GastroMagic - The First Culinary Stage at Outside Lands

Outside Lands is a very interesting music festival in that it's almost as much about the food, wine, beer, and other treats than it is about the music. In true San Francisco style, there is a plethora of amazing foodie treats to enjoy with your music. However, this year, they're taking it up a notch and giving you some official food pairings. Musicians and San Francisco culinary stars are coming together at the GastroMagic stage. The GastroMagic stage will have shows from about 1:30 PM to 8:00 Pm every day so it's a great place to stop by if you have a gap in your schedule. Here are my picks for the weekend.

Cocktails and Bacon

Wait what? You heard correctly! Right outside the GastroMagic tent there will be cocktails and bacon. If you love fancy drinks you can get a hand crafted cocktail from the mixologists of 15 Romolo, 1760, Alembic, The Homestead, Local Edition and Hotsy Totsy. I've had drinks at about half of those places and they are awesome. I'm really looked forward to trying something from Alembic though - I've heard amazing things for years and still haven't made it there (which is really terrible on my part). The area is also introducing... BACON LAND where there will be a Bacon Flight (a selection of the countries best bacons) and other bacon goodies. I was already planning on spending a lot of time here but with bacon and cocktails in the vicinity, I'll probably never leave.

Offal Good Music featuring Chris Cosentino

Chris Costentina, winner of Top Chef Masters and executive chef of Porcellino (formerly Incanto), will team up with a musician to talk about music, food, and skateboarding. It promises to be an Offal good time!

Beignets & Bounce Brunch with Big Freedia and Brenda’s French Soul Food

Brenda's French Soul Food is well known in the city for having awesome beignets and really long lines for brunch. If you don't want to wait a couple of hours in line for brunch this weekend, you can try to win some of Brenda's beignets by showing off your twerk.

Duck Sauce Soirée featuring Duck Sauce and Brandon Jew

This little party with feature music by Duck Sauce while Brandon Jew, the chef at the Chino, will serve tasty bites to the audience.

BBQ & Drank feat Lewis Black, Dave McLean, Paul Grieco, Dave Smith & Southpaw BBQ

Comedian Lewis Black will join a panel of judges to answer the age old question: What goes best with BBQ - beer, wine, or bourbon? My vote is for all three!

Breakdown Breakdance: Fatted Calf vs Avedano

SF butcher shops Fatted Calf and Avedano compete to see who can break down a pig the best while break dancers break down dance moves on stage. Wow, try to say fast...

Food Fight: Marlowe vs Park Tavern hosted by Craig Robinson

Marlowe and Park Tavern compete in kitchen trivia and challenges hosted by comedian Craig Robinson. Which of the two sister restaurants will come out on top??


I'll definitely be spending quite a bit of time at the GastroMagic stage nomming on flights of bacon!

Taste of the Bay Area - What to Eat at Outside Lands

Since this blog has me expanding into the food world as well, I really wanted to comment on all of the awesome things to eat at Outside Lands. As much as the festival is about music, it's also a celebration of the Bay Area and in no way is that more obvious than all of the local restaurants and food trucks that set up shop in Golden Gate Park for the weekend. The list of food vendors is absolutely huge, and it was tough to narrow down my picks to the (still pretty long) list below. Since this blog was initially about exploring the bay area, I've already written full blog posts on some of the places below. Most of those were written several years ago and it says a lot that a food vendor can still be doing so well after so much time.

4505 Meats

4505 Meats has long claimed to have the Best Damn Cheeseburger in the City and even though I mostly eat paleo, I love me a good burger sometimes and I can attest to their claims. A lot of burgers in SF try to be something really fancy and crazy. 4505 goes a different route though and just gives you good juicy meat on a quality bun. You can spice up your burger with bacon or an egg which are both great options. I do have to say though, this burger is not for the clean eater - especially if you add the egg.

They are also bringing their famous chicharonnes to the festival. These golden crispy nuggets of fried pork fat are what I like to call "paleo chips" and they're awesome. These ones in particular have a lovely sweet and spicy seasoning to them that will have you licking your fingers.

Blue Bottle Coffee

In the early days of this blog, I was trying to find a way to explore the city while studying for the worst exam I've ever taken. I found the best way to kill two birds with one stone was to study in a different coffee shop each week and of course, the infamous Blue Bottle was my first stop. Blue Bottle coffee is amazing and it's strong. This will be the perfect pick-me-up when the long and crazy days at the festival are wearing you down.

Pica Pica Arepa Kitchen

Pica Pica is one of the places I've written about before. When I first visited this place, I was brand new to arepas and the texture was a little foreign to me. I've since become a much bigger fan of them and have even tried making them at home. This one is high on my list as a great lunch option for Outside Lands. It's also very helpful that the arepas are easy to hold and eat. In a festival situation, that can be super handy.

