more than a food blog

I had a friend in college; I’ll call him Beethoven.  He was really cute – his nickname should actually be “Dumpling” because he was round and Asian.  Anyway, I see him every couple years or so and every time he says, “DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN I ATE YOUR FALLING ROCK ZONE!  YOU WERE SOOO MAD!”

What food on earth would incite such ire as to be remembered nearly a decade later?  Easy.  Plus I already gave away the answer in the quote.  The glisteney, baconey loveliness pictured above is a Falling Rock Zone from DP Dough in Ithaca.  I was there for a friend’s wedding (one of those weddings where you’re like, good work, dude she is hotttt) but also doing some stuff in the studio with the inimitable James Cannon (no pseudonym here because he should be the famousest engineer in the world).  We had gone seven hours without eating (he also without PEEING!??!) and I was about to faint and said in a small voice, “Are you hungry?” and he said, “Do you need food?  How about pizza?  Mama T’s?  DP Dough?”

A lightning bolt shot through my body!  DP DOUGH YES YES YES!  I said “I WANNA FALLING ROCK ZONE!” to which he looked at me through new eyes.  ”Falling rock zone, eh mama?  You don’t fuck around.”

See, I’m little and AZN and cute and have one of those wretchedly bright Asian voices, so people sometimes do not understand how H-core I am, as if I couldn’t put away TEN Falling Rock Zones.

Anyway, backtracking.  DP Dough makes calzones and delivers them to you.  They aren’t your usual “meh, I’m so bored with pizza but I guess I’ll get the same thing, except outside in” calzones.  They are filled with items that sound like they were dreamed up whilst the parties were VERRRRY high.

Example: Shocker Zone – steak, potatoes, cheddar, jalapenos.

Example: Black and Blue Zone – hamburg, blue cheese, mozzarella, cheddar, mushrooms, bacon.

Example: Falling Rock Zone – potatoes, bacon, cheddar, mozzarella, with a side of fucking sour cream [emphasis mine].

Lordie.  There’s something you need to understand about the FRZ.  It’s a Salt. Bomb.  The bacon of course, but the potatoes are drenched (in butter?) and infused with about ten tons of salt, mellowed out by the two cheeses.  This salt contributes to one’s hideous hangover the next day but more importantly, makes the sour cream absolutely essential.  Cool, smooth, creeeeamy, and, in the rest of the mess, really refreshing.

Backtracking even more to 2000 or so – me, Beethovendumpling, and about a dozen others, all blasted, and having the brilliant idea to order DP Dough [note: the correct pronunciation is "DEEpeedoz" with the emphasis in the first syllable and possessive-ized] at probably 3 in the morning.  The details are admittedly fuzzy, but all I know is I came back to the third floor (this was a weird house where the common area was on the top floor) from wandering around trying not to puke and helping Liss puke and then wandering around some more, only to find everyone nomming away on DP Dough.  I immediately fell to my knees and pawed through the bag and boxes and discovered that my calzone was MISSING.

I looked around to notice fucking Beethovendumpling eating MY Falling Rock Zone.  I verbally tore into him with all the force of my drunkenness + hunger – a frightening experience, apparently. It was quite frightening to have to go through that night without any sustenance too, though, so I was justified, no?

Beets just came in my CSA box and so I’m roasting them in an amateurish way, which is to say I threw them in with some olive oil into the oven and am hoping for the best.  I’m apathetic because there is no way that anything I make with these beets will be anywhere near the sublimeness (sublimity?) (sublimaliciousness?) of the beet salad I had at Jovino in Cow Hollow – I can safely say it is the best beet salad I have ever eaten (on this one issue of beets, only, Obama can SUCK IT OBAMA!)

Greens, candied walnuts and pistachios, goat cheese roasted beets, fennel, and FENNEL POLLEN!  I tried to taste just the pollen, but on my fork came, serendipitously, a tiny dollop of goat cheese too.  These two items together were pure divinity (divine-ness?) (divinaliciousness?).  I think it would make an awesomely easy but foodie-ey appetizer to serve crostini under goat cheese with fennel pollen dusted on top.

The salad itself hit that perfect textural note of extreme crunch + creamy.  I mean it when I say extreme due to the nuts and fennel – a meaty and watery crunch, respectively.  Just awesome.

We also got the pulled pork sandwich which I think was a special.  The bread up above looks dry but it wasn’t.  The pork looks dry and was.  A little.  But the halo of love carried over from the salad and so really, they could do no wrong here.  It came with appropriately unhealthy kettle chips and was the perfect item to share.

Jovino also calls itself a wine bar and has $9 dinner specials, so I must go back one time after the sun has set.  The existence of Cow Hollow is great, because if you take a verry loose definition of Cow Hollow, then I live in Cow Hollow, which is slightly less douchey than the Marina and something I’m willing to confess to strangers who won’t love me no matter what.

Jovino
2184 Union Street
San Francisco, CA, 94123
415.563.1853

After our epic waiting-in-line experience at Dottie’s, Sharisa decided that she had not had enough danger for the day and so we walked from one end of the Tenderloin to the other, past probably three dozen pulse-quickeningly shady-looking gangs of loitering crackheads.

The prize at the end of this journey (between the Dottie’s line and now this potential need for sprinting away – shouldn’t have worn heels) was better than any pot of gold, biscuit-encased mini-burger, or peace in Greece. It was Saigon Sandwich, home of SF’s best banh mi, according to Sharisa and an astonishingly high number of people on Yelp.

