#21 Pizza margherita at Pizzeria Delfina

Maybe it's because we recently ate at Tartine, part of that delicious block in the Mission, but last night, all I could think about having for dinner was pizza from Pizzeria Delfina. I think we've only had it once since we learned about the list, and we didn't order the margherita that time around.

We therefore set out to remedy this oversight, and last night we partook in the margherita pizza as well as the funghi pizza (a nightly special with hen of the woods mushrooms). The margherita was excellent as usual: flavorful sauce, creamy mozzarella, and thin-yet-substantial crust. The funghi was good too, but not ready to make it into the regular pizza rotation.

What sets Pizzeria Delfina apart, though, is not their stellar graphic design or enviable location (as a matter of fact, we ordered our take-out from the California location in Pacific Heights). The sides are, simply, amazing. Some of you know that in addition to the pizza, I lovelovelove the spicy cauliflower. The insalata tricolore, a salad with radicchio, Belgian endive, and arugula tossed in a lemon vinaigrette, is always perfect; I tried to replicate the salad once when A and her cousin C came over for dinner and a canning lesson, but for inexplicable reasons I haven't made it since.

Together, Delfina Pizzeria and Little Star provide two halves of one delicious San Francisco pizza whole. The thin-crust pizzas at Delfina are amazingly good, whether you stick with the reliable margherita or delve further into the menu.

#8 Morning bun at Tartine Bakery

Tartine is a delicious bakery. It is located at 18th and Guerrero in the Mission, on a "truly excellent food block" (as it was described to me by a colleague recommending good restaurants after I had lived in San Francisco for only a few months). Indeed, it's next door to Delfina (well, really next to Delfina Pizzeria), and just steps down the block from Bi-Rite (market and Creamery). The list recognizes the deliciousness of this block as well, requiring stops for #11 pork sugo with pappardelle at Delfina, #21 pizza margherita at Delfina Pizzeria, #25 loaf of bread straight out of the oven at Tartine, and #35 salted-caramel ice cream at Birite Creamery. Sounds like a whole day's worth of eating, doesn't it?

Here's what Tartine looks like from the outside (no sign, by the way, but usually easy enough to recognize by the line of people extending out the door).

I like to classify bakeries into two categories: scone or croissant. Scone bakeries are more rustic, less fussy, and more focused on wood-fired ovens and that sort of thing. Examples of excellent scone bakeries include Arizmendi (which is a worker-owned cooperative, typical for a scone bakery), Bakery Bar in Portland, and Wild Flour in Sonoma County. Croissant bakeries, on the other hand, are more refined and focus more on technique. Though Tartine has a currant scone on the menu, it is the epitome of a croissant bakery.

Which is why it's surprising that the thing to get from the list is apparently not a croissant! Instead, it's the morning bun. Topped with bitter orange, and flavored with caramelized sugar and cinnamon, the bun has a good combination of texture and flavor. B pointed out, when we sampled it yesterday morning, that there is a lot of butter in the bun. He took one bite, and then gave me the rest of the morning bun to eat. Funnily enough, since he likes the croissants more (we got a plain one and a chocolate one in addition to the bun), he never points out how much butter they likely have.

In the interests of full disclosure, we could easily figure out exactly how much butter the croissants have in them because my mom has the Tartine cookbook. And not only does she have the cookbook, but when she made croissants for the 80 guests we had at our post-wedding brunch, she used the Tartine recipe. B and I are therefore a little biased toward the croissants; in particular, we love the Scharffenberger pain au chocolat.

One final note: the quiche is fantastic at Tartine. They always have one veggie and one meat-based (usually with ham), but we almost always get the vegetarian version because of B's aversion to pork. They mix creme fraiche into the eggs, and have a flaky (would you be surprised if I added the adjective "buttery"?) crust. We had the quiche with Swiss chard and leek yesterday, which we very much enjoyed.

#64 Paper masala dosa at Dosa

A few nights ago, Brian and I went out for dinner and a movie. The ideal spot for this combo in San Francisco is the Sundance Kabuki theater in Japantown and Dosa, across the street on Fillmore. Let me explain.

