April catching up

I’m having a hard time managing the writings of my daily eats and feel guilty for not posting as frequently as I once did. So, in a last-ditch effort to make it up to this food blog of mine (I promise to reconcile whatever issues Food Blog and I are having, and will post as regularly as a diet full of prunes), here are some highlights from the past several weeks.

Alamo Square
Alamo Square is a quaint little French-style bistro that specializes in fish that seems very out of place on its strip of Fillmore. The ordering is supposed to be simple: you choose the type of fish you want, the way you want it cooked, and a sauce to accompany the fish. In theory, it seems like a simple, easy process. But in reality those choices produce an almost countless number of variations. And, how was I to know what combination worked best? I didn’t, and let the waiter decide for me. I ended up with a grilled salmon with a green peppercorn sauce, which was fine but not great. The salmon was nicely cooked but the peppercorn sauce was too peppery. It overwhelmed everything else on the plate practically. But, the other things on the plate weren’t overly impressive. The rice pilaf had a slight curry flavor to it and the sautéed vegetables were a bit soggy and quite ordinary. They were the same rice pilaf and vegetables that sat on Greg’s plate and that sat on the plate of almost all the other diners around us. Sure, Alamo Square might have its charms, but somehow they were lost on me.

Fried chicken and chow mein
For the second night of our student orientation, my co-workers had agreed on ordering food that our students would want to eat, which somehow meant fried chicken and chow mein. It went against our efforts to feed them healthy food. But when I showed up and faced a table covered with huge aluminum tins of fried noodle and fried chicken drumsticks, I couldn’t not dig in. The fried noodles were greasy and salty, as was the fried chicken, but still really good. I took a bite, wiped my lips, and took another bite. I walked around greeting students with a drumstick wrapped in a napkin in my hand, saying hello in between chews. These students have seen me enough times in button-downed collared shirts in muted colors, dark slack pants, and dressy shoes. It’s time they saw the real me--greasy and stuffing my face with fried chicken.

Sunflower
After Jon’s book release party, where I had too many onion-flavored chips, too much Snapple, and a couple of triangles of grilled cheese sandwiches, Eleanor, Colin, Shari, Alex, Greg, and I walked over to Sunflower on Valencia at 16th, where we proceeded to eat some more. I ordered the imperial roll and chicken vermicelli. It’s a rice noodle dish with mung bean sprouts, lettuce, fried egg rolls, chicken and a fish sauce. The chicken was tender and flavorful. The imperial rolls were filled with glass noodles and pork, and were crisp. The fish sauce brought all the elements together in a salty bath. I ate, and ate, and ate some more, and it looked like I still had tons more to go before I was done. Although I was getting ridiculously full, I knew that rice noodles couldn’t do that to me, and kept eating. I was on the verge of pulling a supermodel bathroom maneuver before I finally gave up. Everyone but Eleanor put down their chopsticks in surrender to the rice noodles too (she’s such a trooper).

Chinatown Eats
Colin, Eleanor, and I took a little Chinatown eating tour. We started at Ling Hung, where we ordered three bowls of the pork and preserved duck egg rice porridge, the fried doughnut, and the fried doughnut wrapped in noodle with a light soy sauce. The food rice porridge was better than the last time we ate there, and the various versions of fried dough were just as good as I remembered them the last time. I think we also discovered the prime arrival time, ten o’clock in the morning. There was no crazy long line of loud Cantonese speakers pushing out the door. We finished our meal with dessert pork buns at Happy Nice Good Food (or some amalgamation of those words) Dim Sum.

Minako
Minako on Mission at 17th really does have some spectacular tempura. I think it’s the only dish that Colin orders when he’s there and there’s definitely a good reason behind his rationale. He ordered it again that night after APE, and I followed suit. The tempura dinner came with a warm, simple but mouth-filling soup, a salad with what seemed like a horseradish dressing that was pungently strong and brought tears to my eyes, and a bowl of perfectly cooked and dark seven grain rice. I was also surprised by the boxes of little side dishes that I had never seen before. The large box had compartments with a cucumber salad, picked vegetables, spongey and chewy tofu, mashed potatoes, and other fun little prizes. But the real star of the meal was the tempura. Asparagus, squash, and other vegetables lied next to shrimp, and they were all coated in a golden batter. The shrimp and vegetables were all tender and the batter was light and crisp. And, even when I reached the last vegetable, it sounded with a crunch when I bit into it. We were told that the coating stays so crisp and light because they don’t use egg in it. I picked up bits of just the golden coating and popped it into my mouth, not caring that I was only eating deep fried batter. I could have sat and ate fried batter all night long.