Local’s Corner- but is it for Mission locals?

So this afternoon, we decided to try the much-touted Local’s Corner, (2500 Bryant St. (at 23rd Street), San Francisco; (415) 800-7945. localscornersf.com). I guess my expectations were colored by the name, which led me to expect someplace, I don’t know, where those of us who consider ourselves Mission locals would feel comfortable. So I was more than a little taken aback by the $18 prix fixée menu placed in front of us, as I sat down with my daughter. Taking the afternoon in stride, we immediately decided to share. What was more telling, perhaps, is that the fact that I felt compelled to ask if this was OK (the sharing, that , is). Perhaps it was the small size of the place…I am not sure if there were more than 6 tables.. but, more than that, it was something about the atmosphere that made me wonder whether there might not be some minimum, or an extra plate charge… seemed a little over-the-top pristine, haute country, if you will. My daughter immediately told me that she wasn’t comfortable in places that are “too much just for rich people, Mommy” (she’s fifteen).

Cheese tasting included two amazing samples from Bohemian Farms, one cow and one goat cheese, housemade almond butter that was the best I’ve ever tasted and beautiful preserved cherries. Perfect flavor profile.

The food was really, really good. The portions were really, really small (why some restauranteurs seem to feel these two need to go hand-in-hand is beyond me). The presentation was beautiful, the produce all organic, the dairy from local producers and clearly, they run a sustainable kitchen. While we were there, a couple came in with a crate and a huge plastic bag of produce and the chef came out to great them, obviously one of Local Corner’s suppliers and they genuinely seemed like friends, the three of them. Pretty cool! That felt distinctively “Mission”y- the whole urban farming, small producer, we’re all a family feeling.

Besides the plate above, we shared housemade whole grain sourdough bread served with creamery butter and apricot preserves, a delicious waffle, maybe the most delicious waffle I have ever eaten (and one of the smallest) with strawberries and whipped cream and a housemade syrup. But we still left without either of having the intention of returning.

I looked around at the other diners (at noon on a sunny Saturday the place was not full, not by a longshot). There was a middle-aged man dining alone, a young couple, and a couple of friends with a small baby, and us. I couldn’t help but wonder whether there was enough “wealth” in the neigbhorhood to sustain the place over time… enough single people who regularly treated themselves to an extravagant brunch, enough young couples who were still at that stage in their romance where one was trying to impress the other with his (or her) choice of dining venues, enough friends who could drop twenty dollars casually, like that.  And, in a way, I really hope the answer is “no”. Not that I want Local’s Corner to fail, I wouldn’t wish that on any entrepreneur, much less a food entrepreneur, being one myself. And just because I choose not to spend $40 on brunch for 2 doesn’t mean I begrudge others the experience. But the gentrification of the Mission is a touchy subject. And in order to support a place like Local’s Corner, my gut tells me that this inevitable process will need to either continue on pace or speed up. The problem is, gentrification is sort of like an avalanche- at some point the forces become overpowering and suffocate everything in their path, with just a lucky few surviving to dig themselves out. This is definitely not the future I hope for for my Mission.

Chef-curated market boxes- its the perfect answer to “What’s for dinner ?”

Here’s a perfectly-portioned solution to the age-old questions, “what’s for dinner?” brought to you by the Mission Community Market (MCM) and Good Eggs: the Chef’s Market Box. Each week, a different local chef will curate a box filled with the ingredients you’ll need to execute the unique, summer’s best recipe enclosed; inspired by the farms and produce at MCM. Chefs from Local: Mission Eatery, Radio Africa & Kitchen and 4505 Meats are recipes for first month. Best of all, you aren’t stuck with too much of an item, or weird veggies you don’t know exactly what to do with, which can be the case with some organic farm-to-home delivery services.

