Bi Rite Creamery

Living in Seattle, I am somewhat spoiled by the phenomenon of small batch, locally sourced, fancy pants ice cream. I appreciate the interesting flavors, and the artistry and the small creamery mentality for sure, but sometimes, in a land so flooded with high quality, amazing ice cream, I come to *expect* these things as they've become almost commonplace. An ice cream cone that really STANDS out seems to be a rarer and rarer occurrence, but my mouth waters now reflecting on a transcendental cone that I ate in San Francisco.

In a similar fashion to our local beloved creameries, the Bi Rite Creamery in the Mission had a line out the door and snaking down the block when I paid a call. I waited in the lovely balmy afternoon (summer seemed to have hit San Francisco before we got ours!), watching cone after delicious cone emerge from the shop.

Photo from http://sweets.seriouseats.com/

Bi Rite has plenty of interesting indie-shop style flavors: browned butter pecan, toasted banana, peanut butter malt, Mexican chocolate, ginger, etc, but I chose my old standard: salted caramel. One lick nearly brought me to my knees. This was not the excessively salty, cloyingly caramely salted caramel that we know around home. This ice cream was mildly sweet, mildly salty, and nearly bitter with the rich deep brown flavor of burned sugar. I hadn't tasted salted caramel ice cream like this since I first ate it (Dulce de Leche) in Argentina. I have to admit, I stopped walking and focused every ounce of my being around this ice cream cone, tasting it with full awareness to the very last melty drop.

A scoop of Bi Rite Salted Caramel ice cream.  Photo from http://www.foodspotting.com/reviews/1639284

Park Chow

For our last night in San Francisco we followed a friend's recommendation to Park Chow, a popular sister of the other Chow restaurants located in other parts of the city.

It was busy, and we waited with a crowd under outside heaters for our table. Inside, the waitstaff was friendly and hip, and the vibe was very much slightly-upscale, well loved neighborhood bistro.

We started with a beet salad ,which came with roasted beets, endive, greens, hazelnuts, oranges, feta (substituted for the usual goat cheese) and olives.


The menu isn't specifically vegetarian oriented, but there were plenty of vegetarian choices (baked eggplant, pastas, pizzas, garden burgers, etc). I ordered the wood fired spinach lasagna. It wasn't bad, but wasn't the most interesting thing I've ever eaten. Maybe it could have used something to vary up the texture a little?


D ordered the daily sandwich, which was some sort of fancy fish, and it came with exquisite french fries. The presence of these on the table possibly had something to do with my lack of appreciation of my lasagna.

Overall a quality dinner and a fun evening. Thanks N for the recommendation! (And now, back to Seattle!)

Park Chow
(415) 665-9912

Sunset
1240 9th Ave
San Francisco, CA 94122

Golden Era

Today I found my way to the Golden Era vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco. I had read on-line reviews that spoke wearily of the neighborhood, and as I walked there today by myself I initially thought that everybody was overreacting until eventually the ratio of me to people laying on the ground, mumbling, stumbling, talking/hollering to/at me became fantastically disfavorable. I probably wouldn't have wanted to do the same walk at night. It is always hard in an unfamiliar place to know how bad a place really is because everything has that "Is this even real?" feel to it. Anyhow, I made it and was strangely relieved to enter the dark below ground restaurant and be greeted by none other than the Supreme Master herself on a large TV. (The Supreme Master also has a presence at the Vegan Garden in Seattle).

The menu reminded quite a bit of the Vegan Garden, which is full of good looking dishes. I ordered the Jalapeno Tofu, which was described as "Best tofu with jalapenos, onions and bell peppers, served with steamed broccoli." Sounded perfect.

The meal arrived and was as described... soft tofu triangles with finely diced onions and bell pepper, and then succulent, lightly steamed slices of fresh jalapeno on top. Yum.


I thought that the Supreme Master connection was interesting... makes me wonder if there are followers all of the country (world?) who are starting up similar Chinese vegan restaurants in her vision? I'm not complaining.

Supreme master is a blond now

Golden Era
(415) 673-3136
Civic Center
572 O'Farrell St
San Francisco, CA 94102

Herbivore

Herbivore is exactly what I was hoping to find during my trip to San Francisco. It is a warm, mildly trendy, reasonably priced vegan restaurant with a large, varied, and delicious menu.

Started the meal off with a Green Papaya salad, which I love but generally have a hard time finding without fish sauce. Here it was huge... perhaps more dinner proportioned than appetizer proportioned. It was a little on the bland side, could have used some more lime and spice, but we managed to enhance it a bit with table condiments (lemon wedges, crushed chili flakes, black pepper and salt) and make it really good.

It really was that giant

Mint tea and fresh juice to go with the salad

Our dinners each came with a wonderfully large side salad, which consisted of mixed greens, tomatoes, and beets in a garlicky vinaigrette.


The menu was so appetizing we both had a tough time choosing. I ended up with the lentil loaf with mushroom gravy, tomato sesame salsa, mashed potatoes, and a humongous pile of sauteed red chard.

He got the grilled portobello mushroom over creamy polenta with sauteed spinach.


