A few more restaurants:
Wanted something light, like tapas, so we decided to hit Pisco Latin Lounge, which is next door to Destino and has the same owners. It's a lounge/bar with a tapas menu, and was pretty empty on a random Monday. Light != cheap. We got the plantain chips (yum), caprese empanadas (pretty yum - mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil in an empanada), the PisCo-Chino Roll (yellowtail, quinoa, lemongrass oil, soy-tamarind reduction - quinoa is gross or at least not what I expect in a sushi roll), the Tiradito de Corvina (white sea bass crudo, crema de rocoto, meyer lemon-agave salsa - crema de rocoto is SPICY, good thing we got it on the side. crudo was yummy), and the Jamon Serrano Spears (cardamom infused persimmon, goat cheese, jamon serrano, pomegranate reduction - would have liked a lot more if I liked goat cheese). Not a lot of food, pretty hefty price. Pretty tasty, except for the use of quinoa in the sushi roll, though! Definitely a very different type of tapas than I got last week, but not surprising given these were Peruvian.
Tuesday I was starving (opposite of Monday) and decided to hit B's BBQ and Grill, a new BBQ place on Divisadero between McAllister and Fulton that we pass every day on our bike. The whole place is super-smoky so we decided to eat at home. It took maybe 20 minutes for our order to be ready, which isn't terrible. We got a 1/2 order of the ribs, and 1/2 order of the brisket, plus a sweet tea. The sweet tea was delicious. My biggest complaint, even though I love sauce, is that they DROWN their meat in sauce. More than I like, which is saying a lot. The ribs were meaty but a bit tough and dry, which was disappointing. The brisket was tender and good, though, and would have been excellent with a bit less sauce. I have a theory about bbq places, though - I think that unless they're super-good, they aren't that consistent. Smoking meat I don't think is an exact science. I might go again. It's a bit more consistent than Memphis Minnie's but I think at the moment I still like Memphis Minnie's more - more meat choices, more side choices, and I think it's a bit cheaper.
Wednesday we had leftover ribs and brisket. Thursday we went to Pauline's again and got a pepperoni pizza. That place is not fast and not cheap but it's pretty darn good and not greasy (well, except for the little pools of grease cupped in our little pepperoni, but the crust and cheese are not greasy). Friday we tried fresh spaghetti I had bought from the Crocker Galleria farmer's market Thursday, along with sauce we made following the Best Recipe from diced tomatoes, olive oil, basil, oregano, garlic.... it was ok. The spaghetti was quite chewy.
Saturday we tried buying pre-marinated Kalbi from the Woo Ri Korean supermarket on Fillmore by Geary (in a little refrigerated case near the front counter) and grilling it at home on our cast-iron grill. The first couple pieces were super-salty, probably b/c we usually use the cast iron grill to make our pepper and salt seared filet mignon (and we don't wash it since it's cast iron). After that though... I don't think I'd get the meat there again. The marinade wasn't very good. Mostly on the salty side, not very sweet. And it's not cheap - we got a case with 9 pieces of kalbi for $15 or so. It was supposed to be 2.3 lbs but I think a lot of that weight was the marinade. Might as well just go to a korean bbq like Pine Restaurant for that price. Oh well...
Yesterday I made a chicken pot pie which we're eating tonight as well. That's not so interesting, but it was tasty =).
Monday, March 23, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
More restaurants
Eating out way too much these days.
Hit Poleng Lounge near home on Friday after discovering the wait was an hour at Little Star. Yummy sweet potato fries with banana catsup. Yummy butterfish ceviche. Ok kalbi.
Saturday, met an old friend from college and a friend of hers for dinner in the Mission. Decided on the fly to visit Picaro on 16th near Valencia, a tapas place right next to Ti Couz. She liked seafood and didn't like fried food so we got an entirely different set of tapas than I would have gotten with my bf, and it was very tasty! The grilled calamari was surprisingly delicious - tender texture, buttery taste. I don't much like eggplant but the Japanese eggplant dish was decent - good for what it was. The mushrooms, shrimp, and onion? dish was really tasty as well - little shrimp, all very flavorful. Rabbit stew her friend loved - when we finished eating our bits he basically licked the plate clean - but I was less impressed. And the patatas bravas were good though a little spicier than I like. Well, we got the ones that said spicy in the description so what can I expect? Overall I very much enjoyed the food, and would return. Though the guitar player/singer who came in towards the end of our meal and started walking around the place was quite loud...not so good for conversation.
Sunday, was shopping at REI and Sports Basement until later than expected, so we decided to eat in Potrero Hill. There's a short little block at 18th that has a few restaurants so we parked there and went where the menu most struck our fancy, Lingba Lounge, a Thai restaurant. We ordered the "little bit of everything" appetizer special, which consisted of two chicken satay skewers, 4 pieces of fresh spring roll, 4 pieces of fried spring roll, 2 corn cakes, and a heap of thai beef jerky with 3 sauces to dip things in. It was quite tasty, though we found the beef jerky less than inspiring and left it all behind since we still had a lot of food to come. That was $22 for 2 people - lots of food. Then my bf got the garlic noodles with char-shu pork, which was pretty good - I had the leftovers for lunch today and it was quite garlicky and spicy. I got the miso and sake marinated black cod on sugar snaps and brussel sprouts and it was DELICIOUS. I was a very happy girl last night with my dinner. The black cod was sweet and flaky and tender and super-yummy, and the veggies were crisp and sweet and yummy in the sauce. So very very good. Yum. Service was prompt and fine, the place was nice, and there was no wait (it was a Sunday night). Sometimes it's best not to check out Yelp reviews before hitting a place!
