DIVE

What the F?

2007-04-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know it's been awhile since I posted.

Do you read my other blog? No? Well, there you go. If you had, you'd know that I've been busy cooking, going places, eating, and moisturizing.

Here's the bad news.

I'm crazy busy. Busy with work, busy getting ready for Bruce's birthday party, busy getting ready for this trip in May. I've been checking out new places but I haven't had the time to write about them - in that special way that I do.

Please be patient. I'll have some new stuff up eventually, but it may not be until I get a break OR until I get back from my vacation in mid-May.

It's a long time, I know. If you do the RSS feed thing, that's probably good.

Otherwise, please check back here ever so often and I'll have some new stuff up.

Until then, keep knockin' those greasy spoons together.

k.

Dives That Dove

2007-03-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

Oddly enough, shortly after writing about them, two of the dives reviewed on this blog have closed their doors for good.

Honestly, it's not my fault!

Thanks to a tip from an anonymous reader, I discovered that one of the hofbraus featured in my Hofbraus of the Bay Area series has closed. After calling them this morning to confirm if my anonymous reader was correct, I've learned that Jerrold Market Place closed 6 months ago and is now only available for catering.

Seeing as how JMP wasn't the best choice for fine dining (or diving), I can't imagine how their catering business will fare any better. If anything, the JMP was a great place for a stiff drink and fried eggs at 5 in the morning - or at least I imagine it was.

Jerrold Market Place: presente!

Also no more: the Bryant Wok Shop

Unfortunately, I could see this coming a year ago. This place could have easily survived in another location like Chinatown, where cheap, mediocre Chinese food thrives in all its greasy glory. However, the techies and web geeks who populate this area for lunch weren't having any of it. It's sad to see a small, established business go - but truth be told, I never gave it much business myself.

It just wasn't that good.

Now there's a new Malaysian restaurant where the Bryant Wok Shop used to be and it's already getting positive Yelp reviews. My personal theory is that Yelp reviews on a new restaurant aren't to be trusted, as they are all too often written by Me-Firsters. These poseurs stand in line the first day a restaurant is open and cheerlead it simply based on the criteria that it's new and they're the first to eat there. Maybe the food is really good – who knows? But I suspect what goes on in the mind of Me-Firsters is that the cuisine seems better than it really is because it's new and different, or (most likely) there's a bit deception going on in a sad and pathetic attempt to slide from the Early Majority class up to the Early Adopters.

Me? I’m a total Laggard.

If it was the case that the web identities of Yelpers were 98 percent anonymous, my theory wouldn't apply. But Yelpers are gathered in social networks, like Friendster, and have a bit of face to show and save when taking the 5 minutes to review the hip, hot, happenin' new thing.

I have no Yelp friends and it's easy to see why. I can be a bit of a negative asshole. However, you can trust my reviews.

Bryant Wok Shop: presente!

k.

Save Our Faves 2007: Clown Alley

2007-02-27T22:48:00.000-08:00

In general, I don't do memes.

Not because I have anything against them (although some of them are rather blah), but because I usually don't get asked. Now that I've mentioned this, please don't take this as an invitation to tag me, especially if it has anything to do with catblogging or lists.

But when Eric over at The Short Exact Guide tagged me for Save Our Faves 2007, a meme in which you write up your favorite "mom-and-pop" restaurant in danger (whether real or perceived) of closing, I figured it was right up my alley.

Ahem...Clown Alley, to be exact Eric.

Clown Alley is a venerable North Beach restaurant founded by Enrico Banducci, whose other venture – the hungry i – once was a legendary nightclub that propelled the careers of Lenny Bruce, Barbra Streisand, Bill Cosby, and even Maya Angelou. In the 1950s and 60s, Banducci was one of the visionaries who made North Beach the epicenter of nightlife in the city and put it squarely on the map in San Francisco's cultural lexicon.

Clown Alley in (left) 1964 and (right) 2007

Banducci's other endeavor, Enrico's Sidewalk Café, closed late last year after 48 years in business while the original hungry i exists in name only; it's been a tittybar for decades. 10 years ago, Clown Alley closed for a 2-year stint in an attempt to sell the place. The longtime owners, the Pailhe family, eventually decided to hold on to the place and reopened it, albeit with a few touch ups. Doing so, they remained faithful to the original concept and spruced up the place to the delight of long-time Clown Alley regulars. Clown Alley's famous burgers and late business hours were retained and the clown décor continued to terrify coulrophobes everywhere.

As of February 1, 2007, the restaurant has finally come under new ownership - but with the potential of causing some of its regulars to begin singing Tears of a Clown.

The San Francisco Chronicle announced on January 31st that the current owner of Myth and the Myth Café, Tom Duffy, has purchased the restaurant and intends to make some changes, or in his words "a facelift". However, in my humble opinion, there is something rather stupid in trying to fix something that isn't broken, simply because you now own it.

Uh-oh. You can probably see where this is going.

On any given day, Clown Alley is packed with everyone from guys in suits, low-key office workers, construction/blue-collar types, and of course those wacky (and I actually do mean wacky) Scientologists from the "church" next door. Clown Alley's tent is big enough for everyone, and practically everyone at one time or another has gathered under it – everyone except the clown-hatin' snobs you'd expect to find at, say, a certain Café a few blocks away.

Long before krump, there was punk, and before that - there was the Clown. In the 1980s, there was a San Francisco hardcore punk band named Clown Alley featuring Shirley Temple Black's daughter (yes, the Shirley Temple), Lori Black, on bass. While there's nothing punk about today's Clown Alley (the restaurant), the size of the burgers are pretty hardcore.

Clown Alley is all about the burgers (okay, well mostly) and they certainly make one of the best in, if not the City, North Beach/FiDi. Hamburgers, Double Hamburgers, Cheeseburgers, Double Cheeseburgers – it doesn't matter, all you need is one. Each one is made to order by the friendly guys waiting to throw a burger on the grill for you as you stand in line to pay. Often, your order is ready to pick up before you reach the cashier.

The fries are great, if you can finish them (usually you are too full from the burger). For the most part, I stick with the burger and if I'm with someone, we share the fries. Here's a double cheeseburger I happened to have macked on yesterday.

One of the best parts of the Clown Alley experience is clean up guy.

I'm not kidding.

There's this guy who works there who, basically, kicks ass at his job – although, sometimes it's enough to make you laugh. He's the guy in charge of clearing the tables. Often, he non-chalantly hovers near your table, just itching to pick up your empty trays and garbage. Sometimes he's there to grab your garbage as soon as you've swallowed the last bite and dropped the last napkin. Don’t get me wrong: He doesn't do it in a way that makes you feel rushed. Rather, he does it because (it seems) he loves his job.

And that's what I like about the Clown: it has enough charm to fill a big top.

How much of that charm will be retained under the new ownership, we will see. Frankly it doesn't bode well when the new owner immediately says he wants to give it a face lift. It would be okay if that new owner was, say, Dr. Biggles. But unfortunately, that ominous figure of speech comes from a guy who sells butternut squash soup and duck confit for a living – not your typical Clown Alley fare.

What's most perplexing is that, according to the SF Chronicle article, he wants to include new items on the menu – items like "Chicago-style hot dogs".

Uh, what.

What the fuck does Chicago-style hot dogs have to do with San Francisco? This isn't Chicago. Why would anyone come to San Francisco to eat a Chicago-style hot dog? Wouldn't you just go to Chicago? And what sense to does it make to serve them anywhere other than the "Windy City", which unless your talking about the Upper Market/Van Ness Corridor, doesn't describe Frisco at all. Besides Sufjan Stevens who blew through on a US tour a few months back, how many Chicagoans actually are there in the Bay Area?

Frankly, I doubt such a city called "Chicago" actually exists! I haven't seen it. Should I have faith that it's just there? Or that this hot dog with the neon green relish and sliced tomatoes is supposedly indicative of the local cuisine? In his book, The Areas of my Expertise, John Hodgman suggests that Chicagoans are actually a nomadic people whose lost home exists only in their minds ("and in the glowing crystal memory cells they all carry in the palms of their hands") – and I'm likely to agree.

I guess I shouldn't be so quick to judge. The guy does say he plans to "live in the environment before making any changes". Clown Alley has a way of growing on you like, well, a clown – and hopefully its natural charm and excellent burgers will persuade Duffy to retain it's homegrown character. If it doesn't, well, I guess we all should treat ourselves to a heartfelt rendition of Pagliacci and wait for the next act.

However, you still have time to enjoy the show while it lasts. It may not be the greatest show on earth, but it certainly is on the corner of Jackson and Columbus.

That show: whose next curtain call may very well soon be its last.

Send in the Clown.

k.

What's in a Name?: Anatomy of a Coffee Shop

2007-02-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.
- Albert Szent-Gyorgi

Before, when I saw coffee shops like the Golden or HRD, I thought nothing of them - except that maybe they were good places to get a cheap and greasy meal. Now that I've had a chance to explore more of these curious culinary landmarks, and sort of mentally tie them all together, I see coffee shops with a new pair of eyes. The more I learned about them, the more I "discovered" them, and a whole new meaning about these places and where they fit into this large and confusing world suddenly became clear to me.

Apart from the "new immigrant experience" as it pertains to Asian American ownership, coffee shops themselves are living, breathing reminders of our not-so-distant past; where we've been and, to a certain extent, where we're going. Even more, they are distinctly Californian and as such, we Californians should pay homage to them – as well as mourn for those who close up shop for whatever reason.

Before coffee shops came on the scene, restaurants in America had a history dating back roughly 150 years – give or take a decade or two. Casual restaurants, which served both women and men, had an even shorter history.