According to MCM, “Getting the box is a snap, from ordering to delivery. Each week, you can check out the recipe and order online through Good Eggs until Wednesday. On Thursday, the box will be packed and ready for delivery to your door, pickup at Mission Community Market (on Bartlett and 22nd Street) or three other pickup spots in the Mission and SOMA. Online, you can select fresh add-ons to your recipes, like locally-raised 4505 meats or pickles from Emmy’s Pickles and Jams, along with other offerings from the Mission Community Market”

Chef Des Voignes of Local Mission Eatery created the first recipe (last week) and this week Chef Eskender Aseged of Radio Africa & Kitchen in the Bayview is curating: Savory Vegetable Alicha with Couscous, which Chef Aseged describes as “a lively party of vegetables, seasoned with a delicious garlic-ginger vinaigrette and served over warm couscous”.

Your Market Box includes: The full recipe and all the ingredients you’ll need, cost $19, serves 2, or add the sausage $12/5-pack.

Ingredients: All produce is organic! Carrots, green beans, potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, lemon, shallots, garlic, ginger, parsley, turmeric, couscous.

Recipe summary: Preheat oven, blanch veggies until they’re tender, and prepare couscous. Once veggies are blanched, roast them in the oven for a few minutes. If adding sausage, cook in pan and slice. Prep dressing, remove veggies from oven, dress them and serve over couscous, adding in sausage if you’d like (available on-line as an add-on: Lamb Merguez Sausage: juicy, ridiculously flavorful and made in SF by 4505 Meats. Comes in packs of 5). Total time: 40 mins. (Full recipe included in box)
Next week’s box will feature 4505 Meats famed burger from Chef Ryan Farr.

“MCM and Good Eggs both share the goal of encouraging healthy eating and healthy communities, while supporting local farms and artisan food producers.
Good Eggs is a technology company whose mission is to grow and sustain local food systems worldwide, and is building an online marketplace for local food where people can discover the best goods close to home, and buy directly from the local farmers & foodmakers who create them”.

SoMa StrEat Food Park, SF’s first permanent food truck lot opens today

Carlos Muela knows a little something about what excites San Francisco diners. In 1994 Picaro, a café owned by his family since 1982, became San Francisco’s first tapas restaurant; a sister location, Esperpento, opened a few years later. Customers continue to flock to both locations, in no small part drawn by opportunity to try different dishes that comes with small-plate dining since. So it should be no surprise that Carlos is about to become the king of affordable variety dining with the grand opening, tomorrow, of San Francisco’s first permanent food truck lot (located at 428 11th Street), the SoMa StrEat Food Park.

Carlos says his idea, “to form a permanent street food pod came from the lack of opportunities and barriers current street food vendors in San Francisco face; inspired by existing permanent pods in other metropolitan cities”.

SoMa StrEat Food Park will be open 7 days a week for both lunch and dinner, so come treat yourself to some of the best food trucks that the Bay Area has to offer. SSFP will have up to ten food trucks for lunch and dinner services. The Park will include a covered seating pavilion for 100 people, free WiFi, a beer garden (once the permit process is completed), a projection screen for movie nights and sporting games and a unique setting for the San Francisco community. SoMa StrEat Food Park is a biker-friendly environment with plenty of on-site parking as well as free street parking for your car.

Here is a list of vendors for the opening (trucks will rotate, so you’ll be able to go back again and again, always finding something new). Follow SoMa StrEat Food Park on @SoMaStrEatFood to keep up with the rotation :

Curry Up Now – Inspired from street foods in India and Indian foods popular in other parts of the world.

Sunrise Deli - Serving the Bay Area’s best falafel and Middle Eastern food since 1984.

Slider Shack – Specializes in delicious sliders with an island flair.

Eire Trea – Born, raised and braised in Ireland and Eritrea, we have always had one thing in common: a love for wholesome, fresh and delicious food.

La Pastrami – Where you can get classic pastrami sandwiches and pastrami products with a twist.

Mr. Nice – Grills only the finest sausages and scoops only the best ice cream to order – while also offering vegetarian and vegan choices.

Mayo and Mustard – Offering delicious hot deli-style sandwiches to the Bay Area.

Garden Creamery – Dedicated to creating sustainable, locally-sourced, wholesome treats.

Golden Waffle – Serves the original Belgian sugar waffle.

