FABLE IN THE CASTRO....A RESTAURANT TALE THAT'S OFT TOLD IN SAN FRANCISCO

Yes, it's relatively new restaurant time. My latest foray took me and a friend to a new place in the Castro called Fable.

Located in the now defunct Luna space, they haven't changed the awkward entrance set up as the bar/kitchen is still upfront with tables behind that and then, an as yet, used back patio. The server mentioned they will be opening it soon (probably already) and start serving brunch, because, well you can't be a restaurant in the Castro without doing brunch. Reading through the brief but focused menu, I'll be honest, I feel like I've seen it before at a number of places in town that serve what you might call "American Fare". Some salad apps, you standard main dishes (a fish, a chicken, a pork, a vegetarian, etc.) and some sides. While this seems to be the menu of the moment, it always comes down to how they execute. We decided to forgo the usual appetizer route and get one of the sides to start--the mac and cheese.

Sadly, I'm going to say the first thing that struck me about this dish was the size. At $8 a pop for a side I personally expect something just a bit more substantial. Even though you can't tell from the picture, this dish was roughly the size of my hand and basically about 4 small spoon bites. For that it needed to be fantastic bites, but it was not. It was bits of bacon, tomato, cheddar cheese and bake bread crumbs on top. It needed more cheese because it was a bit watery which I think was a result of the tomatoes in it adding extra liquid into the mix. But beyond that, there wasn't much flavor there, it was all pretty basic and didn't really wow us, even with the bacon. To recap, too small, too watery, too pricey. 

For my main I picked the brined and grilled pork chop with cider honey glaze, a black-eyed pea cake, pecans, braised collard greens and a spicy chile-vinegar dipping sauce. The pork was a good size and well cooked. Juicy, tender and nicely flavored, though I didn't taste the glaze, I think they were a little light on the application, but the natural flavor of the chop was tasty. I liked the idea and execution of the black-eyed pea cake. A nice little crust on the outside, seasoned just enough, a good way to eat your vegetable. The greens however, were overcooked, bitter and pretty much inedible. The chile-vinegar sauce was tongue burning hot and pretty much overwhelmed anything you dipped in it, including the bitter greens. Thus I'm not sure why it was even on the plate since using it would burn you taste buds off. The chop and pea cake are good so if someone there can learn to cook greens and loose the sauce this would be a great plate. 

When we sat at the bar there was a lovely frosted cake just in front of us so yes I was going to have dessert. And what luck, it's a red velvet cake. Now this was not the traditional cream cheese frosted cake but a low-key sweet buttercream frosting red velvet. And it works. It's was not an overly sweet frosting so you don't get that sugar shock like some cakes. The moist soft layers had that nice chocolate flavor (since it is chocolate cake with red food coloring) and I really liked this version of the classic cake. It came with some blueberries that had a lemon citrus drizzle on them and here again I couldn't understand why they were there as they didn't really go with the cake or even need to be there. I'd say just cut a slightly larger slice and leave off the fruit--the cake works wonderfully all on its on. 

Fable is a slightly different tale of a familiar restaurant theme in San Francisco. There are some big hits and some big misses here, but that's to be expected from a restaurant that's still finding it's story after being open only a few months. Be that as it may, it's great to have a new dining place in the Castro that shows signs of tastiness and of course a guilty dessert. 

PICA PICA MAIZE KITCHEN VENEZUELAN FOOD BEST SERVED HOT OFF THE GRILL

Pica Pica has had a location in the Mission for some time now and every time I go by the place I always say, I need to try them sometime. But, alas, my procrastination gets the best of me and I never quite make it. Then they decided to open a location in the Castro and fortunately for me, a friend of mine who lives near there wanted to grab a bite one night so I told her to meet me there. Tucked just off Market and Castro street and around the corner on 17th, if I hadn't been looking for it I probably would have missed it. Going inside it's a cute little bi-level place and since we are the only folks here (we are like blue plate special early) we decide to just sit upstairs and look down on everything, plus it makes a better picture. 