The predecessors to those quirky American institutions we lovingly refer to as dives were the lunch counter and the lunch wagon. From the first lunch counter was born the luncheonette and the drug-store/five-and-dime lunch counters, many of which were made famous (or infamous) during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

Lunch wagons gave birth to that quintessential American classic: the diner. They also gave birth to the less glamorous, but much appreciated, roach coaches (aka mobile catering trucks) and spicier sister, the taco truck; both credited with rising construction worker midsections and skillfully circumventing anti-junk food regulations, much to the frustration of San Franciscan parents.

Somewhere down the tree of this deep-fried, heavy on the mayo, family was born the drive-in, the 24-hour donut shop, the fast food burger chain, and the coffee shop.

Californian coffee shops are unique in that they're not typical diners, lunch counters, or cafes. Even more confusing: many coffee shops serve typical diner food, only have a lunch counter, and/or also serve coffee. The one common denominator is that most trace their history back to the 1950s and 1960s. This two-decade period was the heyday of the coffee shop and its boom was felt large and wide.

Coffee shops in Northern California tend to be situated in heavily foot-trafficked urban areas while coffee shops in Southern California revolve, like most things, around the automobile. SoCal coffee shops are often architectural survivors in a world of suburban sprawl; uniquely astonishing in their design. The design style, commonly called "Googie", began with a coffee shop called Googie's but by the 1960s had permeated much of the commercial architecture built in California – occasionally spreading North and Eastward to other parts of the country. Today, Googie architecture is endangered, with only a handful of passionate people continuing the fight to save these classic restaurants from the developer's bulldozer.

It may surprise you to learn that one of the most successful and longest lasting of these Southern California coffee shops is Denny's.

Photo graciously borrowed from You Are Here.

Although a totally different company today, the Denny's restaurant chain began in 1954 as Danny's Coffee Shop. Apparently, some of the original Googie-style Denny's still in operation were the inspiration for a half-hearted campaign to go retro a few years back – a campaign called "Denny's Diner". This costly exercise not only engaged in historical revisionism – the original Denny's was a coffee shop, not a diner – but it completely turned off Denny's true demographic: the Drunk-at-3AM college student.

In Northern California, coffee shops have a much lower profile. No surprise here - NorCal has always had a rep for being mellow.

NorCal coffee shop facades are often uninteresting and blend into their surroundings, almost to the point of camouflage. If it weren't for an unassuming sign above their door saying "coffee shop", these dives would be practically invisible. In fact, they are the opposite of SoCal flash and seem to take delight just blending in.

Of course, there are exceptions. Places like the Manor Coffee Shop and It's Tops Coffee Shop certainly announce to the neighborhood that they're there. Others, however, like the Taylor Street Coffee Shop, stand like architectural pipsqueaks amongst the towering Goliaths that overshadow them.

Taylor Street Coffee Shop, San Francisco

And yet, a rose by any other name would smell as - ahem - fried; many coffee shops call themselves cafes or go by their own unique name, like The Koffee Pot. However, there exists the opposite phenomenon in the Bay Area - and in San Francisco in particular: the all-greasy-no-spoon coffee shop. In other words, businesses that call themselves "coffee shops" which aren't.

Instead, they seem to be shells of former coffee shops in which the new owners have kept the old name but not the cuisine. Ming's Coffee Shop on Second Street is a good example, as is Little Paris on Stockton - which, while is a great place to grab a cheap bahn mi sandwich, is not a coffee shop.

Little Paris

To Ming's credit, they still serve a traditional American breakfast, but the rest of the day it's straight-up, easy-greasy Chinese food. Oddly enough, they just opened a brand new Chinese restaurant around the corner on Mission but kept the "coffee shop" in their name.

However, don't let Ming's and the rest of the coffee shop imposters fool you. Here's what a coffee shop really is: A small, casual restaurant, often with an open kitchen, and almost always with counter seating. Hours of operation are between early morning (usually 7AM) and late afternoon - in most cases 4PM.

While a lunch counter with swivel stools plays a prominent role in the layout of the restaurant, there is usually table service as well. One pays for their meal at the table or, if seated there, at the counter. A glass of water is usually customary.

Although coffee is often served, it is not the focus of the restaurant. Despite their catchy names, coffee shops have absolutely zippo to do with coffeehouses, Starbucks, or European-style cafes.

The focus for these coffee shops is breakfast and lunch (and very rarely dinner). Breakfasts include standard American food such as waffles, pancakes, omelets, fried eggs, bacon, sausages, hashbrowns, toast, and any combination of the above. In some cases, such as with the "Country Scramble" at the Oakdale Cafe, these combinations border on the bizarre and dangerously calorie-laden.

"Country Scramble": Country sausage gravy on top of scrambled eggs on top of a fried country sausage patty on top of melted cheddar cheese on top of a slice of sourdough bread.

Lunch includes hot and cold sandwiches, as well as burgers, along with the occasional teriyaki chicken or roast turkey and veggies plate thrown in for good measure. French fries and coleslaw are the usual sides and beverages range from ice tea, coffee, sodas, and beer.

Of course, I cannot forget to mention the influence coffee shop owners have had on their own menus. Asian-owned coffee shops, such as Curly's and Golden, have introduced their own lunch standards that, alongside traditional American cuisine, make for a peculiar fusion between the old and the new.

It's these peculiarities that convinced me to pursue this series in the first place, and I'm happy to report to you: I'm not disappointed.

However, if there was one thing I wish I could've done better with this series, it would have been to include a personal perspective from the coffee shop owners themselves. I regret that I haven't included that here, but rest assured that I am not closing the chapter with the end of this current series. I still plan on visiting many of these coffee shops in the future, and hopefully one day I will be able to report back on new and interesting "dives", perhaps even with an interview or two.

By no means am I finished here. But I am moving on for now.

In closing, I hope that I have fairly shone a spotlight on these restaurants and restaurants like them. I've enjoyed visiting these dives and being able to write about them, and I hope you have enjoyed coming along with me.

If so, stay tuned. There's more to come.

k.

Irving Street Cafe

2007-02-12T18:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes things don't go your way and you just have to accept the fact that Art's Cafe is closed on your birthday (the day you took off work) and that even though you braved the dark and low clouds - heavy with rain and symbolism - and drove all the way to the Inner Sunset to wax poetic about a Korean-owned lunch counter that serves a mean omelet, Art's Cafe is closed for repainting and the lady patiently looking up at you on her hands and knees retouching that door jamb says they're not open on Mondays anyway.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

So, we went across the street. To the Irving Street Cafe.

Here's the deal: The Irving Street Cafe looks like, at one time, it was an old school coffee shop but it's had so many changes of ownership and remodels that it seemlessly blends in with the rest of the uneventful breakfast and lunch joints on that commercial strip. It has a lunch counter from which you can watch your food being cooked or you can sit at one of the tables off to the side. The lighting looks chic and modern - for 1991 – and framed, mass-produced Ansel Adams prints hang on the wall.

Personally, I'm more of a Diane Arbus fan. But then, hello, look at this blog!

Even though the Irving Street Cafe fits the criteria of my Asian-owned and operated Coffee Shops series, I hadn't planned on writing about it. It wasn't even a Plan B. We only ate there because we didn't want to leave the neighborhood hungry, since we were on our way to the Mission via Daly City and a quick jaunt down Geneva.

But that's when Bruce brought up the Patty Melt. Oh yeahhhh. Okay, let's see: wasn't I just complaining about the lack of good Patty Melts we've encountered on this mini-circuit of Asian-owned Coffee Shops? I believe I was.

The plan: I'll try the Patty Melt and Bruce would get the omelet. If the Patty Melt was good, I'll take pictures and then maybe, just maybe, I'll write about it.

Apparently, it was.

Don't worry: I asked for medium-rare.

In fact, it was the Patty Melt that Bruce deserved instead. Had he known this was the place to get it, he might have skipped the "chicken apple sausage" and cheese omelet, even though he said it had a good flavor, the sausage was sliced real thin (which worked in the omelet better than chunks) and was made with real cheese. It was served with toast (butter and strawberry jam) and hashbrowns - just in case one actually needed the extra carbs – and came on a plate so large and heavy I actually felt pity for the person who has to wash the dishes.

I had the choice of french fries, potato salad, or green salad to go with my sandwich and I chose the green salad. Because it's healthy. And isn't that why we Americans are so overweight? Bad choices?

However, taking a healthy option and then smothering it with 1000 Island dressing probably cancels out whatever you were going for in the first place, but then the waitress was kind enough to bring the bottle and leave it. Thank you!

Oh, and is it really a surprise that the service was incredibly friendly? Not really.

I swear, all of these Asian-American Coffee Shop people must go to the same charm school. Where is this place? And can somebody please bestow some humanitarian or Nobel peace prize upon it?

Irving Street Cafe: thanks for restoring my faith in the Patty Melt.

Art's: you better recognize.

k.

Manor Coffee Shop

2007-02-12T10:08:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about things lately. Thinking a lot.

I've been thinking that there are people who must champion the new, as well as those who champion the old. Both are important. Often, one takes precedence over the other, but either way we're sacrificing something.

No doubt, often is the case where such thoughts are unheard of and matters progress for better or worse. I see it happening all the time, and so do you.

But while it may seem contentious to juxtapose champions of the old against champions of the new, I think that a well-rounded person, a well-rounded community, and a well-rounded society must possess the characteristics of both.

You know how when you're driving east on Portola at night from the western side of Twin Peaks and then you pass Tower Market (now a Mollie Stones) and then you hit that spot where you can see the entire eastern portion of the city and you get this whole perspective of "Wow, this is it. This is who we are"?

