Tommy's Joynt

Tommy's Joynt has been a favorite of ours since J's law school days. A huge plate of food for under $10 paired with cheap beer in a casual atmosphere is a big draw when you're a poor student!

Nowadays, the food is too heavy for us to eat regularly, but once in awhile we do fall prey to the allure of Tommy's hofbrau-style good eats. You stand in line cafeteria style, pick which slab of meat you want to eat by pointing to the guys manning the carving stations, then pay and find a seat. Remember to hit up the pickle bucket on your way to your table. Tommy's has perhaps the finest homemade pickles in San Francisco. Lightly brined, but not too salty and still crunchy and fresh.

I had a brisket plate, which happened to be a little high on the fat ratio but otherwise very tender. I like baked beans at Tommy's, and the other choices of sides are all fine though nothing special.

J had the ginormous turkey leg with stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy. I think we headed to the gym after this  meal, but it was last week so I forget. I sure hope we did!

Cafe Claude

Impromptu romantic dinners are a perk of living in SF. We're not much for prescribed nights out like Valentine's Day or even birthdays, but when the mood strikes us it's nice to have the entire city at our feet.

Tonight, J suggested we head to Cafe Claude in Claude Alley. The outdoor tables were all empty, but the alley was still charming with its dim lights and sidewalk umbrellas.

We shared a pate plate, which turned out to be quite a generous portion! Our favorite was the rabbit, which was very peppery. 

As the hungrier diner tonight, I ate the almond trout with string beans and potatoes in lemon butter sauce. Deliciously rich and tender, this filled me right up.

J kept it light and healthy with Cafe Claude's very popular endive salad. This salad might have just changed my mind forever! I've always thought endives were convenient scoop-shaped vegetables, but these were actually a flavorful salad green in their own right! They were crunchy and sweet, and paired nicely with bacon, tomatoes, and blue cheese. Total bill for our meal was just shy of $60. Not cheap, but not bad for a brief breath of civilization until our home comes together (fingers crossed; it should be soon!)

Sugar Cafe

Ever since it opened, Sugar Cafe has easily been the cutest cafe on the block. Hip, chic. and new, it is an internet cafe by day and a bar/lounge by night. What's really great though is that they roast their own coffee, and it's always been gosh darned good.

Lately, I've been going to Sugar Cafe to kill time while the contractors finish my apartment. I discovered that in addition to a good cup of joe, Sugar Cafe makes really good food! I've photographed here a slice of ginger cake and three muffins. The cake was moist and intensely gingery, and the muffins are generously sized. Last week I had a banana nut muffin topped with walnuts and a crunchy meringue/streusel, and it was exceptional. I might even way it's the best banana bread I've ever tasted! I liked it so much I bought a box of assorted muffins for my workers today. When the going gets tough, the tough bribe their contractors. After all, little sugar never slowed any project down!

Another day, I had a cheesy vegetable scramble because I needed to spend an entire morning at the cafe. I was very pleasantly surprised. Despite the cool vibe, Sugar Cafe serves some seriously homey grub! Maybe I just haven't cooked in too long, but it was so refreshing to eat a plate of food that tasted like home cooking rather than restaurant fare. Whoever cooks at Sugar Cafe is probably not a chef, but his/her friends probably love coming over for dinner.

Chabot Park Marksmanship Range

Everyone needs to get out of the city sometimes. This weekend, remodel-related issues drive us from our home and into the East Bay. Making lemonade out of lemons, we convinced a friend to take us rifle shooting. Chabot Park has a beautiful rifle and pistol range; much greener than the ranges in Los Angeles! I highly recommend this form of stress relief.

San Diego Wedding

Congratulations to J and D for tying the knot last weekend in beautiful, sunny San Diego!! It was really nice escaping from renovation misery and lounging around for a few days.

The wedding was at the Marine Room on the gorgeous shores of La Jolla. The restaurant is right up against the beach, with floor-to-ceiling,wall-to-wall windows that make you feel like you can reach out and touch the waves. The weather, of course cooperated. And the food was delicious! I think the crowd favorite was the smoked salmon appetizer: rolls of smoked salmon served atop lightly batter-fried avocados and what may have been an English muffin.

And for the main course, lobster! My friends are the BEST. How many people serve lobster entrees at their weddings? The lobster was tender and the sauce was lemony. I have nothing more to add.