Kabuki seems a little like the soup-Nazi the first time you go, because you have assigned seats (in a movie theater!). The more you go, however, the more you realize that it's awesome. You can buy tickets with reserved seats ahead of time online! Some theaters are 21 and up and you can drink alcohol while you watch the movie! You feel like you're somehow cool and indie because the theater is peripherally associated with Robert Redford and the film festival! And did I mention that you can pick out your seats ahead of time online?

At 7:30pm, we saw the new Coen brothers' film, A Serious Man, which Wikipedia helpfully calls a "drama/dark comedy." Not my favorite of their oeuvre, to be honest. When the movie was over, we walked across the street and had a late dinner at Dosa. The Dosa on Fillmore (they have another location in the Mission on Valencia) opened relatively recently, and is a beautifully decorated restaurant. It's almost too cool for me and B to hang out at, but the friendly service and the excellent food would make anyone feel at home.

We started with the dahi vada, a filled dumpling served cold with yogurt, mint, and tamarind sauces piped in the most exquisite pattern on top, as well as the idli sambar. (I just got a new South Indian cookbook from a friend of B's, and was sad to learn that, though idli has very few ingredients, I need a special-shaped steamer in order to make my own at home!) For main course, we moved on to finger food: channa served with an immense and delicious poori and, the course we'd been waiting for since we read about it on the list, the paper masala dosa.

Dosas come in many different flavors and fillings and spices and shapes. The paper masala dosa is a thinly rolled but very long cylinder (between 18 and 24 inches or so, i.e., quite impressive), empty on the inside but with the traditional spiced potato mixture served alongside in a bowl. Grab a piece of dosa, pick up some potato with it, dip in one of the three sauces (I like to dip into both the coconut and the sambar), eat, and repeat. Once again, we were too full for dessert (we even took some channa home with us), but Indian sweets are not usually my favorite anyway.

All this food, including two mango lassis, tax, and tip, came to $64. Affordable, chic, and located across the street from the movie theater. Like I said, a perfect date!

#4 Spicy crab and grits at Front Porch

We kept hearing good things about Front Porch, a staple in the Mission, but hadn't ever been there. A few months ago, we'd eaten with A&K and D&R at Good Frickin Chicken down the street on 29th, and had noticed Front Porch (which does in fact have a porch, complete with several rocking chairs). The rocking chair is a prominent theme at the restaurant, even animated on their website.

It's a pretty good logo, isn't it? Spurred on by the list, and by the recommendations of B's sister and B's work friend, we ate dinner there last night.

We started with the recommended dish from the list, which was supposed to be spicy CRAB and grits, but which was really spicy SHRIMP and grits. Maybe it was a seasonal change? I'm not sure, but they sure did taste good. We also had fried okra—you know how I feel about all things fried—which was good, but much improved with additional salt. We also had some delicious complimentary cornbread.

For dinner, we had the fried oyster po'boy (very good cornmeal-based batter) served with sweet potato fries, red-beans-and-rice-and-andouille-sausage, and fried chicken. Some people told me that the fried chicken should have been list-worthy, and I agree that it was exceptionally good: very moist on the inside, with a crispy, well-flavored crust on the outside. In case you hadn't gathered, the chef at Front Porch is well-versed in using the deep-fryer.

By now you're probably thinking that B and I are total pigs. We promise it wasn't just us downing all this food! We had a total of five people, and even then we were too full for dessert.

There'll just have to be a next time, I guess. Fry, fry again!

#47 Ceviche at La Mar Cebicheria Peruana

It's been a while since I've posted! We did have an aborted attempt to eat at #10 Baja-style fish tacos at Nick's Crispy Tacos (way, way too much drunkenness and crowdedness for us to handle on a Tuesday night), but we also haven't been eating out much. In the meantime, A&K have eaten #7 Burger with fries at Slow Club and #13 Soup dumplings at Shanghai House.

They've also already eaten at La Mar, which they described as having great ambiance. B and I went there three days ago to celebrate B's birthday. It's an expansive, high-ceilinged restaurant at Pier 1 1/2, not far from the Ferry Building. Every table at the large restaurant was full, but not crowded like the craziness at Nick's.

