Fast Food - El Majahual

A couple of Saturdays ago, on a beautiful sunny afternoon, Daniel and I went for a long walk through the Outer Mission. And although we'd had a big brunch at Mission Beach earlier that morning, by the end of our wanderings, we were starving, so we decided to try out a Colombian/El Salvadoran hole-in-the-wall that I'd stumbled upon a few weeks prior.

The menu is a great mix of the two cuisines, and it was very difficult to choose. But ultimately we went for the following:

Chicken Tamale - this was literally the best tamale I've ever had. The corn part was sweet and moist and chewy. The chicken was melt in your mouth tender, perfectly seasoned, perfect in every way.

Chicken stewed with potatoes and cassava, rice, salad, and ripe plantain - this was Daniel's main course and in spite of my revulsion inspired by the giant plantain in the middle of his plate, I couldn't help but sample several bites of this entirely satisfying plate of comforting deliciousness. Again the chicken was perfectly cooked. The potatoes were tender and had soaked up the chickeny goodness. Even the salad, a kind of citrus cold slaw was fantastic.


Sopa de Pollo - I'm going through another soup phase, so I went simple chicken soup with veggies. Served with rice in the bowl and a homemade tortilla on the side. More perfect chicken - in this dish all white meat. Loads of fresh vegetables. A rich clear broth. And a thick, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside corn tortilla to dip in it. I was full, but I ate the whole thing.



Daniel also had a cashew fruit drink, which was too melony and sweet for my taste, but he loved it.

The food took a long time to come because it's all made to order and there were some mysteriously loud banging sounds emerging from the kitchen, but this is a homey, delicious, comforting joint, and a place that I can't wait to get back to.

Highway Fun

Because one can never have too much birthday, unless of course one happens to be one of the Berenstain Bears, I took Daniel on a mini road-trip last weekend, up Highway One into Mendocino. As is our way, the road-trip was all about stopping to look at pretty views, and stopping to eat yummy road food. A brief review of our imbibing...

First stop was in the beautiful (but on this particular day, absurdly foggy) Point Reyes. This is a locavore's paradise, with every restaurant, even the greasy spoons serving local, organic, free-range goodness. We hit up the Bovine Bakery. Daniel enjoyed a buttery, sweet, delicious sticky bun-



I nibbled throughout the day on a whole wheat, vegan apricot, raspberry scone. It sounds more virtuous than it was. It was enormous and delicious and over the day I ate the entire thing. I always tell myself that I'm sampling these baked goods so that I can teach myself to make them, but let's be honest, it's really about my overly active sweet tooth...


After a thwarted attempt to see the lighthouse at Point Reyes, we made due with lunch at Station House Cafe, taking advantage of the bounty the Northern California coast has to offer. Daniel had the halibut club and I a veggie sandwich with grilled jalapeno. Both were fresh tasting and satisfying.

Is this what they call Pea Soup fog?

We then continued our drive up, through the rain and fog, oohing and ahing at the amazing sunset that managed to make an appearance at the end of the day, before ending up in Fort Bragg, where we hit up the North Coast Brewery for dinner. A Chimayo Chicken salad (avocado, hominy, kidney beans, chicken) and some really nice minestrone for me and because it was his birthday a 100% Califonia raised Brandt burger for Daniel. We were both pleased with our meals, but the realy winner was the 4 beer sampler that I had. My favorite, the dark Belgian Style Brother Thelonious.

After an evening of bowling, we were up early the next morning, hitting up a few Fort Bragg culinary favorites before hitting the road.

First stop, Roundman's Smokehouse, famous apparently for smoking anything. We got several kinds of smoked fish, some jerkey, and some smoked chicken and turkey.

We've since put together several smoked poultry sandwiches using these supplies, and I made a delicious smoked salmon scramble for dinner Monday night.

Yum, look at all that fish

Then because nothing goes better with smoked jerkey than cookies, we headed to Mendocino Cookies to pick up a sampler for a class we were going to that evening. We got peanut butter chocolate chip, cinamon sugar, hiker's delight (coconut, cranberries, chocolate chip), and ginger spice. Daniel, the peanut butter freak, responded accordingly. I couldn't get enough of the cinamon sugar. It was so soft and smushy and melt in the mouth delicious. I nursed it through the day, savoring each bite before savoring the last morsel dunked in milk when we arrived back home that evening.




Our final foodie delight of the trip was Queenie's Roadhouse Cafe in Elk. It is indeed roadside, and there is indeed a Queenie, who emerged from the kitchen halfway through our brunch to greet the local regulars. This place is amazing. Real roadhouse, greasy spoon breakfast plus rainbow flags, plus organic veggies, meat and eggs, plus vegan options. A California original.


I got the cornbeef hash and poached eggs, served with housemade whole wheat toast and organic ketchup. It was really good, but the hash was a little too intensely hashy (read greasy) for me, and so I had to limit my intake to limit my subsequent belly aching.


Daniel's dish though was a winner of the first degree - a potato, onions, hot peppers, and smoked gouda melange, served with cage free scrambled eggs. The gouda was perfectly smokey and balanced so well with the tang of the peppers and the carby goodness of the potatoes. Mmmm. We'll definitely be back the next time we're in Elk. Okay, maybe we'll go back to Elk so that we can be back.

Daniel Gets the BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER (and I don't mean the iPhone)

So in honor of Daniel's birth and the election of a new leader for this great nation, we had a little party in our new SF abode.

The focus was more on the what we were watching than on what we were eating, but a few foodie notes...



