I spent what might be the ideal local/urban/farming/foodie Saturday in San Francisco during my visit last month.  Ferry Building Farmers Market + Alemany Farm + dinner with friends to feast on all our accumulated goods = serious eating happy times.

It started at one of my favorite places of porkaliciousness on the planet, the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market…

Where you can buy color-drenched stalks of rainbow chard ranging from pale banana yellow to deep red wine burgundy…

…and stuff your mouth with bountiful free samples of the brightest, most vibrant, flavor-bursting oranges.

But it’s so much more than just a farmers market – it’s a prepared food/street cart/mobile restaurant festival of serious quality meals on disposable plates as well.  All sorts of new snacks have appeared since I last visited the market a year ago, including an array of porkaliciousness from 4505 Meats (photo at top) like maple breakfast sausage rolled and baked in brioche or a muffaletta sandwich (Salami, smoked mortadella, terrine, Gruyère, and olive salad on a poppy-seed bun) or their famous chicharrones.

I’d already eaten a smoked salmon – meyer lemon – homemade cream cheese on sourdough bread sandwich from Holy Smoke, the stall I used to work at with the fabulous Sally and Cap’n Mike, so sadly I could only fit in a tiny snack from another newcomer since I last visited the market, Namu. I’d been wanting to try their ‘Asian-inspired new California cuisine’ for ages, and never made it up to their restaurant in the Richmond before moving. So I was excited to visit their stall at the Ferry Building, offering everything from kimchee fried rice to yuzu French toast to okonomiyaki.

I ended up with a fantastic little bite of meaty happiness known as the real Korean ‘taco’: a ssam-style ‘taco’ with seasoned rice, kalbi short ribs, daikon and kimchee salsa, kimchee remoulade, and homemade teriyaki wrapped in Korean and Japanese toasted seaweed. Brilliant.

I loved it – inventive and playful, with a rich, punchy undercurrent of teriyaki sweet and salty soy flavor from the short ribs topped with a layer of pickly freshness from the daikon kimchee salsa, all bundled in a toasty blanket of chewy yet crackly seaweed.

I only wish I had room in my stomach for cookies from Miette…

…or a fried egg panino with pancetta and provolone, or slow-scrambled eggs with crostini and crescenza, or broken farro porridge with raisins and almonds from another new (to me, at least) addition Il Cano Rosso.

I’ll just have to come back again soon. And drink Blue Bottle coffee and eat Kika’s Treats caramelised chocolate graham crackers from La Cocina with a bag of oysters and sausage on a stick in the sunshine by the Bay Bridge.

But I couldn’t eat a week’s worth of meals at the Ferry Building, although I’d like to (every day). It was farm time, so off I went to San Francisco’s amazing Alemany Farm. Until next time, Ferry Building!

Up next -  fava bean leaves, collard greens, and massive piles of horse shit at the farm…

]]> http://eatfamilystyles.com/2010/04/18/san-francisco-eating-happy-times-at-the-ferry-building-farmers-market/feed/ 0 http://eatfamilystyles.com/2010/04/01/tartine-bread-and-cowgirl-creamery-food-porn/ http://eatfamilystyles.com/2010/04/01/tartine-bread-and-cowgirl-creamery-food-porn/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 23:13:01 +0000 mei http://eatfamilystyles.com/?p=3106

It might just be the best bread in the world.  A warm, soft, tantalizingly nutty sesame loaf, fresh from the ovens just after 5pm…

…or one of THREE enormous olive loaves purchased in one go later that weekend.  I want to go olive spelunking in caverns and crevasses of doughiness.

Phenomenal with a large splosh of fresh ricotta cheese, liberally doused with several large gloops of good olive oil, a spritz of freshly ground pepper and a HIYAAAA of kosher salt.

Spectacular with an assortment of cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery…a punchy, saucy blue, the ever-orgasmic ash-striped Humboldt Fog, and a half moon of triple cream.  Because double cream isn’t good enough and single cream is just preposterous.

I can think of fewer recipes for happiness than Tartine bread + Cowgirl Creamery cheese + good friends + bottles of wine.