We both ordered sort of "meat and potatoes" style food, but the menu was all over the place. There were lots of Asian influences (Indonesian noodles salad, sweet and sour soup, Kung Pao tofu, red curry, etc), Italian influences (lasagna, ravioli, gnocchi, other pastas), Middle Eastern (moussaka and falafel) etc. Just about everything sounded amazingly delicious, and never felt like it was doing any weird compensation for want of meat or dairy.

The quantities were huge, and the value felt fantastic. Makes me wish I had a bit more time in San Francisco to go back and try some more things!

Herbivore
(415) 885-7133
Western Addition
531 Divisadero St
San Francisco, CA 94117

Outerlands

(In San Francisco) I love a good neo-hippy cafe. I think the defining factors for me are:

1. The people who own it (or their friends or their family) also work at it
2. There is something artsy and homemade about the decor
3. There is an emphasis on local/organic/in season ingredients
4. There are healthy but delicious menu choices with a strong vegetarian/vegan presence
5. The staff and regulars are friendly and kind

Outerlands in the Sunset area of San Francisco provided all of these beautifully.

Nice work with the driftwood

The restaurant is owned by a young surfer couple who took over the space after the previous resident (the vegan restaurant Feel Real) disappeared and left a hole in the neighborhood.

There were many cool things about this place, including homemade bread and some fancy driftwood mosaics, but the detail that impressed me most was the extremely limited (and daily changing) lunch menu (they have a more "normal" dinner menu with many choices). Sometimes, I am a huge fan of the limited menu (assuming I like the general theme of a place) because it focuses efforts and reduces waste. When I visited, the lunch menu consisted of:

* Vegan cream of celery soup
* Grilled cheese sandwich
* A big green salad
* A broiled open faced sandwich with pears and some sort of meat and cheese

I had the soup and grilled cheese, and the sandwich really stole the show due to the huge thick slices of fresh, soft homemade bread that had been buttered and grilled to perfection. Yum.

It is hard to tell from this picture how thickly sliced that delicious homemade bread was. Look at the notebook and pen for scale.

All in all, a very pleasant lunch at a good feelings place.

Outerlands
(415) 661-6140
Sunset
4001 Judah
San Francisco, CA 94122
outerlandssf.blogspot.com

Sanraku

Followed the recommendation of a local member of the San Francisco clan and went to Sanraku for a sushi dinner.

The menu was as vegetarian friendly as a typical, no concessions Japanese sushi menu is. There was agedashidofu, edamame, miso soup (with bonito), avocado rolls, cucumber rolls, a tofu salad, and a veggie roll. Missing was the "this is a little something special for the vegetarians" tofu roll. I ended up ordering a veggie roll and a spicy tofu salad to get some protein.

The spicy tofu salad was a beautiful, carefully arranged spread of steamed vegetables and a small brick of fresh firm tofu smothered in a salty, spicy black bean sauce. I found the sauce to be too salty, but the artful arrangement compensated for that deficiency.
The veggie roll was nice enough. It was a large roll (a challenge for the one bite per slice routine) full of green beans, steamed carrot, sprouts and miso. No complaints.
As a vegetarian eating sushi, it is hard to get into the "OMG, this is AMAZING" mindset that fish eaters can get into when eating a piece of really exquisite sushi. I think this is because the qualify and freshness of vegetables and tofu isn't quite so varied as the quality and freshness of fish. Sometimes veggie rolls are better or worse in one place over another, but it is hard for me to declare that one place has AMAZING sushi the way that fish eaters can when they come upon something really spectacular.

The waitress brought out two unexpected plates of fruit to finish the meal, which I thought was a nice touch. Of course the remaining 5 folks at the table had so stuffed themselves on beautiful fish, eel and softshell crab rolls that I more or less ate it all myself.
Sanraku
(415) 369-6166

SOMA
101 4th St
San Francisco, CA 94103

Bow Hon

A little foray into San Francisco...

Today involved a walk through Chinatown lightheaded from hunger and with some slightly tricky dining requirements: in addition to two hungry omnivores there was me, the vegetarian, and another gal who is very sensitive to MSG. As we ambled down the busy street, the first check was for interesting meatless entrees, and the second check involved a peek inside to ask the staff about their MSG usage. Bow Hon was the first restaurant we came across to provide satisfactory results in both departments.

The food tasted good for sure, maybe too good, and made me wonder whether there was a bit of deception in the MSG-free claims. The table ordered a variety of dishes, and the two vegetarian items that we chose were: Mixed vegetables with shredded hot pepper, and Bean curd with spiced salt and hot pepper.

The veggies were your typical plate of steamed broccoli, carrots, baby corn, etc coated in a savory and spicy glossy sauce, and the Salt and Pepper tofu included 8 rectangles of creamy custard-y silken tofu quickly deep fried in a light batter, then rolled in salt and garnished with a little pile of sauteed hot peppers and green onions.

I don't exactly get the feeling that this place is the best food in the city, or near it, but it served the purpose and wasn't what I'd call bad. It also earned bonus points when the waitress, who barely spoke English, had the foresight to ask me if I minded fish cake embedded in the tofu. (I did indeed mind, and they were able to prepare it without.)

Bow Hon
(415) 362-0601
Chinatown
850 Grant Ave
San Francisco, CA 94108