chasing the truck

Friends and co-workers know that I am a devotee of Curry Up Now's chicken tikka masala burritos. At work we've been discussing the possibility of making a pilgrimage to the bricks-and-mortar location where they have a larger menu - one that cannot be supported by the confines of a food truck. It so turns out that talking about said chicken tikka masala burritos has given my buddy Cabbage a hankering for a food she had not yet tasted. So today we drove to San Mateo to try Curry Up Now B&N...

the colors on this sign don't show very well but the red square sign definitely reads "Curry Up Now"

the huge menu. But...

as it turns out I could not cheat on my chicken tikka masala burrito.
Check out the mint in my mint mango lassi! (Sans mint at the food trucks)

at the restaurant, the utensil of choice is the spork!

One pro of driving all the way to San Mateo is that you can eat the burrito right away! I mean, I guess you could eat it right after picking up the grub from the truck but we like to take it back to the lunchroom at the office. But I might change that because there's an added layer of greatness when eaten as hot as possible.

Ah, what bliss!

breaking the bay

I know lots of people look forward to the Bay to Breakers race with all the costumes and craziness but I am not a fan. Ever since my church forced a 12 year-old me to volunteer in their group so they could somehow get money (how the hell does that work), ever since I had to stand for hours at the finish line in Ocean Beach hi-fiving all sorts of participants - including three completely nude specimens - I have harbored a strong aversion to the Bay to Breakers.

Over the years the race hasn't really affected me - even when I lived by the Cliff House, the race was usually over before I got out of bed. But last night I came home late (from Zachary's - see prior post) and wouldn't you believe it? Every single parking spot on my block, and the next, and the next after was taken... it's like all the hipsters descended upon the Sunset, staking out their parking spots so they wouldn't have to take the bus home afterwards...

Anyways, I did find a parking spot and it wasn't too far from where I live, it was just surprising. I did catch this lovely parking job, executed by someone desperate and careless:

obstructing the fire hydrant, sometime last night

still there at 10AM this morning

Way to go!

Not sure if this is connected to the Bay to Breakers but I did find that they had closed the Great Highway to automobiles... took Q-Tip out for a different view of the beach...

from the Great Highway

not your everyday view

It was really warm and sunny today... not too windy so long as you got away from the beach. But Cabbage said that it was terribly gray and cloudy in Berkeley... usually the other way around. And speaking of freak weather, did anyone else feel the flash rain - more of a sprinkle - about half an hour ago?

more pizza!

Left home last night thinking our dinner would have a goal besides stuffing our faces with pizza but our quarry never showed. So pizza and beer at Zachary's it was!

some of the clever self-plugging art at Zachary's

essential for your 55-minute wait...

... and helpful with discovering new things!

linguica special (seasonal)

chorizo pizza, deep dish!

The pizzas are delicious, full of sauce and toppings. Maybe there was too much sauce... but it was still good. Or maybe the 55-minute wait just made everything taste better.

Zachary's... not may favorite... I still like Gialina's and Bambino's better but not bad at all. Worth the wait so long as you have fun friends!

don't wear your nice clothes here!

it's my favorite Korean place: Brother's Restaurant!

Brother's No. 1 on Geary Boulevard between 5th and 6th Avenues

This place is THE BEST for Korean-style BBQ... their bulgogi is sublime!

flame-broiled goodness

and the owner here loves his customers! Whenever I go with my family, the Boss comes out and smiles and hooks us up with some spicy tofu soup:

a sauna for your nose

True to its name, there are actually two Brother's Locations... Restaurant #2 being just one block east. I remember frequenting both locations as a young girl... there used to be one brother at each site but I think one passed away and now the last brother runs both.

What can I say? Eat at Brother's! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go wash the smoky scent of BBQ out of my hair.

taste my cupcakes!

ahh, I love Sofia Vergara's Gloria on Modern Family...

got some cupcakes from Cupcake Cove on Pine and Battery...

pineapple ~ guava & passionfruit
coconut ~ strawberry chocolate
brown bottom ~ chocolate on chocolate

Love these cupcakes! They're sweet but not overly sweet, moist, and now they come in these awesome fruity flavors like Kara's! Also love the proximity (it is just over a block from where I work) and the 6 for $15 deal (I am not the type of person who can have just one cupcake - no way in hell is that ever gonna happen.) These don't have that extra richness that Kara's Cupcakes have but these are still pretty darn good. I highly recommend the Brown Bottom and the Pineapple... I love mint chocolate chip but have not tried the one from Cupcake Cove yet. Not yet...

culture up

An outing with some of my co-workers...