Right about that time, Bruce and I were coming from the Manor Coffee Shop after having an early dinner. We had been out what seemed like all day, volunteering at the SF Food Bank (and meeting some nice folks), going to the hardware store, and getting special diet cat food at the SPCA. By the way, if our cats could articulate their displeasure, they would tell you that "Fancy Feast" is neither.

Anyway, so there we were. I began to take a mental inventory of all of the coffee shops I had eaten at and those where I had planned to eat. That's when it hit me: self-doubt. Doubt about what I'm doing. Is it right? Where am I going with all of this? Why am I spending my time on this?

I began to think, "what if nothing changed?" It's nice and cutesy to have all of these quaint relics from the past still in operation in our city, but what if there were more of them? In fact, what if nothing in the last 50 years had changed and we simply lived in one huge museum?

And that's when it dawned on me: we need both. We need both the old and the new for our own integrity; our integrity as a society and as a culture. We need the old to understand where we've been and for new generations to unlock the secrets and hidden mysteries only things older than ourselves can possess. We also must give these places and things time to mature so that we can appreciate them when their time is right. If large swaths of Westlake were destroyed in the 1980s to make way for new housing, I would've never had the opportunity to see these beautiful homes.

At the same time, we can't be stifled by the old. Sometimes fire must clear the brush for seedlings to grow. We've seen that fire quite literally in this city. We've seen the fire of development take away from us precious places and institutions, but we've also seen it "clear the brush" so that something new and beautiful and grand could grow in its place.

There is a place for both to coexist, and coexisting is what the Manor Coffee Shop is all about.

The Manor Coffee Shop is run by immigrants from China, but the clientele are mostly older white locals who've no doubt lived in the same neighborhood since the Manor was new. One doesn't have to be a genius to see that all of which I've mentioned above is at play here: the new, the old, both coexisting. New owners, new to America – old to America, old just in general.

And in fact, the interior décor of the Manor Coffee Shop itself is a hodge podge of constant reminders of the old and new. Old photographs of San Francisco and the West Portal neighborhood abound amidst the classic 1950s lunch counter and dining booths, while the occasional Vitamin Water or latest soft drink store display screams out at you from the clutter of yesteryear which surrounds it.

Maybe it just happened to be this way yesterday late afternoon, but when Bruce and I walked in, there were a few single old men sitting at the counter while most of the booths were occupied by groups of older ladies.

By the way, I'm pretty sensitive when it comes to age, so when I say old I mean that if you weren't to be trusted by ageist hippies during the Summer of Love, you're old. In fact, if you were an ageist hippie at the Summer of Love – you're fucking old, okay? I'm not hatin'!

I overheard our waitress remark to one of her table of regulars that she had been working there for the past 15 years and was an old lady now at the age of forty.

Oh. My. God. You should've heard the contempt those women muttered. In fact, I believe the precise words I heard were "Oh, puh-leeze. Someone bring me a violin already."

Classic!

Anyway, the clutter of the past at the Manor is nothing compared to the clutter of their kitchen, which you have to walk through in order to get to the restroom. Bruce tipped me off to it and said that I needed to get a photo for the blog. He was right, only when I tried to be sly about it, the flash went off and scared the bejeebus out of the Chinese cooks in the back.

Flashes blow my cool every time.

Still, I've seen less clutter at Cookin' and that's really saying something. In a way, it's cool that it's this old kitchen with a lot of, ahem, character. On the other hand, I just hope none of that character spills over into my vegetable beef soup. This soup had all of the character it could handle, but it did need some salt.

Thankfully, our meal came quickly after the soup arrived. Bruce suffered through another Patty Melt while I opted to go for an item off the dinner menu. The Manor differs from the usual Coffee Shop standard in that it's open past 4 PM and has a dinner menu. Many of the lunch items are served for dinner and despite the 3 PM cut-off time posted on the menu, we were told at 5 PM that lunch was still available if we wanted it.

I had chopped steak and spaghetti with "homemade" meat sauce. I'm not sure when Italy abrogated her parental responsibilities and relinquished custody of her spaghetti children over to America, but nothing makes a more solid American meal than a big ass plate of spaghetti and red sauce.

The chopped steak, which I ordered medium rare, actually came little more rare than that but was decent nevertheless. Basically I ordered it because: what is this thing you call "Chopped Steak"? It's rare, no pun intended, one actually sees chopped steak listed on a menu anymore. Though at one point it was more common, chopped steak hasn't been in vogue since Key Parties.

Basically, it's steak which has been chopped and then reformed into a patty – yes, like a hamburger. It's less fatty than a hamburger and has a beefier flavor. The best part, if in fact you consider this a plus, is that it cuts without a knife, simply by using your fork.

And yes, there was A1 steak sauce to go around. I didn't even have to ask the waitress. She brought it to my table and thanked me for not asking. In fact, she'll thank you for just standing there. A smelly crazy bum walked in while we were waiting for our food and tried to get a free cup of coffee. She thanked him for "leaving now". She thanked him because her boss wasn't in right now and then thanked him to not come again.

It was refreshing in a way, because for once no one was thanking Jesus or God – and I'm certain they get tired of it themselves.

For the most part, I was happy with my throwback-to-another-era meal and the service (as I've mentioned) was excellent. However, Bruce got screwed on the Patty Melt.

What the hell?

We are finding out more and more that these wonderful, Asian-owned coffee shops excel in breakfast and certain other dishes but seriously lack in the patty melt department. How hard can it be? It's just a freakin' hamburger!

If you know where the bomb Patty Melt lives, can you please let me know?

k.

Westlake Coffee Shop

2007-02-07T23:38:00.000-08:00

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.

There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

That song, called "Little Boxes, was written in 1962 by Malvina Reynolds, a native San Franciscan, presumably about the newly built/newly developed suburb of Westlake in Daly City. If you're not a folk connoisseur, don't worry. You've probably heard the song if you've ever watched the phenomenal Showtime series Weeds, a dark comedy about a young, suburban widow who turns to selling pot to support her kids and middle class lifestyle.

The song was just one of many in a series of criticisms leveled at the then new housing development that 50 years later is viewed as one of the finest examples of post-World War II suburban planning and architecture in the United States. At the time, Westlake was unique in that it was a planned community built very quickly and very cheaply for the thousands of returning soldiers and their families for whom living in cramped city conditions was no longer an option. Unique for its time, the development consisted of newly constructed 2-3 bedroom homes equipped with all of the modern conveniences (ie., small yards, parking garage, modern appliances), a shopping center, a library, and schools.

It was the Suburban 50s like you wouldn't believe – unless, of course, you lived through it.

It isn't difficult to imagine what the critics of Westlake felt as rows upon rows of homes were built over the course of a decade (starting in 1949), turning what was once a peaceful coastal hillside and valley into the proto-sprawl of what we see happening in America's small towns today. Although Westlake, unlike it's sister-suburb Levittown, offered the new homebuyer with a choice of eight stylized floorplans, it's must have been hard not to feel just a little bit of your soul sucked out by the overwhelming conformity and sheer enormity of the project.

This is, after all, the age in which Howl was written; read aloud just a few miles up the way by a young and horny Allen Ginsberg. Yet while Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac, and the rest were busy getting their coffee-skewed beatitude adjusted in the city, young families of doctors, lawyers, business executives, and their pretty children made of ticky-tacky, were busy getting their optimistic burbs on westside.

Interestingly enough, despite the many legitimate criticisms of the then-new Westlake community, I imagine one huge criticism fairly applied likely didn't surface until years later: that homes were sold to "whites only". This may seem odd, especially given the Bay Area's liberal reputation, but until somewhat recently it was common practice in San Francisco and outlying areas to openly discriminate against non-white homebuyers – most notably, San Franciscan icon Willie Mays.

Even though Westlake shares this ugly bit of history with much of the Bay Area, it would be unfair to lump it in as just another suburb. Its history and the history of the man who built it are just as colorful as the many homes maintained (though, with some controversy) and preserved to this day – homes that, in my humble opinion, match San Francisco's Victorians in terms of beauty, architectural integrity, and historic significance.

A great resource for anyone interested in Westlake can be found in the book "Little Boxes: The Architecture of a Classic Midcentury Suburb" by Rob Keil, which details the beginnings of Westlake, the eccentricities of the man, Henry Doelger, who built it, the architects and builders who worked for him, and what Westlake was like to the people who once lived there and what it's like now.

I happen to have a copy of the book at home, right now. In fact, I checked it out from the Daly City library. It's a beautifully written and designed book, with many full color photographs, which would look perfect resting on my Boomerang coffee table, if I had one.

However, what's interesting and unfortunate is that, while the book also highlights Westlake Joe's (which I thoroughly rake over the coals here), an extinct drive-in called Tips, and the Westlake Shopping Center, the Westlake Coffee Shop is never mentioned.

If you, like me, happen to enjoy your irony served warm with a low-carb side and a tall, cool glass of ice tea, then perhaps you'll appreciate knowing that the community that began as a "whites only" enclave 58 years ago is today one in which whites constitute a mere 25 percent of the population, with Asians (mostly Filipinos) being the majority group.

Nowhere is that more evident than the Westlake Coffee Shop; a culinary landmark that, perhaps more than Westlake Joe's or any other place in the district, speaks more to the legacy and current culture of Westlake than any other business in the area. While many, if not most, of the Westlake Coffee Shop's regulars are elderly whites, the business is owned and operated by middle-aged Chinese immigrants.