TopShelf Boutique – San Francisco’s first-ever fashion truck offering what mainstream retailers cannot: handpicked inventory of women’s hip and unique pieces at affordable price points.

This week at Mission Community Market

Introducing: The Chef Market Box! Designed Meal Delivered!
Thanks to Good Eggs & Local: Mission Eatery

Don’t have time to come to MCM (today, Thursday between 4 and 7:30 on Bartlett St. at 22nd) or figure out which amazing produce to pick? What if San Francisco chefs picked out our freshest produce each week and created a market-inspired recipe for you? (They have!)

And what if MCM will arrange to deliver the recipe & all the ingredients so you can cook it up? (They will!)

And what if you could make it all happen right now? (You can!)

Order your Chef’s Market Box by noon Thursday and by 5pm Thursday have a package of the freshest ingredients, perfectly portioned for a delicious dinner.

Have it delivered to your door or pick up at any of four locations in the Mission or SOMA.

This week’s dinner: Farro with Roasted Summer Squash & Spring Onion, Spring Salad. Delivered by Good Eggs and designed by Chef Jake Des Voignes of Local: Mission Eatery!

At last: Wise Sons Jewish Deli

I had been trying to get in to Wise Sons since they moved into the Mission (on 24th at Shotwell) over 2 months ago, from their pop-up location. As a transplanted New York Jew, when I discovered them, I was instantly transported, so imagine my excitement when I saw they were moving into my Mission! First, they were under construction, then, they seemed to be baking and cooking, but not open. Then it was the Jewish holidays, so they were closed. Finally, last  week, the Jewish food gods were on my side! At 2:30 on a Tuesday, I went in for a late lunch. It was packed (with lots of people who did not look like Mission locals… this is a good and a bad thing, as those of us who live here know).  And after I ordered my sandwich, I totally understood why… a sandwich, just a sandwich, no beverage, no dessert was $10 and change with tax (well, it did come with a little container of truly delicious, crisp, bright coleslaw).  For many Mission-dwellers, this is a bit of a budgetary stretch, BUT….

Bialys

At first, I thought I was going to be disappointed, because I had order my sandwich on a bialy. Its almost impossible to find a bialy in San Francisco; this had been my standing order at the pop-up, a bialy with cream cheese and smoked salmon. No sooner had I placed my order than the baker came out to announce that there were “no more bialys today!”. Wise Sons bakes everything themselves, and offered to substitute rye bread. What could I say… BUT, biting into my smoked trout salad on that perfectly-baked rye bread, just crusty enough crust with perfectly soft bread, with that amazing smoked trout… well it was like heaven in every bite and worth the $10.

On another note, I looked up to see 3 vintage seltzer bottles on display, the kind they used to deliver to my house when I was a kid in New York in the 50′s. Turns out, you can get this seltzer on your table. I love that. I think next time, I’ll eat-in just for the experience of spritzing seltzer into my glass.

Here is Wise Son’s announcement for this week: “People have been asking for dinner service, and now we’re ready to deliver. Chef Thomas Martinez is joining the mishpucha at The Wise Sons to bring you very own shabbis dinner on Friday June 8th. Reservations will start at 6:30 with our last seating at 9:45. Please email your request to catering@wisesonsdeli.com including your time and table size as well as any dietary restrictions you and your guests may have. We will try to accommodate as many reservations as possible and we promise to host another dinner very soon”.

Tacos and Tecate to Take Down the Tea Party Ten

Here are the details:

The CREDO Action team is getting together with our friends at Netroots Nation and Daily Kos to throw a party in San Francisco’s Mission District. We invite you to join us to enjoy some tacos and Tecate, and also help us take down ten of the worst Tea Party Republicans in Congress.Tacos and Tecate to Take Down the Tea Party Ten
Thursday, May 31, 6-8 p.m.
2567 Mission Street (at 22nd) map
(Just two short blocks from 24th Street BART station)

Click here to RSVP.

