Sucka Duckin

Also known as ducking the suckers, for all you readers in the Sucka-free City. Which is changing, rapidly.

I really love the restaurant that this dish comes from, a million things have been written about it already but I also feel compelled to add my two cents. I mean, it has to be amazing, right? An entire neighborhood was renamed after it. The Western Addition/Alamo Square/Panhandle neighborhoods now bear the name of a restaurant that takes up one street corner.

Truth be told NOPA is pretty great. Their list of wines by the glass leaves a lot to be desired, but it's nothing any one of their cocktails can't compensate for.  

Onward with the food. Nopa's menu is focused on seasonal items, from local farms. Their focus allows them to directly support sustainable food raising practices, and the local food economy. It also means they have to change their menu everyday, because when food is raised right, creating a consistent supply to meet high-volume demand is a challenge. That's right folks standardized demand is what's killing us, but with a little creativity restauranteurs can eliminate that demand for the same thing every time.  You may not be able to order this exact dish when you visit, but fear not, there are many wonderful dishes you can order at this restaurant.

Today they are serving duck-liver mousse with pickled onions, chopped boiled egg and a caper relish. I must point out that this is not foie. Foie gras is a french delicacy, made from goose and sometimes duck liver that is specially fattened by force-feeding the animal. This food is so controversial, that San Francisco banned it's sale. Critics say the feeding techniques used to fatten the liver, border animal torture. Selling it in SF carries a hefty fine, hence the need for me to distinguish that I was not served foie at Nopa; this is just regular ol' run of the mill liver from happy ducks who are not force fed to my knowledge.

Anyhow this treatment of the organ is just as delicious. On it's own, liver is mineral-forward, mushy-- like play-doh that falls apart when you bite into it-- and kind of disgusting. However, spread atop thick cut toast, with a little EVOO drizzled over it, it's quite good.  The housemade pickled onions brighten an otherwise vitamin-flavored food, with a pop of acidity that masks the vitamin after-taste and adds complexity by heightening the dishes meaty flavors. The capers bring salt and the chopped egg serves as a base for all of it come together. The toast gives the dish a more favorable texture that liver would not have otherwise. All in all it's delicious and if you catch it on the menu you should order it. Otherwise there's always that double-cut pork chop. 560 Divisadero St. at Hayes, (415) 864-8643. $$

Forking With Food Injustice

Driving down Oak street for the ten millionth time this week I finally notice the Hayes Valley Farm. I couldn’t be sure that it was actually a farm because the city block it’s on is probably one of the most high traffic areas in the city–on the block formed by Oak and Fell between Octavia and Laguna, and not in the burbs but low and behold it is indeed a farm. I am not sure if produce can even survive in an area inundated with car emissions and grown in soil where a freeway once stood but we shall see.

What a great idea. Recently there’s been a lot of talk about living a green life. Shopping locally and eating seasonally is great for the environment as well as the body, which explains the recent explosion of farmers markets and why they’re so damn trendy. But bringing fresh produce to the inner city also makes it affordable and accessible to low-income residents who may not have a car or may otherwise have limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Besides eating green, another issue in the food community not discussed enough isfood injustice. The term food injustice refers to a scenario that is familiar to many low-income city dwellers. Imagine that you and your family are on a limited income, money is really tight. The nearest grocery store is 2 miles from your house. But you don’t have a car and can’t afford zipcar, so you depend on Muni or Bart. To get to your house, let’s say in Bayview, to the nearest grocery store with fruits and veggies that aren’t minutes away from molding , you have to get on the T-line and transfer to the 22 to get to Safeway on 16th and Portrero since the Whole Foods on 18th is slightly out of your price range.

On the way to Safeway you notice there are plenty of options for food that is already prepared, much cheaper than a grocery bill and you don’t have to lug heavy paper bags back home on Muni hoping they don’t break. McDonalds–there are three in the 94107, serves burgers for a dollar; so you can get five of them for $5 dollars or make the trek to Safeway and get 5 ounces of organic salad greens. The choice is obvious when the budget is small and there are multiple mouths to feed. Health takes second place.

*This is a disgusting reality for many people who live in cities all across the nation.

Hopefully, the Hayes Valley Farm is the first up in starting a nationwide trend. City farms can bring food costs down by cutting out the middle man (supermarkets), make fresh foods accessible and if they have a farmers market bring some equality to a town with an uppity farmers market scene.