However, much is still the same at the Westlake Coffee Shop, despite a complete overhaul and redesign of the whole Westlake Shopping Center (for the worse, if you ask me). It's original fixtures and seating are still intact and the signage has changed little. The waitresses still wear uniforms – uniforms that match the interior color scheme of the shop.

I have to mention that, while I'm on the subject, the waitresses here are all very gracious and dependable. Something I've noticed every time I've been in is that, if you do become a regular here, they'll greet you by name and give you a warm send off.

I also appreciate how they go out of their way to decorate for various holidays. Around Christmastime, they have plenty of poinsettias decorating the counter area (which could seem sinister, since poinsettias are poisonous). And even though Easter is still two months away, they have all sorts of porcelain chicken and egg figurines poised behind a metal and glass display case above the coffee station. It has that whole "Aunt Shirley's house" feel to it, and I like to imagine that somewhere there is a glass candy dish filled with stale mints lying around.

Regular coffee shop hours are in play here and so are the menu items. The breakfast items shine the brightest while the sandwiches can be hit or miss.

Hit: my Monte Cristo; so bad it was good. Lots of ham and cheese, so much fried egg batter it was crazy, lots of powdered sugar – and if that wasn't enough, two packets of strawberry jam.

Miss: the Pastrami on Rye and the Patty Melt.

These were virtually the same sandwich. The meat portions in general were skimpy (considering the price), while the pastrami itself was perhaps the biggest hate crime against the Jewish people I've seen since Adam Sandler. Like Sandler, this pastrami was some weird, processed, imitation of the real thing and made the traifling hot pastramis at Lee's Deli look like they just aliyah'd from Second Avenue (RIP).

The Patty Melt, a coffee shop sandwich if there ever was one, lacked the sex appeal one automatically finds when taking a butch hamburger patty and tarting it up in Grilled Cheese drag. As any self-respecting queen will tell you, never show your pickle on the first date. Unless it's big. And this pickle needed a penis pump. In fact, I've seen better patty melts on prison visits.

But despite improvements to be made in the Certain Sandwich department, the Westlake Coffee Shop is a real keeper and we should be thankful that it's still around, virtually unchanged. Anytime I'm at Beverly's getting my crafting supplies, I definitely make it a point to stop by the coffee shop, if nothing other than they're the only decent game in town (sorry, I don't do chain Greek or Italian).

I wonder sometimes if the whites who worked so hard to keep their neighborhoods ethnically homogenous, who populated the ticky-tacky houses and all wanted to be the same, could've foreseen a day when one of the few sole surviving businesses of their era, this lone coffee shop, ended up itself being an anomaly, a place perhaps Malvina Reynolds would be seen at if she were alive; a place surrounded by the 21st ticky-tacky of Starbucks, Home Depot, and Trader Joes.

This lone coffee shop, shunning its eccentricity, and kept alive by the people Westlake was built to keep out. The same people who now smile at you from the other side of your coffee cup.

That's what I love about this place.

k.

Golden Coffee Shop

2007-02-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

First of all, in my fantasy I'm rich.

In most people's fantasies they're rich, even I suppose in the fantasies of rich people. Nevertheless, I have money. Not a crazy amount. Certainly not so much that I blow it on the obvious trappings of wealth – flashy cars, expensive clothes, first class seating.

Wait. Okay, I'll take first class...because I'll be flying to Europe a lot.

Still, got money, got a nice secluded farmhouse in the country with animals, a greenhouse, a garden, a cement pond, and a large barn that has lots of power tools, a built-in darkroom, and industrial kitchen staging area with walk-in cooler. But I divide my time between town and country, and in town I own a cute little restaurant in which I happily serve my friends and regulars simple, basic, food – usually with a twist, such as real country ham biscuits or Bruce's home-cured, smoked pastrami with my homemade sauerkraut Reuben sandwiches.

I envision that restaurant looking exactly like the Golden Coffee Shop on Leavenworth and Sutter. In fact, that restaurant is the Golden Coffee Shop.

And even though I'd be rich, I wouldn't retouch a ratty stool or posh up a single thing in this place. Don't fix it if it ain't broke, and if it is, that's okay – your customers will appreciate the broke factor just as much as I do. The fixtures and interiors in this place are perfect just the way they are. And if I saw someone even touch those wonderful stools with a redesigning eye, they would come back with a bloody nub for a hand.

But I don't want to mislead you: nothing is broken about the Golden Coffee Shop. This place runs with the utmost efficiency. The service is quicker at the counter than at the tables, but it's all friendly and that counts for a heckuva lot. Actually, most of the service is done at the counter which is one of the few I've seen in San Francisco (other than the one at the Silver Crest) still in that beautiful, classic horseshoe shape. In fact, the counter is really the centerpiece from which all life revolves around in this beautifully preserved coffee shop.

Like most coffee shops, it's only open for breakfast and lunch and closes at 4 PM. I learned that the hard way one night when, after a long walk after work, I discovered that the Golden was closed. Not only Golden, but both Han's - located directly across the street - and the Taylor Street Coffee Shop (all owned and operated by Asian immigrants) were closed. Though I was disapointed, I was pleased to learn that almost all Coffee Shops, with very few exceptions, keep these hours – and that was like solving another piece of the "what is a coffee shop?" puzzle.

The menu at the Golden features the standards for a typical San Francisco Coffee Shop: eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes and waffles, a pancake sandwich (what the hell?), omelets, sandwiches and burgers, and last but not least – Chinese food. In noticing the menu, Bruce pointed out that there were none of the typical, and humorous, misspellings and bizarre word reversals one often sees on Chinese restaurant menus. But then, this place looks like it's had a long time to work out the obvious kinks.

What I like about places like this – these old American coffee shops with a Chinese influence – is that the level of quality the Chinese food is on never really rises above the level of the American food, which is to say good, but never knocking-your-socks-off great.

And really, I may be steering you in the wrong direction when I mention that a coffee shop also serves Chinese food because rarely will you see fried rice and chow mein served like this in China, or so I've read. To be more precise, this is Chinese-American/American food – which is a common trait among so many of these great little coffee shops that it's what led me to do this series in the first place.

I'll have to try the Chinese food later, but for now Bruce and I stuck with the traditional American breakfast – him with an omelet and I with a waffle and sausages.

At first glance, I've had these sausages before; hard, flavorless, and just gross. However, despite appearances these sausages were tender, juicy, and spicy; the only exception is that they could've been a little larger. The waffle wasn't any different than what I've had a million times before in other coffee shops and diners, but in it's own predictable way, that's not such a bad thing. Part of the whole experience and reputation of these culinary institutions depends on reliability. This is, after all, what the masses want, what they've come to expect, and yes, even demand.

Bruce's omelet was the real stand-apart winner here. His avocado, cheese, and onion omelet was "surprisingly good". The eggs were fresh-tasting and, even though it was the mass-produced, pre-sliced block of Jack, the cheese tasted and worked well with the other ingredients. I didn't ask him how his hashbrowns were, but they looked perfect and likely tasted like hashbrowns are suppose to taste – fully cooked, crispy, and with that delicious fried potato flavor.

Okay, the hashbrowns were Golden.

But so was the weather that day, which perfectly matched our experience at this first class coffee shop – one that, hopefully, is a long, long way from it's golden years.

k.

Curly's Coffee Shop

2007-01-31T18:07:00.001-08:00

To be in North Beach today means there is no overt anti-Asian sentiment one immediately notices. That's not to say there isn't any, but whatever there is remains covert.

I hear it sometimes in subtle ways, such as the City Lights Bookstore owner fondly reminiscing how "in the old days" the Italian immigrants of North Beach were more receptive to anarchism as opposed to the new immigrants who make up the neighborhood now, meaning Asians. This is likely true, but then what remains of your average Italian in North Beach isn't exactly a fellow traveler of the Left, neither.

Other times, it's more overt and in your face, such as the butcher at Little City Meats telling me that I probably shouldn't bother asking for pork fat scraps from the Chinese butchers because they don't sell to whites.

You know, I don't need to hear that jive. If it's true, then I'll find out on my own, but I don't need you telling me something I know isn't true – because I patronize Chinese butchers. And like Stevie Wonder/Paul McCartney once said, "there is good and bad in everyone".

Overt or subtle, what I see are people who are sore over the enormous Asian expansion into areas abandoned by Italian white flight during the last three decades, and frankly a large part of me wants to just say "fucking deal with it".

In all fairness, I understand and sympathize with what Ferlinghetti and Little City guy are going through. The same pattern of sweeping demographic change has happened in other parts of the city, such as the Irish abandoning the Castro for the suburbs and, to a different extent, the Japanese forcibly evicted and replaced by African-Americans in the Fillmore.

To these old Italian-American guys: this was their neighborhood. They knew everybody, said hello to everyone, spoke the language, and knew who they were by who surrounded them. They remember men gathering on the street in front of the A. Cavalli & Co bookshop in the 1930s, eager to listen to radio broadcasts of Benito Mussolini – a photo of which is still hanging in the shop. They remember the Columbus Day parades, now called the Italian Heritage Day Parade to better suit the politically correct attitude of the times.

The A. Cavalli Museum of Italian-American Fascists

But the harsh reality is that they're the ones who stayed. Like most immigrant communities in America, the old Italian families of North Beach moved on when they could. Their children now live in the suburbs, on the peninsula, or in the East Bay. They've assimilated; most to the extent that they're no more Italian than I am.

So for the old timers who've stayed, they have to ask themselves, "who am I, where do I belong, how do I fit in when everything and everyone around me has changed?" I have to cut these guys some slack though, because when you're one of the few non-Asian owned or supported businesses within two blocks, in what use to be your neighborhood, the task of feeling like you belong must seem rather daunting.