Hit Poleng Lounge near home on Friday after discovering the wait was an hour at Little Star. Yummy sweet potato fries with banana catsup. Yummy butterfish ceviche. Ok kalbi.
Saturday, met an old friend from college and a friend of hers for dinner in the Mission. Decided on the fly to visit Picaro on 16th near Valencia, a tapas place right next to Ti Couz. She liked seafood and didn't like fried food so we got an entirely different set of tapas than I would have gotten with my bf, and it was very tasty! The grilled calamari was surprisingly delicious - tender texture, buttery taste. I don't much like eggplant but the Japanese eggplant dish was decent - good for what it was. The mushrooms, shrimp, and onion? dish was really tasty as well - little shrimp, all very flavorful. Rabbit stew her friend loved - when we finished eating our bits he basically licked the plate clean - but I was less impressed. And the patatas bravas were good though a little spicier than I like. Well, we got the ones that said spicy in the description so what can I expect? Overall I very much enjoyed the food, and would return. Though the guitar player/singer who came in towards the end of our meal and started walking around the place was quite loud...not so good for conversation.
Sunday, was shopping at REI and Sports Basement until later than expected, so we decided to eat in Potrero Hill. There's a short little block at 18th that has a few restaurants so we parked there and went where the menu most struck our fancy, Lingba Lounge, a Thai restaurant. We ordered the "little bit of everything" appetizer special, which consisted of two chicken satay skewers, 4 pieces of fresh spring roll, 4 pieces of fried spring roll, 2 corn cakes, and a heap of thai beef jerky with 3 sauces to dip things in. It was quite tasty, though we found the beef jerky less than inspiring and left it all behind since we still had a lot of food to come. That was $22 for 2 people - lots of food. Then my bf got the garlic noodles with char-shu pork, which was pretty good - I had the leftovers for lunch today and it was quite garlicky and spicy. I got the miso and sake marinated black cod on sugar snaps and brussel sprouts and it was DELICIOUS. I was a very happy girl last night with my dinner. The black cod was sweet and flaky and tender and super-yummy, and the veggies were crisp and sweet and yummy in the sauce. So very very good. Yum. Service was prompt and fine, the place was nice, and there was no wait (it was a Sunday night). Sometimes it's best not to check out Yelp reviews before hitting a place!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Blogging blogging blogging
Food:
Note to self, do not return to Tangerine, unless to try brunch. We went once before, I don't actually think we loved it but I didn't blog about it (I don't think) so I couldn't be sure. We went again Tuesday b/c of their 20% off Tuesday special. The menu looks interesting, all Asian-fusion, but we've been less than impressed with the food. We got roasted duck rolls with green mango sauce that I actually did quite like but my bf didn't (he doesn't like fried spring rolls). I got two appetizers for my meal - butternut squash soup (I should remember, I think I like bisque, not soup, for butternut squash - mashed up boiled squash is not what I'm looking for) and what they called salmon croissant but turned out to be another variation of a fried roll, only this one with cooked salmon (must remember, I like raw salmon, not cooked salmon) inside filo pastry and deep fried. I didn't finish it, there is only so much fried roll I can take in a meal, and the roasted duck one was much better. My bf got the coriander beef short ribs which just weren't that interesting. The food's not bad, it's just not particularly worth revisiting.
Hit Ti Couz last night to try crepes for dinner. Not particularly cheap crepes either. I liked my mushroom-cheese-almonds crepe just fine (buckwheat crepe, had mushroom sauce on top), my bf really didn't like his smoked salmon and onion dinner crepe. For one thing, the smoked salmon was pretty much cooked and he doesn't like cooked fish, and he doesn't like buckwheat crepes. The dessert crepe redeemed itself to him - we split a raspberry sorbet & nutella crepe which he probably enjoyed a bit more than I did since he loves raspberry sorbet and was very impressed by theirs, whereas I'm not as big a fan. We might go back for dessert crepes sometime, though with Bi-Rite in the neighborhood, I'm not sure when.
Revisited Isa, which I still love. Found out they get their baguettes from Bakers of Paris, and found Bakers of Paris baguettes at Lucky. Apparently the key is to follow the instructions on the bag and heat the bread in the oven before eating to bring out the crustiness and that warm French bread taste. Yum.