Tacolicious

My first experience with Tacolicious was at their stands on Thursday at the Ferry Building. My favorite lunch time escape would be to get a bunch of different tacos with the amazing mild green salsa and sit on the water enjoying them. That was heaven for me. Tacos are high on my list of favorite foods and Tacolicious is high on my list of taco joints so that says a lot. They are bringing fish tacos, chicken tacos, and veggie tacos so try them all!

TBD/AQ

These two restaurants share an owner and a street in SoMa and one night I accidentally had the pleasure of going to both. That's a whole different story that you can read about but the point was that the food was great and the customer service was even better. Bad service will turn me away from a place so quickly even if the food is amazing but these guys really know how to treat customers and they made a really memorable impression on me.

Little Chihuahua

Little Chihuahua brings together the best of two things I love - Mexican food and eating fresh, healthy ingredients. The restaurant has grass fed beef, organic veggies, and gets all of its meat and produce sustainably. It's definitely a great compromise between delicious food and healthy eating. Guilt free burritos all the way!

Woodhouse Fish Co.

This is the stop for all of the seafood lovers. I'm clearly an oyster lover so I'm really happy that Woodhouse is bringing some to the festival this year. However, I'm a little more happy that they are also bringing their amazing lobster rolls. I've never met a lobster roll I didn't love but Woodhouse really knows how to overflow their buttery rolls with tons of amazing lobster.

Food Trucks

Bacon Bacon Truck

The Bacon Bacon Truck in no way needs my endorsement. Everything they sell has bacon in it and the only time I've seen it without a line is when I've spotted it driving down the street. Whenever this happens, I need to restraining myself from running after it with a handful of cash like it's an ice cream truck. The Bacon Bacon truck is simply amazing. I've been fortunate enough to try several of their offerings and it's all great. I personally recommend the pork belly friesb ut really - you can't go wrong with bacon anything and everything here delivers.

Curry Up Now

This is a little bit of a bittersweet one for me - Curry Up Now is one of my favorite trucks and they are not at my local Soma Streat Food Park nearly enough (I maybe dash over there whenever I see the tweet that they're there), but they aren't bringing my favorite dish to the festival - Chicken Tikka Masala Fries. Few things make me happier than the mildly spiced chicken over waffle cut sweet potato fries. What they are bringing though are Samosas and Kathi rolls and if they're half as good as my treasured fries, they will be amazing.

Señor Sisig

Señor is Filipino Mexican fusion. While this might sound like a terrible idea, it's done perfectly. Chicken adobo tacos will change you. I also just love how many options they have. The full truck offers tacos, burritos, taco salads, and more. For the healthy eater - the salad does an amazing job of letting you enjoy awesome flavors without any of the guilt that comes along with the tortilla. I always appreciate a food truck that has those kinds of options because it is pretty rare.

Sharona's Chocolate Shop

Three words - Chocolate Covered Smores. As we all know, I try to eat paleo. However, I tend to cheat or make exceptions when I'm at fun events. Chocolate Lands at Outside Lands was definitely one of those times. Sharona's Chocolate Shop had these giant chocolate covered smores and they were full of chocolately marshmallowy goodness. They were super rich and since I don't normally eat sweets, I had to save half of mine. However, after a little time in the microwave it was the perfect post-show snack to have before bed that night.


So I honestly have to say this was one of the hardest posts I've ever had to write. Thinking of the words to describe some of my favorite restaurants - so easy. However, reliving some of my favorite food experiences has my mouth absolutely watering. I'm pretty sure they are going to have to roll me out of the festival because no person should have lobster rolls, pork fries, chocolate covered smores, a million tacos, and a cheeseburger all at once (plus the wine!) but I'm going to try.

And then I'm going to look like this...

Day 10 - Iran - World Cup Eating Challenge

Growing up, my family didn't go out to eat a lot. My mom is a great cook and we regularly had home cooked dinners, but when we did go out, we often went out for Persian food. It was pretty interesting when I got to college and wasn't familiar with Thai or Indian food like my friends. Persian restaurants weren't too common around Berkeley so it really faded from memory... until I was looking up Iranian recipes. It completely skipped my mind that Iran is Persia and that these would be the same cuisine. I decided to take a trip back in time and go out to dinner at a Persian restaurant.

I was really happy to find one that was nearby my apartment - Anar Restaurant. I was going to an event in that area that day anyways so it all worked out perfectly.

One of my favorite dishes of all time, is really well made tatziki. While I know this is Greek, I was really excited to see a similar yogurt dish on their menu. I ordered it as a starter and my friend Scott got a roasted eggplant dish. They were both really good on the flat bread and the yogurt went really well with my main dish too.

I decided to keep it really basic and get a chicken and lamb kebab plate. It was so good and I loved the Persian rice. It was something I remembered a lot from my childhood trips to Persian restaurants and I was happy it still tasted great. The only thing I would change would be to put a little less rice and a few more vegetables. This might not be too authentic but even one more tomato would have been really appreciated. Scott and Dan ordered a pomegranate chicken that I stole a couple of bites of and it as really good as well. The servers even gave us a bottle of the pomegranate sauce to take home.

