#46 Chips and Salsa at Papalote

When I saw this on the list, I was thinking that the chips and salsa either had to be pretty damn good or the rest of the food at Papalote had to be pretty unspectacular. I mean how would chips and salsa beat out something like a burrito or a quesadilla? The chips and salsa came with my order of a burrito so didn’t have to pay for the item on the list! Definitely a plus.

So I got down right to it. Gotta say the chips aren’t anything special but that fire-roasted tomato salsa…..BOMB. It’s smoky, it’s spicy, and very addicting. They give you a pretty small side of salsa. If it wasn’t for the burrito I ordered, I might have considered a whole order of salsa. And then there’s a good chance I would have spooned mouthfuls of salsa down my mouth. Next time I gotta remember to ask if they sell that salsa in bulk to go!

In addition to the chips and salsa, I ordered the a carne asada burrito. I would say it was good but didn’t think it was better than the burritos you can find on Mission. That is unless you pour the salsa on the burrito!

#98 Basil Gimlet at Rye

Rye is pretty chill spot to grab a drink around the Union Square area. The parking sucks but there’s no cover and no lines. Made our way here after unsuccessfully going to a few bars throughout the city. Knowing that the Basil Gimlet was on the list, I decided to buy the round of drinks. The cool thing is they use fresh lime juice in the gimlet and spend a good amount of time muddling the basil leaves. The drink was refreshing and had just the right amount of basil in it; not too little so that you couldn’t taste it but not so overpowering that it would be gross. Definitely recommend to try it and make sure you tip the bartender.

#85 Pulled-pork Sandwich at Roadside BBQ

Wow. It’s been way too long since I’ve made a post. It’s not that I haven’t been eating. I have and it’s starting to show a little at the waist. Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch up on the backlog soon. Anyways…on to the show!

Roadside BBQ. I’ve seen this place many times back in the days of Alpha Bar but I never thought thought that it would provide list-worthy BBQ. You see San Francisco isn’t really known as a BBQ destination. When you think good BBQ, you think Texas, Memphis, St. Louis….not California. So I was a bit skeptical, although excited to see how this would turn out. Unfortunately, after several months of chowing down on really good Texas BBQ in Houston, Roadside doesn’t quite live up the challenge and further enforces my opinion about California BBQ.

It’s not that the pulled pork sandwich wasn’t good. I did wolf it down in about 10 minutes flat. It’s just…well…just not memorable. Given that it’s been several months since I ate it, there wasn’t one thing about this sandwich that makes me want to say “YOU MUST TRY THIS SANDWICH!” My only memories of it were that 1) it was dry despite the BBQ sauce and coleslaw and 2) I needed to drench this thing in extra BBQ sauce to make it easier to swallow. That is all I can say.

So after a disappointing sandwich, I thought maybe banana cream pie could make it better. I mean I am a total sucker for this stuff so this should have been easy. Unfortunately, again it was kind of a letdown. Sure it wasn’t bad but somehow a Nation’s banana cream pie is more memorable than this. Something has to be wrong. Eh…I guess you can’t win ‘em all.

#28 A Gibraltar at Blue Bottle Café

This is the way coffee should be. Not the Starbucks crap found at every corner. Blue Bottle has been around San Francisco for a while and they sure know how to make a good cup of coffee. The Gibraltar is like a small latte or an espresso with a smaller amount of milk and is named after the glass its served in. The Gibraltar is very strong so I wouldn’t think about having it late in the afternoon but it would be a great way to kickstart the morning. It’s not bitter at all and not sour like some bad espressos from a certain coffee chain….

Definitely do yourself a favor and stop by Hayes Valley or the Ferry Building for one of these!

#36 Dry-Fried Chicken Wings at San Tung

This is the sole reason you go to San Tung and see the long lines out the door. The rest of the food at San Tung is pretty unspectacular but these sweet, slightly spicy chicken wings are so damn good that you keep going back. The only thing is I wish we ordered a full order here rather than the lunchtime special.