But life is kind of funny like that. You see, while the old days these guys miss are no doubt filled with many happy memories for them, memories for those of Asian descent who happened to have ventured above Broadway in those days, where one would be set upon and beaten by a mob of Italian youths, are certainly less than happy. The Chinese in particular were objects of scorn, official discrimination, and harassment for decades and confined within an area that is much smaller than today's Chinatown.

A view of Broadway and Columbus - once the dividing line between Chinese and Italian neighborhoods

To put it bluntly, Chinatown was a ghetto in the original sense of the word. The Chinese were allowed to go about their business and enforce their owns rules, laws, and customs – so long as they kept it in their neighborhood, stayed in their neighborhood, and kept out of the sight of racist white folks. Indeed, what happened in Chinatown, stayed in Chinatown – which the white majority silently sanctioned so long as they could occasionally slum around the gambling parlors, dive bars, opium dens, and houses of prostitution.

Much of that legacy still holds true today and is evidenced every time some outraged white moralist goes all crazy regarding the sale of live animals in Chinatown. Chinese business owners are fully aware of gweilo prejudice against them, but the fact remains that white city officials are still more apt to look away and let the community of Chinatown police itself according to it's own rules and customs, and damned be any asshole whose cultural imperialism/insensitivity/chauvinism/ignorance, or whatever you want to call it, starts stirring up trouble.

If you are still with me, all that which you've read up to this point is intended to provide you, the casual reader, with some background on the North Beach/Chinatown neighborhood in which Curly's Coffee Shop has operated and thrived for the last 34 years. The year, 1973, in which Yoko and Seikichi Maeda first opened their doors to the public was also the first year any Asian American had been appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

In the midst of this ever-changing neighborhood that is North Beach, Curly's is a coffee shop with a twist. Not only is it owned by Asian-Americans, but the Maedas are Japanese; and Curly's, in addition to serving the usual coffee shop fare, also serves Japanese food.

I won't go into length on the history of Japanese-Americans in San Francisco (that is far more complicated), but I will say that after the forced relocation and internment of San Francisco's other "Greatest Generation", it's a wonder there are any Japanese left in San Francisco at all.

And maybe I'm just projecting, but I find it inspiring that Curly's, being Curly's, has held it's own for the last 3 decades and is still "dishing it out" as it were.

But you probably want to know more specifics, right?

Well, Curly's has been in its current location at 1624 Powell Street for a few years. Before it was located at 500 Columbus in the space currently occupied by Café Dulucchi. From what I've read, it seems as though the old Curly's had more character (read: dive) to it, although it's new digs still feel very homey (read: not "homely").

There are nice, bright windows near the front to sit beside, though I noticed some folks prefer the darker back. Judging from the number of people who say this is where they go to cure a hangover, I can see why.

Judging from what the customer seated across from me ordered, the breakfasts here look hearty and delicious. Although breakfasts (as well as typical American sandwiches) at Curly's are served all day, I decided to try the Japanese lunch, which comes with a side of miso soup.

Although my friend Bill once jokingly referred to me as an Orientalist, the truth is – as far as food goes - I'm more of a Chinophile. However, I can mack on some sushi, some tempura, and in the case of Curly's, some donburi.

Donburi describes any bowl of rice that has a combination meat and vegetables, which are usually stewed or sautéed together, served on top. At Curly's, I had a very typical donburi dish called Oyako-don, which is a bowl of white rice served with chunks of boneless chicken pieces, onions, and a fried egg. There's a sweet and light soy sauce (teriyaki I believe) that's also in the dish. All in all, a perfect lunch for a cool day in the city.

If you think about it: chicken, eggs, carbs – doesn’t that describe coffee shop/diner food anywhere? And let me tell you, I have been carbo-loading during this series on coffee shops – you guys should be grateful!

Almost as grateful as I am that Curly's is in business.

k.

Sam's Coffee Shop

2007-01-30T20:18:00.000-08:00

Bruce and I stumbled onto Sam's Coffee Shop while in Half Moon Bay. We go to Half Moon Bay occasionally to thrift shop, visit the library, and be at one with the salty sea air, the coastal agricultural/fishing culture, the smell of freshly smoked salmon, and the quirky little places we always seem to find.

We actually had stopped first at the Flying Fish Grill (awesome fish tacos) but, as usual, it was packed. Instead, we decided to forego Flying Fish for something different since it's not every day we're in Half Moon Bay – roughly a 30-minute drive south from San Francisco.

That's when we saw what we thought were thrift stores across the street, anchored to both sides of a mini-shopping center. Upon closer inspection, they were actually cheaply-made goods at not-so-cheap prices stores that had a cantankerous off-gassing odor that could drop a chemically-sensitive person dead in their tracks.

In between lies Sam's.

Such is where, I guess, one would find a place like Sam's. Unlike the rest of Half Moon Bay's commercial district, Sam's is located in an area where people don't dress up in their finest blazers/blue jeans – H&M slacks with matching top, pumps and clutch – and drive around in their luxury/sports cars for everyone else to see while they patronize shitty New Age art galleries, wine shops, pretentious Cal-Med cuisine, and other trappings of bourgie-tourism ala Los Olivos or Point Reyes or Murphys or practically any other of the multitudes of California "cutesy" towns that thrive on such.

No, Sam's clientele are more of the kind that dress in their finest Tar-zhay, drive beat-up trucks, patronize the Thomas Kincaid gallery of jig-saw puzzles in Wal-Mart, BevMo, and hope to God no one, especially their husbands, wives or bosses, sees them driving around when they're suppose to be somewhere they're not.

In other words, my peoples.

I knew Sam's would satisfy my hunger as soon as I walked in and saw what looked like a restaurant full of locals and regulars busy chowing down. Say what you will about diner food, but generally there aren't too many surprises when it comes to the cuisine. If people look happy, the place smells/looks clean, and if the prices are right, then you've got nothing to lose – well, you know, there are exceptions.

And although there's a certain amount of predictability when it comes to diner/coffee shop food, there are quirks. Such as, no one told me Sam's was the place to come for a double decker ham and cheese club...fried. Oh, it's just so good it hurts! I'm coming Elizabeth, here I come!

The prices are reasonable and the service is friendly at Sam's. Unlike many Asian-owned/operated coffee shops, Sam's also employs non-family members (note: that's suppose to be funny...but true) as waitresses and cooks. While we were there, I noticed that the "Mom" managed the restaurant and ran the cash register while the rest of family sat at a large table in the corner next to us. Dad was busy reading a Chinese-language newspaper, while sister read an English one, and brother was consumed playing games on his cell phone. All of them looked rather bored and isolated, and yet resigned to being part of the 3 percent of Asian-Americans that comprise the 12,000 total population of Half Moon Bay.

Something tells me that neither brother nor sis will stick around long enough to run the shop after Mom retires. They likely have higher goals than running some greasy spoon in a windswept coastal town; goals that will put them closer to the city. And besides, this is the job Mom worked so they wouldn't have to.

Perhaps this was also the fate of the last owner's family and the fate of coffee shops everywhere, passed down from newcomer to newcomer. For all appearances, the Mom & Pop coffee shop is the quintessential cookie cutter, instant American business, serving American food to Americans, run by a struggling, newly American family. A safe harbor to land for the entrepreneurial newcomer.

Beyond that, it represents what has been played out on these new shores time and time again – hope in a better future.

A better future that, for now, comes with a cup of coffee and a side order.

k.

Koffee Pot

2007-01-29T18:55:00.000-08:00

On any given cool and overcast Saturday morning in downtown Oakland, there's no line of people waiting in front of the Koffee Pot on Telegraph Avenue to get in. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find any people on the street at all.

But inside of the Koffee Pot, it's a different story. While the place sits at tops 10 people, those few seats rarely get cold. Part of the reason this may be is due to the super-friendly service and solid, rib-stickin' breakfast plates served up to loyal customers of all ages and stripes.

The Koffee Pot, established back in 1928, must be charmed since what other business could be so small in size and stature, in a somewhat lonely part of town, surviving multiple changes in ownership and clientele, urban decline and gentrification, and still pack them in for the last 79 years without missing a beat?

If the Koffee Pot is sitting on top of the fountain of youth, then a spoonful of their grits with butter just took 30 minutes off of my age. And isn't it great that they serve grits? How many places that serve breakfast in the bay area – that you know of – serve grits?

Frankly, I "blame" black people. Wonderful, precious, black African-Americans who've held on to their Southern roots and cuisine with such zeal that if any displaced person or refugee from the South is looking for a taste of home, all one has to do is step into any predominantly black neighborhood, anywhere in America, and find what you're looking for: fried chicken, barbecue, fried fish, sweet potato pie, and of course, grits.

Lucky then that the Koffee Pot is situated in such a neighborhood. However, change is afoot and has been for sometime. This neighborhood and its businesses have, in the matter of little more than a decade, become increasingly Korean.

When I first moved to California in 1993, I lived right up the street from the Koffee Pot, in a neighborhood called Pill Hill – home to many hospitals and medical clinics. Telegraph Avenue back then had some Korean-owned businesses, but nothing like it does now. As of 2007, Oakland has a real and thriving "Koreatown" and I'd like to think that we are all better off for it. Case in point: the Koffee Pot, that venerable neighborhood institution, is now owned and operated by immigrants from Korea.

Seung Soo Chung, to be precise – or, known to regulars simply as "Sue". On my visit to the Koffee Pot last Saturday, Sue was busy in the kitchen cranking out the breakfasts while a friendly gentleman took our order and waited on us. Bruce and I sat at the counter since all three "tables" were occupied.