We love ceviche, and we'd read this article from August about the explosion of Peruvian food in our foggy (though not today!) city. We began with a ceviche sampler to taste with four of the five kinds of ceviche they offer. We thought it was sort of strange that the list, which is normally so very specific about what to order, only suggested generic ceviche. Perhaps they meant the traditional Peruvian ceviche with halibut? That was excellent, but my favorite was the Chinese-inspired one (quite spicy, though) and B liked the nikei (with ahi, and similar in feel to Hawaiian poke).

We moved on to a sampler of four kinds of causas. B has been to Peru, and doesn't remember much about these traditional whipped potatoes, but I'm pretty sure the presentation at La Mar was superior to that in most parts of the homeland. We were served four elegant cylinders on a rectangular dish, two with deeply-colored purple potatoes.

We also shared chicken empanadas (something I've been meaning to try at home, ever since we got back from Costa Rica earlier this year), and a main course of perfectly-cooked snapper. We rounded out our meal with a beignet-like dish of fried pumpkin and sweet potato called picarones. We did not try a separate chocolate beignet also on the menu.

One of my favorite parts of the restaurant was how knowledgeable the entire waitstaff was (several also had South American accents!). They explained each dish as it arrived without us having to ask. They brought extra plates with each dish so that we could share, again without us asking.

Great food, great service, great ambiance! We'll be back.

#77 Eggs benedict on the back patio at Zazie

This morning, we had a nice brunch at Zazie in Cole Valley. We arrived around 10am, and they hadn't yet opened the back patio. Uh-oh. How were we going to fulfill the dictates of the list, which specified that we must eat on the back patio? It also happened to be the first sunny day in a week, and, <foot stomp>, I wanted to eat outside! Thankfully, there weren't any tables indoors, so we waited outside on Cole Street for about ten minutes before following the host back through the narrow restaurant, with its French movie posters lining the walls, to the vine-covered patio.

Outdoor table? Check. Here are my brother and his girlfriend, visiting from D.C., enjoying said outdoor table.

We blocked up, because it took the staff a few minutes to open up the big green umbrellas. Then we perused the menu. Lots of scrambles and French toasts and pancakes, but, keeping my eyes on the prize, I knew I had to have one of the many eggs Benedict. On the specials menu, I found my happy place: eggs Benedict with fresh crab and avocado.

Eggs Benedict la mer? Check. Not quite enough Hollandaise for my taste, and one of the eggs was a little over-poached, but flavors were delicious and the crab plentiful. I also love the roasted garlic bits in the potatoes.

B had poached eggs with eggplant (which sounds funny, doesn't it?). My brother had fried eggs with polenta served attractively in a cast-iron skillet, and his girlfriend S had poached eggs with salsa fresca. All good. Frankly, before this meal, B and I had been avoiding Zazie for brunch. In our one previous morning-time visit, our meal just didn't match up to our favorite Palo Alto brunch haunt (also with a French flair), Cafe Brioche. But now, we plan to return; the eggs were very well done. Incidentally, dinner is supposed to be good too.

Overall enjoyable meal? Check.

Foreign Cinema

I know, I know. Foreign Cinema is not on the list! But, as I already told you, I think the list, while generally inspired, has some holes. And since this is my blog, I can write about whatever restaurants I want to on it.

We've eaten at Foreign Cinema twice in the past week and a half. First, we had a lovely brunch there with my parents over Labor Day weekend. Delicious Kumamoto oysters to start, followed by little toasts with house-cured sardines. I was the only one who went sweet for the main dish, ordering French toast with berries and cardamom butter and maple syrup (along with a side of bacon). I don't usually put butter on my French toast, figuring that enough fat gets into the bread from the pan-frying, but this was awesome. B and the 'rents got various egg-based dishes, of which we all shared tastes (except for the chanterelle omelet, since my dad is allergic). It's apparently much less crowded on Saturday than Sunday morning, and we had a nice table outdoors.

But it's only at night that you get the true Foreign Cinema ambience. The front entrance is lit with perfectly-spaced votives, inviting you further in.