#25 Loaf of bread straight out of the oven at Tartine

Sometimes the best things in life are the simplest things. Bread fresh out of the oven is one of those things. And what can make it better than to slather it was some buttery-good cheese. The smell of fresh bread is enough to make me hungry.

Tartine’s country loaf is so good that most people will either put a loaf on hold or wait in line shortly before 5pm, when the loaves are ready for sale. The crust is very crunchy and the inside is so moist that the bread would be good to eat by itself. However, a quick trek half a block down from Tartine and you can pick from a variety of excellent cheeses. I picked up a small portion of Brillat-Savarin, which is a very creamy cow’s milk cheese. Not wanting to wait to get home to enjoy my fresh loaf, I found a table outside at Tartine and proceeded to have myself a small feast of bread and cheese. What a great afternoon snack!

#35 Salted-Caramel Ice Cream at Bi-Rite Creamery

After some great pizza at Pizzeria Delfina, we decided to head down the block to Bi-Rite Creamery. This little ice cream shop is filled with out-of-the-ordinary flavors like balsamic strawberry, brown sugar, and lavendar. But the one that seemed most interesting was the one on the list: salted-caramel ice cream. Salty ice cream??? I was a bit hesitant but what the hell, let’s give it a try.

And I’m so glad I did! This is one of those weird combinations that works. It’s kind of like the whole McDonald’s french fries and ice cream deal. The combination of salty and sweet works just right. It’s not overly salty and it balances out the sweetness. Of course, there’s the familiar caramel flavor in the background. What a way to end dinner.

#21 Pizza Margherita at Pizzeria Delfina

One of the restaurants I’ve been wanting to try for a long time has been Delfina. Delfina has been known to be one of San Francisco’s best Italian restaurants. However, the issue is the long wait and hard-to-get reservations for the place. So when I decided to have our once-a-year dinner with Kevin, Tina, and Amy, I’d thought I throw out the idea of going to the Mission…to Delfina….on a Friday night…with no reservations…

Well, as you can guess no luck unless we wanted to wait until 10pm to eat. We were all hungry so that idea was quickly thrown out. But next door to Delfina is Pizzeria Delfina, which luckily only had a 15 minute wait. I can deal with that. Pizzeria Delfina is a tiny operation serving pizza out of the wood fire ovens. Classically, Italian pizza has a thin crust topped with only a couple simple and fresh ingredients. Pizzeria Delfina definitely delivers. We decided to start off with an asparagus and pancetta appetizer to hold us over until the main event. With 4 hungry people, we figured three pizzas would be good. We ordered the Margherita (of course), a Purgatorio, and a Panna. The Margherita came out first. What a way to start off dinner. The crust was thin and crunchy. There was the right amount of tomato sauce. The simple oven-charred basil and melted, gooey mozzarella. It was awesome. The simplicity and quality of the ingredients definitely made the dish. That’s the type of pizza that I now crave for. Even now, I’m wanting a slice. We finished off the margherita pretty quickly but fortunately, the other two pizzas quickly followed.

I’ll start off with the Panna first. Following the margherita is pretty tough. It was such a good pizza, I think the Panna would had to been exceptionally good now that our expectations were so high. Unfortunately the Panna fell a little short. It was definitely good. The crust was thin and crunchy, just like the Margherita. There was the right amount of tomato sauce, just like the Margherita. However, instead of the melted, gooey mozzarella, the Panna replaced that with cream. It just felt like the cream weighed the pizza down. I can’t describe it well but it just wasn’t quite there.

On the other hand, the Purgatorio blew me away! It’s probably because in the words of Anthony Bourdain, “I’m a total egg slut.” The Purgatorio was topped with mozarella, almost-runny egg yolks, and large shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano. All I can say is it was pretty damn good.

Bonus: Picture of Amy and Tina. Not sure why they pretended like they didn’t see me trying to take their picture!

#57 Goat Stew at Kokkari Estiatori

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve actually been eating still just procrastinating on the updates.