One thing about the Koffee Pot – it's snug. In fact, most real coffee pots aren't too much smaller. But if you think of it more as "getting to know the locals", then you're bound to be content with having that invisible little personal space that surrounds you shared with someone who is, well, not you.

But while the Koffee Pot's restaurant space defies the Bigger-Is-Better American business model of success, it's breakfast portions more than make up for it. I wouldn't say the portions are too big, but they are big enough, and cheap enough, to satisfy any hungry, burly guy – or, basically, the Koffee Pot's main demographic seated that day.

When I moved to "the West Bay" 10 years ago, I thought I had said goodbye forever to the East Bay, and in a way, scorning it as I left. But something magical is happening on Telegraph Avenue, something that makes me look at it through a new pair of eyes and with a feeling of happiness that I never imagined I would feel for the place. I can't put my finger on it, but it's the feel, the smell, the sights of a place I thought I knew but 10 years later realized that either it changed, I changed, or perhaps I never knew it as much as I thought I did.

And at the center of it is a small, unassuming restaurant with a funny-looking name run by the unlikeliest of people.

And I like it.

k.

COFFEE SHOP: American Legacy - Asian Immigrant Experience

2007-01-26T21:55:00.000-08:00

For the last few months, I've been looking for a unique angle to highlight and celebrate the peculiar and interesting phenomenon of Asian-owned and operated coffee shops in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm still not sure I've found it, but I feel it's there – perhaps lurking around and visible only to the sharpest and most sensitive eye.

Although the phenomenon of newly arrived immigrants taking up the reigns of an existing business is nothing new or special, what is noteworthy is the seemingly common way in which traditional American coffee shops and diners have been preserved by newcomers from Asia, rather than native-born Americans. In the South, where I'm originally from, it's the Greeks who've traditionally owned and operated the American-style diners and lunch counters, as explored in depth on the Southern Foodways Alliance website.

Personally speaking, I vividly remember that as a child, Mom and I would sometimes drive downtown to visit Dad on his lunch break. Dad worked in downtown Asheville, a block away from a Greek-owned lunch counter called Johnny-O's. It was here that I first fell in love with the smells, the sights, and the atmosphere of an old school American dive. Unfortunately Johnny O's closed many years ago, long before I left home, and since then downtown Asheville has lost much of it's old working class eating joints – the last one I remember being left was the lunch counter at Woolworths.

No serious "diver" can explore and appreciate the many coffee shops (note: not coffee houses or corporate coffee retailers), lunch counters, breakfast joints, and diners in the bay area and not notice that almost all of them are owned by a single family, often Asian, often raising kids, and often all running and working in the restaurant together. What's most interesting is that, with few exceptions, nothing else about these old throw-backs to an earlier age have been changed by their new owners. If nothing else these new owners, fresh from distant lands, have preserved the character, the spirit, and most of all, the cuisine that has flourished in these most American of restaurants for decades.

I have already explored some of these places with you, which I will link to at the bottom of this post. In the next few weeks I will explore even more and share with you my likes, dislikes (if any), some quick glimpses, and hopefully something a little more in depth and personal than what I usually write about – all while focusing on these wonderful, quirky, and unique establishments.

Stay tuned by checking back here as I add more restaurants to the list below.

COFFEE SHOP: American Legacy - Asian Immigrant Experience

Featuring:

What's in a Name?: Anatomy of a Coffee Shop
Irving Street Cafe
Manor Coffee Shop
Westlake Coffee Shop
Golden Coffee Shop
Curly's Coffee Shop
Sam's Coffee Shop
Koffee Pot
HRD Coffee Shop
Lafayette Coffee Shop
Mimi's Manor House Restaurant

k.

Short Order Holiday Message

2006-12-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Bacon Press and Dive readers:

Ahhhh. The holidays and the New Year are quickly approaching.

With them comes much anticipation, much celebration, and much stress – in fact, a lot of stress. Because of these things, I'll be cutting back significantly on posting until it's all over. As you probably have noticed at Dive, I haven't posted anything since October!

Sorry about that.

However, I haven't thrown in the sanitary towelette yet! My fingers are just as greasy today as they have ever been….it's just that my keyboard has been less so.

Is that too much information?

Anyway, I've got lots in store for the next year – though hopefully I'll have a post or two for you between now and then. In the meantime, keep posted using that "rss" thing you do or just click back over here on occasion.

If I don't talk to you between now and then, have a happy holiday season, have a great New Year, and get stuffed (with joy and good food)!

See you soon!

k.

Joe's Of Westlake

2006-10-29T14:28:00.000-08:00

Bruce and I use to live near the Westlake district in Daly City.

Honestly, I kinda hated Daly City. It had the worst weather in the summer time. You could drive over to San Bruno and it would be gorgeously hot and sunny, then come back home to Daly City and it would be so cold and foggy you felt as if you could spontaneouly break out into Morrissey songs, and actually you hate Morrissey.

Or did.

All of a sudden, "this is the coastal town that they forgot to close down – Armegeddon come Armegeddon come" made sense – as did the chorus to that song, "everyday is like Sunday".

But for 3 long years I called the town that inspired the song "Little Boxes" home. Say what you will about alcoholism, but at least my addiction gave me something to focus on while I spent countless days inside my tickytacky box.

When we moved to the City we kept our San Mateo County library cards active and, on the weekends, we occasionally commute from San Francisco to Daly City or South City to use the library, since San Francisco's library system is notoriously sucktastic.

Today we found ourselves checking out the newly remodeled Westlake Shopping Center with its multitude of souless new chain restaurants featuring generic takes on Greek and Italian food and a god-awful Home Depot, of which I make an effort not to shop at since if they drug-test their employees, it should make sense that they drug-test their customers – of which most would surely fail.

Even I, myself, have been known to eat a lot of bagels with poppy seeds.

Besides, there hasn't been once where I've been in Home Depot when you could actually find someone who works there who wasn't so clueless that, for all you know, they could've been spinning on hillbilly heroin, weed, and Red Bull.

It's useless to figure out the reasoning behind drug testing since A) testing for stupidity makes more sense, B) boozehounds are more dangerous than weed whackers, and C) sparkin' up the chron-chron with your friends on the weekend means that you have a healthy social life, as opposed to being an angry loner – the typical profile of a serial killer and/or domestic terrorist.

With this in mind, our waitress at Joe's of Westlake seriously needed to get blunted.

Once we were seated, she came on like a breeze of frigid air. Considering it was pretty warm outside and that we had crossed the street from a brand-new box store hell to the venerable uber-dive of Joe's, it was refreshing, if not a little startling.

She was the stereotype you hear about in American mythology about hardened, chain-smoking waitresses, only she leaned more to the severe Victorian school marm side of the equation. If this was America's Next Top School Marm, I'm pretty sure Tyra, Twiggy, and Miss J would give her points for being well lit.

The migraine-causing glare from the huge pane-glass windows made it impossible for anyone facing them to see anything other than shadows, and suddenly, standing over me, was a large, imposing, and intimidating shadow waiting for me to order drinks.

From the get go, this woman scared me. Her tightly and neatly coiffeured hair, the sharp features of her face, and the dead look in her eye gave me the impression that she wasn't above stabbing someone with a dull and dirty steak knife if she had to. I begged Bruce to make up his mind – and hurry.

It was easy to know your place at Joe's with this woman. You were one of those cute and furry little animals you see in nature shows rubbing two seeds together while a few feet away a vicious and hungry predator eyes every move you make.

Every word she muttered oozed contempt. Simple words such as "water" and "tea" transformed into expletives and accusations when leaving her dry thin lips.

She brought us bread to start and I had to remind Bruce to keep it down when we started capping on the fact that it comes without a towel between it and the well-used bread basket. Not only is this a dive-worthy presentation, it's a dive-worthy act. In fact, add "dirty bread basket" to your "greasy spoon" lexicon.

Our waitress, whose name might have been Mrs. Prudence Higglebee or (going with the ex-Nazi angle) Frau Helga Von Reichstag, came to take our order. Thankfully Bruce didn't dick around and ordered the first thing that came to his mind – Fish and Chips. I ordered the open-faced sirloin sandwich with veggies ($10.85).

Upon hearing my request, Prudence shot back that there wasn't any bread, to which I, as nicely as possible, murmured that that was great. However, too afraid to think straight at the time, I assumed that meant no bread on the side.

After taking our order, she brought us our tea which was practically water with a little caramel food coloring. It came in a glass about the size of a juice jar and during the course of our meal was refilled once, for which I was grateful for.

Today was the first time we had been to Joe's in at least 10 years, and even then it was only once, at night, and I have no solid memory of it other than the waiters in tux's and the hipsters who stuck out amongst the annoyed seniors back when Swing and Lounge was in fashion (the second time). Our trip to Joe's this time was a unique, daytime event and, judging later from our experience, will remain that way: unique.

While waiting for our food, Bruce and I (as quietly as possible) joked about the harsh service and the clientele, who were hmmm, let's say, diverse. It was hodge podge of people, many obese and/or old, if there ever was one.

The waiters and bus boys were dressed in formal wear, as were the cooks and waitresses (in pantsuits). The juxtaposition of the bus boys in bow-ties with the biker with hairy shoulders, wearing nothing more than jeans and a leather vest, sitting at the bar inspired much snarking at our table.

The restaurant's character is a throwback to another era, one that is usually found with concrete shoes at the bottom of the closest body of water. The set-up of the dining room and the vibe coming from the open kitchen reminded me of Joe's city cousin, Original Joes, only not as many on-duty police officers, not as dingy, and not as dark. It was the Suburban Joe and, really, that best describes it.