Those of the eagle-eye variety will notice the two bowls of candy perched on the arm of our couch. Daniel, who although he loves delicious candy more than the next guy will sometimes favor a joke over his palate, came up with the idea that when a state went red we would eat Airheads and when a state turned blue, we'd celebrate the Smarties they were.

With the election called early (especially in this kooky West Coast time zone), we were able to move quickly into the celebration portion of the evening. Complete with dessert and champagne.

Because he's been such a mensch of late, Daniel deserved two desserts -

A pear upside down ginger bread, recipe courtesy of Williams Sonoma:



And a three layer chocolate cake with caramel sea salt icing and a chocolate ganache, called the Sweet and Salty cake, recipe courtesy of the Red Hook bakery Baked, endorsed by Martha Stewart herself...

Please note the immense amount of butter involved in the ganache (does not include the butter that went into the caramel icing...)

Applying the caramel icing

The birthday boy applying the ganache, Ace of Cakes style


The presentation

It was a good night for two great patriots - President Elect BARAK OBAMA (I still can't believe it!) and our man Daniel.

Fast Food - Mission Beach Cafe

It was a VERY long week, and I needed a beer and a burger or pizza or pasta or a burrito. Something comforting. So Daniel, the ever intrepid, and I headed out to explore our still new neighborhood.

First we hit up the The Liberties Bar for a couple of beers, and then we wandered the streets pondering our options. We debated Delfina and Little Star for pizza and Range for locavore action, but we finally we settled on Mission Beach Cafe in search of a well deserved burger and fries.

I'd been there once before for brunch, but I'd been recovering from a terrible bellyache, so all I'd had was an English muffin (housemade and delicious) and some poached eggs, oh and the best cup of coffee I've had in San Francisco.

Tonight though we were there with a mission (in the Mission I might add), and we both ordered burgers (served with tomato jam, onion marmalade, and lettuce, hold the cheese). We had a choice between regular fries and truffle fries with Parmesan cheese and being the equal opportunity gluttons that we area, we decided to split one of each. We started the meal with a broccoli rabe appetizer with cherry tomatoes and anchovy butter.

The app was a little rich for me, although the combination of the tart, firm cherry tomatoes with the crunchy texture of the broccoli and the sublime saltieness of the anchovy butter made for a really good couple of bites.

Then came the long-awaited, much anticipated burgers and fries. Daniel ate a bunch of truffle fries first, and he was very, very pleased with them. I was pleased too, they had a really distinct truffley flavor, made more piquant by the Parm, but like the broccoli rabe, I could only handle a few. But no matter, that left more room for the burger. Oh do I love hamburgers. I had mine medium and added some whole grain mustard to the mix. The burger was rich and juicy and perfectly cooked. I loved the tomato jam, which had a distinctly fruity flavor and the onion marmalade. My only complaint was that the bun was a little dry and too big, so it overwhelmed the amazing grassfed Prather ranch beef wonder. But otherwise, we were very, very pleased.

And the best part of living in an apartment that is surrounded by hills in all directions is that you can eat a big ole burger and not feel guilty as long as you walk home after...

Fast Food - Weird Fish

So my dear old friend Mookie B was in town last weekend, and what did we do? EAT!

Most of the places we hit up were old (well newish-old) friends like La Taqueria and Eji and Burma Superstar. But Saturday night we did try out Weird Fish in the Mission. We had anticipated a long wait, but because we were willing to sit at the weird counter at the back of the restaurant, we were seated very quickly, and it afforded us a view of all of the weird people who came in. Okay really only one table full of weird people, but they were really, very weird (top hat, long dreds, etc).

The food was delicious. From Daniel's little b. stack appetizer (roasted yams, spinach, goat cheese and marinated tofu), to Megan's side of sauteed spinach with raisins (so lightly cooked as to maintain their shape and crunch), to my grilled jamaican-style catfish in a spicy-citrus sauce, to Daniel's side of heavenly mashed yams with coconut milk (is it weird to have two dishes for dinner that include yams?) Their fish dishes were good too, although I liked mine best...

All in all a good night, and not too weird, if you don't count the waiters, one of whom didn't know how any of the fishes were cooked and the other of whom kept smelling wine glasses to guess what was in them...

With love from Rachel Ray

Tried some sweet breakfast treats recently from Everyday with Rachel Ray

To celebrate Daniel's first Sunday with NFL ticket, I made some monkey bread minis for him and Eric.



They weren't my favorites, but really, cinnamon, sugar, and loads of butter. It couldn't be too bad.

On another recent Sunday, I tried RR's peanut butter and jelly French toast. We had some leftover challah around, so I couldn't resist. Slices of bread with peanut butter and jelly spread on it, with chocolate chips thrown in just in case it wasn't rich enough. Then a little apricot syrup for good measure.

Fast Food - I Like Ikes

So the big news. We moved to San Francisco about a month ago. I couldn't handle living in the suburbs any longer. So it's been a whole new world of restaurants to explore. One of our favorites is a sandwich joint near our place called Ikes. They're only open during the day, so it's weekends only for me and my buddy Ike, but the sandwiches are so huge that they basically keep me full all week anyway.

Everything I've had so far there has been amazing - the Not so Sloppy Ike


Which is a vegan sloppy joe. I get it with avocado and jalapeno.


Other favorites include the various shredded chicken breast sandwiches, turkey burger, and salmon burger. Daniel always gets them with dirty sauce, a mayonnaise based sauce for which Ike's is famous. I of course can't handle the mayonnaise, but the sandwiches stand up just fine without it. They all come on freshly baked bread and are literally the yummiest sandwiches I've ever had. If it weren't already 6:00, I'd order one right now.