Since my mom loves lamb, my brother and me decided to take her to Kokkari for Mother’s Day dinner. Luckily for me, it turned out that Kokkari was conveniently on The List. This particular item from The List is exactly why I’m glad I started this little project. If it wasn’t on the list, I would have most likely gotten the moussaka, which I’ve gotten at Kokkari before. For food, it’s really easy to order something you’ve tried before and you know you like. No one wants to be disappointed with their meal. But trying new and different things, especially for food, really helps to expand your tastes.

So now actually back to the food…luckily for me the goat stew was avaiable as a special that night. The family decided to start out with a trio of dips with pita. The dips were pretty good with the favosalata being my favorite. I can’t really tell you why they call it favosalata instead of hummus but I think it was the same. As you can see, my family was pretty hungry and started chowing down before I had a chance to bust out the camera phone.

The goat stew finally came and it smelled damn good. It’s the type of dish that seems to warm you up just by looking at it and I’m certain that it would be perfect on a cold night. The goat was very tender and not at all gamey. The stew also came with orzo which was a nice starch with the meal. However, the best part was the sauce! The sauce had a nice deep flavor with a little bit of tanginess from the melted feta. It really made me wish I didn’t stuff my face with pita and bread earlier in the night and instead saved some room to mop up the sauce with the bread.

The perfect end to the meal was the creme fraiche ice cream topped with honey (unfortunately forgot to take a picture of it).

#52 Fried Brussels Sprouts at SPQR

I was really excited to eat at SPQR. I heard a lot of good things about both of Nate Appleman’s restaurants. Would SPQR live up to the hype?

The nice thing that I liked about SPQR is that it’s a walk-in only restaurant so it definitely tries to keep that small restaurant feel. With some proper planning, getting a table wasn’t much of an issue. I was lucky enough to get my friend Kris to join me for dinner (Congratulations again for getting into UCD vet school btw!).

For dinner, we started with the trio of antipasti: the fried brussels sprouts, bay scallops, and rabbit salad.

I’ve never had brussels sprouts as a kid but I knew that they were notorious for being a hated vegetable by kids. However, I’m sure moms never deep fried them. It’s pretty hard not to like something that’s deep fried. The bits of fried garlic were a nice addition. However, the one thing I noticed as I kept shoving these in my face was that they were pretty salty. I think with less salt this dish would have been fantastic but it fell a little short.

The scallops weren’t anything special. They were cooked just right and the bit of spice and acid was a nice complement but like I said nothing out of this world.

I didn’t really know what the expect from the rabbit salad but I’m glad Kris made the recommendation to order it. I thought it was the best antipasti of the three. The rabbit was nice and tender and the mustard dressing was perfect with the frisee and rabbit.

Now on to the entrees. I decided to get the lasagna with homemade sausage and Kris decided to get Amatriciana rigatoni. The lasagna was good but again the chef was a bit too heavy handed with the salt. The homemade sausage was tasty though. Kris’ dish was a super simple rigatoni dish with some decent kick from the chili. Personally, I thought her dish was better just because the seasoning was more well-balanced and the simplicity of the dish appealed to me.

Although dinner was slightly disappointing, I decided to get dessert anyway since one of the desserts caught my eye. Almond milk granita and cocoa nibs with chocolate mousse. This is the perfect dessert for me. It wasn’t too sweet and the granita was tasty while being super light. I need to learn how to make almond milk granita because it was just so good.

So what’s the verdict? Did SPQR live up to the hype? Unfortunately, I think my high expectation for this dinner might have left me a bit disappointed. In general, it seemed like the food was overseasoned, which is actually the reverse of what usually happens at restaurants. I liked the concept of the restaurant and the nice cozy ambiance. The rabbit salad and dessert were definitely the highlights of the night. Would I go here again? Probably but with lower expectations the next time around.

Note: as you can tell, this pictures effing suck. Good news is that I just got my camera so hopefully the pictures in the future will be better.