What's Meat Got To Do With It

In an effort to make this blog more culinarily diverse we are eating things we would never consider under any other circumstances. For instance, on a recent trip to Ike's Place in the Castro we tried the Vegan Paul Ruben. Okay, alright. So technically it's not really vegan. I ordered it with dirty sauce because, let's be real you can't go to Ike's and not get dirty sauce, thanks. There is the option, however of "vegannaise" for a truly vegan experience, but I eat meat and like dirty sauce, sue me. At any rate this toasty little number comes with shredded lettuce, tomato, red cabbage coleslaw, red onion, and pepperoncini stacked under a pile of vegan turkey, vegan cheese, and (insert spread of choice here). When I think of a reuben the main thing that excites me is the corned beef. But this sandwich, like most at Ike's, is really effing good. In fact, few people would even know it's vegan should you neglect to mention the V-word. Seriously, DELICIOUS. And, if haven't been to Ike's, you can't beat Tina there, but you can beat meat. 3506 16th St, (415) 553-6888

Blood Work

Pho is a popular soup made of thin rice noodles in steaming hot beef broth with thinly sliced beef served raw (meant to be dipped into the broth until rare), and also one of my favorite things to eat. This classic dish can be found in just about any Vietnamese restaurant in this city from Charles Phan’s elegant and modern, Slanted Door to Broadway Street's My Canh, which is a bit more sketch and a little less fine dining. My Canh runs circles around Slanted Door, as they have countless variations of this noodle soup dish, including a version made with pig blood. The pig blood version is served in piping hot beef broth with thicker egg noodles. Some cultures have codes against eating blood products, I now understand why. Gelatinous and dark brown in color, the blood comes in the form of a sliced cube. Biting into the cube is like eating some meat-flavored Jello. The savory cubes just fall apart into wiggly little crumbles as you chew them. The ending taste has a slight tinge of that organ meat taste that makes the corners of my mouth turn down into a DISGUSTING frown. Not terrible, but there is no desire to prepare this at home. Fun fact; approximately eight percent of your body weight is blood. 626 Broadway, (415) 397-8888

Protestin' Intestine

Talking me into eating anything deep fried is usually not very difficult. The tops of my thighs would be evidence of my penchant for deep-fried foods if it weren’t for those fabulous Pilates classes at Crunch. Sitting in the yellow interior of Yuet Lee with its green-rimmed windows, I am a bit apprehensive at the mention of deep-fried pig intestine. These kinds of meats, also known as chitlins, scare me a bit., These are the tubes through which chit passes; to put it nicely. I’m not sure the cooks at Yuet Lee can, or should be trusted to thoroughly clean those pipes. Allow me to paint a picture for you. A weary cook slaving away in a hot kitchen at 3am (when they close), the dining room full of obnoxious drunks pouring into the restaurant from various Broadway clubs. Tickets are stacking up on the ticket rail, and one cook cleans the intestine just good enough in order to get food out faster and in turn go home sooner. Boom, just like that, a table of diners just got E. Coli. Though, for this blog’s sake, now is no time to become fearful. What our server brings to the table is a platter full of intestine that has been sliced into snack-sized pieces and deep fried to a crisp, not unlike chicarrones. The intestine is remarkably bright red. I can’t tell you why because our server knows approximately four English phrases outside of what is on the menu, which makes conversing with her somewhat difficult. At first bite the intestines are crunchy, like cracklins, then you get into the middle and there is a layer of chewy fat just beneath their crispy exterior. Delightfully oily, pig guts taste just like the bagged pork skins that are available at your local corner store, except twenty million times better. DELICIOUS, deep-fried pig intestine is served atop a bed of shredded lettuce with a side of jalapeno-infused soy sauce that is divine. In this one instance, it’s okay to have the chits. 1300 Stockton St, (415) 982-6020

Feeling Froggy

It's no secret that the Chinese are known for doing some strange things. The Chinese government limits the number of children per family and free speech; China is also the birthplace of the toilet-themed restaurant, Modern Toilet- the list goes on and on. But, the Chinese are also known for inventing fireworks, healing people naturally with their extensive knowledge of herbs and teas as well as some excellent cuisine. The menu at Yuet Lee's North Beach restaurant is loaded with strange eats including sauteed fresh frogs. Open until 3am on weekends, the restaurant might be the only one in town serving amphibians on a platter. If you didn't already know it was frog you might mistake the entree for sauteed sea bass. The texture is fatty, tender and a bit slimy like that of seabass, but with lots of cartilage. Stir-fried with peanuts, bamboo shoots, two kinds of mushrooms (white and shitake), ginger, green onion, carrots, and cilantro our little green friend is praticaly swimming in a ginger-garlic sauce with accompanying vegetables. Tastes similar to dark-meat skinless chicken chicken as there isn't a sliver of bumpy green skin in sight. Frog is considered a delicacy in Asian and French kitchens, and by me as well. DELICIOUS is the final answer. 1300 Stockton St, (415) 982-6020