The white wall in the courtyard had Casablanca projected when we were there on Sunday, but we were ushered into the side room because we were there not for a regular old dinner. Instead, we were at A&K's long-awaited wedding reception. Interestingly, we could only pick beef, chicken, fish, or veg on the RSVP; since the menu at the restaurant changes daily, even A&K didn't know exactly what we were going to be served until the day of (incidentally, it is this frequent changing of the menu that I think precludes the restaurant from being on the Top 100 list).

We started with a Dungeness crab toast (which was funny, since we went to PPQ Dungeness Island the night before for the rehearsal dinner and had tons of crab!). Then a lovely, fresh salad. For mains, B had halibut and I had filet mignon. Both = yummers! I was impressed that the restaurant was able to scale up to provide their same delicious food for a hundred people all at once. We rounded out the meal with a slice each of peanut butter-chocolate cake made by the bride's sister, a pastry chef. It was a night to remember. Congrats again to A&K!

#54 Spiced-Chocolate Doughnut at Dynamo Donut

This morning, B and I headed to Dynamo Donut in the Mission for our first breakfast item on the list. Interestingly, though Dynamo has gained renown for the maple-bacon doughnut, the Big Eat list points to the spiced-chocolate doughnut as the one to order (also interestingly, #54 uses both spellings of doughnut—you can tell from my typing which version I prefer). We ordered three doughnuts and two drinks. For beverage, I had a Four Barrel latte (Google taught me that Four Barrel is a coffee-roasting company in the Mission). B had orange juice; good flavor, but pulp-less. Now for the doughnut rundown:

1. The spiced-chocolate doughnut, as B pointed out, is a) not that spiced and b) more like a cake than a doughnut. It went very well with my latte. If you're in the mood for chocolate cake at breakfast, this one's for you.

2. The banana de leche was a modern filled doughnut, gooey on the inside without being overly sweet. Also, the "de leche" is a nice nod to the neighborhood, where there are almost as many signs in Spanish as in English.

3. And now, for the doughnut that reportedly landed Dynamo on the Food Network: the maple bacon apple doughnut. Readers of my other blog will know that I am a big fan of salty and sweet. (Speaking of, saw Fran's caramels for sale near the cash register at Sur la Table in the Ferry Building today!) I also enjoy pork products, and am not able to indulge in them with frequency because of my hog-hating husband. I know that chefs on the Food Network routinely add pork to anything and everything (as Michael Pollan pointed out in his recent article in the NYT, adding bacon is a gimmick that basically guarantees you the win on most of those shows). And I know that it seems particularly weird to add bacon to a doughnut; it seems weird, but it tastes delicious. I'm the kind of person who pours some maple syrup on her French toast, and then pours extra on the bacon that shares the plate. Ergo, this doughnut was made for me. B took one bite, decreed that the bacon didn't add anything special, and left the rest of the doughnut for me. I was happy about that state of affairs! My only critique—and it's a minor one—is that I didn't taste the apple at all.

Well, that's the end of that adventure. Clearly I like doughnuts. Sometimes I like making them, but Dynamo provides a delicious excuse not to. It's a little far away for regular visits, which is probably good for my LDL cholesterol, but I'll be back. Maybe without B, who prefers savory breakfasts.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures! I totally intended to take my camera on our excursion this morning, and, obviously, totally forgot.

#60 The Brass Monkey at Little Star

I was skeptical when I saw this on the list. B and I have eaten at Little Star many times, and there is no "brass monkey" on the menu. I checked again online. It's not there.

Is it a drink? It sounds like a drink. How could they put A DRINK as the thing to order from Little Star, which has such phenomenal deep dish pizza?

Nope, it turns out that it's like ordering your burger "animal-style" at In-N-Out: the brass monkey is a secret, off-the-menu variation. It's just the Little Star deep dish pizza, our standby favorite featuring spinach, mushroom, and ricotta, with the top-secret addition of sausage. I felt sort of cool and in-the-know when I ordered our take-out on Friday, August 21st.

Unfortunately, I felt less cool and in-the-know when I tasted the pizza itself. The sausage dotted over the pizza came across as superfluous in light of all the other strong flavors. Still delicious, especially when combined with a side of the house salad, but comforting and homey rather than transporting. The best part of the pizza is still the amazingly rich and flavorful tomato sauce. I've heard talk of the crust being better at Zachary's in the East Bay, but haven't eaten there enough to make a direct comparison.