We are both pretty hungry but decide we want to try a few dishes so we pick 3 that we can split. 

First up are the empanadas. You can choose any variation of 3 with either cheese or beef. We get one cheese and 2 beef. They are 3 warm little puff pockets of deep fried dough freshly made, cooked and brought to the table. By themselves they are quite tasty. The beef is tender and juicy and the queso fresco is appropriately gooey melty. It comes with a side of guacamole, which of course I passed on, but there are also 3 dipping sauces, which the waiter whipped through so quickly I didn't quite catch what he said. Thus here's my taste bud opinion of them. The first was brownish yellow and tasted like a spicy mustard, and when I say spicy I mean hot pepper spicy to the point where it pretty killed the flavor of anything it touched. Next was a sweet barbecue like sauce with the consistency of ketchup and it went okay with the beef. Then was a mayo like sauce with a mix of herby spices like oregano, parsley, basil, cilantro and some other things that I actually kind of liked and it went well with the cheese. Overall we really liked these small bites. 

Next we had an arepa, basically a grilled pocket sandwich made of white corn (you can also get one made with yellow corn). For the filling we chose the pulled pork with sliced tomato and avocado. It comes with a side of slaw and some taro chips. Before I go further I have to mention one service problem we had. We placed our order for all our items at once but told the server one was an appetizer and we would share the other two. While the empanadas came quickly, sadly the other 2 dishes were quite close behind even though we had barely started our app. It would have been nice of him to have spread them out a little but he didn't and sadly they got a bit room temperature cold, which didn't necessarily serve either of the dishes all that well. For the bits and pieces of the arepa, the pork was tender if a bit plain. The tomatoes and avocado were fresh but the otherwise it lacked a lot of flavor. There was supposed to be a garlic type mayo on here but there was so little of it the whole thing came out a little dry. The slaw was a decent vinegary thing which added some nice texture and crunch like the taro chips, but again not much in the way of flavor. I probably should have kept some of the previous dipping sauces but they had already been whisked away. 

For our third choice we got the cachapa, a yellow sweet corn crepe with our choice of filling--chicken--to which they then added guacamole, sliced tomatoes (again!) and crumbled queso fresco. Along with a side of black beans and a standard salad of mixed greens, sliced tomatoes and thin strips of taro chips. Sadly this dish really suffered from having sat while we finished our previous dishes. The crepe got very mushy and kind of gummy, like corn bread that hasn't quite finished cooking yet. Add that mush to the chicken mush and the guac mush and it's all a big dish of mush. Plus all three of the items on this plate suffered the where's the spice at problem the previous dish did. While everything was cooked decently that just didn't have a lot of taste to them. Well, except for the overriding sweetness of the corn in the crepe. Everything could have used some salt and pepper and anything really to just liven it up. 

While I can appreciate their use of farm fresh ingredients, I guess I just expected, or wished, the stuff had more taste to it and wasn't so....not bland, but just ordinary. That and of course getting it in a more timely manner so that the dishes were fresh off the grill. They managed to pull these things off with the empanada appetizers and their dipping sauces so they should be able to apply it to the rest of their dishes. At least one can hope for that.

CINECITTA...OLD SCHOOL TRADITIONAL ITALIAN PIZZA IN NORTH BEACH

What is it they say, "the best laid plans of mice and men...something..something...something." That's the way it was one Saturday night when the SO and I went to North Beach in search of pizza. Originally I had my eye on Tony's Neapolitan, but ugh, the hostess said the wait was 90 minutes! Are you kidding me! Just as well, the place was packed with tourists...and kids. We turned around in search of another place. About a block or so down, just across Columbus Avenue was a tiny narrow place called Cinecitta.