I was a little shocked at how empty the restaurant was. We did go right when it opened  but we didn't see anyone aside from the servers. Apparently it's only been open a few weeks and  there are definitely some opening pains. The don't have any sort of alcohol permits yet and obviously they haven't gotten the word out. I'm hoping some more people stumble upon this place though as it does have great Persian food.

Week of July 18th 2011: Social Eatz

There was one more Top Chef restaurant that I had to check out and that was Angelo Sosa's Social Eatz. His food always looked so good on TV and on the show they had said he worked in a sandwich shop so that felt very accessible. However, just before going to New York, I found out that the sandwich shop closed. Luckily, worry turned to excitement when I found out that instead he had opened up his own wider menu (but still relatively affordable and accessible) Asian-fusion type shop.

I know Asian fusion sounds a little played out but Angelo really attacked it in a new way. Almost of all the dishes seemed like American comfort food on the surface (burgers, hot dogs, etc) but it was easy to see that they were layered with unique Asian flavors. I got tacos and chicken wings and they were very tasty. I can't remember what Elissa ordered or which drinks we got (they have an extensive, original cocktail menu) but I do remember that we were both raving about it. She was trying to find out if they delivered to her neighborhood or office. It turned out that both were just out of their delivery radius and yes, she considered a few wacky, Seinfeld-esque ways to work around that.

The most important thing you should know about Social Eatz though - neither of us mentioned that it was my first time in New York and guess how much free stuff we got? None.

I actually got to meet Angelo a few weeks ago when he was in SF for a book signing. I literally chased him about half a block down a busy SF touristy area before I caught up and was able to ask him for a picture. Even though I seemed like a crazy stalker, him and his wife were very nice and understanding. It's also really nice to be able to tell a chef to his face that you liked his food.

Week of January 23rd 2012: Bottle Cap

For my 3rd Dine About Town experience - I really wanted to go to Bottle Cap. My favorite source for blog ideas - 7x7 - had recently recommended it as a great date spot. So, I decided it would be a great place to go on a girl date with my friend Sheena.

As soon as we got the menus, we knew we had made a good choice. After long work days, we were both quick to order a fun cocktail. We both got the Bondly named Dr. No which the waiter referred to as a fancy mai tai. It was delicious.

For appetizers, Sheena got a beef stew that was hearty and delicious. I got a smoked rainbow trout salad. Unfortunately, my dish wasn't quite what I imagined but still interesting and I managed to finish my plate. I had been torn between the trout and some some fried chicken thighs, and I sadly chose poorly.

We both chose the Wagyu steak for on entrees. Wagyu steak is a marbly type of beef that tends to be higher in flavor. It is similar to Kobe in a lot of ways. I've seen it appear on many a cooking show so I was excited to be able to order it at a reasonable price. The portions did not disappoint either - the restaurant gave us hefty portions as well as tasty sides of broccoli rabe, mushrooms, potato/squash gratin. A couple had just sat down next to us when we got our plates, and their eyes nearly popped out of their heads. "What is that??" "Is it good??" Yes, yes it is.

When our dessert courses came, our neighbors again asked what we'd gotten. Sheena got a chocolate brioche cake topped with torched whipped cream. I, only the other hand, have slowly been becoming less and less interested in super sweet desserts and was very happy that they had a fried goat cheese option.

As we enjoyed our dessert, we began striking up a conversation with our neighbors. They asked how many Dine About Town restaurants we had gone to. Then, they mentioned that they were only in town visiting from Chicago. For those of you who don't know, Chicago is very high on my list of cities to visit. It is an ultimate foodie town meriting both unique styles of food (ask any Chicagoan about hot dogs or pizza) and a variety of renowned chefs. I began asking them about all of the Chicago restaurants that I've wanted to go to, and they gave me their reviews. We talked about Restaurant Week (Chicago and NY's version of Dine About Town) and I shared my stories of the freebies I got on my trip to the Big Apple. The couple then said "Oh yes, we have a similar story.." and proceeded to tell us about how Wolfgang Puck sat down and had dessert with them when they were at Spago in Los Angeles. My jaw dropped - what an amazing story!

My favorite part of the night was when, mid-conversation, the wife stopped her sentence and said "Is the band playing Paparazzi?" Sure enough, the classic instrumental band was playing the hit Lady Gaga song.

I don't imagine that everyone will make such entertaining friends at Bottle Cap but the restaurant still had amazing food and a great atmosphere. The quaint decorating options give the feel of a French bistro while the classical ensemble playing pop music, gave a quirky, fun vibe to the meal. Bottle Cap is definitely going on my list of places to go to often.

Week of July 18th 2011: Les Halles

I'm not going to lie - I basically came into New York with a list of restaurants I had to go to. While I didn't make all of them, I'm very glad I got to try Les Halles.

