I recently flew to San Francisco – one of my very favorite domestic cities - to attend the 2nd Annual Foodbuzz Fest (here’s last year’s write-up).  Follow along for the next two weeks as I recap my weekend trip! 

Directly after the farewell brunch, I headed back to our hotel and settled out the bill, packed up again all neatly since I had to check my luggage – um, a big scary knife made an appearance in the swag bag – and then walked over to Turtle Tower.  Since the first time I went to Turtle Tower a year ago, I have returned on every subsequent visit to San Francisco.  (Okay, that makes a total of three visits, but considering I have limited meals whenever I’m in San Francisco, this speaks volumes.)  However, my cousin’s wife, who first told me about the place, actually raved about the chicken pho.  But I’ve always gotten the other pho – the one more similar to my standard order here in NYC at Pho Bang – because that’s what’s normal to me, and I have an aversion to ordering chicken in restaurants.  Sue me. 

On the walk over to Turtle Tower, it started drizzling lightly, which made me happy – though it could spell disaster for my afternoon flight home – because to me, rainy, ugly weather is perfect pho weather.  While I waited for a seat, I decided for sure this time I would try the pho T raved about to me last year.  And so I did; it came quickly, the above.  Clear broth, smelling all the world amazing and just like what you want when you’re feeling under the weather. 

Per usual, perfectly cooked noodles. 

And though I never really look for meat in my pho, I found it lovely and incredible that they include chicken skin in the pho.  I need to learn how to make this at home… Hanoi style pho anytime I want.  The broth was wonderfully sweet, clear, not as ‘murky’ as regular pho tends to be (with the addition of star anise), and just amazing.  I happily slurped all my soup down. 

Funny note: since I was by myself, they asked if I’d be willing to share my table with someone who was also waiting.  I agreed, if only so I could eat faster and get going – oh, and this is the first time out of three visits that I sat in the front section (the restaurant is split in two, cut in half by the kitchen, so you access the back portion by continuing down the side street to a side door).  It was a bit awkward sitting directly across from someone and not talking to them – I had no book, just my BlackBerry to occupy me – and my snobby, ignorant, slightly racist self presumed that he didn’t speak English based on his looks, age, and that he ordered completely in Vietnamese after discussing a menu item with the waitress for a few minutes.  He saw me taking pictures of my meal, and intently watched me doing so; I avoided his gaze because I didn’t want to get sucked into a conversation about what I was doing or why I was doing it.  But he offered to take a picture for me by gesturing and making the universal “take picture” signs with his hands; I politely declined because I didn’t want a picture of me eating.  Towards the end of the meal, a couple sat down next to us and proceeded to order rather quickly – they were both very familiar with the menu – and the man sitting across from me asked them about their order, I guess.  They started raving about #6, saying the noodles are fried before being put in the pho (!!!), and insisting that the man try them the next time out.  And that’s when I heard the man sitting across from me speak English – slightly accented, but mostly just fine.  Color me stupid.  Encouraged by the friendliness of the couple, though, I asked them to clarify; their noodles were fried, then put in the soup?!  That sounds amazing!  So they clarified and said yes, they appear to be fried first… and then said “We have too much food!  Take some of this [Empress roll]!” and proceeded to hand both myself and the man sharing my table a spoon filled with fried spring rolls of sorts.  I had to decline because I was so full (I’d literally drank the entire bowl of soup, and I knew I was ready to burst out of my pants), but the friendliness and the enthusiasm with which the two encouraged eating really touched me.  If it matters, neither of them were Asian, but I heard them (before I started talking to them) talking about the meal ahead of them, expressing their excitement.  And the man across from me told them he was from Seattle but whenever he flew into San Francisco, he made a special point of going to Turtle Tower, hadn’t yet had the dish they mentioned, but would get it next time.  Nice.  (Our tables were really close, so it’s not like we were leaning over to peer at their food.)  I love San Francisco. 

And after that, though I was super duper full, I headed diagonally across Larkin Street to Saigon Sandwich, where there was a line out the door.  Okay, it’s a small place, so a line of over 5 people definitely leaks out the door, but still, everyone waited patiently in the sprinkle. 

The menu remains the same, with one small change: everything’s gone up in price by 25c from last year.  Not that big a deal; the sandwiches are still super cheap! 