                      

Walking in, it did kind of remind me of the neighborhood joints I dined at when in Italy. There was only one other couple there so we seated ourselves and were greeted by the lady who actually owned the place. She was very lovely and while chatting she said she still had family in Italy and they had a large farm and that is where she got all her flour and yeast from. She gets a shipment every month along with some olive oil. Hey, if you can, why not? Keeping that in mind we decided to go with the fresh oven baked stuff and ordered a calzone and a pizza.

 

The calzone was filled with ham, ricotta cheese and fresh tomato sauce. It was piping hot out of the oven and this is more Old World Italian traditional. The crust was thin and crispy with perfect little crinkles along the edges. It reminded me of the fried pies my grandmother used to make. We both really liked this. It was drizzled with olive oil and covered in freshly grated parmesan. It comes with a mixed greens and carrot salad that is lightly dressed with olive oil and salt. In essence a simple dish and in reality a very tasty one. The same can mostly be said for the pizza. 

The pizza bella--pancetta, spinach, mascarpone cheese, goat cheese and mozzarella. Again with a nice thin crispy crust that reminds me of a saltine cracker, which is a good thing in my book. I liked the mix of cheeses on here, a nice blend of creamy and slightly aged. Two dings though, the spinach didn't taste exactly fresh and so we picked that off and the pizza finished cooking before the calzone but she didn't immediately bring it out, she waited till both were done. Because it sat for a bit, when you got toward the middle the crust wasn't crispy like the outside edge. Both minor things in my book since the overall taste and quality of the pizza were great. I'll even go so far as to say some of the best I've had in this city, North Beach included.  

As with any city, there are always a number of restaurants that seem to get all the press and attract the big crowds which can irritate locals to no end. Then there are the small spots which don't seem to get all the hype but are totally worth making the trip to and this is one of those places. I almost wonder why more people aren't going here and why it wasn't packed on a Saturday night. Then again, as a local, I'm slightly happy about that because now it will be on my list of places to safely go without having to wait and I can take friends there when they come to visit. If you want some really good traditional Italian thin crust pizza made with flour and yeast directly from Italy then check Cinecitta out. But let's just keep it between us, okay?

KILLED BY DESSERT EVENT...A PRETTY ACCURATE DESCRIPTION

Pastry chefs from some of the best eating places in San Francisco got together Saturday for a charity bake sale called Killed By Dessert. Proceeds raised go toward No Kid Hungry, which is both great and slightly odd at the same time as we would be gorging ourselves on sweets and stuff in order to help feed the hungry, but I went with it anyway. Held at the San Francisco Cooking School when I arrived there was already a line formed to get in. Fortunately I was early enough that the line wasn't too long and I didn't have to wait too long before getting in. Once you get in you get boxes to put your choices in but there was no place to sit and try it out, it was strictly cash (or credit) and carry. Here's the line up:

· Christina Tosi, Momofuku Milk Bar (NYC) compost cookies, cornflake cookies, blueberry & cream cookies, crack pie by the slice

· Bill Corbett, The Absinthe Group: A pretzel croissant and a porcini marshmallow meringue with roasted white chocolate ganache and an oatmeal crust, all blowtorched for a campfire taste.

· Shawn Gawle, Saison: Craquelins, caneles, and caramelized cocoa nib & sesame financiers

· Lincoln Carson, the Mina Group: Two times twisted vanilla brioche: version one with vanilla, bourbon and cardamom or version two with bacon, sage, and smoked pepper

· Nicole Krasinski, State Bird Provisions: Black sesame-walnut chocoyaki with roasted strawberries

· Melissa Chou, Aziza: An entremet of black currant, vanilla, hazelnut, and fennel

· Stephanie Prida, Manresa: Laminated brioche and Nutella

· Matt Tinder, Coi: Bittersweet bread with yuzu and chocolate

After circling the tables twice and agonizing on what to spend my money on, here is what I got:

Brioche really seemed to be the order of the day, but I've always been ambivalent about it. Too crunchy, not served warm, burnt sugar, too hard and crusty on the bottom---I could go on. It's why I skipped a few places and only got 2 kinds that offered something different than the usual baked bread. Herewith then a basic breakdown of what I got and what I thought in order of picture appearance.

