Dessert from Bang San Thai

I was in the mood for some mango and sticky rice, and I don't really have anywhere in SF that I've loved it at, so I decided to use GoPago as inspiration to try somewhere new.  I was in luck, as there are a zillion Thai places listed on GoPago, and pretty much every one that offered dessert has it.  I browsed through the listings, and settled on Bang San Thai, as their version was fairly cheap, it was nearby, and people seemed to like it.

I ordered while I was a few blocks away, and received the reply that my order was ready within a few minutes.  I was a little upset, since I didn't want it to be cold by the time I arrived, and powerwalked the rest of the way there.  Once I arrived I learned that it wasn't actually ready.  It took another 10 minutes. Not quite the ideal GoPago experience.

The staff was friendly, and offered me water and a seat while I waited.  They seemed to do a lot of take out business, with a steady stream of people coming through to pick up orders.  The food looked pretty good, and I'd consider going back to try non-dessert sometime too!

Sticky Rice with Ripe Mango.  $4.00.

As you know, I'm a big fan of desserts.  And I always look forward to mango and sticky rice at Thai restaurants.

Bang San Thai mixes things up a little and uses black rice.  It was inconsistently cooked, some of it mushy, some of it very al dente.  I actually kinda liked that, as it gave it some interesting textures, but I'm not sure that it was intentional.  It was warm and seemed decently fresh.

On top was a little bit of sweetened condensed milk, always one of my favorite parts.  There wasn't much of it however, and it didn't have any coconut flavor to it which I prefer.  There were also some sesame seeds.

The mango was perfectly ripe, but somewhat sour.  I don't blame them though, good mango is very hard to find in the US.  I was spoiled by living in Sydney for a while, where the mango was incredible, so no mango here ever really lives up to my expectations.

Overall, this was ok, but not great.  $4 is probably the cheapest I've ever seen mango and sticky rice listed though, so it was a good value for the money.

Read More...

Nick's Crispy Tacos

I've been hearing about Nick's Crispy Tacos for ages.  And I've been on a bit of a taco kick lately, after having some pretty good tacos from Rubios on multiple occasions and Tropisueño.   And of course, they are on LevelUp, which finally encouraged me to journey there.

Now, being the LevelUp pro I am, I waited until their famous Taco Tuesdays, where tacos are only $2, which just happens to be how much they seed LevelUp with.  Taco Tuesdays begin at 5pm, and I'd read that it gets crazy there fast, so people recommend going right at 5pm.  So I did.  There was already a line out the door, but it moved pretty quickly, and I was able to get the last table.  I can't imagine what the place is like at 7pm on a Tuesday!

You order at the register, and then they give you a number to take back to your table.  They are cash or LevelUp only, a strange combo, but it was nice to be somewhere where they weren't annoyed that I was using LevelUp, and rather were happy that I wasn't yet another person in line trying to use a credit card.  I've been really shocked by how many places use LevelUp, but act like you are causing the biggest inconvenience ever when you go to pay with it.  Or how many places have dead batteries on their LevelUp phones, or have them turned off, or worse, have just given up and stopped accepting it all together.  I must say, the LevelUp experience usually is pretty rough.  At Nick's, that part went smoothly.

The food came quickly, I had just enough time to use the not so clean bathroom before settling into my seat when a server arrived, snatching up my number and placing my basket of food in front of me, wordlessly.  Well, it is a casual place, so service isn't really part of it.

The majority of the establishment is actually a bar, and apparently a nightclub after 7pm.  I was gone long before the transformation occurred.  The crowd at 5pm was pretty strange; I saw more babies and small children in the 20 minutes or so that I was there than I do in an entire week normally.  I have no idea why people would bring their kids here, perhaps its just an easy dinner option, and 5pm is when families dine?

Anyway.  It wasn't very good.  And not even worth the Taco Tuesday prices.  I won't be going back.

Pollo Taco: Seasoned, simmered chicken in corn tortilla with pico de gallo & pinto beans.  $3.75 ($2 on Taco Tuesday)

For Taco Tuesday, the seafood tacos are not included, and are still full price.  Since I'd normally get a fish or shrimp taco, this meant I had to either pay double or get something I am less into, but I decided to branch out and do that, as it had worked out at Tropisueño, and I do like trying new things.  The selection for tacos isn't large: carne asada, pollo, pollo asado, carnitas, or veggie.  All include pinto beans and salsa fresca.  For $0.95 more,  you can make it "Nick's way", adding cheese and guac, and wrap it in a crispy shell.  Since I'm allergic to avocado and wanted to stick to my "budget", I didn't do it Nick's way, even though the Yelpers all say that is how they are good.  I don't like pork, the veggie one didn't actually contain any extra veggies so is just beans and salsa, and I wasn't in the mood for steak, so I went for chicken.  I asked for a recommendation between the pollo and pollo asado, and the person taking my order said without a single moments hesitation to get the pollo.  So I did.

