Panchita's Restaurant No 2

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I was strolling down in the Mission running some errands and then I got swayed for a bit by the sound of a sizzling grill.  Yes, pupusas grilling on the sidewalk in front of Panchita's Restaurant.  It's just something you can't ignore.  It must be a relatively new thing because this is the first I've seen of it, but it's almost like the daytime bacon wrapped hot dog in the Mission.  The smell of the greasy griddle wafting in the air to me is like a moth to a flame.


Two pupusas for $5 with a good number of choices.  They are griddled fresh and then stuffed into a bag so you can eat on the go.

Curtido (Salvadorean slaw) is one of my favorite things about eating a pupusas.  The sidewalk pupusas give you a choice of stuffing your pupusa or grabbing a bag of it to go.  I love the crunchy, pickley vegetables almost more than I love the actual pupusas. 

My two choices were the bean and cheese and the pork and cheese.  The griddling gave the pupusas a crispy exterior, which was slightly greasy, but its to be expected.  Only gripe is there wasn't enough cheese.

Address:                Panchita's Restaurant No 2
                               3091 16th St.
                               San Francisco, CA
 

Type:                      Salvadorean

Popular chomps:    pupusas

Chomp worthy:       pupusas        

Specialty's Cafe & Bakery

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I think almost anyone who works/worked in Downtown SF has a special place in their heart for fresh baked Specialty's cookies.  Although its no Anthony's Cookies (see post HERE), its a great treat when you need a break at work.  There's probably five, if not more, within a two mile radius in the heart of downtown.

There are many cookies and sweets to choose from.  It's important that you ask if they just came out of the oven!  If they aren't freshly and I mean literally coming out of the oven, proceed to ask them when the next batch will come out and tell them you'll come back then.  The batches are baked fresh throughout the day and the wait for having a piping hot cookie fresh out of the oven is worth it and makes all the difference.

I like to keep it simple and go for the chocolate cookie.  Straight out of the oven, the cookie is warm and screams eat me now.

The warm cookie oozes chocolately goodness with a soft texture.

Address:                Specialty's Cafe & Bakery
                               150 Spear St.
                               San Francisco, CA 
 

Type:                      dessert/cafe

Popular chomps:    fresh baked cookies
                                brownies

Chomp worthy:       fresh baked cookies         

Martin's West Gastropub

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If you saw the menu for Martin's West, you wouldn't believe it was located in downtown Redwood City.  The food is a mix of pub food and culinary twists in a gastropub setting.  It reminds me of a mix of Monk's Kettle (see post HERE) and The Alembic (see post HERE), which is the kind of food I love to eat.  There were lots of interesting yummy options here that I'll have to work in a second visit. 

At first glance, it looks like a mini corndog, but actually its haggis on a stick.  Haggis is a Scottish dish made of sheep's stomach stuffed wtih offal (heart, liver, lungs, etc).  This one is hidden in a deep fried golden cornmeal batter.  That's how you hide something, Jessica Seinfield.

As goes without saying, everything fried always tastes good, but the haggis was seasoned well and flavorful.  There was no funky aftertaste from this haggis, which is common with many offal dishes.  So unnoticeable, I wouldn't be surprised if kids wanted this instead of chicken nuggets.

The Scotch egg was a lot smaller than I've had them before. 

 

The scotch egg here is sausage meat wrapped around a soft boiled quail egg then to top it all off - its deep fried.  So delicious and I wish more places served scotch eggs...

Of course, bone marrow is one of my favorite dishes, but at Martin's West its just a little above average.  A sparse amount of parsley leaves are sprinkled on top of the buttery bone marrow.  I did love the buttered mini toasts to spread the rich bone marrow on.

Mac and Cheese.  A little too al dente corkscrew pasta mixed with melted cheese and topped with a generous sprinkling of toasted bread crumbs.  The corkscrew pasta is a refreshing change from the usual elbow pasta and its nooks and crannies held the melted cheese well.

From left; clockwise:  smoked rabbit, spiced lamb, duck liver mousse, venison pistachio topped with housemade mustard, spicy pork salami.  The highlights were the spicy pork salami and the housemade mustard and pickled vegetables.  The others were more mild in flavor.

Address:               Martin's West Gastropub
                              831 Main Street
                              Redwood City, CA 
 

Type:                     gastropub/American

Popular chomps:   haggis on a stick
                              chacuterie
                              bone marrow
                              burger
                              scotch egg

Chomp worthy:     haggis on a stick
                              scotch egg         

Camp BBQ

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Camp BBQ is owned by the same owners as Genki Crepes and Genki Ramen, which is located down the street.  Its similar to Japanese style bbq restaurants, aka yakiniku, but actually has both Japanese and Korean flavors.  Since its indoor bbq, be warned that your clothes will smell so I suggest pulling out those clothes dedicated to eating at those spots.