Salted brioche with pate noisette spread from Manresa--the brioche was small and basic, here it was about the spread which was like a salty nutella crossed with a chocolate mousse. Liked it, could have just eaten the spread by itself.

Bitter sweet bread from Coi. Not a big fan. The bread part was light and fluffy, but the yuzu was so bitter tasting you couldn't taste the sweet or the chocolate. Maybe I'll revisit it and try with butter.

From Momofuku/Milk Bar of NYC the cornflake marshmallow chocolate chip was good if a little to gooey chewy. The compost cookie didn't like, too much of a burnt coffee flavor for me. The blueberry cream cookie really enjoyed. The crack pie, like a salty sweet chess pie, was good also, though for some it will be too sweet and eating it all in one sitting could be a bit much.

The bacon brioche from Mina was delicious. The right combination of bacon and light sweetness, I like this more than I thought I would. Point of note I took this home and heated it up slightly in the toaster oven and I think that made it even better for me.

Focaccia bread with pecorino and prosciutto from Delfina was buttery cheesy goodness. The outside crust was crunchy the inside bread was airy and light. I could eat this every day.

The B. Patisserie kougin amann I've had before and loved it. Here she added a berry compote inside and made it even better. Again I did the heating it up thing and I think it made it tastier.

Finally from Absinthe was the roasted white chocolate on an oatmeal crust with a meringue marshmallow topping. On first bite it's like, hmmm, it's okay, but it took a couple more bits to actually like and appreciate it. The flavors were different but it weirdly tasted better the more you ate it. Hard to explain. Though the more you eat, the more you do taste the coconut in the crust.

While all these treats didn't kill me, I will have to add a few extra miles to the exercise routine this week to work off some excess calories. Overall this was a great bake sale for a good cause. Hopefully next year they could get a slightly bigger space and give folks a place to sit and enjoy the treats in the moment, especially since the success of this first event will no doubt lead to bigger and better ones in this town of foodie fanatics. 

SIFT CUPCAKE AND DESSERT BAR...THIS ISN'T HELPING KEEP CUPCAKES POPULAR

I feel like I've pretty much established how much I like, no love, cupcakes. I'm always on a quest to try them wherever they pop up. Some have the folly to say the fad is over and it's all about donuts now, and while they are good, they are not the small servings of cake and icing that bring me small moments of sugary joy. That's what brought me to Sift Cupcake + Dessert Bar. This is their fourth location and they won an episode of Cupcake Wars on the Food Network so I took my high hopes to their shop to try 'em out. 

It's a cute little shop just off Fillmore with some tables out front to sit, a sitting bar around the wall and a case full of cupcakes and sweet confections. After looking at the choices I decided to go with the Battle Royale, which was a winner on Cupcake Wars and the Knock Your Sox Off. 

Battle Royale is an almond cake with a blueberry tequila filling and acai berry cream cheese frosting. Knock Your Sox Off is a variation of a Boston Creme Pie, vanilla cake with Bavarian cream filling dipped in chocolate ganache for a topping. Above is a shot of them whole and then halved for the filling. Let's start with the good--the acai berry cream cheese frosting was tasty. It was thick and creamy and not achingly sweet, though it tasted more like raspberry to me than acai berry, but maybe that was just my taste buds. Unfortunately, it saddens me to say that was all there was good about both these cupcakes. The cake part of both cupcakes was too sticky, usually this is a sign of too much sugar and not enough baking time. The cake stuck to my fork like glue. You could also roll the cake into little sticky balls of dough, not appetizing. Plus if that was almond cake you couldn't taste it, it was more like a plain yellow cake. The blueberry tequila filling? You couldn't taste the tequila at all and the blueberry was barely detectable either. And yes while the frosting was good it was pretty much the only thing you could taste--it did overwhelm any other flavors that may have been present. The Bavarian cream was bland and barely a tablespoon if that. The ganache was like a bitter shell of chocolate that didn't help matters either. If these were Cupcake Wars winners they haven't done a very good job of recreating them here as the different flavors on both of these didn't not mix or compliment each other in the least. 