Dinner at Zare at Fly Trap on Folsom at 2nd Street...

the mouthwatering menu

sorry for the blurry picture! Cocktail of the night: minted memory, complete with a long cucumber shaving

pistachio meatballs... sweet and savory

lamb abgoosht... the chef recommends that you let the crusty bread soak in the broth
while you scoop up some lamb...

and make yourself a little roll with bread and pickled... pickles? It was tasty!

goat cheese cheesecake (so rich!) with dates and walnuts

"not your grandma's pie..." another incarnation of the deconstruction trend.
Still tasty!

my friend went crazy for the gin-soaked cucumber at the bottom of my glass!

What's the occasion? To fill up before a night at the ballet.

Say what!? The last time I went to the ballet, I fell asleep to Balanchine's ode to the bodily humors.

But thanks to Groupon and the recommendation of one of my co-workers, we all went to Smuin Ballet's Spring Program, featuring a tribute to the Beatles! The dancing was fun, fresh, cheeky, and not snooze-worthy at all. The choreography for "Something" was especially beautiful. And you know what? The fun wasn't limited to the Beatles stuff. Momentum was really engaging and eye-opening, and Requiem was poetic (but a bit slow.)

My only criticism is that there was one dancer - who shall go unnamed - who could use a lesson in tucking from the queens of RuPaul's Drag Race... go on, Carmen Carrera! I mean, everyone was in a leotard but there was only one who stood out, and he stood out by a lot. Honestly, it was a bit distracting.

tericheez

It has been quite a while - perhaps over a year - since I last had a burger at Oishii Cafe on Market Street (between Fremont and Beale.) And for good reason: the last time I did, there was a hair sitting on top of my burger. Not inside but right on top, outside of the white paper... so someone didn't even bother to pick it out even though it was in plain sight.

I guess I should be thankful that I saw it... what if it was inside!?

But I haven't had a burger since returning from Peru in March and I was really craving one at work today... and I can't stand the overpriced Bistro Burger. So I took a risk and made the call.

The phone call turned my hopes up because instead of being answered by an international "student" who didn't know that there was more than one type of burger, a very nice lady answered. And she didn't just stop at my order, she asked me for my name and told me that the burger would be ready in five minutes... not the treatment I remember from Oishii Cafe of a year ago!

It has been too long, my teriyaki cheeseburger friend... behold!

It's easy to miss this tiny shop.

Teriyaki Cheeseburger (tericheez)... with all the cheese, mayo, red onion, and t-sauce you could want.
Also, view the lettuce!

Just as tasty as I remember and not a hair in sight! Even the fries were better than usual (still weirdly reminiscent of the texture of frozen food but at least they were hot.) Friends, it is safe to go back to Oishii Cafe... at least for the burgers!

whatever Mom wants

whether it be fancy perfume or fast food, if she wants it, she gets it! And for today's dinner she specifically requested Popeye's spicy chicken!

Louisiana... fast! The Fillmore-Webster mini plaza

Overheard some enlightening words at Popeye's today... "don't give me that Mother's Day crap! I told my children that EVERYDAY is Mother's Day! You better do something nice everyday!"

Spicy fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, red beans and rice, biscuits, and a classy bottle of Vinho Verde.
Oh, and a single cob of corn for my mom.

"How is it that good-tasting food is bad for you?" Mumsy asked about her biscuit. "Good food should taste good and bad food should taste bad!"

Me: "So then alcohol would still be bad for you, because it's bitter?"

She only smiled. You can't have it both ways, Mom!

The Popeye's grub attracted one of my favorite visitors... the neighbor's cat Beefy!

Beefy chows down... on cat food!

Q-tip savors the flavor

JohnnyCat oversees all... he is very territorial

Overall a low-key but happy Mother's Day. Love you, Mumsy!

unexpected home cooking

After helping out my mom with an open house and taking notes on her request for Mother's Day dinner, I headed over to my dad's place. My little sister is ten and will be heading into middle school this fall. And nowadays, your parents' recommendation isn't enough to get you into the Honors or GATE program - now it's called AVID. My little sister is filling out an application for this AVID business and will have to go to an interview as well. Today I was helping her channel her thoughts for her applications (13 questions, including 3 really long open-ended ones.) Can't we just let kids be kids?

