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ABOUT ME:

Name: Gutenberg

Location: Somewhere near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Occupation: BRPR (Bunrab public relations.)

 
the BUNRAB blog spot
 

Do you need to answer back? You can send me comments if you want to.

If I want to, I'll post 'em in this very blog.

-Gutenberg



 

August 15-22, 2008

 

go to next week's blogs

 

  Friday, August 22, 2008
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I rarely make it to Rustic Bakery early enough to get my first draft choice in doughy footballs but today I intercepted a blackberry scone ($3.00):

... to drop back with Equator Coffee. Crispy edges with a moist, tender crumbwith just the right amount of sweetness to balance the tart berry patches:

... this scone was passed to my centerfield in one down. These formations are worth touching down in Larkspur unless you are worried about the size of your endzone.


Rustic Bakery
1139 Magnolia Ave.
Larkspur, CA
415.925.1556





 

 

  Thursday, August 21, 2008
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One of the best kim-cheap and cheerful (and fun to pronounce) Korean comfort foods is Bibimbop ($9.95):

... Barbequed barnyard beasts (chicken, pork and beef) next to a pile of rice with crunchy veggies are capped with a fried egg. It could be argued that putting a fried egg (or bacon) on a dish is injecting it with culinary steroids – it offers an unfair edge to boost flavor that puts competitors at a disadvantage, but you really can't get all judgey with this Olympic-sized pool of freestyle eats.

Hahn's Hibachi:

... is a chain, but like many of the Bay Area's smaller sequel-ized snack shacks:

... this doesn't mean that they run their food through the de-flavorizer. Not destination dining, just convenient tasty belly ballast.

Hahn's on Castro
1305 Castro St.
San Francisco, CA






 

 

  Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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In a display of great restraint, I passed on the tempting cocktail options at Coco500 and totalled iced tea to wash down lunch in the packed dining room.

The Cocoburger ($11.00):

... was delivered at the requested medium rare. The bread to beef ratio favored the wheaty rather than the meaty, but this wasn't a dealbreaker since the grilled ground goods were well seasoned and delish. Tomato, lettuce and grilled onions all lent their support to this muscle-wich that came with a side of crispy house made potato chips.

The marinated grilled chicken sandwich ($12.00):

... was augmented with spiced pepper, garlic and yogurt sauces but they didn't revive the somewhat dry fowl. An arugula and citrus salad lent some support, but this chicken didn't take flight.

Service was friendly and efficient even though they had their hands full. We left without indulging in one of their Vacherin so thorough the law of compensatory calorie counting by abstaining from cocktails and dessert, lunching here was the equivalent of an hour long workout at the gym.


Coco500

500 Brannan St.
San Francisco, CA
415.543.2222






 

 

  Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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We waqed the waq, but did not taq the taqueria:

... into dispensing a burrito that made me happy with its asada.

Since the Mission is a burritoey barrio, it raises the bar-rio on my expectations. My carne asada burrito:

... was smaller than what seems customary for San Francisco, with a wetter, bean-dominant center. To be fair, I ate the whole thing, but I will try another burrito establishment when I return to the mission for this popular dish.

La Taqueria
2889 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA
415.285.7117

 

Mark your calendar

Family Winemakers of California's 18th Annual Tasting takes place at Fort Mason on Sunday August 24th. Check out their impressive list of wineries and get ready to do some serious spit takes (in a good way) as you join in on this meeting of Loca-pours.


Family Winemakers of California

Sunday, August 24th 2-6 p.m.
$45 in advance, $55 at the door, plus ticketing fees
Fort Mason
San Francisco, CA





 

 

  Monday, August 18, 2008
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Mission In-pie-sible

Mission Pie has expanded more than waistlines – its syrupy juices bubbled over to the front of the building:

... where there is now plenty of room to wedge in a conversation over their flaky-crusted fruit pies and other pastries. My peach and blackberry slice ($3.50):

... was packed with fragrant fuzz fruit set off by bramble bursts. As much as I love a good apple or squash pie, there is nothing like summer fruit captured in buttery pastry with a dollop of whipped cream to flood your brain with all the right chemicals.

The thing about pie is that it's supposed to be our easy to make, domestic specialty, yet a good one is as hard to find as a parking space in the Mission.


Mission Pie

2901 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA
415.282.1500





 

 

  Sunday, August 17, 2008
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While in a slow moving, frequently assuaged queue; we read the faq's posted on the wall at Fairfax Scoop.

One of the queries was why they don't hire more staff to churn through the line faster. They feel that those who invest the time to wait will be rewarded and if management focused their efforts on hastening cone fulfillment, they would run out of goods too quickly. Their business plan may not have been constructed by the CEO of Walmart, but we can't argue with their circular (and conical) logic.

