert.  That disappointed me.  The sourdough ice cream thing was most unique with a funny yeasty taste that tasted probably much better than I'm describing.

Bay laurel and molasses bread (cultured butter, buttermilk), chilled lettuce soup (little gems, summer squash, fried anchovy, parsley), delta crawfish (carolina gold rice grits, spot prawn, cucumber, celery, purslane), guinea hen (butter bean, chanterelles, fine herbes, hen jus), seared sungolds (smoked beef striploin, basil, amaranth, tomato raisins), pluots (pluot consomme gelee, myoga, ginger curd, shiso, mint), sourdough (scotch, pears, earl grey, crysanthemum)

Just when you think the meal is over, out comes some dessert-y snacks/petits fours.  Really, I could not fit it into the picture above, that's why it is by itself.  There were macarons, a sesame ball filled with I believe chocolate (like a dim sum, it was described to us), some berry jelly thing, some chocolate thing and maybe a brittle which is what it looks like.

Simply called treats

I had a wonderful experience at Lazy Bear.  My big complaint is the cadence was a bit of, sometimes the food came out at a nice pace and sometimes it was very slow.  I suppose it was only day 3 of cooking for them so they might still have things to work out.  Sadly it is so hard to get normal reservations on the website since they use a ticketing system that to me is impossible.  The famous Alinea restaurant has a perhaps more casual restaurant offspring called NEXT with this system, which Lazy Bear adopted, and I never managed to get tickets to NEXT.  Glad I don't have to deal with that.