The taco came in a plastic basket, that wasn't entirely clean.  Oh well, that is why it was lined with paper right?

It was wrapped up in a handy paper as well, different from the way most tacos are served, but really quite convenient and made it much easier to eat.

It was a heafty taco.  The difference in taco sizes everywhere continues to surprise me.  Somewhere like Pancho Villa they are basically bite sized, and it takes three to really make a meal.  At Rubio's or Tropisueño, one is a good snack, but two would be a dinner.  Here, one was incredibly filling.  Although, unlike most places, they do not include chips and salsa with your order, they are an additional $2.

Like Tropisueño, it was double wrapped in corn tortillas.  They were soft, and had a better corn flavor than those at Tropisueño, but not as much flavor as those from Rubio's.

The taco contained a ton of chicken.  Shredded chicken, mostly white meat.  It actually seemed fairly good quality.  It wasn't very flavorful however, not much seasoning.  It tasted very ... chicken-y.  Which is fine, except I just don't really like chicken that much.  Oops.

They only offer whole pinto beans.  Again, not something I like that much, I prefer refried, and not black beans.  These were cooked well, not too mushy nor undercooked, but meh, I don't really like this type of beans.  Double oops.  Although, had I left them out, there wouldn't have been much to this taco.

There was also some pico de gallo.  The tomato was fresh tasting and looked ripe, although not particularly flavorful.  It was the best component of the taco.

Overall, I was impressed with the size and quantity of chicken in here, but I really didn't like it much at all.  Partially my own fault since I don't care for the main ingredients, but also, there just wasn't really any seasoning or flavor to it.  Very unremarkable, even when I added tons of salsa to it.  Meh.

I knew tax would put me over my LevelUp budget, but for some reason I was charged $2.25.  Perhaps Healthy SF was included?  Anyway, this taco didn't really seem worth that price, and I can't imagine paying the regular $3.75 price for it, particularly when you can get a far higher quality and tastier taco from Tropisueño or Rubio's for less.

I wouldn't get this again.

Salsa in squeeze bottles on the table.

Rather than a salsa bar, Nick's has two squeeze bottles of salsa on each table.  They were both sticky, and I felt gross eating with my hands after touching these.  But tacos and chips are finger foods ...

Niether one of these salsas was notable in any way.  The green one didn't have any heat to it, was just a salsa verde.  The red one had a tiny amount of spice, but not much, and not in an interesting way.

Weakest salsas of anywhere I've tried.

Read More...

4505 Meats

4505 Meats is one of the food vendors at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market, there every day the market is open (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays).  They offer cooked to order items, but also have most of their products available to take home and cook as well.  Back when I used to cook more at home I enjoyed many of their products, particularly the bacon studded hot dogs.  Probably my favorite hot dogs ever, and perfect with a brioche hot dog bun from Acme (also located at the Ferry Building).  And some fresh corn on the cob on the side.  I have many fond memories of these magical summer dinners!

They also offer up insanely delicious sounding weekly specials, most of which I haven't tried, but drool over the descriptions regularly.

I recently learned that they also do catering, as I discovered them at an event at work, where I got to try a few more of their items.  And, before the foie gras ban, I discovered at last minute that they make some amazing foie gras pot de cream.  I hope that someday soon they are able to offer that again, as it is a tragedy that I only had it once!

Cheddar bratwurst: 1/4 pound sausage made with pork, Tillamonk cheddar, chilis, touch of heat.

Wow, they really know how to cook a brat!  Perfectly crispy outside, ridiculously juicy inside.  It squirted all over the place when I bit into it, creating a huge mess, but I gleefully ignored this until I was done.  At which point I realized my shirt was oil stained forever.  Whoops.

The cheese was melted inside, gooey and delicious.

I don't generally like brats, but this was very good.  If I were in the mood for one again, I'd certainly get it from them.

Frankaroni: mac and cheese with bacon, deep fried, on a stick.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Let's just say I was excited to try this.  Seriously?  Deep fried mac and cheese?

Unfortunately, I didn't like it very much.  Although the inside was creamy and decent, it was just too oily and greasy for me.  I did like the crunch the deep frying provided.

Wouldn't get again, but I'm glad I finally tried it.