Dessert was a trio: creme brulee, hibiscus lemon tart, and a port sorbet. The creme brulee was more like a hardened mousse, so it was the loser of the entire meal. It also didn't go with the other desserts, with were tart and refreshing. But two out of three ain't bad, and the presentation was delightful. I forgot to take pictures of the cake and boxed desserts, but it was very obvious that the couple of the day has bit sweet teeth! Thanks for throwing a lovely party, and best wishes on your new life together!

Home Messy Home

Ah, we're all moved in! Here's a very zen photo of our beautiful, sunny living room overlooking Union Square. 

Unfortunately our apartment no longer looks this beautiful and tidy. We've moved in, and along with us have come dozens of ugly boxes. But I will spare you those details; just admire the pretty floors and stay tunes for painted walls and more pictures!

Moving Day!!

Rule #1: stay hydrated, and bribe the movers. Hence, two cups of coffee today.

Purple Rug?

As you can imagine, it's been busy busy busy around here. We're really entering the home stretch on our remodel! Not to jinx anything, but I hope to be fewer than five posts away from a big reveal. In the meantime, how do people feel about traditional rugs? Remember, our apartment harkens from the 1920s, even if we've tried to update its interior. Then again, I do admit an affinity for purple so maybe I'm distracted by the fact that I found a relatively lovely, very well-priced rug that has purple in it. Vote away! I have to keep packing.

Here are some pictures of traditional rugs in modern rooms:

sample one
sample two
sample three

I'm not saying I'm in love with any of those interiors, but I think in concept a traditional rug and a simple Crate and Barrel style sofa can work together. Yes/no?

Also, shout out to my peeps in DC! Hang in there, there's snowhere to go but up! And if you're still stuck indoors, remember there's snowhere like home.

Bellissimo Pizza

Blogger continues to befuddle me. Stay tuned as I try to straighten out their ftp issues AND bring my remodel into its home stretch! It's going to be a busy week for me. Hence, relying on Bellissimo Pizza for dinner. Not a bad pie, I recommend it if you need delivery around Union Square!

Assembling a plate of noodles is easy!!

You take a plate of various sliced vegetables. In this case, I used carrots, cucumbers, onions, bean sprouts, and cilantro (not pictured)...

Cook a nice hearty sauce. Recipe forthcoming. Warning: it's a weird one!

Combine artfully on a plate with some cooked thick noodles and toss well before digging in! Now, for the sauce recipe, which for me yielded over a pint of sauce. That should be enough to feed four if not six. These noodles may look like jajang mien, but the flavor and ingredients are definitely not traditional yet surprisingly tasty. This recipe is born of my desperation to use up as many jars as possible before our move. I'd like to get a fresh start, instead of hanging on to things that have been lurking in my cupboards for two years. So here goes:

• 1/2 pound pork belly, diced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 medium zucchini, diced
• 1/2 bunch spinach (totally optional; I had some to use up)
• 1 tablespoon shrimp paste
• 1/2 cup hoisin sauce
• 1 dash cayenne, or more
• 1/2 cup rice wine
• 1-2 cups water

In a tablespoon of oil (I used duck fat; it's so handy to have some lying around!) sautee the onions and pork belly, adding the zucchini when the edges of the onion start to brown. Toss in the spinach if you had it, then add all the sauces and the cayenne. Stir well. Toss a little to toast the sauces, and when stuff starts sticking to the bottom of the pan add the rice wine and light everything on fire. I love a good cooking fire! Then, add the water and stir well.

Fair warning: at this point my sauce smelled pretty gross. Raw shrimp paste basically smells like the day-old bin at a bad fish market. I turned the flame down to a simmer and covered my pot, hoping for the best. An hour later, all the flavored had melded together and become something quite delicious! And the fat from the pork belly had helped thicken the sauce beautifully. A weird but thankfully delicious meal made from what was essentially kitchen scraps.

Le Creuset

*happy dance*

It's a good day. The hardwood is beautiful (though still being sanded), and they're starting on the cabinets tomorrow. But the big news today is my new Le Creuset!

Flame red, 2 3/4 quarts, round, and 50% off! Sometimes I catch really great deals at Williams-Sonoma. I've been wanting another smallish pot for awhile now, and now I have a great one! I used it to cook rice today, and it performed beautifully. It's going to be fun using an LC more regularly.

Edit: what the heck, blogger won't let me comment. Here's what I had to say.