#60 was worth trying. In the future, though, we'll go back to ordering the Little Star pizza straight up, sans brass monkey variation.

(A couple of side-notes: the Divisadero location is cash-only; Little Star is one of the many restaurants we frequent that is closed on Mondays.)

#36 Dry-Fried Chicken Wings at San Tung

It was an obvious beginning. We kicked off the check-list on Monday, August 17th with #36.

We live in the Inner Sunset, mere blocks from the goodness that is San Tung, and we already know and love the dry-fried chicken wings. For whatever reason, we often get take-out on Mondays, and many restaurants are closed on Mondays. San Tung, blessedly, is not.

B likes trying something new every time we go to a restaurant (he dreads falling into a restaurant rut), but he makes an exception for San Tung. We therefore picked up our usual order on Monday: shrimp-and-leek dumplings, green beans, and two orders of dry-fried chicken wings. All delicious as usual! The wings, of course, were the standout: such a wonderful combination of sweet and spicy with a little bit of crunch. The flavor is still good the next day, should you happen to have leftovers (you probably won't), but the texture isn't quite as good.

I can't imagine how many chicken wings they go through at San Tung. It must be hundreds and hundreds each day! The staff must be so sick of seeing the wings that they probably can't even eat them anymore. On a Yelp review I read a while ago, a new visitor to the restaurant asked what was a popular dish, and the server supposedly rolled his eyes, sighed, and said, simply, "The wings." I imagine that with the taste of those recommended chicken wings yet another follower was born. It's hard not to be convinced with just a few bites. Who could ever go back to those spicy Buffalo wings with blue cheese after tasting these!

Special recognition goes to WT, who now lives in Seattle, for introducing us to San Tung when we moved to San Francisco two and a half years ago.

SF Chronicle list, you are officially one for one.

100 Things to Eat Before You Die

In general, I'm not the biggest fan of Top 10 or Top 100 lists. They're pretty artificial, right? Things inevitably get left out, and maybe other things get artificially elevated to the top of the heap. But then I discovered, with the help of my attending in the ICU last week, this amazing list from the San Francisco Chronicle. (It was a slow day in the ICU.)

First, we salivated over it, all the restaurants we wanted to try and all the restaurants we had already tried. Then, we started strategizing. The pulmonary fellow who was part of the conversation has only lived in San Francisco for two months, but she made plans to drive home via #9 (tofu soup with kimchi at My Tofu House) for lunch. I was on call, but already thinking about coming home post-call for #36 (dry-fried chicken wings at San Tung).

So I e-mailed the list to people I thought would appreciate it, and printed out a copy of my own. When I got home last Monday, I put it up on the fridge.

B and I had already decided that we were going to systematically check off highlights on the list. I hadn't decided about blogging the results though, since it seems like one blog is probably enough. However, I'm plunging ahead. This new blog is going to be more literally a log than the other blog: the restaurants we hit and our experiences at them. It'll be for just the two of us, though any followers are welcome as well; maybe we'll also be able to use it to guide the restaurant choices of visitors to our foggy city. There will be no artificial deadlines, and, though it would probably be delicious, no plan to complete all the check-boxes in one year (shades of the Julie/Julia project, etc.). Here are the ground rules:

1. We will visit every restaurant on the list, regardless of whether we've eaten there before. We will re-evaluate the recommended menu selections in a new, "Top 100" mindset. We will order what is suggested, even when we're skeptical and would never previously have ordered the dish, like, say, #69 (licorice parfait at South).

2. We will not hit the restaurants in any particular order.

3. We may eat take-out instead of dining in the actual restaurant. Obviously this is not reasonable for many on the fancier end of the spectrum, including #100 (cheese course at Gary Danko) or #90 (slow-cooked egg at Coi).

4. B may end up being the blogger on this site sometimes. He hasn't quite decided.

5. We may occasionally write about other restaurants, as I do think the list leaves off some obvious favorites (Foreign Cinema, anyone? Or our new favorite, the tamal de puerco from the adorably-named Nopalito? Or, for that matter, the food from parent Nopa?). Overall, however, B and I are extremely excited about having a new guide for our restaurant adventures.

So, here we go!

Mmm.