Usually when I head over to my dad's, we eat out. He lives in a nice but crowded part of Irving Street that has quite a few good restaurants around. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I asked about our dinner plans and he said he was cooking.

it's a double dinner: 2 cuts of beef and 2 raviolis!

Impressive! My dad cooked the short ribs (in the left of the bowl) to medium rare and the, um, other part well done (top of the bowl.) There was chicken ravioli and cheese ravioli but the best part was that he added mushrooms to the red sauce from Costco to make it "his own." Go Dad!

obsessed

Free Fridays are not really days where you get a lot of stuff done... not a lot of maintenance stuff anyways.

Hauled myself out to pick up these shoes I have been drooling over...

super-hot sandals, for poppin'

Not even the dimwitted and untrained salesgirls at Nine West could deter me from picking these up at a very happy 40% off. Woohoo!

Also from the mall is obsession #2: Buckhorn's tri-tip steak sandwiches. I know there are tons of gastronomically intelligent restaurants out there above ground level but this chain really knows how to serve a tender cut of beef. Also, it's recommended by my partner in crime, Cabbage!

Got caramelized onions and au jus dipping juice. Score!

Feel free to replace the French fries with something easier on your bowels!

Lastly I wasn't sure how peppy I'd be on Friday. But when I woke up, the sun was shining, the wind wasn't terribly strong - at least when I left the house - and NO WORK (it was my free Friday.) So instead of making it a Fleetwood Mac day, I declared to myself that it was a booty-shakin' day!

I'll save you for a moodier day, Stevie.

cinco de mayo, amigos

There's no better way to celebrate Cinco de Mayo - America's favorite Mexican holiday - than going to your mom's house for food and drink.

My brother and I had fun educating our mom about the big day, but it would have been just as fun letting her believe what she thought beforehand:

• Mexico was already colonized in the 1800's?
• They fought the French?
• Napoleon is not an old man?

And it wasn't just limited to the Battle of Pueblo:

• Bin Laden used to work for the CIA?
• Didn't he get his weapons from North Korea? We like to sell that sort of stuff to crazy people.

Or newsworthy facts, for that matter:

• Most Korean people have kimchi faces but I have a steak face.
• I like that new Lady Gaga song, "Born this way..." The beat is very addictable.
• Q-Tip is so noisy, always going in and out of the covers. I think I'll put him in a soundproof box with a tiny little airhole, and that airhole will face the window.
• A cozy bathroom is one where you can sit on the toilet and fall asleep.

On top of the hilarity, the food was unsurprisingly outstanding. Crab, steak, and my mom's version of shrimp tacos (shrimp and onions cooked in pepper, plus lettuce, avocados, a cucumber-tomato-lime mix, and salsa.) No rice or beans... but my brother did make strawberry margaritas, and I brought over some dulce de leche whoopie pies...

that dulce de leche cream just doesn't want to stay between those graham cracker whoopies

Of course, super-huge fail to snap pictures before we started eating. And it wasn't pretty after eating. That's how we roll.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, amigos!

she strikes again

ooh, it's the new Lady Gaga music video "Judas"

The dancing isn't as up to par as "Bad Romance" but I love that she's not afraid to use religious themes again... some people are just too afraid to even talk about it. Love the lipstick gun and Gaga's crazy alien nails.

Also, the new mating call is to open a cold one and pour beer on a girl's ass.

es lo mismo oceano

could not resist walking Q-Tip at the beach today... it was too warm to refuse him some freedom!

Q-Tip got all sorts of business up in his hair. He paid for it with a bath!

Snowy plovers and a lone surfer

Even 5 days after eating at Limón Rotisserie I still craved more Peruvian food. So I tried my hand at papa huancaína! In Peru my friend's cuñada (sister-in-law) taught me how to cook this tasty dish, though I'll never make it as good as hers because

1. We don't have the same rich golden-yellow potatoes that they have in Peru.
2. I can't ever be bothered to peel a potato, which is how Peruvians eat it.

