Foodie Digest

I tend to be worthless when I go too many hours without food. If I get to the point where I’m hungry, I can contribute. I can come up with ideas of where to eat and what I might be craving. If I miss that point of awareness, though, I get stupid. Like today. Luckily I live with John who takes over. Like today. Today he said “let’s have crepes”. Off to Yelp I was to research what was nearby and we were directed to Soccer Cafe. In the easy to park area of the mission (16th and treat).

We’ve driven by this place tons of times while going to Poc Chuc. We’ve never noticed it before. A shame, since it has outdoor seats (dog friendly!) and good food.

Soccer Cafe is a pretty cavernous space. More like a school gymnasiums with TVs to broadcast soccer games. You order at the counter and pay; they deliver (and incredibly quickly) food.

Soccer Cafe has a pretty extensive breakfast/sandwich/crepe menu. Since we set out to get crepes we stuck to that. They have both sweet and savory crepes. We both opted for savory crepes.

John had a breakfast crepe — eggs, cheese and ham. I opted for the Amir crepe — spinach, mushrooms and cheese — and I added tomatoes. We both had a beverage and our total was less than $15. bargain bite!

But on to the crepes… They both arrived quickly, perfectly prepared and neatly folded.

Both crepes looked identical but they had delivered them appropriately.

The breakfast crepe:

The breakfast crepe had a great balance of cheese, ham and egg. The crepe itself was tender and eggy. The cheese could have melted a little bit more and the flavor was overwhelmingly of ham. You are given your choice of cheese; this one had cheddar. This was a good portion but I think it could have used some other flavors. Without the ham this would have been a pretty bland crepe.

Amir plus tomato crepe

The other crepe had an abundance of spinach (this is a very good thing). Again, the crepe itself was simple and eggy (compared to the buckwheat crepe of Butler and the Chef). The tomatoes added some much needed flavor but again I found myself wishing for more seasonings. Luckily there are bottles of tapatio on the table so it’s pretty easy to doctor the dishes yourself. As in the breakfast crepe, the cheese could have melted more. I found myself eating around chunks of not melted enough cheese.

I wouldn’t hesitate to come back here. The service was extremely friendly and quick. The food was quite decent and the atmosphere was pretty relaxing (though I wouldn’t advise coming here during a heated soccer match). I look forward to trying more of the menu.

Overall thumbs: Two thumbs up. The food was good, service was quick and friendly and it’s a total bargain.

Tastiness Rating: Fair. The food was good and quite edible.

Service Rating: Good. Service is friendly and super quick.

Dog friendliness factor: Outside seats make this an easy spot to hang with the dogs.

We were at a taste of San Francisco dinner party once and someone brought an Atomic sub from the Submarine Center. John took one bite and said “now THAT’S a sandwich”. Or something like that. I took a bite and said yeah, that’s like an east coast sub (to me).

Now I should add that one of our past times has been to search for the perfect sandwich. We’ve found the perfect reuben at Morty’s deli. Seriously, it was great. And the next time I feel up for the caloric splurge I’ll go back, take a picture, and write about it for you.

But today? Today is back to searching for the perfect sub. So off we went to the other side of town to Submarine Center in West Portal.

This place clearly has reached cult status. There’s a line out the door (on a Saturday post 1 p.m.). Still, we were able to order and grab a seat.

The nice thing about Submarine Center is they have 3 sizes in submarines: mini (your normal sandwich size, IMO), center, (the normal one for other people) and super. They also have regular sandwiches but this trip was all about the sub.

We order a regular size atomic (hot pastrami, roast turkey breast, corned beef brisket, cheese and hot peppers) and a mini Italiano (mortadella, capicola, salami, & provolone). Each sandwich comes with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and special sauce.

Atomic on the left, Italiano on the right

The good: the lettuce is shredded as you’d hope in a sub. The “special sauce” is the right italian-ish vinaigrette. The proportions are right on. The mini sandwich was perfect size.

The not as good: In our case, the bread was overly toasted. In my case I don’t actually like the bread toasted at all but I didn’t realize that was the default. My bad. Still, both are sandwiches were toasted a little bit too long. The quality of the meats was OK. I would have been better off with a roast beef or turkey. I think I’ve been too spoiled by incredible salami that I should get in a sub what rightfully should go in a sub.

Would I come back here? Sure, but I wouldn’t seek it out. Would John? Yeah, probably. But we’d both opt for our sandwiches not to be toasted.

Sure, yum may not be overly descriptive. Not only that, I’m falling into the “always start with dessert” mantra. To be fair, this dessert was AFTER lunch but the dessert was so memorable I’m starting with it.

I live with someone who loves sandwiches. While I could eat sushi or ramen or maybe even tacos for lunch every day, he could eat sandwiches. Especially submarine sandwiches. So we trekked to the Submarine Center (more on that later) and discovered the neighborhood of West Portal. It’s cute. With big houses. It looks nothing like the San Francisco we know and live in.