Saigon Sandwich is a tiny, tiny, disheveled speck of a joint on Larkin.  We stood in line (again?) and waited.  I couldn’t really figure out the correct ordering procedure but Sharisa was all over it.  Apparently “HI!” means “What do you want?” so when lady #1 says “HI!” you respond: “2 roast pork” while holding up a peace sign.  She’ll say “HI!” to about eight people at a time, and then there’s silence while you wait for lady #2 to assemble your sandwich.

While we waited, the grizzly old geezer to my left said, “Harrumph.  I remember when the sandwiches used to be a buck fifty.”  I replied, “Well, they’re still only three dollars…?” and he said, “Growl.”

100% inflation or not, it is quite a fucking sammy.  Perfect, just PERFECT french bread roll, heated of course.  Then a thin slathering of mayo, slaw, juicy roast pork, fiery pickled jalapeno, and aggressive mound of cilantro.  Sharisa took one for her plane ride back to Pittsburgh, and this is why she is my culinary hero.

Saigon Sandwich
560 Larkin St
(between Eddy St & Turk St)
San Francisco, CA 94102
415.474.5698

It all began with Sharisa, really.  I mean, EVERYTHING.  I blatantly copied her idea to do a food blog, and when I didn’t know what to write in said food blog I went to restaurants that were her recommendation.  She showed up one day in tights and those half-bootie shoes and I now own a pair.  She wore a T-bags dress to her birthday party years ago and now I find my closet lined with many of my own.  I even caught myself at a COPING conference last month (her research area) when I had sworn that coping research was boring and I would never have anything to do with it.

Point being, if Sharisa says, during a visit to SF, “Let’s wait in line for two hours in the misty rain to eat at a random joint” then I say, with nary a pause, “OK!!”  When she next says, “Did I mention it’s in the Tenderloin?” I reply, also instantly and perhaps a bit hysterically, “I LOVE the Tenderloin!”

Dottie’s is a tiny speck of a restaurant that probably seats 20 on a good day if you don’t really like your knees.  I just saw the “Good for groups: No.” on Yelp and laughed, because that is an exquisite understatement.

I love kittehs as much as the next ICHC lover, but the salt and pepper shakers pictured top are horrifying, aren’t they?  They had holes on their backs so it’s not like the granules come out of that scary robotlike maw.  I don’t get it, and I’m a little bit scared again just looking at the photo.

Sharisa got pancakes and a mountain of liquids (coffee, water, mimosa) as is her regular order, apparently.  Her pancakes (buttermilk spiced with ginger and cinnamon) were made out of whole wheat and thus exceedingly chewy in the most pleasurable way, even when saturated with syrup.  Totally elicited the “double mmm” from me: Chomp.  ”Mmmm.”  Pause.  ”MMMMM!”

All of the specials sounded astoundingly good, and I had spent a good deal of time gently and skillfully  steering our friend Nori away from what I wanted to order and towards some other egg special.  I remember thinking “I better write down what is in this since it’s a special and I won’t be able to find it online to recreate it later.”  So I just checked my Notes in my iPhone, and this is what it says: sweet potatio.

Masterful journalism, Janet.  Also – excellent spelling skills.

OK, so using my memory, the special that so enticed me I believe was a sweet “potatio” tart with goat cheese and bacon, served with salad greens, two eggs any way (I chose over-medium) and handmade biscuits.  It was hearty and good, though the entire thing, from the tart (where I spied no goat cheese; perhaps they meant cheddar?) to the biscuits to even the butter that I slathered on them needed more-than-several dashes from the wretched kitty salt shaker.  Oh, and the biscuits could have used just five more minutes in the oven.  And the whole shebang needed more bacon, of course.  As it was, the plate felt like a giant thingie of undercooked, underseasoned starch.

It’s my fault, of course, for not copying Sharisa to a T.  I’ll never make that mistake again, as you’ll see in the upcoming Saigon Sandwich: Tenderline Part II.  Stay tuned.

Dottie’s True Blue Cafe
522 Jones St, San Francisco 94102
415.885.2767

…I slowly crept up the stairs, and stuck my head around the corner…

THERE IT WAS!  My CSA box, hanging out in front of my door, delivered to me directly by the farmers at farmfreshtoyou.com!

Exciting exciting exciting.  For a mere $23 a box (for a small), I get fresh and organic fruits and veggies to do with whatever my heart desires!

Now that the box had actually shown up, I was weirdly at a loss.  I looked to my box for guidance.

OHHH OK!  Got it!

I quickly opened up the box to check out the loot.

A lot of people complain about CSA boxes because they get a box full of obscure veggies like rutabaga and beets.  I say bring it on!  But I was apprehensive, all the same.

Nothing obscure!  (kinda disappointed)  In my box were:

Valencia oranges (1.5 lb)
Gala apples (1.5 lb)
Sweet peppers (1 lb)
Heirloom tomatoes (1.5 lb)
Romaine lettuce (1 head)
Italian parsley (1 bunch)
Yellow onions (2 lb)
Russet potatoes (2 lb)

So, what to make? I decided to sauté the onions and peppers in olive oil with some chopped up parsley, threw that into some quinoa that I had cooked, lobbed a hunk of butter into the whole mess, and topped it with some chopped fresh parsley.

Super delicious and healthy.  I only ate a little bit of it and put the rest in tupperware for lunch tomorrow, and had dinner #2, which was simply the tomatoes sliced with salt on top, eaten with sourdough (that I toasted in the broiler because I STILL have not gotten a toaster) with tofu-esque cubes of butter on top.  Excellent.