Where to get your “brunch” a la Mexicana in and around San Francisco

It is customary to say “provecho” before starting a meal or when you enter a room where Mexicans are eating, or even if you pass a group taking their lunch break in front of a construction site (expect to win wide smiles with this one in San Francisco!); provecho, literally translated from Spanish, means “privilege”, and speaks volumes about the difference between a culture that lives with food security and one that does not. The very act of eating is considered a privilege in Mexico, certainly, that is not the case in most households in the US.

In the first part of this series, we looked at where to desayunar (eat an early, light breakfast in the Mission: cafe a la Mexicana and pan dulce or atole and a torta de tamal.)

Chiles Rellenos

Almuerzo is more a substantial morning meal which should not be confused our brunch (even though it is similarly eaten later than breakfast and earlier than lunch). While “brunch” is a combination of breakfast and lunch (and usually something in which Americans partake on the weekends), almuerzo is eaten in addition to a light breakfast or desayuno, especially if that desayuno was eaten early, let’s say at 7 am before the work day begins. Almuerzo is substantial meal, typically eaten sometime between 9 am and noon and may consist of egg or meat dish often made with tortillas and a salsa, such as chilaquiles, chiles rellenos or enchiladas, served with beans and coffee and/or Mexican Hot Chocolate and fresh fruit.

The word “enchilada” means “in chili”  and consists of a corn tortilla dipped in salsa (there’s your chili, in the salsa). Although you may think you have eaten this dish, authentic enchiladas differ from what is often served in the US, primarily in their texture. This is a time-sensitive dish, being that tortillas have a tendency to become spongy when left sitting in sauce. The “casseroles” that pass for enchiladas in many American restaurants and homes have lost thier consistency, as the entire enchilada sits in its salsa for hours, or even comes frozen that way. There are as many kinds of enchiladas as there are fillings and salsas.

Enchiladas

For enchiladas that are as authentic as you are going to find anywhere outside of your own kitchen (or ours at Tres Señoritas Gourmet Catering), try La Palma, at the corner of Florida and 24th St. This is the only place in San Francisco where they grind corn in-house to make their own masa, from which they make tortillas by hand (and by machine). Order your enchilada plate to go for under $10 and grab one the tables that have recently appeared on the sidewalk just outside, on Florida Street. If you are looking for a sit-down almuerzo and a four-star dining experience, Regalito’s  at 2481 18th St. at Valencia is your spot! “Brunch” is served Saturdays and Sundays from 11-3. For your almuerzo, choose from Enchiladas Rojas ($14), Enchiladas Verdes ($14) or Chiles Rellenos ($16).

Regalito’s Chef/owner Thomas Pena has the true soul of a Mexican jefe de la cosina and it comes through in every morsel, from the Chicharrones (twice cooked pork belly; slow-roasted then finished in the fryer) to the perfectly pickled peppers and carrots that accompany them. Not your run-of-the-mill pickled vegetables, these are just the right texture, not too soft and not too crisp, and just the right pickling mix was obviously used, neither too tart, too spicy or too bland, a real testatment to the care that goes into every detail at Regalito- the Gift of Mexican Cooking. The ambiance is homey and friendly, and “designed to encourage community between … kitchen and … guests. The kitchen is completely open, separated by a simple wooden diner counter.”

Chilaquiles

For the best chilaquiles you have to go to the East Bay, to El Huarache Azteca  in Oakland’s International Blvd. district (the Mission of the East Bay) at 38th St. Huarache, which also mean “sandals”  is an antojito so named because the masa is shaped into something very reminiscent of the sole of a shoe.  Chilaquiles are a traditional Mexican dish and a great way to use leftover tortillas, which are cut in quarters and lightly fried and then smothered in salsa and simmered just until the tortilla starts softening. The chips/salsa base is typically topped with eggs (scrambled or fried) or pulled chicken, queso fresco and crema, and served with refried beans. “Moreover, chilaquiles are often lauded as a cure for the common hangover; this is because in Mexico it is believed that spicy foods help in the recovery process from a hangover. This can be attributed to the body’s reaction to chemicals released (chiles contain the chemical capsaicin, a potent and well-documented pain reliever)”. (WIKI).