Just don’t expect to eat any of your delicious dinner afterwards.  Way to go on the triple olive bread and the triple cream, Steph and Lex. The Lawrence sisters, like the Li sisters, most definitely how to eat.

Link roundups are awesome. At least the happy faced chocolate chip and vanilla citrus  panettone bread pudding from last week’s Rambling Restaurant thinks so. This alleged weekly roundup of link love  is not so weekly – right now, we’re going for bi-monthly. Might get worse. May get better (unlikely).

But anyway, some interesting stuff we’ve been reading:

Is There Enough Food Out There For Nine Billion People? [The New Republic]

San Franciscans Turn Abandoned Lot Into Full-Fledged Farm [Inhabitat]

This is awesome – London has city farms all over the place. More American cities should do this, especially with abandoned unused spaces. Great for food production, community involvement, education, improvement of city aesthetics and urban landscape, and general awesomeness. For more on city farms, see below!

Rules Worth Following, For Everyone’s Sake [The New York Times]

On Michael Pollan. Yeah, we talk about him a lot. But it’s an article worth reading, for everyone’s sake.

Whole Wheat Muffin, the Remix [The New York Times]

Bittman is another foodie fave. I am excited to make this.

And the best interactive/participatory link of the week? Put your money where your mouth is on the urban farming tip. Help fund an amazing San Francisco urban garden (in my old beloved hood of the Mission) on this seriously phenomenal crowdsourced funding site called Kickstarter.

Here’s how it works: You pledge a bit of money to support a really cool project. They only take your money if they get enough funding. In return, you get to support a great idea AND you get something in return. A piece of artwork, dinner, a shoutout in a music video, whatever small piece of the project you helped get off the ground according to the level of your donation. For example, you could get an adorable set of seed packets like these for pledging $25:

Or get a gorgeous set of screen-printed posters by one of the farmers who’s also an artist by donating $250.

You can give as little as $5 or as much as you want.  Everyone wins!  I only wish I could have given $1000 for my very own garden picnic.  Someday…when I’m a baller…

Read all about Little City Gardens: An Experiment in the Economic Viability of Urban Farming.  Support an SF farm!

it’s an online game where people play in teams to solve foodie puzzles online and on the mean streets. teams (with awesome names like soup sluts, trans-fatso’s, and deep fried twinkie) win points for correct answers and also for submitting creative missions which people watch online and score. i ‘ve just barely skimmed the surface of photos and videos submitted by the 277 teams(!) but the current personal favorite of the UK office is this rap about the creme brulee cart by team fatty boombatty. seriously, this video is a delicious work of  genius.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB4VPHOPeQs&hl=en&fs=1&]

creme brulee on the street corner combined with a coolio parody video? that’s some sweet stuff right there. check out the best submissions from the game here and read what an nbc reporter/go game player has to say about the street food obsession here.

we’re so inspired and excited by the overwhelming commitment, competition, and creativity from the SF street food devotees that we’re considering running a london game! what do you think, londoners? are you up for it? we’d have you sampling spinach & agushi and violet cupcakes at broadway market, scarfing down scotch eggs at the upmarket, and of course, diving into a hot cheese avalanche. and you’d solve puzzles, take wacky photos, film short movies, vote online, and have a total blast while filling your belly along the way. no mid- 90′s rap music knowledge required, we’ll find an appropriate equivalent for iconic music videos starring michelle pfeiffer on this side of the pond.

to reverse paraphrase kevin costner: ‘if you will come, we will build it.’ seriously london, if you’d be interested in playing, let me know! i have a serious street food obsession and i think london’s got an absolutely incredible street food and market culture. let’s play with our food!

my mother has been working at the same building at MIT medical my entire life. that’s 27 years (as of last week…yeeesh) that i have been visiting or picking her up on the same exact street in cambridge upon which there have never before been big white street food trucks serving freshly made locally sourced meals. and all of a sudden, i pop into boston for three days and here you are, delightful clover food truck.  so happy to make your acquaintance.