*cough* I actually ordered two, figuring correctly I’d eat one on the plane and one at home in NYC.  Hey! it was months before that since I had banh mi!  So whatever.  And these are cheaper than in NYC.  Unfortunately, as I opened the sandwich on the plane…

It became clear that the sandwich was too awesome-smelling for the other passengers.  I’m all for eating stinky food whenever I want to, but on an airplane, in a small space, I just couldn’t justify it.  So I quickly ate half, put the rest away, and then ate it when I got home.  Still yummy, and she still put too many jalapenos on when I said I didn’t want it spicy.  Ah well.  I love banh mi, what can I say?

Yvo says: As always, neither place disappoints.  Love them.  I will continue to go whenever I return to San Francisco and have a mealtime available to my own choices… yum. 
highly recommended… both of them, duh, that’s why I made a point to visit them during a weekend when every single other meal was sponsored (except the first one)

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Post tags: banh mi, pho

I recently flew to San Francisco – one of my very favorite domestic cities - to attend the 2nd Annual Foodbuzz Fest (here’s last year’s write-up).  Follow along for the next two weeks as I recap my weekend trip! 

After the AM breakout sessions, I was dying to try the Alaskan seafood we’d seen demo’d but been unable to try.  It smelled fabulous – well, the halibut did, I Tweet’d my unhappy nose with the smelly salmon – so after Blondie and I walked to the Metreon, we walked straight to the back where they’d set up an area to make your own tacos.  The salmon was all gone when we got there, and I didn’t feel like waiting, so I made myself two tacos with halibut. 

I used different toppings for each, but I couldn’t tell you what they were.  I know a famous chef prepared all the ingredients, and there’s some contest going on right now for best fish taco recipe… but what I remember most clearly about eating each of these two delicious tacos? 

How rich and meaty each piece of fish was.  Dense, moist, perfectly cooked, and I thought, “I need to start stocking halibut in my fridge, but damn that’s good…”

Next on my wandering around was a salad from Fresh Express.  Two things: one, I didn’t know you could toast quinoa, but apparently you can, before you cook it, so thanks for that tip – I’m going to try that.  Two, I’d only ever heard of them before when I went on my Fresh Direct farm tour and in a PR nightmare, someone used the wrong name in an article about Fresh Express’s salad recall (I don’t remember the details of why and do not want to go down the road of retractions).  So I wasn’t too keen on eating the salad, to be honest… even though it was months ago and should be all cleared up now, right? 

Tyler Florence pumpkin soup of sorts – I didn’t try this, but it sure was pretty. 

Love his t-shirt! 

Yummy sausage with BBQ sauce! 

Gazpacho with shrimp. 

Close up – not bad, eh? 

Someone used Nature’s Pride bread to make goat cheese stuffed mushroom caps.   

A little too “goat-y” for me.

Someone else used Nature’s Pride to make BATs… 

Bacon, avocado and tomato! 

Like most things in this world – needs more bacon.  Otherwise, yum!

I also tried chocolates…

half-baked cookie dough balls…

pickled veggies…

And, um, beer.  Beer Boor would be proud – I think - since I tried Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer by 21st Amendment and I really liked it.  Enough that I drank two, then asked where I can find it in NYC (yes, it’s findable, though not that easy to find, it’s here… somewhere).  Yum!  The beer taste wasn’t pronounced nor was the watermelon too sweet or, as someone else at the Fest put it, “Jolly Rancher-y” – which made me think of Zach of Midtown Lunch (one of the few times I recall drinking with him, someone denounced a drink as Jolly Rancher-like, and he said “Oh, I think I’d like that, then” or something along those lines, haha.  Either way, I thought this beer was totally drinkable, and perfect for summertime… a long ways away, sigh.

Not pictured: s’mores made with Ghirardelli’s new LUXE MILK line; I didn’t think I’d like them (I’m a dark chocolate kinda gal) but they were perfect!  Still warm, gooey, and what chocolate flavor was I eating… mmm… toffee or almond, I forget.  So good. 

And to cap off my day, a salmon taco with very little salmon (there wasn’t much left and again, I was too impatient to hang around and wait for more).  Yum.  I need to get some halibut to make some tacos… so good.  So, so good. 

Infinitely quotable, Marc of No Recipes told us later: “You go to these things and you walk around and you eat and eat and eat, you eat so much food, but you never feel really full, not like you had a real meal… you’re not satisfied, you know?” (paraphrased because I didn’t write it down, but that was the gist of it)  So true.  I was stuffed but still wanted more food…  Thankfully, dinner was soon. 