Went to see Wicked on Wednesday night as part of my Best of Broadway subscription. Interesting to see what I missed last time I saw the show (since I was 20 minutes late due to being a complete moron). I don't love the music in Wicked, with the exception of a few songs, and I found the group numbers in particular impossible to understand lyrically, but the show is overall a good one. More emotionally affecting, especially by the end, than you'd expect. And despite simplifying the characterizations - Elphaba's in particular - from the book, does a remarkably good job of actually creating two layered main characters (not so much the rest of the characters). Galinda, as my friend pointed out, was more developed than Elphaba - she had flaws and redeeming moments all mixed in together, and a genuinely mixed POV. The layering in of elements to create the Wicked Witch myth - there's the cowardly lion, that's how the tin man came about, there's the scarecrow, the whole "wicked" persona was propaganda created about her when she went against the government, etc - was neat though a little much in places (the scarecrow part is a bit of a stretch IMO, Elphaba cackling for no apparent reason when Glinda slapped her was just cheesy). The book obviously did a deeper job of delving into all of it - the political situation in Oz, the relationships and the characters - but the show did a remarkably good job of distilling it into a 3-ish hour musical. As for the cast we saw, Galinda had great comic timing (if a little over the top at times) but also quite good emotional depth, as well as a good voice (was worried when she was warbling unintelligibly during the opening number but she altered her voice to play the schoolgirl). Elphaba was an overactor, but boy could she sing. Powerful set of pipes and a beautiful voice, and she totally attacked "Defying Gravity". Definitely not a case where I thought the actress I saw was inferior vocally to the originating cast member. And the two of them together had great chemistry and some wonderful duets.
Overall I'd say Wicked is a good show - not one of my favorites, especially musical - but definitely well worth watching.
Note to self, do not return to Tangerine, unless to try brunch. We went once before, I don't actually think we loved it but I didn't blog about it (I don't think) so I couldn't be sure. We went again Tuesday b/c of their 20% off Tuesday special. The menu looks interesting, all Asian-fusion, but we've been less than impressed with the food. We got roasted duck rolls with green mango sauce that I actually did quite like but my bf didn't (he doesn't like fried spring rolls). I got two appetizers for my meal - butternut squash soup (I should remember, I think I like bisque, not soup, for butternut squash - mashed up boiled squash is not what I'm looking for) and what they called salmon croissant but turned out to be another variation of a fried roll, only this one with cooked salmon (must remember, I like raw salmon, not cooked salmon) inside filo pastry and deep fried. I didn't finish it, there is only so much fried roll I can take in a meal, and the roasted duck one was much better. My bf got the coriander beef short ribs which just weren't that interesting. The food's not bad, it's just not particularly worth revisiting.
Hit Ti Couz last night to try crepes for dinner. Not particularly cheap crepes either. I liked my mushroom-cheese-almonds crepe just fine (buckwheat crepe, had mushroom sauce on top), my bf really didn't like his smoked salmon and onion dinner crepe. For one thing, the smoked salmon was pretty much cooked and he doesn't like cooked fish, and he doesn't like buckwheat crepes. The dessert crepe redeemed itself to him - we split a raspberry sorbet & nutella crepe which he probably enjoyed a bit more than I did since he loves raspberry sorbet and was very impressed by theirs, whereas I'm not as big a fan. We might go back for dessert crepes sometime, though with Bi-Rite in the neighborhood, I'm not sure when.
Revisited Isa, which I still love. Found out they get their baguettes from Bakers of Paris, and found Bakers of Paris baguettes at Lucky. Apparently the key is to follow the instructions on the bag and heat the bread in the oven before eating to bring out the crustiness and that warm French bread taste. Yum.
Went to see Wicked on Wednesday night as part of my Best of Broadway subscription. Interesting to see what I missed last time I saw the show (since I was 20 minutes late due to being a complete moron). I don't love the music in Wicked, with the exception of a few songs, and I found the group numbers in particular impossible to understand lyrically, but the show is overall a good one. More emotionally affecting, especially by the end, than you'd expect. And despite simplifying the characterizations - Elphaba's in particular - from the book, does a remarkably good job of actually creating two layered main characters (not so much the rest of the characters). Galinda, as my friend pointed out, was more developed than Elphaba - she had flaws and redeeming moments all mixed in together, and a genuinely mixed POV. The layering in of elements to create the Wicked Witch myth - there's the cowardly lion, that's how the tin man came about, there's the scarecrow, the whole "wicked" persona was propaganda created about her when she went against the government, etc - was neat though a little much in places (the scarecrow part is a bit of a stretch IMO, Elphaba cackling for no apparent reason when Glinda slapped her was just cheesy). The book obviously did a deeper job of delving into all of it - the political situation in Oz, the relationships and the characters - but the show did a remarkably good job of distilling it into a 3-ish hour musical. As for the cast we saw, Galinda had great comic timing (if a little over the top at times) but also quite good emotional depth, as well as a good voice (was worried when she was warbling unintelligibly during the opening number but she altered her voice to play the schoolgirl). Elphaba was an overactor, but boy could she sing. Powerful set of pipes and a beautiful voice, and she totally attacked "Defying Gravity". Definitely not a case where I thought the actress I saw was inferior vocally to the originating cast member. And the two of them together had great chemistry and some wonderful duets.
Overall I'd say Wicked is a good show - not one of my favorites, especially musical - but definitely well worth watching.
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