Tuesday Morning and Marshall's often sell Le Creuset pieces, but a lot of their pieces are seconds. There's a way to identify seconds--Google it. Seconds are really cheap and still great for cooking, but often they are deemed to be seconds because the enamel wasn't applied 100% properly. Before this new purchase, I owned one second and one Williams-Sonoma piece, both several years old. The inside of the second is blackening much more quickly, and stains stick to the outside more. Something to keep in mind for those who care about appearance. I've never paid more than $100 for an LC, and this orange one was only $66, so I'll only be buying primo condition ones in the future. It pays to keep your eyes peeled; there was a forest green one left at the Union Square store when I left if anyone wants it!

And sadly, those aren't my new floors. I wish. We didn't move yet, those are the floors at our current rental apartment. Not bad, though! I like our management company a lot. They take good care of the place.

Farm:Table and Verve Coffee

I dragged my *** out of the house extra early today to check on our remodel and go to our new gym (!), so I rewarded myself with coffee.

New coffee shops have been popping up all over San Francisco, bringing with them selections from roasters previously unavailable in the city. Lately, the buzz seems to be all about Verve from Santa Cruz. I had a drink they've dubbed the tendernob, in honor of Farm:Table's location on the edge of the Tenderloin and Nob Hill. the tendernob is equal parts foamed milk and espresso--basically a cross between a macchiato and a cappuccino. It was intensely creamy, which speaks to the quality of the coffee as well as the skill of the barista. I'm very excited that there are now good whole coffee beans as well as a skilled barista in the neighborhood.

And now, dear readers, I hope you've also had your morning coffee. I need you to vote for your favorite hardwood color! The hardwood guys are currently sanding and polishing my floors, filling in the gaps and nail heads, and they'll soon be staining and glossing! Here you can see an area where they laid new hardwood in the corner and are planning to sand and stain it to match the old hardwood. Which stain should I choose? Remember, I'll be covering the whole floor and adding a high gloss, so it won't look quite the same.

Pork Leg Stew

Meltingly fatty, savory, and topped with cilantro and green onions. There aren't many comfort foods better than Chinese pork leg stew. This one was even better because I used pan drippings to cook the rice! That's "brown" rice even J enjoys eating.

Meltingly fatty, savory, and topped with cilantro and green onions. There aren't many comfort foods better than Chinese pork leg stew. This one was even better because I used pan drippings to cook the rice! That's "brown" rice even J enjoys eating.

For one pork leg, which should be enough to feed four if not more:

• 1 pork leg, bone in or boneless
• 1/4 cup rice wine
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 2 cups water
• 2 thick slices ginger
• 2 cloves star anise
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 3 green onions, sliced or diced however you like
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

In a pot just big enough to fit the pork, heat a tablespoon of oil and sear all sides of the meat over high heat. When the meat is browned on the outside and the pot is very hot, add the rice wine, tip the pot towards the flames of your stove, and watch out! It should spark a burst of flames for several seconds. Return the pot to the flame and add the soy sauce, water, ginger, star anise, onions, sugar, and white pepper. Bring to a boil, then turn the flame down and let the pork simmer for 1 1/2 hours or until fork tender.

Remove the meat from the flame and carve the meat off the bones. The pieces should be larger than bite-sized, and each piece of fat or skin should have lean meat attached to it. Meanwhile, remove the ginger and star anise from the liquid and turn the flame up to medium. Reduce the sauce to about 1/3 the original volume.

Return the meat to the sauce, add green onions, and serve when ready. Some people like the onions raw, some people like to cook it until soft. Serve over any kind of rice you wish, and sprinkle cilantro on top! Thai restaurants serve a similar stew with a little dish of fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, chilis, and finely chopped garlic. With or without the sauce, this is a hearty meal.

Bylaws and Leaseholds

Look what I got today! My own little piece of San Francisco history. My building manager dug this out of his files; it's the lease agreement from the very first time my apartment unit was sold in 1927! He says it sold for $2,500, which was a very pretty penny back then. Let's just say J and I paid more than that. Actually, we ran it through an inflation calculator, and we paid more than the $30,000 that that should be equivalent to in today's money. I guess real estate has really changed, eh?

I love this little extra piece of information about my place, and I also wonder what type of person bought it. I know it was a woman who was addressed as missus, so I'm wondering if the apartment was a pied-à-terre purchased by a doting husband, a small city dwelling for a lonely widow, or just the purchase of a rich and independent lady of means?

The book is filled with beautiful signatures from an era when people cared about penmanship, along with meticulous notes and corrections from the purchase negotiations, and fancy embossed notary seals. For a nerd, this is all pretty exciting. Also exciting: my floors were sanded today, and they might be polished by week's end! Things are really moving along.