Disappointment, they name is Sift and they haven't helped further the cupcake cause for me. Still I saw they had other things to offer and I truly wanted to give them another chance and went back to the dessert case and chose the Awe Snap whoopie cookie. 

Housemade chewy ginger snap cookies with a lemon buttercream filling. The idea of it sounded great, the execution of it, however, not so much. Among the problems with this was it was WAY TOO SWEET. And if I'm saying it was sweet, then it truly was. The cookie was definitely chewy, if a bit too much. It was more overly moist mushy when it probably would have been better served to a regular crunchy ginger snap. But because the filling was overboard on both sugar and lemon flavor you couldn't taste the ginger in the cookie at all. The whole experience was more akin to eating a lemon flavored cube of sugar paste. Teeth achingly, headache inducingly sweet. That makes me 0 for 3 with Sift and I will be writing them off as a place I won't return to. 

Maybe I caught them on a bad day and whoever did the baking put a little of this and not enough of that in the recipes causing them to slide to the too sweet to eat side for me. Though if you have four locations you'd think there would be a little more consistency. I'd hate to think this is the way they really want them to be. If sweet to the sweetest is you thing, then by all means head on down. If you like a little more balance to your flavors, however, I say seek your sweet treats elsewhere because there are plenty to go around in this town. 

CITIZEN'S BAND A GOOD FOOD FREQUENCY

Another Saturday night and, well, I got somebody, but we ain't got reservations anywhere. Saturday night dinner out can be just like brunch on Sunday in this town--you either have your name in somewhere or you better be prepared to wait because it seems everyone is out eating at the place you probably want to go. As it was for me and the SO when we just decided at the last minute to go out and grab a bite. I'm running through some places in my head that are in SOMA and remember Citizen's Band. It's been kicking around for a few years and I vaguely remembering going there some time ago but didn't remember much, besides the "decor".

It's a tiny place, sort of like a diner with a whole wall of postcards as decoration. And one interesting note, it shares a bathroom with the club next door which opened while we were there and the steady thump, thump, thump came through the door every time someone went to the toilet. The place was full when we arrived but we didn't have to really wait as the hostess offered us two little seats in the window by the front door if we didn't mind. Seeing as how we just showed up here we went with it. The menu is like upscale home-style food with the chef's twist on them. California diner comfort food you could say. I see a lot of tasty sounding things to try but it's the poutine that gets me to order it. 

House cut kennebec french fries, mushroom gravy, slow cooked pork belly, cheese curds and grana padano shredded over the top. Poutine seems to be a new hot dish in San Francisco, or at least getting plenty of notice lately as this article suggests. And I have to say this is now one of my favorite dishes in town. Fries, gravy, cheese and bacon??!! How could this not be good? Okay, so you can f-up any dish but here they have done this spectacularly. I loved everything about this dish. The fries were thick, hot and crisp. The  hearty mushroom gravy had a nice earthy flavor and they put just enough for the fries without making them soggy. I really enjoyed the pork belly--slow-cooked and tender with just a bit of crisp on the outside--it melted in your mouth--mmmm. The cheese curd and parmesan had just enough bite to offset and mix well with the other ingredients. Individually these bits were delicious and together even better. If nothing else--go here and get this dish. There was still the entree to go. 