Anyway, after a satisfying lunch we decided to wander. A nice walk in the break in the SF winter storms. We stumbled on West Portal Bakery. They had tons of cookies. Muffins. Bread. Cornbread. But what caught our eye was this slice of chocolate cake:

fudgy, gooey chocolate cake.

What’s amazing about this is that neither of us are huge chocolate cake fans. I always opt for vanilla (with chocolate frosting). His choice is vanilla with vanilla frosting. But as you can see, there’s something about this one that’s just eye-catching. It glistened. It beckoned. So we ordered it.

Two forks and two bites later, we both said “wow”. This cake was rich without being too dense, moist without being gushy, fudgy without being sugary. Don’t get me wrong — this cake was sweet. But it had a smooth silky consistency that didn’t separate out the individual granules of sugar.

Two bites in we look up and the server was delivering us each a glass of water. She said we’d need it. She was right. This is the perfect cake to enjoy with a tall glass of milk.  I would drive back to West Portal (in case you’re wondering it’s the other side of town. 6 miles the other side of town) to get this cake for a special occasion.

We also picked up 2 cookies for later; a chocolate chip (no nuts!) and an oatmeal cranberry cookie. The chocolate chip was deemed “good”. (I can’t give you a better description. I had less than a bit of it and it tasted like a cookie). The oatmeal cranberry cookie had too much cinnamon and not enough oatmeal. It was a dense cookie that wasn’t all that enjoyable. I’d rather save my calories for the cake.

We noted they also served sandwiches, had a wide assortment of fresh baked breads (that looked great) and honey cornbread flowerettes (like muffins) that we almost bought.

Since this really is a counter and we only had a snack, I’ll take a break from the normal tastiness/service/overall ratings. Just add that I would highly recommend the chocolate cake.

I’m an east coast gal who lives with a Chicagoan. Needless to say, we have many differences of opinion on pizza — specifically thin crust pizza. He’s dragged me for thin crust pizza in Chicago (sure, it tastes fine. But if I’m in Chicago I’ll take Nancy’s stuffed pizza. I’ve dragged him to pizza in NY (John’s on Bleeker!). Neither of us were blown away by the other person’s idea of thin crust pizza perfection.

BUT we both love Tony’s.  Tony’s pizza has 4 different pizza ovens. FOUR. And four different types of pizza (so you can think of it as four different pizza restaurants). We’ve eaten here a number of times. We’ve had pizza from 3 out of 4 ovens, I think.

The 900 degree wood fired oven. This is the oven that made Tony famous. The story goes he won a competition in Italy for a margherita pizza. The specific combination is special to him and he only makes 73 of these daily. If you don’t get there in time for one of these 73, you’ll have to get the slightly different margherita extra. It’s still good. I don’t even know if I prefer one over the other. On today’s visit, we had one pie from the 900 degree oven. The Scarola con Pancetta pizza.

This pizza has Crushed Red Pepper, Mozzarella, Pancetta, Peppered Goat Cheese, Escarole, Sweet Piquante Peppers. The peppers here are truly the star; they are both sweet and spicy. In my opinion this pizza could be improved by substituting arugula for the escarole (a little more of a peppery bite) but I really enjoy this pizza. I can also heartily recommend the Truffle pizza, but at market price this can get as costly as $80!.  The quail egg and speck pizza, also from this wood burning oven, is also delightful. The crust is crispy and chewy and perfectly prepared.

Classic Italian oven We didn’t have any pizzas this time from this domed, gas brick oven. In the past I’ve enjoyed the Cal Italia pie (Asiago, Mozzarella, Imported Italian Gorgonzola, Sweet Fig preserve from Croatia, Prosciutto di Parma, Parmigiano, Balsamic). It may be a little sweet for some, but it’s a fantastic leftover for breakfast pizza.

Classic American We almost always get a pie from this NY Flat Top Gas Brick Oven. If we remember, we ask for the crust extra thin. The pepperoni is a favorite (and a bargain still at $13 - it used to be $10). This time around we got the NY Sausage and Pepper.

This (and the others from the Classic American oven) come with the perfect mix of sauce and cheese. The one pictured here is not extra thin (oops, we forgot). Still tasty.

Italian brick oven is used for the sicilian style pizza. We’ve never had one so I can’t tell you too much about it.

We’ve also had salads (huge!) and a side of meatballs (tasty). One weekend nights we get takeout from here, but the outside seating has made this a great trek with the dogs place.

Overall thumbs: Two thumbs up. Service is friendly and the pizzas are easily the best in San Francisco. Pizzas to go are easily to pick up with 2 people (one to hover with the car in North Beach, one to run in and grab the pies).

Tastiness rating: Very high. Every pizza we’ve had here has been fantastic.

Service: Good. We’ve only sat at the outside tables (when we’ve dined there we’ve had dogs with us) but they’ve always been friendly and attentive. Because we’re on foot they even wrap up our leftovers in foil instead of a box (easier for fitting in a backpack). We’ve only had to wait for a table one time and they called our cell phone when it was ready.

