Beer and pork

San Francisco really is a small town. I run into people I know all the time, and I don’t know that many people. Earlier last week, as I was driving around, I spotted Rob. Twice actually (although I only mentioned spotting him once to him). The first was when I was heading from the school to the office. I had turned onto Lombard and realized that I couldn’t make a left onto Gough so I had to make a series of right turns to get back on track. Rob was going straight. The second time was about two hours after the initial spotting along Laguna. This time, he was behind me in his car. I studied my rear view mirror, trying to make out if it was really him or not, and wondered what to do. Let him keep driving behind me? Stick my head out and shout? Try to throw something? I decided to call him and we made plans to eat pork.

We met at Suppenkuche and I was late. I found Rob at the bar. We ordered beers (I don’t know what I got; he ordered for me as I was not paying attention to the menus. He did, however, take notes and said he’d email me our drink orders—let’s see if he does.) and prepared to wait. We stood around, chatting, drinking our large glasses of beer, eyeing the host in the green shirt who seemed as if he was about to have a panic attack at any moment, and wanting to befriend our barmates so that I could have some of their sausage. He nodded at us a couple of times but still no spot for us. We were just two. We didn’t take up too much space. Anywhere would have been fine. But we kept waiting and ordered more beer.

I was getting impatient, pounded my fists on the wooden bar top and made sure the whole restaurant knew the wrath of my hunger, which was starting to disappear with all the beer. And, perhaps, it worked. The green shirted host offered to bring us appetizers since we were waiting for so long. We got the potato pancakes with homemade applesauce (I still wasn’t paying attention to what was happening with the food process but somehow knew that potato pancakes were coming our way). And then we got seated. Finally. After about an hour.

I chose the sautéed porkloin in a mushroom sauce with spatzle and a green salad. Rob had the pork and duck sausage with red cabbage. He also ordered a cream of cabbage soup and I said I’d have some of it.

When our potato pancakes arrived, I was far from hungry anymore. But, they looked good and I wanted to be hungry again. They were so light and crispy that when I tried to cut into mine, pieces of fried potato flew across the table. The applesauce that came with the pancakes was thick and tasted of fresh apples. The cauliflower soup was creamy without being overpowering in creaminess. There were bits of cauliflower throughout the soup that required just a little smush with the tongue.

By the time our entrees were placed in front of us, I was full. I had a couple of bites of my porkloin, which Rob had aptly described as a German version of pork katsu, and some of the spatzle. They were both delicious. The pork was tender inside but crispy outside. And the mushroom sauce that topped it was rich with mushroom flavor that went well with the spatzle, as I was using it to soak up the sauce. Rob’s sausage was great too. It burst with flavorful juice as I bit through the casing. I forgot how good pork could be.