Thanks again to Foodbuzz – as a Featured Publisher, the entire event was free.

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: fbzfest2

I recently flew to San Francisco – one of my very favorite domestic cities - to attend the 2nd Annual Foodbuzz Fest (here’s last year’s write-up).  Follow along for the next two weeks as I recap my weekend trip! 

Rolling pork loins of my dreams… hello, Roli Roti.  Much like last year, Friday evening’s festivities included a welcome reception and street food fare… this time at Fort Mason in a giant (empty) warehouse. 

Mission Minis once again greeted us with cupcakes everywhere.  I had one.  It was a cupcake. 

Cheese platters at each numbered table for us to munch on… where is our food…

A bus-taraunt is how I heard this referred to.  Interesting.  (You’ll see the food later.) 

I sat at my table, #1, and watched people filing in… no food being served yet. 

The cupcakes spell out “FOODBUZZ” if I had a better angle on them.  But I didn’t.  So this will do.  BTW, Food Network was filming… so you may see me on TV… maybe not.

Pear cheese tarts that they started bringing out… and then finally just left platters on our tables when it was clear we were all starving… 

We sat through some niceties and speeches while I stared around the place, wishing the food would start serving soon! 

The beer suppliers.  I don’t know why I took this picture. 

So here’s how we knew which table was ours: as we walked in, we were handed this sheet of paper, complete with table number and foodie gift exchange instructions. 

Wait, what?  Oh, right.  A few days before the event, Foodbuzz emailed us and told us to bring a small gift representing our region for exchange, in the $20 range.  A LOT of people didn’t bring gifts because they didn’t know about it in time, and a lot of us not from the area were like, wait… I mean, it was kind of difficult for us to bring things that really reflect our personality.  If I made something, how was I going to transport it?  I thought the idea of the gift exchange was excellent, but I wish I’d had more notice than three days (and what about those of us who flew in early to hang out with our friends in the area?), and I think more thought could be given to those of us travelling for the festival.  The guy sitting to my left flew in from Seattle a week early and had absolutely no clue about the exchange until he read the piece of paper.  Oops. 

I also heard there was some confusion about people who came with blog partners – some partner-groups only brought one gift, and others brought two.  Understandably, they figured out to only take one gift if they only brought one, but in any case, it seemed a bit confusing. 

Watching them set up… I’m really hungry…

Here’s the 4505 guys with their pork…

Cute stand!

…and bags of pork rinds hanging up, ooh…

According to the menu: pork loin braised in jalapeno pickling liquid crusted in cornmeal, beans, onions and coriander aioli on a buttery sesame seed bun. 

According to my memory, the entire sandwich was very, very buttery, soft, but the flavors described in the placard serving as the menu?  Hmm.  Not really there.  A slight heat, but nothing too memorable… a bit disappointing, as I’ve heard they have awesome food normally.  I liked their chicharrones more this year than last, though. 

Back to the bustaurant! 

Viking gumbo and vegan paella (the paella is on the right).  There was a bit of heat to the gumbo, but not unpleasant for one like myself who can’t take much heat.  I actually really liked both of these dishes a lot, though the gumbo definitely won more points for me. 

At this point, I was dying for a Roli Roti porchetta sandwich.  We ran outside to the truck, but found no one there.  Ummm…. wandering back in, we finally found an unmarked table with a huge line. 

I figured it out.  Here they were…  and I figured out the trick.  If you lean over and stare longingly while they slice the meat, they will give you pieces of the crackly and awesome skin. 

An up close and dirty shot of their onion marmalade.  My shallot marmalade is pretty awesome… but not quite theirs. 

My entire plate. 

My sandwich close up.  Hello, my darling, my dream sandwich.  As wonderful as always; succulent pork tempered by peppery arugula, onion marmalade, and that wonderful bread.  Love, love, love. 

Tacolicious was there again, with bags of their chips and salsa.  Nice to munch on. 

We also snagged Korean tacos from Namu, where I’d been looking forward to ramen… oh well. 

Stringy meat on a sheet of seaweed that tasted vaguely fishy… Blondie and I both weren’t too keen on this plate.  I didn’t understand how to eat it without a fork and just poked at it.  Ah well. 

