Tribune Tavern

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Right below the historic Tribune tower lies the Tribune Tavern.  Dark and mysterious, but with some awesome outside and window seating, Tribune Tavern is great place to enjoy the upcoming warm summer nights.  Its best to come hungry with no plans to do anything after.  The food is heavy and filling, but exactly the type of menu when you think of a tavern.

Possibly the most generous amount of spreadable meats I've ever had.  The potted rabbit was creamy and delicious.  Even with a generous coating on each piece of toast, there was quite a bit of rabbit leftover.  A couple more slices of toast would have been perfect.

The grilled ox tongue was so tender it could melt in your mouth.  The sliced radishes brought some freshness and crunch to each bite.

The pork trotter and cheek fritter was kinda delicious.  Tender shreds of meat encased in a fried shell.   Its hard not to love anything fried.  The sprinkle of fava beans made you feel less guilty about eating something fried.

Chuck and brisket make this burger flavorful, but oddly it lacked any juiciness.  $2 extra for bacon, but at this point it was meat overload for me.  The fries were nice and crisp with a good amount of salt.

Its hard to find sheperd's pie in the Bay Area and Cheesecake Factory doesn't count.  Usually, I find that most are too salty or oily, but Tribune Tavern's was quite tasty.  Double meat filling made with lamb and braised beef .  I only wished the Parmesan mash had little more flavor and texture. 

Its a shame that TCHO chocolate was made into this pot de creme.  The marshmallow topping made it all too sweet and hard to enjoy the lovely TCHO chocolate. 

Address:                 Tribune Tavern
                                401 13th St.
                                Oakland, CA
 

Type:                       American/British/gastropub

Popular chomps:      guilty fries
                                  bangers and mash
                                  shepard's pie
                                  burger

Chomp worthy:         potted rabbit
                                  grilled ox tongue
                                  pork trotter and cheek fritter

Lovejoy's Tea Room

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Such a gorgeous day made it the perfect setting for tea time in San Francisco.  I rarely get to venture out to what I thought was a sleepy area of the city,but Lovejoy's was probably the busiest storefront in the whole neighborhood.  I highly recommend reservations here.  I've called a couple times for a reservation that same week only to find out the whole weekend has already been booked.  Having been to DarTealing (see post HERE), I was intrigued to see if this was better than the half filled DarTealing Lounge.     

On a sunny Saturday, the tea room was bustling with almost every table filled.  The decor here is a lot more cozy feeling than that of DarTealing.  Also, the neighborhood almost perfectly fits this type of establishment.  Similar to DarTealing and other tea rooms, tea service for both adults and children are popular here.

The tea selection isn't quite as varied as that of DarTealing, but they do cover the basics (green/black/roobios) as well as some of the fruit flavors.  I found that they have a wider range of decaffeinated teas so this could be a more viable option for baby showers.  I didn't stray too far from the traditional this time.  Just a pot of the Tea Room Blend (blend of Assam and East Africa black tea) and a pot of Apricot tea( ceylon black tea and pieces of dried apricot).  The Tea Room blend with a dash of milk and a sprinkle of sugar was subtle and worked nicely with the tea service.  The apricot was a bit too fruity for my taste, but it did have a true apricot flavor. 

The options for tea service can get confusing.  I chose the high tea option, which includes a choice of two sandwiches, coleslaw, organic spring greens, a scone, preserves, devon cream, and a shortbread tea biscuit.  This is per person so for two people, you will get a choice of 4 types of sandwiches.  

My tea service didn't come with crumpets so I added an order which included two crumpets and a side of lemon curd.  The lemon curd wasn't very creamy, but the lemon had more lemon flavor than the lemon curd I had at DarTealing.  Since the crumpets come out warm, they are usually the first thing I nibble on.  These were too soft and didn't have a nice crunchy top.  DarTealing wins on the crumpets against Lovejoy, but the lemon curd is better here. 

The currant scones here are soft, fluffy, and warm.  The preserves are nothing special here and I actually prefer the devon cream to spread on my scone.

Lovejoy has 16 sandwich choices to choose from as well as a daily special, which was curry chicken.  The green apple and cream cheese sandwich (left) had a nice crunch from the thin slices of apple, but didn't have that tartness of green apple that I expected.  The smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich (right) was more smoke salmon than cream cheese, which is not a bad thing at all.  It was probably one of my favorite sandwiches of the meal, but you can never go wrong with smoked salmon in my book.

Of course, I had to go traditional with the cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches (left).  They were okay, but I think I prefer the flavor of the ones I had at DarTealing.  The curry chicken sandwich (right) was just okay as well.  The curry flavor wasn't very strong and there were too many raisins in the sandwich.