[ Not Pictured ]

Cheeseburger.

I think this is their most popular item, so I had to eventually try it.  People rave about it, but I really wasn't impressed.

The bun was very oily.  The patty was thin, cooked medium-well, and wasn't very juicy.  The melted gruyere was really good though.  There was also a lot of special sauce that reminded me of McDonald's.

Overall, it was just very oily and greasy.  It has its place for sure, but not that great of a burger, and not one that really fits in with being at the Ferry Building, enjoying the farmer's market.  More fitting perhaps for a late night diner, with a milkshake on the side :)

Foie gras pot de creme, foie gras boudin blanc.

My last foie goods, purchased the final Saturday before the ban went into effect.  I stored the sausages in my freezer, to enjoy a few weeks later once I was foie-deprived.

The foie pot de creme was fantastic.  It had a good, strong foie flavor and was incredibly creamy.  It clearly contained a lot of foie and was well made.  The stone fruit compote on the bottom was perfect with it, but I would have preferred if my entire jar was filled with the foie :)  I enjoyed this slowly over the course of a couple days, sometimes just by the spoonful, but sometimes jazzing it up some.  The best pairing I found was slathered on some hot brioche.  Swoon.  I really, really wish I could get another jar of this goodness!

The foie gras boudin blanc was good, very juicy, but I didn't really taste a lot of foie.  I'm sure the foie added to the juiciness and richness of it though.  We cooked them up, slathered on some of my cousin's homemade nectarine jam and some grainy mustard, and attempted to eat them inside of Acme brioche hotdog buns, but the sausages were soo fat that they split the rolls open immediately.  The rolls were just too puny to hold up to these monsters!

I felt like these elements all should have come together better than they did - foie, stone fruit, brioche ... those should be a match made in heaven, but I was disappointed.  I think some of it was our cooking method, and perhaps they suffered from being frozen.  I wish we had done something different with them, particularly, I am imagining a risotto with bits of this cut up in it.  Sorta like a very gourmet version of rice-a-roni with hot dogs in it like I used to eat ... now this would be a real San Francisco treat!  But ... unfortunately, I'll never get a chance to try out that idea :(

[ No Photo ]

Bacon Studded Hot Dog.

Yes, they take a hot dog, and very generously stud it with bacon.  Like the brat, the moment I bite into this thing, juices went squiring absolutely everywhere.  It was so oily.  I wanted to dislike it.  But, alas, it was delicious.  The bacon and insane amount of fat just keep the whole thing so moist and juicy.  Yumtastic.

[ No Photo ]

Chicharrones.

I think the chicharrones may be 4505's most famous product.  Described as "irresistible clouds of puffy pork magic, seasoned with only the finest chilis, sugar, and salt".

I laughed when I read the description, but, it was fitting!  Super crispy.  Such intense pork flavor.  So delicious.  You probably shouldn't eat many of these, but a few is quite the treat :)

Read More...

Chocolates from Garoto

Garoto is one of Brazil's largest chocolate manufactures.  They have a large variety of chocolate, all of which seems about in quality of Hershey.  I haven't really liked any that I've tried.

• Bonbon Recheado Sabor Gianduia: Tasting notes: Milk chocolate coating, smooth filling, can’t really tell what the taste is.
• Surreal Amendoim: "Ball bonbon stuffed with creamy peanut butter, wrapped with a layer of wafer biscuit and covered with a layer of milk chocolate."  Tasting notes: Crappy milk chocolate with no flavor, totally lost.  Wafer layer is really nice, crisp wafer.  Most of it is just peanut butter filling that isn’t really creamy nor flavorful.  You don’t get the pb and chocolate awesomeness like a pb cup, but crunch from wafer is awesome :) [ Wafer tastes stale, peanut butter filling has decent flavor, chocolate generic.  Meh. ]
• Amendium: “Peanut filled bonbon”.  Tasting notes: Like the Surreal Amendoim, but without the biscuit.  Not very good chocolate coating.  Peanut butter is creamy, with little bits of peanut, but not very good.  Meh!
• Torrone: “Peanut torrone filled bon bon”.  Tasting notes: Milk chocolate coating again generic, filling is just super sweet, I see the little bits of peanut but do not taste them.
• Opereta: "White chocolate with cashew nut blend".  Tasting notes: Bad white chocolate, no flavor.
• Mundy: "White bonbon with coconut flavored cream." Tasting notes: Thick white chocolate shell, bad white chocolate.  The inside did have coconut flavor, but it wasn't good.

Read More...