After reading, Anthony Bourdain's first book, Kitchen Confidential, I felt like I knew Les Halles intimately. It felt odd that I was so familiar with the inner workings of this New York restaurant without having ever tried it's food. So, after my trip to the Met, Elissa and I got all dressed up for our French bistro style dinner. 


Although Les Halles also had a restaurant week special, we decided to order off the regular menu. I got the waiter's suggestion of the pepper steak frites while Elissa got a lovely salmon dish. It was so great. I'm not the biggest fan of a ton of pepper so I probably should have gotten the regular steak but it was still incredibly tasty. I definitely have a French food crush on steak frites after reading a travel book before my first visit to Paris so it was nice to have some again. 


I forget how it happened, but somehow the two of us fell into conversation with our waiter and, of course, I dropped the "this is my first time in New York line." So he asked me about San Francisco and insisted that I make him a list of restaurants that he should eat at next time he travels here. He also gave me a business card that told me which episodes of No Reservations he was on. He was also helpful with wine pairings... so helpful that he gave us a full glass "taste" of something he had recommended. 


As we were finishing our dinner, he surprised us with a bowl of different sorbets. I swear to you - if it is your first time in a new city tell people!!! I think if you're a nice person who is generally interested in the place you are visiting, the worst thing is that people will be nice back to you and the best is that they may leave you a few treats with your dinner. 


I loved the food at Les Halles and even though Mr. Bourdain doesn't work there anymore, the food is still fantastic. I highly recommend it to everyone. 

Week of July 18th 2011: New York City and Colicchio & Sons

If you are a constant reader of my blog, you know that I have a consistent New Year's Resolution to travel to a new place. The reason this one is so important to me is that even though I've don'e a good bit of international travel, I've been really terrible about going to places that are more domestic. Up until July of last year, I hadn't even been to New York (aside from changing planes at JFK). This was way at the top of my list of places to go but I knew that if I was going to go I'd want a companion or place to stay. Well, after my friend, Elissa, moved there earlier in the summer, I knew I had both.

Elissa had given me the directions to get to her apartment from the airport. After several transfers, I soon found myself stepping out of a subway and into the sweltering heat of New York in the summer. For someone who grew up in a city that frequently had over 100 degree summers, it's funny how quickly I've adapted to the mild seasons of San Francisco.

After Elissa got off work, she helped me settled into her lovely Upper East Side apartment and then we changed to go out to dinner. I had luckily showed up in New York during Restaurant Week (similar to dine about town with $35 prix fixe menu) so I was excited to try a lot of places that were otherwise out of my price range. As a big Top Chef fan, I was really happy to see that Tom Colicchio (long standing head judge of the show) had a restaurant on the list and I was able to snag a reservation!

We showed up at Colicchio and Sons which was located just by the meat packing district and the elevated park and were instantly impressed by the modern decor. I personally loved the wine bottle tree. I gave my name to the hostess, but she couldn't find my reservation so - I pulled up the Open Table email on my phone... and quickly realized that I had been off by a week. I was so sad about messing up the reservation and told the hostess that it was my first night ever in NYC and had really  looked forward to dining there. Luckily, the hostess team was very nice and said they'd find a way to squeeze us in if we wouldn't mind waiting a the bar for a bit. We were so happy that they were accommodating, that we didn't have any problem finding something off of the impressive drink menu.

Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of our dinner so it's a little harder to remember exactly what we got. However, I do remember getting an extra course of rabbit sausage pizza mysteriously delivered to our table. We quickly began to realize that mentioning that it was my first time in New York was a great way to have people give us really good service (aka freebies).

We also got a chance to meet up with my friends Anthony and Ian who were roadtripping across the country and happened to be in New York at the same time as me. We end up at several college-esque bars that felt quite appropriate as a meetup with some of my college friends. Anthony has a blog as well and he wrote about our adventures with only a week lag instead of 11 months. You can read that here.

It was definitely a great start to the first of many adventures that we were going to have that trip.

As an aside - the next few posts will be pretty picture free. I had dropped my camera in a creek while in Southern California and my phone had terrible battery life. I took what I could between my broken camera, phone and tablet (yes, I was that awkward person taking tablet pictures - I was desperate) but there will be a lot of barren posts. I know they are less interesting. I'm sorry.

Week of June 27th 2011: Canteen

The week before my friend, Elissa, moved to New York, she made reservations at all of her places around San Francisco. She's the kind of person that finds a favorite and rarely deviates so many of these excursions didn't qualify for the blog. However, Canteen was the brunch spot she frequented with her boyfriend and I'd never been. Every Tuesday (and Saturday), Canteen has a Prix Fixe menu so Elissa made a reservation for a small group of her friends to go.

In my opinion, this was a bold move on her part. Elissa is the kind of person who always gets the same dish and is a little.... how do I say this nicely... picky... so I thought it was interesting that she wanted to brave whatever the chef decided to create that night. Luckily, it was salmon which is something that all four of us were a fan of.

