Rainy Day Diversions

Two storms down, three to go, according to the weather reports. Tomorrow is supposed to be the worst storm of the week, so I prepared for the worst and loaded up on groceries today.

Over the weekend, J and I shared a green tea latte at Cafe Bean across the street since it was too rainy to stray far. Cafe Bean has decent food, but the green tea latte is quite delicious. If I had an espresso machine, I would make this all the time.

Today, I finished another hat! It's fuzzy and blue, and just in time for the windy wet weather.

And finally, tonight's dinner. Not much cooking involved, but oh so tasty! Every California-raised kid likes chicken taquitos once in awhile. I balanced it with fresh salsa and guacamole and a nice big pile of baby carrots.

And for dessert, a big bowl of berries and blood oranges. That makes six colors today, just counting dinner.

Taqueria Vallarta

Aha, a photo found on my Blackberry from a few weeks back, taken at my new favorite taco joint in the Mission. The appeal of Taqueria Vallarta lies in the taco assembly area at the front of the store. There's always a person there grilling tortillas and scooping meat fresh off the grill as quick as he/she can. And, depending what day you go, there are half a dozen or a dozen meat choices. So far, the barbacoa (barbeque goat) with chipotle salsa is the best combination.

Two or three tacos is enough for a nice lunch, and after you're handed your plate you can dress the tacos with a choice of three salsas, onions, cilantro, radishes, and limes. At $1.50, nicely sized, and packed full of flavor, these tacos are hard to beat at even twice the price.

Tropisueno Happy Hour

Happy Hour with the happy couple! N&E swung up to the city with one of their groomsmen today, and we had a fun-filled city day. We had lunch at the Academy of Sciences, wandered the museum completely crowd free, had ice cream at Bi-Rite, and ended the evening with margaritas and happy hour snacks at Tropisueno. I'm really starting to dig Tropisueno's grub. If you're ever free between 4-6pm, swing in for a bite. And on certain days after 10pm, I think snacks are free!

El Tonayense

Mmmm....food off trucks. J and I were down near Best Buy again today, and we had to visit one of the most popular taco trucks in SF.

Does anyone know what "Tonayense" means? A quick Google search only turns up references to this San Francisco truck.

We shared a lengua taco, which was tender and delicious with a tangy sauce. Then we headed to Ceramic Tile Design, home to some of the most gorgeous tile displays I've ever seen. After a lot of technical decisions, looking at wall after wall of shiny colors was a real treat.

After we were done at the tile store we wandered back up to Polk Street to find J a barber, and we walked by this uni display at Swan Oyster Depot. It looked positively delicious! Too bad we did not get to stop in.

Tropisueno

More happy hour updates!

Tropisueno is one of newer restaurants along the revamped Yerba Buena Lane between Market and Mission Streets. Of of the handful of restaurants, it's the cheapest but maintains a chic, upscale vibe.

Happy hour specials take up two pages on the bar menu, but the highlights include $5 margaritas with two shots of El Jimador blanco and plenty of fresh lime juice, $3 beer, $2 taco truck style tacos, $3 fish tacos, and a bunch of other stuff we didn't order (fresh guac, salsa and chips, huge quesadillas, and more). The fish tacos were, hands down, the best I've had in SF and better than most in LA. I'm definitely going to be back for more (and for photos, naturally).

El Super Burrito

El Super Burrito is a fairly large taqueria smack on the corner of Sutter and Polk. I've passed by it almost every week but finally went in today.

J and I shared a shrimp cocktail ($10.99). It's not full of different kinds of seafood like the kinds in East LA, but there were plenty of shrimp in it and the shrimp they used were big and crunchy. The sauce itself was a little on the sweet side, but still pretty good.

I had a carne asada hard taco with rice and beans ($4.50). Pretty standard. Everything could have used a little more spice, but at that price I don't expect anyone to be carefully gauging the herb levels in my food.

J had a lengua (tongue) taco and a tripe taco. I hd a piece of the tongue and it was extremely tender. Again, these were very lightly spiced and could have used more seasoning. They were $2 each, which made me long for the days of $1 taco truck tacos in LA. But still, not bad at all.

We washed everything down with a large cup of cantaloupe agua fresca ($2.50). Nice bright fruit flavor, though I have no guarantee any fresh fruit was used. All in all a decent but not fantastic meal. El Super Burrito is fine, but I think I like the two smaller taquerias closer to our apartment better.

Olivos

Olivos has quickly become one of our favorite neighborhood spots. The restaurant isn't much to speak of, so we usually order take out, but today we headed back there with a camera to make sure Olivos gets its due.

The #1 thing to order there is the menudo. For about $10 you get more than a quart of rich, spiced (but not spicy), thick, slightly sticky soup with large chunks of tripe floating around in it. J likes to order it without the vegetables to make room for any pork hocks or extra offal the kitchen might feel like sparing. The menudo is served with a few lime wedged, chopped cilantro and onions, and two tortillas that you can either rip up and throw in the soup or use to wrap pieces of tripe. I think even people who don't like offal should try this soup. It's really meaty and delicious.

I always order two pupusas. It's hard to resist this much food for under $5. Today I picked cheese and pork pupusas, which are served with a side of Salvadorean cabbage slaw.

Olivos serves a wide array of Mexican food that you can find at Taquerias, but it bills itself as a Salvadorean restaurant and the pupusas are what people seem to go there for. There are other decent Taquerias in the area, so when we go we always get the menudo, pupusas, and get out for about $15 (sometimes with leftovers!). You can see why it's what we eat when we're feeling too lazy to cook.

Russian River Vacation: Day 4

Sadly, we couldn't stay on the Russian River forever. Sunday morning we checked out of the vacation house and caravaned south, stopping at Hartford Court and Iron Horse wineries along the way.

Here's a shot of the vineyards from the top of the hill at Iron Horse. Everyone loved the whites and bubblies here. I especially liked the wedding cuvee.

Continuing on, we stopped in Sebastopol for lunch at Martha's. The calamari appetizer was tasty! Bigger pieces than normal, nice and hot from the fryer.

The portions were enormous! Here's J's seafood burrito, which would have been enough for two or three of us to share.

I made the mistake of thinking I could finish a platter of food. Omg. I did not get very far into this carne asada and seafood enchilada combo, delicious as it was.

After that, it was back to SF. We took our tourists to Chrissy Field for some Golden Gate Bridge photo ops.

We did not make them walk up the stairs to the bridge entrance.

For the rest of the afternoon we completely forgot that we owned cameras. We went to Emporio Rulli for drinks and Shanghai House for dinner, and then got some desserts at Stella Pastry to take home. Yum! It's not every day I get to end the evening with a napoleon, sacripantina, and a tiramisu.

La Altena Taqueria

A flash from the past: this is one of the things we at this weekend. It's called a burrito mojado, and it's a super burrito drowned in red enchilada sauce,cheese, guacamole, and sour cream. It's definitely big enough to share, and it's a Mission taqueria standard.