It has a "swinging" bar to the side as you first walk in, but in the middle of the day, it's as sad as any old duffer dive bar, complete with the kind of people you normally would find in a dark and smelly bar in the middle of a sunny weekend afternoon.

You know, health nuts.

Also to the side, as you walk in, is another dining room, where it so happened that something was going down as we were leaving. Taking a wild guess, I would say that it was likely a game of Bunco or Mexican Train being played by folks from the local senior's club.

When I saw Prudence/Helga marching towards us from the kitchen area with two plates in her hands, two thoughts came to mind. The first one was a feeling of relief since, at that point, I was really hungry. The second thought was "oh god, I hope she didn't poison us out of spite".

I thought Bruce was pushing it when he asked for hot sauce, but at this point she couldn't add any more rat poison or Visine to our food without us seeing her – or could she?

Bruce's fish were the kind that had been previously breaded, cooked, frozen and then deep-fried to order. And let's just assume that the fries weren't cut to order and then fried ala In-N-Out style. Luckily he had enough tartar and hot sauce to make his $9.95 fish and chips palatable. Later, when asked how it was, he replied "deep-fried – that's all I could taste".

I, on the other hand, didn't have anything deep-fried although my veggies were more overcooked than if they had been. Nothing says "The Fifties" like pre-cut frozen veggies steamed or boiled to death. The end result is a kind of veggie mush on its way to being a puree. Better to gum it with, I suppose. In addition to adding copious amounts of salt and pepper, I took a lemon meant for my "tea" and squeezed it over the veggies.

Better, yet still mush. I should've added a few pats of butter to it and made a proper puree using the over-sized, arthritic-friendly handle of my utencilware. Or I could've taken the extra-large container of pre-grated "parm" that was sitting on the side and given it a couple of shakes.

I'll be sure to remember this place when I get my dentures, that is if it's still around (I'm guessing it will be).

With that said, I should probably stock up on the Polident since the "sandwich" I ordered had meat so tough I would've had to soak those dentures afterwards for hours with multiple changes of water. To the cook's credit, the meat was just as I had ordered it, medium-rare, but was served without seasoning or sauce. It was also really tough and chewy; a sure sign that we're talking bottom sirloin here (as if I should've expected different?)

Also, you may notice that on my plate is a hunk of grilled meat and a side of veggies. You may wonder, like I did, "where's the sandwich"? This is, I guess, what Frau Waitress meant when she said "no bread"; not what I assumed meant a side of bread.

Interesting what comprises an open-faced sandwich at Joe's.

It would've been helpful to have a little bread to soak up the juices (I wasn't touching that bread-basket bread), since I ended up splattering a little juice on my new thrift store Guayabera. This didn't add to my fine dining enjoyment, but it certainly did add to the overall ambiance of my Joe's of Westlake lunch.

Normally I wouldn't use A-1 steak sauce on a good piece, or any piece, of meat, but desperate times call for desperate measures. It was more of a lubricant than a sauce anyway.

After finishing up, our lovely waitress brought the check and I tipped her more than I should've, since she was the type who would follow you out and drop-kick your ass in the parking lot. So all of you sorry waiters and waitresses who think the world owes you a living, learn from the old pros: intimidation gets the goods.

And thus we left Joe's of Westlake - I, with an odd taste of perfume in my mouth, and Bruce with a coating of grease in his, fondly wishing it well until we see it again.

Say, in another 10 years or so?

k.

Scenic Drive-In

2006-10-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

With the holidays coming up, you're likely to find me in the Central Valley visiting friends and family, as well as a few dives.

The Modesto area, in particular, has its fair share of dives that, if not supported, would fall to the restaurant chains that predominate the area. These dives include the taco trucks on Crows Landing Road, the funky ethnic dives and donut shops on Yosemite, and tons of burger joints and drive-ins that date back to the 1950s and 60s.

Like Sno-White.

Or an original A&W with rollerskate-wearing teenage carhop service.

One of my favorite dives is a place on Scenic Road called Scenic Drive-In.

If you have to ask "what's so scenic about this place?", look no further than down the street where there's a huge cemetary. Knowing this, someone with poor taste in humor might pose the question about where the meat for Scenic Drive-In's burgers comes from, and that someone, obviously, is me.

However, I'll refrain, since bad jokes about the dead and cannabalism only has so much mileage – and I'm saving the really gross stuff for the holiday dinner table.

Like Beep's Burger in San Francisco, this place is strictly a drive-in where you walk up to the window, hear someone ask if they can help you (you usually can't see them through the window), place your order, and then wait to be called. Unlike Beep's, Scenic has a small, covered area to the side with thrashed wooden picnic tables where you can eat or wait to hear your name called out on a loud speaker that's so distorted and full of feedback, it makes Lou Reed's seminal classic, Metal Machine Music, sound like a Queen midi file.

However, once called, you won't be sorry.

Scenic's main contender in the burger TKO fight is a heavyweight named the Knock Out Burger. For $5.00 you get a grilled burger with cheese, bacon, avocado...shit, you can read the sign.

Sure, I know a lot of folks make big claims about their burgers and I'm sure you're use to seeing all kinds of weird combinations. I have faith that you, my readers, are just as jaded and cynical as I am, so it's good to know we're on the same page.

This burger is the bomb. Words cannot describe how good it is. The burger and cheese (you know what I'm talking about), the lettuce, the avocado putting a little high-calorie creaminess to it, the hotness of the jalapeno peppers (muy caliente), and the bacon – enough said.

With Scenic Drive-In in the area, it is unconscionable to eat at McDonalds, Wendy's, or (yes) even In-N-Out.

In-N-Out? Momma said Knock YOU Out.

I'm gonna Knock you Out.

I'll be counting the days until I see this place again.

k.

International Food Center

2006-10-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

Being born into the lower class in America, and barely rising above it, I've seen first-hand the dangers faced by members of my class: dangers such as homelessness, prison, post-combat related mental illness, suicide, poor nutrition, substance abuse, obesity, teenage pregnancy, violence, and lethally gaudy choices in couture and coiffeurs.

And this is just in my immediate family.

As dangerous as it is to be poor (or close to it) in America, I've recently discovered that being filthy rich can be downright debilitating. I had this profound realization on my way to lunch today when, walking through the toney Jackson Square area and Financial District, I came upon a plethora of expensive luxury sedans, sports cars, and Sports Utility Vehicles all, clearly, driven by disabled drivers.

There was a time I use to posit myself as a real class warrior. The rich were corrupt, amoral, and always put their own class interests above the interests of the people of the city or nation. Or so I thought.

Now, as I get older (and less idealistic), I see that the rich really have it rough! To usurp democracy by using the tools of wealth to become even richer, regardless of the damage it does to the environment or future generations, that's bad. But to usurp democracy and be disabled – well, that's just sad.

:(

I'm sorry now that I ever threw a bottle at your BMW, slammed you in the shoulder whilst walking down the sidewalk, or voted for Chris Daly.

What worries me most is that this disability plague, which is raining fire and brimstone upon Communities of Money, is starting to trickle down, class by class, and infect people in the building trades, such as this guy.

Even this poor man, who appears to be perfectly healthy and handi-capable, is burdened by the suffering and crippling pain that once was the sole realm of the monied elite. His is a suffering we cannot see and, thus, is beyond our realm of understanding.

I admit, I cannot feel or understand your pain.

Indeed, this catastrophe knows no class boundries, as evidenced by this poor soul and her dog...

who exited this junker of a Jeep with her backpack...

and then proceeded to walk at least two large city blocks.

By the way, Honey, that color you're wearin' went out with Kajagoogoo.

Indeed, my friends, we are in the midst of an epidemic of epic proportions. We are besieged by an invisible leviathan which is crippling the bodies of our generation and banishing them to a living hell that is anti-lock brakes, power windows and power steering, softgrain leather upholstery, and a 4.2-liter, 32-valve, 4-cam aluminum AJ-V8, with cam phasing that can take you from 0 to 60 in 4.9 seconds.

Thank God I'm broke ever so often, otherwise I wouldn't be able to manage the steps that lead down to the International Food Center at the corner of Kearny and Sutter.

I love this place if only because of what it represents. It's like a melting pot of cultures all being stirred by one, large greasy spoon. It's like visiting dives on 3 continents without ever leaving home.

Why waste your time being searched at the airport?

Unlike the airport, there are two entrances that take you to your country of destination, and you don't even have to deal with some stupid-ass, ignorant airport gestapo pulling underwear, toiletries, and porn mags out of your carry-on and humiliating you in front of travellers from Des Moine.

For that alone: a star.

Once you get down into the belly of the beast (this is a term of endearment), you have many countries to choose from. I'll be going to the Philipines today, plus I'll share with you my trip to the military dictatorship formerly known as Burma.

However, please feel free to move about the cabin as you explore the cuisines of Mexico, China, Vietnam, and Japan. There's always a long line for the Pho (someone should name it "The Pho-One-One"), a line of Asians for the Mexican joint, and a line of Mexicans for the Chinese joint.

All of this cultural mixing and harmonizing makes me want to burst out in song!

There use to be a Thai place where the Burmese place is now, but apparently it fell in a bloodless coup around the same time Caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was visiting New York.

You didn't hear it from me but, if I were Thaksin Shinawatra, I'd be careful of the people at By the Bite since, while they have suspiciously good fried rice, their lamb curry inspires regime change.