The tea biscuit cookies were soft and buttery.

At the end of the meal, they bring around a tray of even more sweets.

Chocolate covered rice crispy treats (left) and a white chocolate covered brownie (right) were the two that stood out to me.  Both were average and nothing special.  The brownie bite was a bit too dry, but both were a fun way to end the meal.  Overall, the atmosphere at Lovejoy is much better than that at DarTealing, but the sandwiches, crumpets, and tea selection is better at DarTealing.

       

Address:                    Lovejoy's Tea Room
                                 1351 Church St.
                                 San Francisco, CA  
 

Type:                         British/tea room

Popular chomps:        cucumber sandwiches
                                  smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches

Chomp worthy:          smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches    

DarTealing Lounge

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Tea rooms bring out the little girl in all of us.  (FYI- there are boys here as well, but I think every boy has been forced into playing house or tea party at one time in his life.)  With our pinkies in the air, its a time where we can all dress up and sip tea and play tea party and gossip with our friends.

The tea flavors here range from the traditional Earl Grey to the intriguing coconut flavored tea. 

They even serve PB&J sandwiches with hot cocoa for the little kids.

The teasets are mismatched in a cute Mad Hatter type of way.  I had to go with a traditional Earl Grey and a funky one just for fun - Pear with Eternity tea (pear and rooibos). 

You absolutely need a tea strainer here since the leaves are quite large and annoying float out of the spout.  The Earl Grey was as an Earl Grey should be, light and earthy.  The pear tea was subtly sweet, but still refreshing.

I don't normally take sugar and milk in my tea, but at tea parties its almost a requirement with your Earl Grey.

DarTeaLing offers a couple of different options of tea service and you can add additional tea pots or extra dishes.  The Taste-Tea Service for Two ($34) comes with 8 sandwiches, scones, cookies, sausage rolls, tea loafs, and petite fours.  This tea service lets you pick two flavors of sandwiches.  I kept it traditional with chicken curry and cucumber and fresh herbs.  The tea sandwiches were properly petite, but gave you enough bites to feel satisfied.  The thinly sliced cucumber sandwich with herbs and cream were delightfully delicious.  The chicken curry sandwich had a good curry flavor.  I'm not a scone person, but the scones were fluffy and tasted good with a layer of the cream and fruit jam.  The petite fours, on the other hand, were too sweet with an overpowering almond flavor.  I regretted the one bite of cookie that I had.  Yuck.   

They had two options for biscuit spreads:  fruit jam and lemon curd.  The fruit jam by itself was just ok and worked much better alongside the cream.  The lemon curd lacked any tart flavor and was a bit too creamy.

A cousin of the English muffin, crumpets are a mainstays at proper tea parties, but this one was didn't come with our tea service and was ordered separately.  Paired with a whiskey marmalade, these biscuits have the perfect nooks and crannys for a thin layer of spread that compliments the crunchiness of the crumpet. 

The sausage biscuit was one of the few savory items on the plate.  A flaky pastry wrapped around a juicy meatball.

Address:                 DarTealing Lounge
                                470 3rd St.
                                San Francisco, CA 
 

Type:                       tea/British

Popular chomps:     egg salad w/bacon
                                 cucumber sandwich

Chomp worthy:        cucumber sandwich
                                 chicken curry sandwich   
                                  crumpets
                                   

The Codmother Fish & Chips

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Who knew you could actually get something other than chain restaurant food or super touristy food in Fisherman's Wharf?  This fish and chips is a stationed food truck that's actually run by real British people.

A pretty basic menu offering mostly fried fish and chips (fries). 

I had been pigging out earlier in the day so I decided on the "junior" sized fish and chips.  They fry to order so you might have to wait a while for your order.  I've had "British style" fish and chips in London a couple years back and the batter is really similar here.  The batter here is thick so it creates a harder shell around teh fish.  Also, a unique feature about The Codmother is the batter is slightly peppery.  The fries are really potatoey so it's more soft than crispy.  The homemade baja sauce is .75 extra and I recommend getting that and using it as a dip for your fish and chips.  I'm not sure whats in it.  I want to say it has taco seasoning and maybe some mayo and some tartar sauce.  I think the sauce is what makes the fish & chips here.  Overall, it's pretty good, but I still prefer the fish & chips at Cook's  in Menlo Park  (see post HERE )

Address:                        The Codmother Fish and Chips
                                              2824 Jones St.
                                              San Francisco, CA

Type:                                 British/seafood/casual

Popular chomps:     fish & chips
                                                crazy fries
                                                baja sauce

Chomp worthy:          fish & chips
                                                 baja sauce