if you don’t obsessively follow the san francisco food scene from halfway around the world like i do, you may not know that street food is big these days. it used to be just the taco trucks and the tamale lady when you were drunk at zeitgeist. now everything from soup to salami and curry to creme brulee is being sold from carts and bikes and trucks and hovercraft all over the city. okay, maybe not the last part, but that would be pretty sweet. anyway, the SF street food scene has seriously blown up recently, as have the NYC and LA scenes, many of whom release their locations in real-time via twitter. even from london, i know exactly when a delicious fatty cured pig part sandwich goes on sale at a random intersection in san francisco and i can only mourn that i’m about 6,000 miles too far away to get in line. it’s gotten so big that it’s even spawned a backlash of anti-street-food-fad-sentiment. yes, you know things have gotten big when the haters come out to play. but ignore them and revel in the excitement that is street food. beyond all the tastiness, what’s particularly exciting is that the amazing people at la cocina are organizing a street food festival and the go game is running a street food themed scavenger hunt!  if you’re anywhere near san francisco, go sign up to play because it’s going to be AMAZING.

anyway. talking about street food gets me so excited that i’ve lost track of the original topic of this post, which was intended to be the excellent clover food truck. hooray boston for not letting sf, nyc, and la grab all the attention and making an impressive showing of your own.

considering how zealously i follow the street food scene online (that’s a really nerdy statement), i’m happily surprised by the totally serendipitous nature of my encounter with clover. waiting to pick up my mom and drive off to new york for the weekend, i noticed the small crowd standing next to the truck parked directly across the street from her office. my street food radar started beeping an insistent alarm, so i wandered over and perused the handwritten menu. upon seeing the happy crew of lunchtime munchers and the breakfast options like granola and popovers and lunch selections including a variety of cold salads and hot sandwiches, i knew something good was in store. and i was seriously psyched to see that the sandwich special of the day – a pesto, fontina and cucumber creation – featured basil from allandale farm in my hometown of brookline, which i used to visit as a kid.  i love that they’re supporting local producers and in fact, apparently their brunch is nearly 100% local, down to even the flour. so fantastic.

i chatted with the friendly people taking orders for a bit, and they recommended the popular chickpea fritter sandwich, pictured at the top. mmmmmmm tasty. warm, crunchy, and lightly spiced fritters, topped with a deliciously cool and creamy cole slaw, and lovingly encased in a thick wheat pita, toasted on the outside and perfectly chewy on the inside. i was really impressed with the quality of the bread and said so to the really nice guy wearing the clover t-shirt in the top photo whose name i am stupid for not getting. he told me that they actually get the bread from new york city because they couldn’t find a good enough alternative in the boston area. that’s true testament to a passion for quality. not exactly local, but excusable for bread that good.  you can see by the doughy strands in the photo below that this is a whole different ball game from those thin, hard, and dry pieces of cardboard that sometimes try to pass themselves off as pita pockets.

mmm. that photo makes me want to go back right now and eat another one. but even more so, i want to go try their brunch, which changes depending on what’s seasonal and available, but has at times featured pancakes with wild massachusetts blueberries,  corn fritters with local corn, and agua fresca made from local mass strawberries. damn, gina! that makes me happy. and hungry.  i love the local and seasonal ethos, i love that they’re all about running out of food (only serve what’s fresh and don’t waste!) and they even spoke at IDEO recently.  that’s pretty freaking cool.  apparently they’re using the truck to test out recipes for what will someday be a clover restaurant. i’m psyched to patronize your brick-and-mortar establishment, but keep on with the street food, ok? there’s nothing like standing in a light drizzle with a bunch of eager eaters and stuffing your face with a really amazingly good sandwich, unless it’s a really amazingly good sandwich and a big glass of lavender lemonade.  thanks clover food truck! you’re only 3,000 miles away or something, so i might even see you again sometime soon…

this is, no joke, the best ham and cheese croissant you will ever have in your life.  warm, buttery, with a crisply delicate outer structure that you bite through to a firm but yielding center of melted cheese and tangy ham, sending flaky shards  to sprinkle your shirt with signs of recently consumed deliciousness.

next up, good morning morning bun!  this lovely item graced the top 100 items to eat in SF before you die because it is FUCKING AMAZING. sweet and crunchy with  a hint of orange, it will leave you with a big sugary smile of ecstasy and smeared gooeyness.