This was one of those few times where I didn't remember every detail of the food (except that the brioche bread that came table-side was amazing and I go out of my way to buy brioche now) because this meal was all about the great company and it was nice to send Elissa off with a pleasant evening full of great food, nice wine, friends and lots of joking and story telling.

I have also heard though from several sources that Canteen has the best brunch in the city. I've never been and since the restaurant is tiny, I feel like I may be ruining my chances of ever getting a table...

Week of June 20th 2011: Off the Grid

During the Top Chef Tour, Chef Ryan Scott had mentioned his food truck which he basically marketed as "late night drunk food" and said that it makes a regular appearance at Off the Grid. OTG, as it's sometimes called, is a set time for a bunch of food trucks to gather in one location. There are a few of these around the Bay Area that organize on different days of the week but the biggest is Friday nights at Fort Mason.

So I grabbed a few friends and decided to check out Off the Grid and try Chef Ryan's truck.... which wasn't there. However, we still got a few other tasty treats.

 The first stop was Brass Knuckle. As you can guess, I pretty much was only in it for the name but luckily for me they had really amazing treats too. My friend Curtis got the Notorious P.I.G. ( a pork sandwich in a waffle) and I got the Raw DMC (a tuna tartar with crispy wontons) and both were amazing. The line was super long though and while we were waiting, my other friend was able to go to the Filipino food truck and come back with his food before ours had arrived. Luckily for me, he let me try his lumpia and chicken adobo. I actually didn't know that lumpia was the name of those little egg rolls but they were so fantastic that I made a point to track them down the next time I saw that food truck.

The only downside to Off the Grid is how crowded it gets. The lines were insane and after spending a good amount of time to just grab a beer and an empanada, we realized the lines weren't worth it. I really recommend trying Off the Grid because it's a great way to get a lot of amazing food in one place, but either go earlier or try to find one of the smaller outlets. I recently discovered a brunch Off the Grid at Valencia and McCoppin. Chef Ryan's truck was even there but unfortunately the breakfast offering just didn't sound as delicious. Either way, the food truck scene is a great way to get bite size tastes of foods from all over the country and world. Check out an Off the Grid and try a bunch of items from different trucks or, if you can't do that, you can always follow a particularly tasty looking truck on Twitter...

Week of June 20th 2011: Top Chef Tour

My love for Top Chef has been pretty well documented on this blog so you can only imagine how excited I was when I saw that they were doing a tour and San Francisco was a stop.

Fabio

The tour was basically two former Top Chef contestants doing a head to head cooking competition. The rules were simple - both chefs had the same main ingredient and then could choose from 10 other ingredients. They also were each allowed to bring 1 ingredient of their choosing. Basically, it was a mini episode of the show.

Ryan Scott

Me and my friends arrived and were excited that Fabio would be one of our contestants. Fabio was well known for being very Italian and very funny. He was constantly making jokes about other competitors and also about how self aware he was about his Italian charm. The other contestant was Ryan Scott and despite my love of the show, I just couldn't remember him. It turns out he went home relatively early in his season but now is budding on the San Francisco food scene. He's best known for his food truck and the brunch he used to do at Bruno's in the Mission (which apparently just ended last month...). 

The main ingredient that the chefs had to work with was salmon. This made me so happy as salmon is probably my favorite fish. I honestly cannot remember the 10 other ingredient. I think pine nuts may have been one of them and it looks like corn from the picture... Fabio chose Red Bull as his personal ingredient (after explaining it was because he got no sleep on his very early flight) and Ryan chose tequila (because "who doesn't love tequila?" his words, not mine). 

Both of the chefs decided to marinade the salmon in their personal ingredient in order to give it a tangier flavor and then garnished it with whichever of the other 10 ingredients they used. Although they had similar preparations, I think Ryan had a much better salmon. The audience agreed and Ryan won that round. Ironically, this was the second show of the day and Fabio had won the other.

Either way, it was very fun to finally get to experience a Top Chef competition live. It's one step closer to my dream of actually getting to be a taster for one of the episodes... 

Week of June 13th 2011: Osha Lounge

Around June last year, I was saddened to hear that my dear friend, Elissa, would be leaving me and San Francisco to become a New Yorker. While I was excited for her to start a new career and a new adventure, I knew it was going to be tough having such a good friend move away.

....But Elissa knew that too so she filled her last month in SF with lots of outings to her favorite places. As part of this, she asked if I wanted to get drinks with her at Osha Lounge. If there is one thing you need to know about Elissa, it's that she loves Thai food. One of her favorite places is the Osha Thai chain in San Francisco so when they opened a bar and appetizer cocktail lounge, she was on top of it.

Can't remember what these were...

Osha Lounge is a fun little bar. They have a great selection of fun cocktails. The two of us got mojitos and champagne cocktails. A big perk is that you can order anything from the restaurant menu. Both of us are huge fans of the Tuna Tower (a tuna tartar, mango, and avocado dish served with crispy wontons) so we had to get one to share.