Bringing Home the Bacon

After a very high-profile debut in New York City speakeasy, PDT (Please Don't Tell) Bacon Bourbon has finally made it's way to SF. As hipsters take over the the mission, it is only a matter of time before trends become the constantly fleeting norm. To the list of currently flourishing Mission trends, (i.e. food carts, pop-up makeshift restaurants) add bacon-flavored cocktails. The last place one might expect to find such a trendy spirit is Pop's Bar on 24th and York. Nevertheless, amidst dusty broke-down chandeliers, blaring random jukebox music and drunk girls singing and dancing around the entire bar to Freddie Mercury's "We are the Champions," I am served a bacon-infused cocktail. As far as I know Pop's in the only bar in the city serving up this liver damage/possible heart attack combo in a glass. That being said, lone star or not Pop's Bacon Bourbon lacks, at best. Anyway you slice it, and I did a few different ways (a bacontini, bacon bourbon neat and a bacon concentrate of some sort,) Bacon bourbon is not good. To start the bacon flavor isn't really there. The only thing I taste is bourbon. Bartender Tuffy says he used to rim the martini glass with butter and bacon bits for extra bacon flavor, but no longer does. Bartenders in this dive make the base spirit by infusing Safeway deli bacon and a bit of fat in the liquor for a week. Then while mixing your bacon drink of choice they muddle bacon in the glass, shake and strain. Tuffy makes mine with Woodford Reserve, a respectable bourbon but the result is a terribly salty cocktail that is about as smooth as sandpaper. This little piggy thinks DISGUSTING. 2800 24th Street, (415) 401-7677

Head First

After an exhausting hike in Napa and a few celebratory back in the city cocktails Martin, Aileen and I decide that some tacos are in order. Taking a drunk walk, as San Franciscans often do, we saunter from Elixir to El Farolito taqueria and join the rest of the Sunday night drunks in the mission. There's something about a 2 am meal that just cannot be replicated at any other time of the day. We are salivating at the sight of the glass-protected grill, sizzling away with various meats atop; practically drooling over the assembly line of rice, tortillas and chopped veggies. My drunk eyes scan the meat menu and I slowly realize that there are a plethora of meat choices here that are not available at my local spot, Ocean Taqueria. Beyond the usual fare, carne asada, pollo chile verde, etc. El Farolito offers beef brains, head and tongue. Intriguing. Listening to the suggestions of Martin, a real Mexican (that bitch), I order the brain taco. Shortly after the cashier tells me that they are out of brains. He suggests the head taco instead and I agree. Before I know it there is a head taco steaming on the table in a little red basket lined with white paper. I stare that taco straight in its open face, its meaty scent wafting up into my nostrils. Martin laughs at my facial expression, but it I honestly cannot tell you what was going through my head because, I don't rightly remember. I pick up the taco and take a bite. The tortilla is soft, the meat is tender, like carnitas and the taste- salty. Head, as it turns out is less savory than carne asada, and even more fatty than carnitas. I don't know its actual nutritional value but I do know it's DELICIOUS, especially at 2 am. I'll be back for the brains. 2779 Mission St, (415) 824-7877

Lend Me Your Ear

The famed Pizzeria Delfina has added to the daily changing menu of both locations Pigs Ears. For $7 dollars not including tax or tip those tattooed servers in their yelp tee shirts will bring out a platter of, that's right ears. Cut into thin strips, battered and deep fried, they are served with a slice of lime and Calabrian chili oil in a Sanbitter bottle that has been repurposed into an oil shaker. As if the food weren't reason enough you've got to love SF restaurants for all of their "green" efforts.

Delfina falls right in line with their recycled wine bottle water carafes, repurposed chili oil bottles and waste not want not attitude- please believe they are not letting any parts of a pig go to waste. Just ask about the ciccioli on the affettati plate.

White people all over the city are now open to consuming a food usually reserved for dogs thanks to the research and culinary vision of chefs Craig Stoll and Anthony Strong. I'm guessing the close proximity of the restaurant to a dozen mission carnicerias probably was not a hinderance in their creative process, either. Crisp and chewy at the same time, the ears are DELICIOUS spritzed with lime and doused in chili oil. Reminds me a bit of calamari; bacon flavored calamari. But that's just my opinion. 2406 California St, (415) 440-1189