PAXTI'S PIZZA...SAY PA-CHEEZ PLEASE..AND GO

Ahh...pizza, besides hamburgers it always brings up much discussion about what is the best and opinions about that are a dime a dozen as they say.  Pizza for me reminds me of that old joke--"pizza is like sex--when it's good it's really good and when it's bad--ehh--it's still pretty good."  For my money I prefer a pizza with a cornmeal crust and luckily there are a couple places in San Francisco that can supply me with this delight.  One of those is Paxti's Chicago Pizza.  They have several locations around town and on this day I decided to hit up the one in the Marina since I was volunteering nearby it seemed kismet to go.  

SEOUL ON WHEELS AT OFF THE GRID

Oh to be a young hipster in San Francisco--actually I'm not but me and the SO decided to hang with a few of them and hit up Off The Grid down at Fort Mason.  It's a revolving door of food trucks and musical acts that invade the place every Friday night during the summer months.  In order to fit in we took along the SO's 26 year old cousin who lives here and is definitely a hipster--you can tell by his hair, skinny jeans and trendy new shoes he had on--plus we just picked him up from the start-up he works at so 'nuff said.   

LOT 7 HAS (MOSTLY) A LOT GOING FOR IT

UPDATE: Another one bites the dust. Lot 7 has closed and the space has been snapped up by someone else to be opened as something else. 

Me and the SO are meeting up with some friends (yes we actually have a few) and hitting up a relatively new place down in the hip trendy Valencia street corridor of the Mission--it's called Lot 7.  Their thing is seafood which is a good addition to the restaurant scene in the city.  Perusing their menu you can see a commitment to fresh local, sustainable, organic seafood and stuff--basically all the buzz words that new places are bandying about these days.  The trick of course is that it is really all about the food and whether it's good, and for Lot 7, the food is good, mostly.    

Started with the Dungeness crab cake appetizer with asparagus 3 ways and a soubise sauce, which is basically a creamy sauce made from pureed onions that you normally serve with vegetables.  The crab cake was freshly, warm out of the pan, flaky and full of crab.  I liked it a lot, though for $15 I kind of wished there were 2 instead of just one.  The dots of red sauce around the plate tasted like a huarache sauce or something spicy and it honestly didn't belong on the plate.  I like spice but it just overwhelmed the tender sweet crab, best to skip and stick with the yellow sauce it pairs well with crab and vegetable.  

As if that wasn't enough asparagus we got it as a side also and it was cooked perfectly and came with little puffs of hollandaise which was tasty, though not sure it needed the bread crumbs, it was different but maybe just a bit too much of it.  

Ok, so yes it was a mostly seafood place, but I kind of wanted to try the grilled wagyu flap steak with cheddar and bacon mashed potatoes, grilled bok choy, crispy fried onion rings and a bordelaise sauce.  I was just in the mood.  All the vegetables on this plate were good, particularly the cheddar bacon potatoes--they could be their own side dish.  I liked the bok choy--cooked to tender perfection and the crisp onion rings on top were a nice touch.  As for the steak it was just okay.  It was cooked medium rare as ordered but still it seemed a little tough and for wagyu that is not a particularly good thing.  My bad I guess for getting steak at a seafood joint but most of the plate was done right.  

So bring on dessert and I went for the bread pudding with salted caramel and it was delightful.  Sweet and salty which is always a plus for me and there was a nice crunchy brittle on top to add some texture to the whole dish.  There were 5 desserts on the menu and they all looked scrumptious which I'm going to put down as a plus for this place as a number of new restaurants seem to give desserts a short shrift but here they've put some thought into what would end the meal on a right note.  

All in all a decent new addition to the dining scene in San Francisco and worth a return visit to delve into the seafood more than on this visit.  

AMERICAN GRILLED CHEESE KITCHEN IN SOMA...GOOEY GOODNESS

There is a little joint around the corner from me called The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen.  I had been there once before a few months after they opened and have to say I was not impressed.  The sandwich seemed on the small side which might have been okay had they not been charging $8.50 for it and it didn't even come with sides--sorry it came with a really small apple about the size of a baby's fist--a really small baby.  And you folks know I have real issues with paying $8 for just a sandwich.  Anyway, it was a nice blustery Saturday and I thought what they hey, I'll give it another try so I rolled into the place at around 3:50pm which was right on time as it wasn't crowded and they were just getting ready to close at 4 so all they were doing was making my sandwich.  After perusing the board for a bit I decided to go with the club turkey with applewood smoked bacon, creamy havarti, sharp cheddar, stout mustard, arugula and I asked to get it on artisan whole wheat instead of sourdough.  Here's what it looked like.