I would really recommend Osha Lounge for a girls' happy hour or cocktail night. It is set up for people to easily sit around and chat while enjoying tasty food and beverages. As fate would have it, Elissa is visiting this weekend and we are going back to Osha Lounge tonight. Sure, the fact that this blog is 8 months behind is a little ridiculous but it does make for funny coincidences when things come full circle.

Week of May 2nd 2011: Kennedy's

I am already failing at my resolutions. An early January trip to Las Vegas is not helpful for reading, gyming, blogging, and not going out.... We all get one week off though, right? I promise I'll make it up to you. Anyways, here's your post!

At my last job, I had a coworker that loved Kennedy's. His weekend plans often included a trip there with his friends and his love for the place was so well known that whenever a deal came through Groupon or any other deal site, he would get tons of people forwarding it to him. Clearly, this was a place I had to check out. Since Kennedy's is a combination Indian restaurant and Irish pub located conveniently in the middle of North Beach, it seemed like an ideal place to start my birthday celebration.

Kennedy's was a fun environment. They allowed me to reserve a table big enough for all of my party guests and the food was reasonably priced. Food and beer had to be ordered at the counter, but for the price and space, it was worth the inconvenience. I think the only other qualm I had was that it only served beer. In most circumstances, this would be fine, but after a really filling meal, I didn't feel like a filling beverage either.

Kennedy's seems to constantly show up on deal websites though so keep your eyes peeled for one before you go!

Week of April 28th 2011: Hog and Rocks

Every now and then you get a chance to combine two things you enjoy - like eating great food and helping out a good cause. So when my friend, Shannon, decided to be a Dining Out for Life representative at Hog and Rocks, I thought it was a great opportunity to have a great dinner and give back a little and my friend, Oleg, agreed to be my date.


Long before our reservations were made, I scoured the menu for what I want to order and I'd already decided that I wanted the pork sandwich (sadly, it looks like this isn't on the menu anymore) and some oysters. Oleg was a little surprised that I already knew what I wanted. He told me that he hates to look at menus before going to a restaurant. I'm trying to remember what the reasoning was - I think it was something to do with not wanting to be disappointed if they didn't have the dish he wanted since a common practice at nicer places is to have a menu that changes daily.

For our plate of oysters, we got a wide variety - ranging from the cheaper to end to the nicer selection. I do have to say, as someone just getting into oysters, it's worth it to pay more. There was a clear correlation between price and taste (as well as an inverse relationship between size and taste...).

As we enjoyed our oysters, Shannon told us about the raffle tickets we could buy. With a grand prize of a week long trip to Mexico for the winner and ten friends, I figured I could get a couple of tickets and help out the cause.

While I didn't win, it was nice to get dinner with a good friend, have an amazing meal, and know that it was all going to help the fight against Aids. I'm hoping Shannon decides to do this again next year because she definitely knows how to pick a good restaurant.

Week of April 25th 2011: Juhu Beach Club

Since you are all familiar with my love of all things Top Chef, it shouldn't be a surprise that I was eager to check out the pop-up restaurant in my neighborhood from Top Chef alum, Preeti Mistry. The menu was very straight forward with rotating daily specials. I decided to get the "Holy Slow Braised Cow" sandwich and the "Sassy Lassi." The sandwich was amazing. I made it a point to stop by a few times in the restaurants short life so that I could fill the cravings it left behind. The lassi was good but needed some sweetener.

Even though the pop-up is now closed on 11th st., it looks like Preeti will be popping up in other places around the city. Rumor has it that she is looking for a more permanent location as well.


Short but sweet post - Don't worry though. You get the next installment of New Year's Resolutions soon!

Weeks of March 14-21: The Food (London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussells)

Ok, as we both know, I am have a lot of posts to write... I'm going on a 5 month lag here and am in the middle of a series on a two week trip I took. I've been trying to think of the best way to organize all of this and since it's hard to remember the exact order of things when you're so far behind, I have decided to do one massive post on the food. So get your eyeballs and stomachs ready because this is going to be a long post about a lot of delicious adventures. I didn't write about every food experience, mostly because I don't remember the name of every place, but here are some of the highlights!

Week of February 28th 2011: Bisou and the Castro Theater

I suppose it's fitting that I write about the Castro Theater during Pride in SF. The Castro Theater is one of many incredible landmarks around San Francisco. The Theater plays lots of classic, old movies so when it was suggested that I check it out for my blog, I knew I had to pick the perfect movie to be my first there. So when one of my favorite classic movies - a timeless tale of love, family, and transformation - came along, I knew I had to go. That's right - I went to The Little Mermaid Sing-Along.

But let's back track a couple of hours. As a belated birthday present, I decided to take my friend, Shannon, to an endless mimosa lunch. We decided to go that day so we could see the movie together as well. After some Yelping and Google Searching, we came across Bisou, a cute French inspired brunch spot. It was a great choice. We were lucky that we beat a lot of the Sunday brunch rush (although there was already a table filled with another group of Shannon's friends) so we got great service the whole time. In addition to our endless mimosas, we got incredible food. I got some crab eggs benedict and she got a croque madame and they were both super tasty. To top it off - our waiter topped off our mimosas even after we finished eating.