Dog friendliness: Very good. We’ve been here before with our two big (one extra large, one large) dogs. They have several dog bowls and heat lamps so it’s pleasant outside.

(or checking your calorie counter at the door). I’ve been meaning to check this place out for a while and used the holiday exodus from San Francisco as a good excuse (that and mid-day tickets to a show nearby).

We showed up around noon on a Saturday expecting a wait. There were several people waiting outside so we put our name on the list and hoped for the best. Minutes later a server came out and called our name for the counter. Score! for being the first party of 2 on the list.

The menu is relatively small with daily options. We opted to split an appetizer and taste the gumbo, then had our own entrees. We started with:

beignet sampler. Yup, a sampler.

this was a sampler of 4 beignets (from left to right) crawfish, chocolate, apple and plain. Nice combo of sweet and savory. We started with the savory (crawfish) and saved the chocolate for dessert. These were not your normal light as a feather full of air beignet. These were more like puff donut-goodness surrounding a tasty filling. I particularly loved the crawfish one. Great seasonings and nice flavor.

cup of gumbo this was pleasant. Worth having again but I wouldn’t go there just for the gumbo. Didn’t need to, because my entree was fabulous. I’d go back again to eat this (after running a marathon to burn off the calories).

shrimp and grits this was one of the daily specials. It included a very generous portion of shrimp, great N’awlins spiciness, tomato yumminess, creamy grits and oodles of cheese. I didn’t want to keep eating it, but I did. I did save room for the chocolate beignet, though. It was GOOD.

egg and bacon tartine basically an egg sandwich with an outstanding tomato-bacon relish.

I also had the house sweet watermelon tea. It tasted like the perfect combo of an iced tea and a watermelon agua fresca. Refills on the house.

Overall thumbs: Up. We were concerned about the wait but were pleasantly surprised. All the food was well prepared.

Tastiness rating: High. There aren’t a lot of places in SF to get shrimp and grits or gumbo. These were nice renditions.

Service rating: Moderately High. We were seated quickly and our drinks orders were taken right away. It took a while to put in our meal order, though. Service was nice and friendly (which seemed all the more important because this place is tiny).

I’m sure everyone has their favorite special spot. The place where you forget about, then remember, and always recommend wholeheartedly. Canteen is that spot for me. It’s teeny, so you need reservations, and it’s just a far enough walk that we don’t go too much. Instead, it’s a nice surprise each time we go. We were looking for a last minute celebratory spot and remembered (at 6:30) to try Canteen. Luckily for us they had seatings available at 9:15.

Things to know: Canteen is tiny and only does 2 seatings nightly. The largest booth they have seats 4. A larger group would need to be seated at the counter. You need reservations for dinner because they are small. Tuesday night is prix fixe night; they have one set menu for the evening, although they’ll make substitutions (vegetarian, for example) as necessary. Other nights there tend to be 4 appetizers, 4 entrees, and 4 desserts to choose from.

What we ate (and didn’t):

• amuse bouche of scallop, roasted cauliflower and oil (I can’t remember the oil). Scallop was incredibly sweet and well prepared. I liked it but the cauliflower could overwhelm the scallop.
• crab and cardoon soup in case you didn’t know, a cardoon is a member of the artichoke family but has the texture and flavor of celery. This soup was rich and buttery with large chunks of crab. Pretty tasty. We shared this and:
• seared foie gras with quince and duck confit this was actually a substitute for a chicken liver and foie gras terrine. Fine by me The foie gras was prepared perfectly. I didn’t have any of the duck confit (much to the pleasure of my dining companion). He loved it (but duck and I do not get along..) We didn’t get the other 2 options: shrimp poached in butter and one that I don’t remember (oops). We were also served:
• Dennis Leary’s legendary rolls. They are served with butter. I’m not sure why; they are oozing with butter when you eat them (but really, what could make butter taste better? besides bacon, just more butter). The entrees we had:
• Polenta and goat cheese clafouti with mushrooms: This was my dish and was fantastic. Think of an uber light corn pancake. The richness of the polenta was matched by the lightness of a clafouti, but still had the crispy edges. Topped with goat cheese and earthy wild mushrooms. I shared this dish, but I loved it and ate most of it. Would order it again in a heart beat.
• Pork schnitzel topped with red cabbage. Again, he achieved a lightness one doesn’t normally expect with schnitzel. This was John’s dish; he loved it as much as I love the clafouti (in a here you should try this I’m happy to share it while secretly hoping the other person didn’t love it as much as you did). We didn’t get:
• Tenderloin topped with truffle and a fish dish. They both sounded good but neither as intriguing or appealing as the two we selected. For dessert we had:
• Vanilla bean souffle which we shared. This comes out perfectly risen to the table, then is cut and topped with creme anglaise tableside. This is the one constant that’s always on the menu at Canteen (except or Tuesday nights, that is). It’s a phenomenal dessert so we have a hard time not getting it. We split this (and we were pretty stuffed when it arrived so it was a good choice). We didn’t get the gingerbread with caramelized pineapples (though clearly I thought about it since I remember the description) or either of the two other choices.