Demo by Yigit Pura

Scharffen Berger is currently running a contest, dubbed the Chocolate Adventure Contest.  The contest is simple: create your best sandwich cookie, using Scharfen Berger chocolate, and at least one of the twelve "adventure ingredients", and submit the recipe.  A panel of celebrity judges will pick a winner.

To kick off the contest, they had several local celebrity pastry chefs create and demonstrate their own entries for the contest.  Attendance was limited, RSVP required, and you could only pick one.  So many great sounding desserts, how to pick?  In the end, I choose the demo by Yigit Pura.  Yigit just opened his own pâtisserie inside of Macy's a few weeks ago, and I of course attended the opening.  I wasn't impressed by the macarons I tried at that event, but he did win Top Chef: Just Desserts, and I've heard so many people saying great things about other things they've tried from his shop, that I decided to give him another try.

I'm so glad I did!  Not only was this perhaps the tastiest dessert I've ever had at a demo, it was by far the most amusing.  It made me want to go watch Top Chef: Just Desserts to see if he was as much fun on that show as he was in person.  He told many jokes throughout the presentation, which were clearly prepared, but didn't seem scripted.  This guy could very easily have his own TV show if he wanted.  He was enthusiastic, energetic, engaging, entertaining ... the list just goes on and on.  I think he charmed every member of the audience, young or old, male or female.  Such a personality!

But back to the demo.  He used several different types of Scharffen Berger chocolate in his recipe, and for the "adventure ingredients" he picked cocoa nibs and chili pepper.  He created a three layer masterpiece, dubbed "Chloe's Pasilla Spiced Cookie Sandwiches".  See below for my full review of the cookies.  They were incredible.  So incredible, that one women two seats down from me had a strange look on her face after eating hers.  When he asked, "What, were you not impressed?" she blurted out in response: "No ... I think I just had an orgasm!"  Oh my.

Action shot of Yigit giving me seconds.  Photo from http://amyactually.blogspot.com.

In recovering from that unexpected response, he checked in on everyone else to make sure we had all received one.  Myself, and the women next to me, jokingly shook our heads and said "no".  I thought it was clear we were joking, as we were in the very front, and had been served first, along with orgasm-lady.  Being a fine gentleman, he rushed over, grabbed the tray of remaining ones, and came down into the audience to deliver us more.  I felt bad and quickly corrected and said we'd already gotten one, but he just laughed and gave us the tray.  The Macy's folks quickly put a stop to this as they couldn't actually give a second one to everyone.  Oh well, we sure lucked out.  Another blogger was in the row behind me, and got a great action shot of this.  You can see me eagerly going for seconds!

Now, I must get back to the pâtisserie to try out more of his treats.  He is clearly a talented guy!

Chloe’s Pasilla Spiced Cookie Sandwiches: Pasilla chili-infused Scharffen Berger chocolate ganache, cacao nib mudslides, chocolate shortbreads.

The cookie sandwiches were made up of 3 components.  The bottom was the cocoa nib mudslide.  The filling was the ganache.  And they were topped with chocolate shortbreads.

Every single layer of these was amazing and would have been delightful on their own.  And assembled into the sandwich?  Too many tasty things in one bite!

First, let's start with the mudslides.  When I originally read the description, I thought we were getting served a little alcoholic beverage with our cookies.  Nope!  The mudslides were the base layer, basically, an incredibly fudgey, almost gooey, brownie-like cookie.  They were my favorite component.  Inside the cookie was dried tart cherries, which went really well with the chocolate, which both flavored the cookie, and appeared as extra chunks.  Cherries and chocolate are such a good pairing, and the use of tart cherries rather than sweet ones just elevated the flavors that much more, as it balanced out the flavors, rather than just adding sweetness.  They were then rolled in the nibs, giving a delightful crunch.  These things were amazing.  I could have eaten an entire tray of them.

Inside was the ganache.  He described the process like making a custard, or really intense chocolate pudding.  In fact, he passed around a container of just the ganache for us to enjoy by the spoonful.  I can't imagine eating an entire bowl full of it on its own (duh, it would need some whipped cream!), but it was really smooth, really chocolately, and had a nice kick from the pasilla chilis.

And then on top, was a tiny little chocolate shortbread.  They were buttery and everything a shortbread should be.

The whole thing was dusted with powdered sugar.

These were really, really good.  Chocolate was clearly the theme, as every component was just screaming CHOCOLATE!  DARK CHOCOLATE!  NOMS!

Read More...

Chips from Food Should Taste Good

I first discovered Food Should Taste Good products at my office a few years ago.  Since then, they have been popping up all over the place, now offered at most cafes around town.