i also brought in rich chocolate and subtly almond frangipane croissants along with the morning buns for my very last go game meeting in san francisco.

hellooooo my darlings. you will soon be eaten and then i will have to say goodbye. goodbye to you and the go game and san francisco! but don’t worry. i will be back someday, sooner than you think,  for my fix of ham and cheese and the entire beautiful city…

good lord. i would not complain if someone wanted to wrap everything i own in crispy deep fried potato strings as an april fool’s joke. anyone? anyone? anyway, the reason i’m not focusing on the food at first is because there are all these cute personal touches that made me truly adore the place. first off, check out the colorful handwritten specials board with little japanese food magnets. i am a total sucker for this shit:

mini rice bowl magnets! miso soup bowl magnets! penguins! a-freaking-dorable.  to add to the super-personalized cute-factor, there are all these handwritten little notes tucked inside the plastic page holders of the menu.  most of these little works of art express their love for judy and minako and their delicious organic japanese food. here are some of my favorites:

i am also a sucker for mini drawings of food. i remember a particularly boring spanish class while studying abroad in santiago, chile during college where i filled three pages of a notebook with miniscule drawings of what i would eat when i got back to the states.  i also enjoyed the following statement, less so the kind of creepy drawing:

in case you can’t read the above phrase – ‘when you are in this restaurant there will be at least one PERFECT MOMENT.’ whew. that’s a lot for a restaurant to live up to. i was already feeling a joyful warmth at the happiness of the restaurant spreading through my limbs, but that also could have been the many mimosas i just  downed at dolores park. would it be possible for the food to live up to the loving illustrations of its previous patrons? well, you already saw that crazy shrimp. the answer is HELL YES.  one of my favorite dishes was this spicy tuna roll topped with wasabi-marinated tobiko. usually spicy tuna is a mass of mayonnaise-y nastiness, but somehow minako works her magic to make this spicy tuna sans the mayo gloppiness. check out the insanely green roe soaked with wasabi for that perfect ZING of flavor and a cool heat. does that oxymoron make any sense? it’s not really a HOT heat like a chili pepper. huh. the internet has just informed me that this is due to its effect on the nasal passages rather than the tongue. thanks wikipedia.

we also ordered a bunch of vegetarian sushi dishes for julie. and by ‘for julie’ i mean ‘i ate at least half of them.’ sorry girl. you knew that was going to happen eating out with me though. here’s a delicious gobo (greater burdock) and avocado roll:

and a cucumber and umeboshi (japanese pickled plum) roll. umeboshi is a bit of an acquired taste – crazy sour/salty and apparently strong enough to corrode its way through an aluminum lunch box. damn. that’s the kind of shit i want in my stomach.

let’s not forget the ‘vegetarian eel’ roll with avocado and spinach. okay, well i forget what is in vegetarian eel – some sort of savory soy tastiness – but it sure is damn tasty.

we probably could have eaten all the above dishes and been perfectly happy, but i have a slight problem with excessive ordering.  judy was smart enough to check us before we wrecked ourselves and was like…why don’t you wait and see if this is enough food? after we debated ordering another few items.   the dishes i don’t have pictures of? deliciously crunchy and non-greasy veggie tempura and a truly amazing hamachi mint dish – yellowtail sashimi in a you-can’t-do-that-on-television-neon-green-slime-colored sauce of three kinds of mint and brown rice oil.  this blow-your-mind-delicious sauce was lemony and minty and seriously irresistible. they were nice enough to leave it on the table so we could dip everything into it and coat all our other food with incredibleness. i would totally be happy for this to be poured over my head repeatedly. i should probably just rig up my own garbage can of triple awesome triple mint sauce, carry it with me everywhere i go, throw out the trigger word every few minutes and look surprised when it comes gushing down all over my face. mmm. maybe someone else has already had this genius idea, because this dude seems to be enjoying the green slime quite a lot. not sure what’s going on there.

we ended our meal by creating our own food drawing.

hopefully you will go to minako organic, say hi to judy, see our illustration, and have your own perfect moment. with all the amazing food, friendly faces, free flowing sake, and personal touches, it’s pretty much guaranteed….