However, we couldn't stay and hang out too long because we had to make our movie! After getting our tickets, we were handed Little Mermaid goody bags for the show. They were filled with bubbles, crowns, necklaces, glowsticks, and dinglehoppers.

The whole movie experience was so fun. I think the best part about the theater is that ability to see a movie that came out before you were born (or in this case, when you were just a little kid) and have the chance to see it on the big screen again or maybe the first time. I definitely recommend that everyone check out the theater's calendar each month and try to make it to one of your favorite old films. I'm sad that I didn't look at June a little earlier. They played my favorite movie, Vertigo, for 3 days straight. It would have been wonderful to see that on the big screen.\

And now I'm finally through the February posts! It only took me three months to get through February and a lot more went on in March - I'm never going to catch up am I?

Well - I have another vacation coming up. I'm going to spend a week or so in Southern California visiting family and taking it easy. I have a few new things planned but if you're in LA, SB, or SD - I'm headed your way and would love to see you. If not, that's more time for me to write.

Week of Febraury 21st, 2011: Mamacita's

This post comes courtesy of Miss Elissa - my "work bestie" as she likes to put it. Now all of my other coworkers are going to be jealous...

Anyways, my dear friend Elissa was celebrating another year on this planet and I thought it would be nice to show her a night on the town. There are a few things Elissa is always asking about doing - going to Mamacita's and going out for dancing and girlie drinks in the Marina. She made it really easy for me to figure out what to do for her birthday.

Mamacita's is a high end Mexican restaurant in the Marina district of San Francisco. We decided to start our dinner with some simple chips and guacamole. The guacamole also came with salsa and both were really delicious. I know, it's pretty simple to gush over guac and salsa but you have no idea how often they get messed up. I can't tell you how many times places have tried to pass some liquidy, creamy mess off as guacamole. Real guac has avocados in it and just enough spice to give it some kick but not to mask the green fruit. Yes, it's a fruit. Look it up. Salsa can come in a variety of ways, but I think that when you're bringing some for a table of varying pallets to share, you want one that's not too chunky, not too liquidy, not too spicy, but with some kick. But I digress... (some how this is turning into a food blog and I'm hopped up on caffeine so I'm being a little aggressive...)

To compliment our meal we got a pitcher of mango margaritas and they were definitely tasty as well.For entrees Elissa got chicken tacos and I got shrimp tacos and both were really good as well, but not too memorable. I had forgotten what I'd ordered a few days later when I was trying to take notes for this blog...

For dessert, I made sure to sign language to the waitress that someone at our table was celebrating their birth and that embarrassing singing was going to be needed. No really, there was lip reading, pointing, actions, everything and a lot of Elissa asking me what I was doing.

Thank goodness the waitress understood my gibberish and she brought out a beautiful Molten Chocolate Pudding with Dulce de Leche Gelato. Although the restaurant wasn't nearly embarrassing enough when they brought out the dessert, it was so incredible that it was completely worth it. Seriously, I would go back just for this.The waitress said it was a customer favorite and I can see why.

All in all, the restaurant is really good, but maybe a little overpriced for what they do. I think I've heard that they have happy hour deals. If so, I would go then because nothing tasted bad.

Sorry for how awful the pictures are! When I have some time I'm going to try to fix them.

Week of January 10th 2011: Beach Blanket Babylon and Bocce Cafe

And instead of catching up, I am officially over the one-month-behind mark. I feel weird being so far in the future compared to my posts. While it's nice to think back on what I did, I hope I'm not losing too many of my memories... then again, I tend to ramble so maybe forgetting some details isn't a bad thing.

Anyways, I've been really excited for the next few posts, starting with this one. The story starts even earlier than a weekend in January 2011 though. I am extremely close with my Tia (Aunt) Rutila. She's my godmother and she's always been an important part of my life. For a number of years when I was in college my Uncle and her told me that they would come up to San Francisco when I turned 21 and take me to Beach Blanket Babylon and then out for a night on the town. However, we constantly crossed wires and for years we never had our night out, until now...

Beach Blanket Babylon is a very famous play in San Francisco. It's the story of Snow White looking for her prince charming... in San Francisco. The show has been going on since the 70's, but they constantly update the show to reflect new political and pop culture references. The coolest thing was hearing them make fun of something that had just happened a couple of weeks earlier. Also, if you're familiar with the play, you know that it's well known for the outrageous hats they wear. It's definitely worth checking out and seeing the several hundred pound San Francisco skyline hat. The show is really difficult to describe, but I'm already looking forward to seeing it again someday. I really think the best part of the show is the fact that I can see a completely different Beach Blanket Babylon in 5, 10, 15, or 30 years.