I like the idea behind them, trying to make chips and snack foods out of more wholesome ingredients, yet still taste good.  Unfortunately, I don't think they live up to their name.  They offer three product lines: tortilla chips, kettle chips, and crackers.  The tortilla chips are their signature line, and they have a slew of different flavors.  I haven't ever cared for them.  The kettle chips are better, but I wouldn't pick them over other kettle style chips.  I've never tried the crackers.

Tortilla Chips.

• Multigrain Tortilla Chips: Made with flax, sunflower and sesame seeds.  Interesting shape.  Hearty tasting, but just strange as tortilla chips.  Good salt level.
• Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips:  Meh, still corn chips but with mild sweet potato flavor.  Unhealthy and not actually tasty. [ Decent sweet potato flavor but still not great. ] [ Hearty tasting, but not much sweet potato.  Good dipped in bean dip. ] [ Nothing all that great, subtle sweet potato flavor. ] [ Kinda healthy tasting, but not actually.  Only slight sweet potato flavor.  Not nearly salty enough.  MEH. ] 
• Jalapeño Tortilla Chips: Lightly spicy, very salty, but at end of day, just tortilla chips [ Zesty, but not anything special. ]
• Cheddar Tortilla Chips: Not very cheddar-y, multigrain taste, meh. [ Nice and cheesy, hearty flavors from quinoa/flax/etc ]

Blue Corn Tortilla Chips.

These are made with flaxseed and quinoa, along with the blue corn.  I thought those ingredients would make them taste healthy, but they don't.  Which I guess makes sense, since they are insanely unhealthy, even compared to regular potato chips.

Anyway, I liked the blue corn flavor more than the basic multigrain chips, but I just don't like flax, and that flavor was too strong.  Good salt level though. 

Kettle Chips.

The kettle chips are more standard potato chips, although made with sweet potatoes.

• Original Sweet Potato Kettle Chips: Crispy, salty, decent sweet potato flavor, not bad. [ Very sweet potatoey, but dried out and not very salted. ]
• Barbecue Sweet Potato Kettle Chips:  Pretty good, best of the sweet potato chips. [ Crispy kettle chips, nice flavor from sweet potato, good bbq coating.  I like these.]
• Salt & Vinegar Sweet Potato Kettle Chips: Salty, nice.

Read More...

Donuts from Rolling Pin

After our adventure to falafel wraps, Ojan had a measly $1.47 left of GoPago credits, expiring mid-afternoon on Monday.  Not wanting to squander them, I looked around to see what we could get for ~$1.  There were lots of options: dolmeh, falafel, tons of chips, or ... donuts!  ZOMG.

I have a fondess for donuts that I don't all that often indulge in.  Ok, that isn't quite true, I have a fair number of donuts, but they tend to be fancy ones like candied bacon donuts with cheesecake filling and maple bourbon glaze from Baker & Banker, or foie gras donuts, with coffee cream, foie gras vaudovan caramel, and a brandied foie gras cereal milk shooter from Lafitte, or even whimsical versions, turned into burgers, like the fleurburger, with lightly spiced dark chocolate ganache, home-made beignets, and served with a banana flavored milk shake and frozen fennel ice cream “Pommes Frites” at Fleur De Lys, or the absolute best, fresh, tiny little maple bourbon glazed donuts at Cyrus.

But regular donuts?  Not something I encounter that often.  But a few weeks ago, someone had leftover donuts from an event at work, I think just from Happy Donuts, and I got rather hooked.  I had an embarrassing number of them.  Donuts have been on my mind ever since, so I was thrilled to see this option.

Unfortunately, I didn't begin my donut-quest early enough in the day.  The place that had donuts with great reviews had only a single donut left when we arrived, and it was just a plain cake donut.  Sigh.  A few blocks away, I knew that Diller's also had donuts, from Rolling Pin, which I'd heard good things about.  So we went there, hoping they'd still have some donuts left.

Indeed they did, although, only a few: just a plain cake donut, a glazed donut, or a french cruller.  None that I was particularly excited for.  I picked the cruller, but I wish I'd done some research beforehand, as it seems that most people love Rolling Pin, and dislike their crullers.  Whoops.

French Cruller.  $1.25.

The cruller just wasn't very good.  The dough was more eggy than normal, not resulting in the light airiness I associate with crullers.  Instead it felt really dense.  The coating was just a standard glaze.  It was sweet, it went ok with my coffee, but really, this was quite a disappointment.  Not good, would not get again.

Read More...