there is an insane amount of delicious food available within a one-block radius of the park. i stopped at bi-rite on the way over and got neon green and fruity so-hot-right-now casteveltrano olives and some nutty ewetopia cheese. julie and nadja, champion day drinkers, handled the peach mango mimosas:

mimosa in hand, i also caught up with allan from mission mission and met a powerhouse crew of local eaters including john from burrito justice and ashley from mission pie.  we all happened to catch the future hula-hooping world champion demolish her struggling male companion in a mano-a-mano battle.  it was a hilarious scene and the surrounding crowd gave her a few rounds of applause in acknowledgement of her talents.  i always love those great instances where a whole bunch of strangers join in on appreciating a singularly unexpected public moment, something we try to achieve as much as possible with the go game.

thanks to john from burrito justice for the cool moving photo action and some good conversation. i may be in touch about airmailing a cancun burrito over to the UK soon…

the guest chef on thursday was mari takahashi of sozai restaurant and sake lounge in the inner sunset. i would like to adopt mari and install her in my kitchen as the benevolent goddess of porky love. her MSF menu included THREE kinds of pork product which i had to eat ALL BY MYSELF. poor me. i actually went through the charade of questioning whether i could actually eat it all and reminding myself out loud that i could always take home any leftovers. then i totally destroyed all three dishes on the solo tip because i am into over-the-top gluttony like that.

i started with the bacon xiao long bao, which are shanghai soup dumplings that i got obsessed with when living in nyc chinatown after graduating college. it’s a steamed dumpling typically filled with a super intensely porky broth that is best eaten by putting it in a soup spoon and poking with a chopstick so some of the juice leaks out and cools off and you don’t get a first mouthful of boiling hot magma-style  liquid. these soup dumplings were made with bacon (i am seriously on bacon overload) and were served in adorably multicolored silicone cupcake liners:

these soup dumplings weren’t the best i’ve ever had (my faves are from nice green bo, formerly new green bo, downstairs from my old apartment in chinatown), with a slightly drier wrapper and less tasty broth inside, but they added an exciting element with the salty smokiness of the bacon. definitely worth a try.

we also started with olives, the smaller darker lucque and my favorite bright green castelvetrano, and a bottle of wine from julie. oh herro.

next up, i worked on this ginormous japanese pancake called okonomiyaki. here’s the MSF description: Homemade Kurobuta Bacon Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pancake), Sweet Worcestershire Sauce, Japanese style Aioli, Shaved Bonito Flakes, Ao-Nori. the full view:

and the extreme closeup. don’t worry, i finished the whole thing by myself. no, you can’t have any, thanks for asking.

the third and best pork dish of the evening? a slow braised berkshire kurobota pork belly with seven japanese spices, a soy grilled rice ball, and yuzu daikon pickles. HOLY F*CKING I WANT TO EAT YOU ALL THE TIME. here’s the initial presentation:

and here’s what it looked like after i inhaled half of it straight to the dome. so succulent. so tender. so perfect with the light vinegary taste of the picked daikon. i could eat this every day and be an ecstatically happy fatass.

while i took down what must have amounted to an entire half pig, julie munched on the comparably virtuous sesame avocado brown rice bowl with tofu tempura.

everything i ate (i.e. my three pork dishes plus bites of all julie’s food, AND some humphrey slocombe green tea-black sesame ice cream) was extremely well-executed considering mari was cooking in the unfamiliar kitchen of a semi-sketchy chinese restaurant, and definitely delicious. on my way back from the bathroom (you have to go through the kitchen) i noticed a guy taking photos of the chefs, nosed my way in, and met mari herself. i told her i wanted to eat her pork belly for every meal and she was incredibly nice.  i’m leaving town in 48 hours, otherwise i’d go to her restaurant immediately.