Keeping the pig theme, I got the pork chop served with yukon gold potatoes, butternut squash, white turnip, smoked bacon and shaved brussels sprouts. As you can see this is a pretty big dish. You get a boneless pork chop plus a slow smoked baby back rib with South Carolina barbecue sauce. The pork was nicely cooked and tender as was the rib. They had a slight mustardy minimally sweet glaze on them that honestly didn't add much. Maybe if there was more of it it would have had an impact but here it didn't. Still the meat was decent, the rib slightly on the overcooked side. Maybe the sauce could have helped flavor it up? Not sure, I just felt they needed something more. I liked the rustic root vegetable array. They were on the right side of doneness and still had a little crunch and not mushy. The natural au jus made from the pork drippings added some good smoky salty flavor to the veggies also. Maybe I was still taste-blinded by the poutine. Who knows. I thought this was just okay and like one of the 6 basic dishes you can get at any restaurant like this in San Francisco. (You know, a chicken dish, pork chop, fish, burger, a steak and some vegetarian thing). All good but, not distinguishable from the same dish at another place in town. 

By this point, and a couple glasses of wine and the thump, thump of dance music from next door me and the SO were full so we decided to skip dessert. Which is how I'm trying to remember it, because looking back at the menu now, I should have gotten one of them. The mousse cake and butterscotch/chocolate pudding thing sound scrumptious. But that just makes me want to go back to get the poutine again as my entree and then have dessert. Yes, that's my plan and I'm sticking to it. 

GLAZE TERIYAKI GRILL....IT'S KIND OF JUST A HIPSTER RICE PLATE PLACE

On a recent weekday afternoon I found myself on Fillmore amongst their many shops and restaurants and decided to give Bun Mee a try, having heard many good things about it. Sadly, the place was PACKED! I think my comment when I walked in the door was, oh hell no, or something like that. So I stood on the corner and looked around and saw this place called Glaze Teriyaki Grill. It's a new place I vaguely remember seeing mentioned in several foodie places online. In fact, this was their first day open and I thought, what better time to try a new place!

It's a decent sized place inside with tables down the left and the kitchen down the right. Plus as a bonus they have a small patio area out back for those rare sunny days in San Francisco. It is enclosed so the wind is at a minimum, but they will probably need to get heat lamps eventually. So I got in a line of 5 people at the register to order. There were 8 people in the kitchen cooking and you could tell it was a first day because it was a clusterf**k back there. I've worked opening day at 2 different restaurants so I kind of understood the confusion, it happens. Looking at the menu, it's basically rice plates with a small side salad and then you choose your meat and rice type. They have a combo plate for $10 which lets you choose any 2 meats so I went with that. 

A Japanese bbq marinated hanger steak and pork loin with brown rice, a side salad and sesame dressing. As food it was good, if not spectacular. The hanger steak was nicely cooked medium rare. It was tender with a nice flavor of grill char on it, though I didn't really taste and bbq marinade on it as the teriyaki glaze sort of takes away any other flavor. Which is why I would recommend getting the glaze on the side and use it to dip so you can control  how much you put on the meat. The pork, while tender, was a touch on the salty side. I'm thinking there was some kind of marinade on it but the menu didn't mention anything. The rice was cooked perfectly, it wasn't too sticky or clumpy. The salad was, eh, okay. It's a spring mix of greens with some julienned carrots tossed in. Whenever I get plates like this, the salad always seems to be some kind of afterthought like it was added to make you feel you are getting more value out of the plate. The sesame dressing was too sweet with just a touch of tang, so good enough. 

Basically what we have here is a teriyaki rice plate place, kind of like the ones you find in the mall, except the food is all the buzzwords--local, sustainable, organic, all natural, etc. Or hipster rice plates as it were. Which for this part of town works fine. There really isn't another place on this strip that does this kind of thing so it is an alternative to the other choices. Is it any better than one of the mall ones? Well, that's debatable at this point. Good, yes, best teriyaki in town, not so much. 

But hey, this literally was their first day. They have applied for a liquor license to sell beer so there will be that. I'm sure after customer feedback and such, what they do will evolve to a certain extent. It's probably best that if you are in the neighborhood you should drop by and try for yourself--and be sure to let them know what you think