Heurism

Please find below a quick recap of food/eats from the trip bin and I took to the bay area last weekend. Yeah, I knew you’d be interested….

Sat:

Ferry Building: We arrived too late to partake of the many food trucks (sorry Tom) that are usually there on Saturday (some rather severe traffic coming in over the bridge). We did, however, hit up the Slanted Door for drinks and appetizers. The food was amazing and the drinks citrusy and well thought out. We’ll be going back here I think.

Elephant and Castle Pub: Meh. Gross.

Sunday:

Mifune Don: bin had been on the look0ut for SF okonomiyaki since visiting Japan years ago. Yelp recommend this place. Mifune Don (not to be confused with Mifune) is in the smaller portion of the Peace Plaza in Japantown. It’s a tiny little place that features some classic Japanese food. We had some delicious tempura shrimp and the amazing okonomiyaki which is a rice flower pancake topped with cabbage, seafood, crisp noodles, sauce, and more sauce served in a skillet. Wow. I was totally blown away. I’m SOLD!

Cafe Zoetrope: Francis Ford Coppola’s little cafe in the financial district. We had a prosciutto pizza which was pretty damn good (I mean…how wrong can you go with prosciutto pizza?) and some really damn lovely wine. We got to make fun of the couples next to us who came in to a wine cafe and ordered a Mai Tai. Not great, but good…and wonderful atmosphere and a place to just hang out and take in the city.

Bourbon and Branch: A speakeasy smack dab in the middle of the tenderloin district. You have to have a reservation (email only, please) and the password for the night. Otherwise, you aren’t getting in. The club is nicely decorated and the aura is interesting…but to be frank I was a bit disappointed. The service was horrible. You’d think that a place serving super high-end cocktails would be constantly coming by to refill your drink, but that wasn’t the case. The waitress really pushed the Valentine’s Day menu (I mean REALLY pushing it) so bin and I had some. Mine was really rather tasty. We finished up with a flight of Irish Whiskeys including a “peated” version which did, indeed, taste like camping. Truth be told, the Chapel does just as good a job of combining high end liquors and home made concoctions into tasty cocktails…with less pretension, lower prices, and much better service.

El Sol Taqueria: Hot damn. This is a hole in the wall a block’s stumble away from the Bourbon and Branch. We had the hugest plate of hot, delicious chicken nachos ever and a beer for 8 bucks. Easily the best Mex food I’ve ever had in SF.

bin’s Bradley Collins in our room: bin is perfecting her version of the Applejack based Bradley Collins. It’s a thing of beauty.

Monday:

Ton Kiang: All the way out Geary in Richmond is Ton Kiang…home for reasonably priced dim sum. Good lord I always walk away from this place pleasantly stuffed. Shrimp and scallop, shrimp and shrimp, shrimp and chive, pot stickers….mmmm. Highly recommended.

All in all, we were totally blissed out with food and booze. Can’t wait to go back.

I’ll preface this post by saying I’ve only had Dim Sum twice. So, I guess that makes me a complete amateur. Regardless of my amateur status, I had some delicious Dim Sum yesterday. In Reno!

bin and I, accompanied by Miss C and Mr. T, ventured to CaiE’s (note the weird cap E at the end there) for brunch. Weekdays they have an all you can eat Dim Sum with a very limited menu. On Weekends they have a not all you can eat menu with quite a bit more variety. We tried a vast variety of things. Listed here are my favorites:

Salt and Pepper Shrimp: I could eat several pounds of this. Deep fried shrimp with jalapenos, battered and fried garlic, and salt. Amazing.

Shrimp Har Gow: Steamed shrimp dumplings. Simple and amazingly tasty.

Shrimp and Chive pockets steamed then lightly fried. Delicious.

If you go, don’t expect the standard Dim Sum experience. Food is ordered off a menu, not off cute little trolleys, and the place was almost sedate and quiet. Very nice actually. I’ll most certainly be going back, and Mr. T and I might take in the weekday lunch menu just to compare.

Since discovering Si Amigo (excellent carne asade btw) with the help of C & T, my interest in the beverage known as Michelada has only grown. bin and I have been having red beers (Pabst and tomato juice with an optional hit of Tabasco) for quite awhile. A few weeks ago Richard, our fave Reno bartender, was having what he called a Michelada. I, of course, wanted one. It was basically an advanced red beer; beer, tomato juice, Tabasco, Worcestershire, celery salt, a few peppers, and soy sauce. Oddly delicious, but perhaps a little overwhelming compared to a red beer.

Now, Si Amigo also serves a Michelada. Their recipe appears to be beer, tomato juice, Tabasco, Worcestershire, clamato, ice cubes, and a ton of fresh lime. It’s not a drink for the faint of heart. It’s salty, clammy, tomato-y, but refreshing in it’s own way. Oh, and you drink it with a straw. This might remind some of you of Budweiser Chelada which is basically Bud (or Bud light) with clamato, salt, and lime served in a tallboy.

Michelada research requires a strong commitment and an even stronger constitution, but I think I’m up to the task. I’m now on the quest for the /defining/ Michelada. Wish me luck. Some research assistance provided by the folks at Wikipedia.