I went back to Tacolicious to pick up tacos for us while she waited on by far the longest line of the night. 

One each: chicken, carnitas, and beef.  None of these interested us either; I want to say we were full, but if you look at how little we’d eaten thusfar, that really can’t be the case.  It just wasn’t that yummy

The line we were waiting on at this point was Spencer on the Go, a French food truck.  Funny enough, I asked someone why the line was so long, and apparently, they were part of the recent TV show on Food Network called Food Truck Wars (or something?).  The funny part was that this truck was at last year’s event, but not much line at all… shows what TV hype can do for a place. 

A garlicky and quite yummy escargot lollipop swimming in garlic juices.  It was a bit heavy since at this point I was pretty full, but had I been more awake, I’d have loved to eat another one.  It was basically escargot coated in puff pastry, then doused in the sauce. 

New England lobster cappucino; I’m not sure what made it New England style, as it’s clearly red and New England style is cream based, no?    In any case, this tasted like… lobster stock that was strained and then topped with a frothy foam of some sort.  You have to really love the fishy taste of seafood stocks to enjoy this.  I drank about half of it because I was cold and it was very hot before I had to stop… If you like lobster cappucino, this was a more than adequate version, but otherwise… not so much. 

Unfortunately, the braised lamb chunks sandwich, though it looked so pretty- look! 

I couldn’t open my mouth to eat.  Sometimes my body just tells me no, and refuses to comply for more food of a certain type, and this fell into the ‘too heavy, if you put that in my mouth, I will barf right now’ category.  Sad.  Blondie thought about eating it but also declared herself too full to eat even a bite.  Doh. 

But I did have room for ice cream from Straus!  I love their ice cream.  It’s a weakness of mine.  Here’s a shot of the scoop of brown sugar banana ice cream, which wasn’t overwhelmingly banana-y, which I don’t like… it was perfect.  Or maybe this was caramel toffee crunch, of which I also ate a scoop… I just forgot to take a picture.  So good.  So, so good.  The perfect way to end this gluttonous night. 

..or was this?  Blondie and I headed over to a waiting bus, tired from the long day we’d had, knowing we had an even longer day ahead of us.  While we sat there, half dozing from our food comas, someone got on the bus and insisted we talk to each other… and I turned and noticed a guy holding this in his hand.  Uhhh… Okay, I know it’s a rolling pin, but honestly, look at it!  Apparently he got it as part of the foodie gift exchange.  I can’t remember if it was Sherman of Sherman’s Food Adventures or Kim-Kiu of I’m Only Here for the Food! because they were sitting next to each other (and let’s face it, all Asian guys look alike… right?  Right?!  No?  Okay, fine, sorry…), so perhaps one of them will speak up and tell me who was the lucky dog who received this… hehehe. 

Yeah, I’m childish.  Is this really shocking? 

In any case, it was a lovely start to the weekend ahead of us.  Since the table sorting was somewhat random, I’d been forced away from the only person I knew before the night started, and had to introduce myself to new people.  I met a couple of new people, including Sabrina of The Tomato Tart, who gave me a lovely bottle of Persian Lime Olive Oil as part of the foodie gift exchange (and I’m really excited to use it! Soon!), and talked to a bunch of people who turned out to be really awesome (more on that in a later post). 

Off to a good start – thanks again to Foodbuzz for hosting me! (As a Featured Publisher, the entire event was free)

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: fbzfest2

I recently flew to San Francisco – one of my very favorite domestic cities - to attend the 2nd Annual Foodbuzz Fest (here’s last year’s write-up).  Follow along for the next two weeks as I recap my weekend trip! 

After I’d landed around 11am, Marc of No Recipes and I tried to connect via Twitter and text messaging to meet up for lunch.  Unfortunately, we wound up crossing wires somewhere, and instead I waited for Blondie of Blondie & Brownie, my roomie for the weekend, who quickly suggested hitting up Off the Grid, which was parked behind City Hall that day.  Thankfully, I know people who are in the know, so I don’t have to be! 

Off the Grid is a food truck project that gathers food trucks in one place on a rotating basis.  You don’t care.  You want to see what I ate. 

I’m still uncertain what I was taking pictures of here. 

We decided to order from the Hapa SF truck – Filipino food. 

An order of sisig tacos, which cost $6. 

From the menu: lime and soy braised pork, avocado salsa verde, easter egg radishes and cabbage salad.