Some things that I haven't done correctly yet (but are totally fixable)

1. Get to a proper supermarket to get my paws on aji peppers.
2. Cook rice to go with papa huancaína. Which means I have to plug in the rice cooker (still unused) and open the bag of rice (still in returnable condition.)
3. Go easy on the sauce.

My first attempt a few weeks back...

it's in the ballpark but not a homerun. Still tasty!

On the plus side, I remembered to add milk to the sauce this time!

a different looking papa huancaína

Maybe too much milk... I'll get the consistency right next time. Practice makes perfect!

fire in the hull!

It was so warm today that I felt it my duty to walk outside for a bit. So I bought lunch at the Sentinel! I love their Coppa sandwich and a lot of their daily specials are sooooo tasty (especially their stews!) But I always come back for my favorite:

Corned Beef Sandwich! Don't forget the pickle!

the line always snakes down Stevenson Alley

mmm... buttery ciabatta bread!

not so much a snake as a worm

G. W. Bush got Hussein and B. H. Obama got Bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan - Americas - Al Jazeera English

But you and I know that unfortunately, this isn't the end.

little sheep...

Celebrated a friend's birthday at her restaurant of choice, Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot on S. Ellsworth in San Mateo (not too far a drive.) Though I could've done without the traffic and the carpool mess, I loved the different take on the crowd-friendly hot pot dinner.

the broths... "Original" on the left and "Spicy Girl" on the right

Add your own greens, mushrooms, meatballs...

beef shoulders, lamb bits...

and my personal favorite, fish balls!

My recommendation: go for the Spicy Girl broth, crank up the heat, and dump in all the goodies you can glean. Don't forget the garlic cloves; after simmering for ten minutes, the garlic is rendered super-tender and subtly savory.

Also, don't turn your placemat over. There's a slightly cannibalistic cartoon of lambs fattening themselves up and offering their fellow lamb-bros and lamb-sisters for consumption, pushed on by their sheep-pimps. Well, that's the way I saw it.

sorry

I didn't stay up late to watch Will's and Kate's royal wedding, I didn't Tivo or DVR anything, and I almost forgot to look up pictures of the dress (fantastic choice, by the way!) I haven't really caught the British fever but I can only speak for myself.

snapped on Geary Boulevard at Hyde Street

he (or she?) is a fan!

Nevertheless, congratulations to the happy couple!

la comida peruana

last month I was in Peru for a friend's wedding. But if you had seen me in action, you'd think I was just there to eat. I've done a bit of traveling and I must say that the spices and flavors and techniques that characterize Peruvian cooking make for a delectably rich gastronomical experience. It is HELLA GOOD.


So woe is me when I have to leave the land of potatoes and pollo a la brasa and purple corn. Without my new Peruvian mom around, who will make me lomo saltado? And why can't anybody in the City make a decent ceviche?


Fellow eaters, there is hope: a year or so ago, my friend Cabbage and I stumbled across Limón Rotisserie on South Van Ness Avenue at 21st Street. This place serves up the best representation of what a proper pollo a la brasa in Peru is like, complete with the 3 aji sauces. And this is one place we can't help returning to.

L: Half a rotisserie chicken.
R: "Lomito" saltado.

And talk about sweet victory! Cabbage is not a fan of seafood but she'll try anything I shove in her face at least once. Turns out she's in love with the fantastic ceviche here, too!

L: Ceviche mixto (white fish, calamari, & shrimp) in the maginificent "Tiger Milk... could not stop rawring that night!
R: Ensalata Rusa.
Top: the 3 aji sauces

In true Peruvian style, everything here is finished with a squeeze of limón (lime - no lemons here. This ain't Red Lobster!) Along with a glass of Cristal (one of the most popular beers in Peru and a favorite of Cabbage's) and a bottle of chicha morada (juice of purple corn... Limón bottles their own brew,) ¡fue una cena magnífica!

las bebidas

One notable omission is papas amarillas, the super-rich yellow potatoes that accompany every good pollo a la brasa. At Limón Rotisserie, we prefer tacu-tacu, rice and beans rolled into a dumpling that is breaded and lightly fried. Of course, they were promptly eaten before the pictures were snapped.


If you plan on going for dinner, make reservations because this place is poppin' like a cornfield in July. And fair warning: the portions have shrunk a bit since my last visit to Limón Rotisserie in February. But all in all, I never have a bad meal here... friendly service + great food = happy times!