After the show, we walked over to Bocce for dinner. Bocce is tucked back on Green St., just a few short blocks away the show. Being off-Columbus keeps the restaurant from having that touristy feeling that some of the North Beach restaurants. Unfortunately though, they didn't have a band playing that night like my uncle thought they would.

The experience at the restaurant was great though. I tried Cioppino for the first time, and the three of us enjoyed a lovely Malbec while my Tia and I talked about some of our favorite memories. It's funny how people connect sometimes. I've always felt that my aunt and I had a special connection. She taught me how to paint, and got me interested in reading and nature. She's a big reason I like a lot of the things I like and I am the way I am. So, at dinner when she said that she thinks we were sisters in a past life or something, it really meant a lot to me. I've always known my aunt cares a lot about me, it's always nice hearing that someone feels the same way about you as you feel about them.

At the end of dinner, my aunt and I struck up a conversation with our waiter. Apparently, I'm not the only one who takes an interest in where people come from because we quickly learned about how he moved here from Turkey in order to study engineering in the United States and was working as a waiter to put himself through school. My uncle got a little impatient with us, but as we were leaving our waiter gave us a complimentary tiramisu for being so friendly.

Week of January 3rd 2011: Coach Sushi

...and now back to our regular programming. Sorry for the light reading lately, it's been busy at work. Unfortunately, I seem to be getting further away from my goal of staying within a month of present time, much less catching up. Anyways...

For a couple of weeks, Eddy had been telling me about a sushi restaurant in Oakland that had an endless sake special for $3.50. It seemed like a fun way to hang out with some friends and get dinner on a Friday night after climbing.

The story behind Coach Sushi is pretty cool. It's not a place to go and get trashed on inexpensive sake. It's a fun social, experience in a restaurant where the owner wants his guests to have a good night.

When you order the sake, the servers bring around a little cedar box for each person in your party. Then, Coach comes around and explains to you that sake is supposed to be drunk out of unfiltered cedar boxes. He then fills your box, instructs you to put a little bit of salt on the corner of it, and that your first drink must be taken hands-free.

Oh, and Coach never lets your box get empty... but we'll get to that later.

Once the rest of our party arrived we ordered food. Unfortunately, this wasn't the highlight of the night. I ordered the Coach Roll and the Dancing Bonito Roll. Both were rather little (for the price at least, which kind of counteracted the good deal on the sake) and smelled/tasted rather fishy. I love fish, but that fishy taste is the last thing I want to experience at a sushi restaurant. My two rolls left me rather hungry so I ordered my favorite, salmon sashimi (which in retrospect, probably wasn't the best choice if my other two dishes were fishy) which turned out to be pretty good when compared to what I'd already tried.

Once we'd had our fill of sushi, we thought we'd take a peek at dessert. Eddy had never tried tempura ice cream. He told me he like green tea ice cream but just had never tried it with the whole deep-fried-and-covered-in-chocolate thing. "Eddy," I asked, "what doesn't get better deep fried and covered in chocolate?" He didn't know. "Nothing," I said. Needless to say, I think he enjoyed it.

Since we were nearing the end of our meal, we started winding down our sake boxes. Unfortunately, this proved to be rather difficult. Since Coach would never let a box get empty, it was very difficult to come to a stopping point. We realized the only solution was to drink the sake box quickly, and then flip it over so that he couldn't fill it up again. This worked for most of our table but I got very involved in a conversation and next thing I knew, Coach was rushing over to our table with his sake bottle... Apparently, while I was distracted, Eddy took the liberty of flipping my box back over, but luckily our friend Matt drew my attention to it before Coach could fill it back up.

Overall, it was a really fun night. The restaurant also lets you decorate or buy your box and take it home if you'd like. They had plenty of back ups.

Week of December 27th 2010: Tonga Room

Eddy and I had been wanting to go to Tonga Room ever since we found out it might close forever when they remodel the Fairmont Hotel. Since it was between the holidays and we both had a free weeknight, we figured it we needed to make it out there.


We decided to go on a Thursday night since they also had an appetizer buffet. For a small price, you got unlimited sesame wings, noodles, macaroni salad, etc.  While most of the food was kind of mediocre (not that that stopped me from piling up my plate as high as physically possible), the chicken wings were incredible.

Eddy and I also decided to get the legendary Scorpion Bowl. They don't let you even order it unless there are two of you. While it was a tasty, fun drink, it didn't quite live up to the hype in my opinion. I had better rum drinks at Rhumbar in Vegas (if you want a Scorpion Bowl, you have to try there's... it is HUGE and comes with atomic cherries). We decided to try the Lava Bowl as well. It was also good, but, well, it tasted almost exactly like the Scorpion Bowl.

The really cool part about the Tonga Room though is the rain. Every now and then, the bar will make thunder noises and then it will rain down in a pool in the middle of the place.

The Tonga Room is definitely a fun spot and worth checking out for the history at least. I would recommend at least going for the happy hour bar but don't stay for more than a couple drinks because it can get kind of pricey.