Mmm, pork. 

These were actually really good.  The pork chunks were very soft and flavorful, while the other components did nothing to overwhelm and instead complemented the pork nicely.  The price is a little steep for tacos in the Bay Area, but I’d totally nom on these happily were they in NYC.  In fact, they should come to NYC… yum. 

While Blondie went over to ogle the ice cream, I went to check out the falafel truck. 

Initially, I thought, so what, big deal, I can get amazing falafel in NYC for super cheap, but then I decided that $2 for hand-cut sweet potato fries with cilantro, garlic and lime sounded too good to pass up. 

And they were.  I’m not a huge fan of sweet potatoes, but fried properly with a good dose of salt, garlic, cilantro and lime, of course, they were really, really good.  Crisp and just a slight sweetness shining against the salty, crispy exterior, I could see myself snacking on these all the time. 

For Blondie’s perspective, click here.

Off the Grid info here. We need one of these in New York – make it happen please!

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: food trucks, trucks/carts

Directly following my trip to Peru, I left on a research trip to the West Coast for two weeks.  What was I researching?  Glad you asked: a book on Stadium Eats!  Um, yeah, without a deal in sight currently (hint, hint, anyone reading this who is interested!), I went to preemptively scout out the 6 West Coast stadiums and eat my way up and down the West Coast at the same time, starting in San Francisco, working my way down to Los Angeles, then San Diego, back up to San Francisco and then to Seattle!  Phew!  Tune in at 4:15 EST (or 1:15 PST, lunchtime on the West Coast) for the next 6 weeks to see what I ate and where I ate it… and how I gained 10 lbs in two weeks!

I made my way back up to San Francisco to return the rental car and catch my flight to Seattle.  On my last night there, I really wanted Dungeness crab, which I felt had been in short supply on my trip.  Okay, it really hadn’t been, but I wanted to hit up Crab House at Pier 39 since it’s been 3 years since my last time, and I really enjoy eating a whole Dungeness crab… all by myself… but this time around, I decided that I should try another place, and make it one that everyone has mentioned in the past.  Plus it seemed like my trip had a definite Vietnamese slant on it, so why not?  I went with PPQ Dungeness Island because it was open late when I needed it to be – I just arrived in San Francisco, dropped my stuff off at the hotel and headed out - and because I’d heard the name many times in the past. 

I had to start off with the summer rolls as usual - notice the dish of sauce has a streak of red in it.  Sriracha sauce not fully blended in, so I knew to avoid that area and dip lightly.  Another interestingly way-too-long roll cut into 3 pieces, so the middle pieces had stuff exploding out of the roll.  I liked the roll, though, and found it tasty. 

But the main event! that’s what’s important here.  A whole Dungeness crab. 

The body was already broken into pieces and I got to work quickly, taking the meat out deftly without using the hammers (shudder! hate those hammers; they ruin the crab) and dipping it into the butter that had accumulated on the bottom of the dish.  NOM.  Really fresh and very, very tasty.

I also ordered garlic noodles because, um, hello?  These were garlicky, delicious, though more like lo mein or egg noodles than I’d anticipated.  Not a bad thing, per se, but I am partial to broad white rice noodles or ho fun, though that’s Cantonese style and perhaps not Vietnamese.  These were already really good, and then I made the brilliant decision to dump the noodles into the buttery sauce on the bottom of the crab dish and let it sit there and soak in the butter for a few minutes.  The taste?  Awesome.  The after-effects of all that butter on my system?  Yeah, not so much.  I just can’t eat THAT much butter in one go (I’ve tried many times).  Ah well, a bit of intestinal discomfort for the glory… par for the course! 

Just to balance things out, a beef dish.  This actually was pretty similar to the ‘shaking beef’ dish at Slanted Door.  It was tasty, but I don’t think I need to order this again – I’ll be back, and I will know to just go straight to Dungeness crab, do not stop at appetizers, do not stop at beef, just crab and noodles, an order each all for my own.  Mmm, boy, yummy. 

Yvo says: I didn’t need the beef dish or the summer roll dish, really, but it was nice to help get a feel for the restaurant itself and its other offerings.  I definitely would go back for the Dungeness crab alone… and now I’d also like to try some of the other Vietnamese places around town that do the whole Dungeness crab this way.  Mmm, nommy.  Check this place out!
recommended

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dungeness crab, summer rolls