We both got singles ($2.60):

... which come with 2 flavors. Chubby got honey vanilla and chocolate while I went with cookies and cream over chocolate. Housemade cones with tasty 'scream trump the wait involved in scooping up dessert.

We will be less reluctant to return since they have benched that exploited rabbit that was positioned out front.


Fairfax Scoop

63 Broadway Blvd.
Fairfax, CA
415.453.3130

 

From our Bunrab email, Jenny writes:


Hey Gutenberg and Chubby:

I'm going back to the East Bay soon and I only have a week to catch up and try new food and places. What do you really recommend? I love upstairs at Chez Panisse, but I'm more looking for cheaper places I can take a lot of friends to and not worry about anybody worrying about the tab. I love Asian cuisine of all sorts. Bunrabs can you help?

thanks & love, jenny


Gutenberg and Chubby reply:


Dear Jenny,

The East Bay has great cheap and cheerful options including Viks and Cheeseboard pizza.

O Chame can get pricey if you go for dinner, but we love their lunches and their to-go bentos.

Great China for Peking duck, Café Colucci for Ethiopian, Brown Sugar Kitchen for soul food, Woods Tavern for pastrami sandwiches, Luka's for burgers and beer, T-Rex for happy hour and Bette's for breakfast will all keep you within a reasonable budget.

Hope you have a good visit.

G&C






 

 

  Saturday, August 16, 2008
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Green Kitchen isn't a documentary about the old cheese in your fridge, it's a series of demos during the Slow Food Nation event this Labor Day weekend. David Tanis, Joyce Goldstein, Charlie Trotter and (Bunrab fave) Corey Lee will be wielding knives in what will be a demonstration of skill and agility (although wouldn't it be even cooler if they engaged in a mixed martial arts competition to see which chef could open a sustainable, local, 6 pack of organic whoop-ass?) Maybe the organizers can redesign the Taste Pavilions into Culinary Thunderdomes with all sorts of cooking instruments attached to the bars. Chefbatents could sous vide their opponents or get all molecular on their asses.

There are so many different events it seems like we get a press release every day from the organizers of this elaborate celebration of artisanal eats. Posters for Slow Food Nation were placed all around today's SF Farmers' Market:

... where we picked up fabulous flavorful figs:

... and pristine pig parts as part of our mosh pit market stop.


Slow Food Nation

Green Kitchen





 

 

  Friday, August 15, 2008
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We were happy to see that they scrapped the compulsory valet parking at Murray Circle, which felt silly next to their long expanse of empty spaces.

Our party of 5 parked ourselves at a corner table as we geared up for the tasting menu ($75.00) along with the wine pairing which began with a glass of non-vintage Billecart-Salmon and Dungeness crab bisque:

... next to Anjou pear wrapped crab salad topped with a sunflower seeded nugget of leg. We all scavenged the last scraps before we were donegeness with this top bottomfeeder.

The egg presentation:

... was a fun assortment of fried quail egg over bacon, poached partridge egg topped with salmon roe over chive crème fraiche and a soft boiled pheasant egg with sturgeon caviar. This fertile formulation was rich with eggacting flavors.

A mushroom cloud of toasted brioche spread with a chicken terrine with foie gras was friendly with the 2004 Schollgut Diel, Scheurebe-Spatlese.

A white Cotes du Rhone accompanied a piece of fig leaf wrapped halibut:

The fish was cooked more than our party preferred and the brandade had a loose, gluey texture.

The 2006 Kunin "Pape Star" complimented the nicely rare squab that was layered with raw spinach leaves, but smeared the lobster with its Neufy nature.

The patty of chicken leg and thigh confit had a texture that was more "con" than "fit" for my taste. The lobe of foie gras and the savoy cabbage were more my thing.

Some bison:

... roamed onto a plate of turnips and beets. This animal was a little tougher than is warranted in this Marin neighborhood but he brought along a bottle of 2005 Larkin Cabernet Franc which tasted very un-Napa-like with it's tight-tanic restraint.

When the server asked how we enjoyed our meat course, J (a former restaurateur) did not buffalo him.

The 2005 L'Aventure Roussane came with the cheese course, but I preferred to stick with the Larkin to up the volume of the Andante Dairy "aria" cheese (which is made specifically for chef Humphrey.) I love Andante cheeses and this melty goat wedge was belted with a thin crisped, sheet of rye bread and served with a pool of apricot sauce.

Peach sorbet and a peach crepe came with a 2005 Alois Kracher Auslese followed by a watermelon carpaccio scattered with ambrosia with a scoop of salt and pepper ice cream.

We sipped Peets coffee and waddled into the fog to check out the cool suite B&T had checked into.

Cavallo Point is a good spot to horse around. Next time we put on the feedbag we will jump to the a la carte options.


Murray Circle

602 Murray Circle
Sausalito, CA
415.339.4750





 

 

 


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