Not sure how long the happy hour prices are going to last here since the restaurant just opened, but take advantage of it - especially the after 10p price specials since the restaurant is open till 1a on the weekends! 

The restaurant doesn't have many tables, but there are larger tables with two grills for larger parties.  Plus the tables are picnic style tables so they can seat more people.

Free pickled daikon, beansprout and cucumber salad with just a hint of spiciness for some premeal nibbling.  One of the few vegetable dishes of the night.

Dipping sauces from left to right: ponzu, vinegar, and gochujang (Korean spicy sauce).  Majority of the meat was well seasoned so the sauces aren't really necessary, but it was fun to mix the flavors, especially the vinegar.

The first meat of the night was the kobe style ox tongue.  Sprinkled with some garlic and green onions, the ox tongue was chewy and delicious.  They don't really give you any hints to how long to cook anything so there is a trial and error process of 1). questioning if its cooked, 2). taking a small bite, 3).  looking at the inside color, 4).  if its not cooked, throw it back on the grill and repeat step 1, otherwise continue to chomp away happily.  This seemed to be the pattern with every new meat plate that appeared on the table.  

The ox tail was probably one of my favorite meats of the night.  Once the edges starting curling up then flip over.  

Chicken with bits of garlic and garlic butter dipping sauce.  Originally I thought this would be the meat I would for sure overcook, but I'm pretty proud to say that even though the chicken was thinly sliced, every piece was juicy and tender.  It was recommended to dip the chicken in the melted garlic butter sauce, but I found it to be too greasy and preferred to dip it in the gochujang sauce.

The rib eye steak was cut a little too thick for my taste and hard to tell if the meat was cooked. 

Most of the vegetables were served in packets of foil to be barbecued on the grill.  The corn was actually kernels mixed with butter.  Nothing special here.

The spicy pork depending on how long you cooked it was pretty tender and juicy with a sweet and spicy sauce. 

The steamed buns are similar to the steamed buns for Peking duck.  Nothing out of the ordinary, but its a nice option to stuff different meats into the sweet bun.

 

Left to right: Pork belly with house made miso, salt and green onion pork cheek.  Two choices of sauces for the pork were: salt and green onion and house made miso sauce.  Both meats were juicy with fatty, mouthwatering flavors, especially the pork cheek (my #1 favorite meat of the night), which had the best fat marbling for full intense flavor.  Although the house made miso had a nice sweet, salty flavor, I think simplicity (salt and green onion) is best with these meats.  

I chose to save my bun for the pork belly.  The sweet bun was a nice compliment to the fatty pork belly.

The chip and dip was a nice filler and in between munchies between meats.  Deep fried pita bread are used as chips.  The dip is made of kim chee, pork, green onions, and mayo, but was more on the sweet side.

Beware when cooking the pork cheek and pork belly.  It seems as though all the fat from the pork causes the flame go crazy.  Its so bad that the servers quickly rushed to the table and pushed the meat to the side to subside the flames.  Apparently they really do have a close eye on the flames so you don't burn the place down.

Hawaiian pizza lovers take note  - one of the desserts here is grilled pineapple.  I'm not a fan of hot pineapple, but thought I would grill one for fun.

 

Grilling the pineapple seals in all the sweet juices so when you bite into the hot fruit all the juice just spills out. 

Whats a "camp bbq" without s'mores?  One dish is really only good for two portions so plan accordingly. 

 

Yum! S'mores.  Its been a while since I've eaten s'mores so I forgot how sticky melted marshmallow is, but still a perfectly sweet ending to a meal.

Address:                     Camp BBQ
                                    4014 Geary Blvd.
                                    San Francisco, CA
 

Type:                           Japanese/Korean/BBQ

Popular chomps:         pork belly
                                    pork cheek
                                    chip and dip
                                    grilled pineapple
                                    s'mores
                                    spicy pork
                                    kalbi
                                    garlic chicken
                                    kobe style ox tongue                                  

Chomp worthy:           pork belly
                                    pork cheek
                                    spicy pork
                                    kobe style ox tongue

Pig & Pie

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I almost walked pass Pig & Pie.  It looks like it used to be an old record store so look for the orange walls.  This made from scratch pie and sausage place that just opened up in the Mission.  Bonus points because on Friday and Saturdays it opens till 1a.  Many a night I've wished Rosamunde opened late like Top Dog (see post HERE).  Even though Rosamunde (see post HERE) is only a couple minutes, the Pig & Pie options are a different twist on a hot dog.  

So how else can you make hot dogs or sausages different?  Well, Pig & Pie actually makes their own buns.  Trays of hot dog bun molds are displayed around the shop.