i also spied a tray full of the yaki onigiri (yummy grilled rice triangles served with the braised pork). if i hadn’t just eaten enough to fill a hunting lioness and her four semi-starved cubs, i would have yoinked one of these beauties:

my last favorite thing about MSF besides the food? the amazing posters lining the wall at lung shan, which i mentioned last time.  i don’t really understand what is going on in this photo, but i find it greatly amusing:

two last bits of happy information? 1) all the profits from mari’s food went to food runners, a volunteer food delivery group, and all the MSF profits went to UNICEF’s tap project.  b) i ran into allan of mission mission, everyone’s favorite local blog! exciting. in conclusion, get thee to MSF to fill your heart with happiness and your belly with deliciousness, all for a good cause! but get there early…this was the line at 5:45pm, fifteen minutes before they even opened:

man. the greatness of MSF cannot be denied by the adoring masses. i can’t help but agree….

i am having so much fun at bacon camp! the people here are very nice and there are lots of fun activities. there is no canoeing or archery or s’more making, but instead everyone has made yummy dishes out of bacon to share with each other.  i took some pictures so you could see all the cool things people are doing at camp.

this is a smoked pea soup with bacon bits and truffle oil in a bacon bowl made by steve.

i think i heard one of the judges say that it looks like baby vomit, but apparently it was pretty delicious.  even though i am only nine years old i already know that truffle oil = automatic tasty.

some people made very pretty and very complicated things, like this deconstructed BLT by simon with bacon foam and tomato chutney.  he also made a bacon old fashioned with bacon infused bourbon.

we are learning new things about other cultures here at camp! mariko made a traditional japanese dish called kakuni, a braised pork belly with soy sauce, ginger, green onion, and sake.

a lot of people made bacon dessert dishes like this plate of three kinds of chocolate covered bacon – plain, peanuts, and poop coffee beans! ew! gross! poop is funny.

i also saw bacon cupcakes, bacon apple pie, bacon cinnamon rolls, bacon baklava, and lots of other sweet bacon dishes. scott from lollyphile and baconpops even had maple sugar bacon lollipops:

if you’re worried about me making friends here at bacon camp, don’t worry. i met a very nice lady named laura, who made bacon-wrapped meatloaf:

i like close up pictures of bacon. mmmm.

don’t worry mom and dad, there was non-food related stuff too. you won’t need to send me to fat camp next year.  we learned stuff about SCIENCE! ani made a bacon hypercube, a bacon mobius strip, and bacon tetris!

people are also doing arts and crafts, like these funny bacon eggs that are really cool but also make my tummy feel kind of gooshy inside:

they were even making special bacon camp t-shirts! here is quinn the screenprinter, looking like a bacon ninja:

there were lots of other cool t-shirts at bacon camp! pigs and bacon love all over the place.

the one on the top right is the screenprinted t-shirt. here’s the seal of bacon camp, which i tried to get on a t-shirt until the screenprinting equipment got all FUBAR.

it is definitely a big pig product lovefest, but there is also a  serious competition going on. the judges are pretty tough! the deal is that you get a few minutes to present your bacon dish and then the judges critique with a score from 1-5, with one being a bacon disaster and a five being the ultimate bacon-y deliciousness. here is a picture of my final applewood smoked bacon and panko encrustifried avocado sushi with wasabi bacon mayonnaise presentation!

here’s someone presenting their chocolate covered bacon to the seated judges. you can also see amy, the mc in the cute dress and red heels, as well as all the people come to see the bacon!

there was also an audience popular vote, where people tried all the dishes and then put stickers on their favorites:

it was pretty intense for my hungover ass (yes, some nine year old campgoers get a little too drunk on tequila shots the night before heading off to camp) and overall, i would have preferred the whole affair to be more focused on tasting and appreciating all the incredible bacon creations rather than rigid numerical scoring.  i probably also should have conceived and produced my dish sometime before the morning of the competition, but i ended up getting pretty good scores and was happy with my showing.  there was lots of other general bacon love and some pretty funny presentations like this ‘one hour of bacon’, an overview of multiple bacon-related comments in a sixty minute span on twitter by the animated and bacon-obsessed rod begbie:

see, mom and dad, everyone around the world speaks the international language of bacon. overall, the whole day was a ton of fun, seeing all the inspired ways to use bacon and show your love for piggy deliciousness. i’m already excited to go back to bacon camp next year!

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