There are four house made condiments to decorate your sausages with (from left to right): yellow mustard, spicy beer mustard, sriacha, and ketchup.  For sriacha lovers, their housemade sriacha is considerably tamer than commonly known rooster sriacha.

How genius to put a runny egg on a hot dog.  A runny egg always seem to make any dish in my book better.  The dog here is made with sage, ginger, and bacon pork sausage then topped with a fried runny egg and drizzled with their housemade sriacha.  The sausage is juicy and full of flavor.  I would have preferred the sriacha to be spicier though.  The homemade bun takes a while to get used to.  It has more of a crunchy, firmer texture versus the normal soft hot dog buns.  The bun does hold up well to the last bite, which is more than I can say for Rosamunde's dogs.

 

Mmm..runny egg.  Perfection.

The banh mi dog piqued my curiosity.  It smelled exactly as if I was opening up the wrapped of a banh mi.  The sausage is made with black pepper, garlic, pork, and pork skin.  Its topped with pickled daikon, carrot, jalapeno, cucumbers, cilantro, sriacha, and chicken liver pate.  Not exactly like a banh mi, but a pretty close homage to it.   

I've never been to Chicago so I can't tell how authentic it comes to a real Chicago dog, but it did have that sweet relish along with tomatoes, white onions, yellow mustard, and celery salt.  The sausage was juicy and flavorful, but out of all three sausages this was my least favorite. 

Not only does Pig & Pie make their own sausages and buns, but they make their own pies as well.  Its almost as if they were single handedly trying to take out both Mission Pie and Rosamunde (both within a couple minutes from Pig & Pie).  Thin slices of lemon were in every bite of the pie.  I loved how the lemon slices were slightly sweet, but still kept their pucker.  The crust was buttery, but not as flaky as I like.  I think I still prefer Mission Pie for the crust, but the filling at Pig & Pie shows some serious pie making skills.   

Address:                 Pie & Pie
                                2962 24th St.
                                San Francisco, CA
 

Type:                       desserts/hot dogs

Popular chomps:     banh mi hot dog
                                Chicago dog
                                 breakfast sausage
                                 bratwurst
                                 lemon shaker pie

Chomp worthy:       banh mi dog
                                 lemon shaker pie         

The Farmer's Wife

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The Marin Farmers market is located in the Civic Center area every Thursdays and Sundays 8a-1p.  Definitely a lot of familiar booths from previous farmer's markets I've visited like Roli Roti, but a lot of new discoveries for me as well.  The Farmer's Wife was a new one for me.  Its farm to table sandwiches made with everything from farm fresh eggs to organic sourdough.

Originally I had my eye on the fromage and pnk lady apple sandwich, but was swayed by the "best in show"sandwich.

Its made of farm fried egg, bacon, & blue, and Lyonnaise cheese grilled on organic sourdough.  A fried egg and grilled cheese on sourdough is hard to resist.  It came with a side of forgettable greens that was topped with cracked pepper.  The sandwich was also disappointing.  The bread wasn't toasted enough and lacked that grilled crunch so combined with the fried egg it just ended up being a soggy mess.        

Address:                     The Farmer's Wife
                                    Marin Farmer's Market 
                                    San Rafael, CA
  

Type:                           sandwiches

Popular chomps:         Triple T Egg
 

Chomp worthy:            none

AT&T park - ballpark food

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The Giants vs. Dodgers at the Giants ballpark is probably one of the more popular games of the season.  I'm not a super huge sports fan, but I am a fan of ballpark food. 

 

The view from the Clubhouse level.

You can't go to the Giants ballpark and not get garlic fries.  I've actually had garlic fries at other places including the Gilroy garlic festival and I think the garlic fries at the ballpark are the best.

The garlic fries are crispy at the ends and soft in the middle with a generous amount of minced garlic.  Super garlicy and addictive.

I almost missed this spot (its hiding in the corner in the Clubhouse level of the park). 

The nachos here are probably the best ballpark nachos Ive ever had.  Usually the nachos consist of just cheese, jalapenos, and salsa at best, but these came in a huge bowl with jalapenos, sour cream, olives, guacamole, and salsa.  The portion of grilled meat was generous and surprisingly really good.  It was cooked at a perfect medium rare and full of smokey flavor.

One of the most popular items at AT&T park is the cha cha bowl at Orlando's Caribbean BBQ.  Its located in the outside food court behind the bleachers.

The cha cha bowl is made of jerk chicken, rice, beans, shredded zucchini, and pineapple salsa.  Its not really spicy and has more of a sweet flavor.  You can add different sauces on top to spice up the bowl, like habanero and chipotle.  I've had the bowl before and I really liked it, but this time around I felt like the meat was a little dry.