The best part about food in the International Food Center is that for the amount you get, it's almost the same as spending money in a third world country. My rice, spicy green beans (way too oily, oh well), and lamb curry cost around $6.50, which could feed Aung San Suu Kyi and a party of 5 whenever she's not under house arrest.

Burmese food combines some of the best cuisines in the region, making it "fusion" before Alice Waters even heard of a jicama. It's a mixture of Chinese, Thai, and Indian, which sounds much more appetizing than, say, a mixture of Vietnamese and Yucatanian.

Filipino food is the same way.

I think of it as a combination of Chinese, Spanish, and Pacific Islander food – heavy on the fatty meats and stews.

Sometimes I think of the Filipinos as the long, lost descendants of the Roanoke, Virginia colony that mysteriously disappeared in 1587, simply because who else but Southerners likes to eat so much fatty, barbecued pork?

Is not "Croatoan" something alcoholic you drink with balut??

I rest my case.

I've been smitten with House of Lumpia for quite sometime. It's hard for a wannabe pinoy to find some homestyle Filipino grub in the FiDi, if only because a Filipino home is the only place in the City you're likely to find it. For the true Filipino restaurant experience, you have to travel out to Daly City or South City, or else be happy with the ear-shattering karaoke and hardened adobo they serve at Carmen's.

Nevertheless, House of Lumpia has it's good days - and then it has others. On this day, the steamtable was the fullest I've ever seen it. I don't know if they were preparing for a celebration (I'm totally out of the Filipino culture loop), but the food looked great!

Unfortunately I can't tell you the names of what I got, so I'll have to try to describe them to you. I got the 2-item plate and a side of lumpia for a total of $7.15. One of the items was sweet and slightly vinegary chunks of moist and (really) fatty pork. This is one of my favorite dishes, but it's crazy fatty.

The other item was a chicken curry of some type that had been stewed and came still attached to the bone. It also came with carrots and potatoes and was pretty spicy.

The lady who made my plate (always really sweet) piled it on high for me and I could tell she was the type of Mom and/or Grandmom who delighted in making her kids overweight, so much so that they were confined to a bed where she could entertain herself by poking needles into her human pin-cushions while she watched goofy Korean soap operas.

As I've mentioned before, anything with a "house of" or "world of" or "barn" in its title, I'm a damn sucker for. The place is called House of Lumpia, yet this house is not a home. Any house made with these lumpia should be immediately condemned and burnt down to the motherfucking ground. They were awful. Overcooked, greasy...you name it.

What up, House of Lumpia??

They weren't always this way, so maybe they had an off day. Everything else was satisfying, except for the lumpia...

And the entertainment. The unfortunate part of the International Food Center is that they have a television unintelligibly blaring CNN (aka Fox-lite), distracting everyone who doesn't have a dining companion. If my TV-B-Gone was working, I'd have not a lick of guilt in flipping that switch.

Books, people! Newspapers? Mindful meditation, much?

And of course, who doesn't enjoy a little eavesdropping? I can't eavesdrop properly with that fat slug Lou Dobbs complaining to the room full of immigrants I'm sitting in about immigration.

Shhhh!!!

What's that? Godamnit! I didn't catch the last part of her sentence.

Something about a disability placard.

k.

King Diner

2006-10-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

Today* was a beautiful, sunny and warm day.

*Saturday, Oct. 21

Likely, it was the last of the beautiful, sunny, and warm days until next year. So, instead of staying indoors all day watching cooking shows and This Old House, I headed over to the Mission for the kind of retail therapy that truly calls for throwing down the Hamiltons: thrift stores!

First stop: Thrift Town. FOB, or fresh off the bus, I had nothing to slow me down (ie., bags to check) as I breezed into Thrift Town, glided up the stairs to the appliance section, made my way past some chick on roller skates, and immediately scored big time. In fact, it was as if the hand of God guided me and my newly aquired WestBend Popper II towards each other.

Ka-Dow, Bee-yatches! $2.99!!

I've been searching for one of these suckers ever since I caught the home roasted coffee bug. Apparently, a lot of people know (or are figuring out) that you can roast your own coffee in certain hot air poppers, which makes finding them on Ebay at a cheap price common– until a bid war ensues. I got into one of these bid wars last week, until I decided, finally, that $20 was too high and let him have it. Still, I wonder how many unsuspecting sellers are led to believe that hot-air popcorn is making a comeback without realizing that coffee afficianados are turning these machines into micro-roasters?

I'm not going to get all religious and shit but, besides being blessed with shorts and t-shirt weather (I know I looked good), someone or something had my back today. First of all, it was a veritable thrift score on the home appliance and clothing scene, plus I bought some second-hand items for my kickass Halloween costume (don't even ask – it's a surprise).

And San Franciscans were in a hella good mood today.

Yes. I did say hella.

Except for one. I was taking pictures in front of her restaurant, mostly of the sandwich board. The place is one I've passed many times and thought would make a nice place to check out for this blog. To tell you the truth, the place beside it would be more fitting since it dives deep into the fear factor, or at least it does for me.

But something about Yucatan and Vietnamese fusion cuisine in the Mission caught my curiosity. After noticing that I was taking pictures, the waitress (or owner) glared at me hard, and then approached me asking if I needed help. I told her no and that I was just looking - which I was. And while the restaurant appeared to be full of Latinos enjoying the food, the place next door was virtually empty. "Yucatasia is a stupid ass name for a restaurant, but the food must be good", I thought, but the attitude from that lady put me off.

Now I know why. She probably thought I was the guy who cold-busted them* breaking numerous health code violations.

*Seeing is believing.

It's funny, because looking at these two restaurants, side by side, you would think that you could spot the obvious health code violator. And even though occasionally you might imagine that some dives do stuff like this, you prefer, for the sake of finishing your meal, not to think about it.

Ignorance protects the tender heart...as well as the stomach.

That's all too true for me, because after seeing this, one thing is for certain: I'll never eat at Yucatasia! You can look for a review of that dive from some other poor soul. And while you're at it, thank Pierre Saslawsky.

(By the way, I see that the assholes that everyone is starting to hate over at Chowhound have, in classic Chowhound fashion, deleted Pierre's warning/PSA about Yucatasia. Way to serve the dining public - you stupid fucks.)

(Oops! Looks like Pim scooped this topic a week ago. I should read her blog more.)

Instead, I made my way through Clarion Alley where they were preparing for tomorrow's (Sunday) block party. This is a really cool alley and it was a pleasure to see all of the artists working on their murals,

listening to music,

bopping their heads,

shaking their butts,

and putting on the finishing touches.

I started to feel nauseous. I don't know why, but I was getting that sick feeling you get when you eat too much bacon, probably either from too much tattoo overexposure or not enough fluids in my system.

So I went to Ritual Coffee Roasters.

It was my first time at RCR and I had heard many good things about the coffee there. It was true, the coffee was pretty good (not cheap though) and the person who waited on me was super nice.

What I wasn't prepared for was stepping into a lair of hardcore yuppies. It seemed like everyone around me was locked into their laptops - most of them working! Urgh!

Like this chick:

She was busy talking on her cell while working on some branding/marketing project. The guys behind me: same. And behind them: ditto.

God forbid a bad batch of organic scones worked its way around here. It could wipe out Internet 2.0 and half of the advertising/sales ghetto. I mean, I thought by going to the Mission I was getting away from the Oracle convention.

Next time I'll either get the coffee to go or just go to work and brew the shit myself.

Because I hate to be judgmental and all, but it's just not my scene. Unfortunately, neither is Papa Toby's Revolution Café around the corner, which looked a little too leftwing political for me (although the noticeable absense of laptops was a plus). Not that I have anything against Left politics per se, but when I say "leftwing political" in this context (or in pretty much any context), I mean, well, unfortunately...insufferable and boring.

I know people are oppressed and all, trust me – I know, and it's totally penciled in to my Microsoft Outlook calendar to fight the power - fight the powers that be, but let's face it: even thinking about this stuff makes my penis go soft. And when I'm trying to get my caffeine fix on, I don't want to have to think about what person, what village, what wildlife, or what rainforest just got fucked or saved from fucking because of what's in my cup.

Again, ignorance = tender heart. Or, better yet, I shall refer you to the buzzword of the day: "Yucatasia".

Are you listening RCR lady? The one with the cap on?

Since Ritual Coffee Roasters isn't my cup of tea (although the coffee to go is) and Revolution Café is the anti-Viagra, I guess there's only one place left that will take me:

King Diner

The King Diner is a small, non-descript burger joint at Mission and 10th that's open 24 hours a day. It's right around the corner from what the gay men of yesteryear and the "Folsom Miracle Mile" era would call "Breeder Alley", or 11th street and all of the straight clubs and bars that comprise it.

No doubt King Diner does a pretty decent business from folks coming in from Slims or Club DNA or Butter at 2 or 3 in the morning, but what's it like during the day; say around 5:00 PM? Well, besides me and the Middle Eastern guy who worked there, there were 3 people in the whole place: a quiet woman, a man reading a book, and a one-legged wino who literally hopped in front of me to order a cheeseburger – paying for it all in loose change of course.

The few one-legged winos I've met in my day seem to have all deserved their fate in life, since even when they're trying to be courteous, they're ignorant and unbearable assholes. It's like they'll bark out "where's my drink? I ordered a drink! I want my drink!" and then follow up with a pseudo-pleasant "yes, sir, thank you, sir". They're like a dog that doesn't know when to bark, roll over, and piss itself, so it does it all at once.

King Diner has a long and substantial menu, but the basics are that they serve burgers, hot dogs, shakes, sandwiches, and some breakfasty items. I ordered the Old Fashioned double cheeseburger which consisted of two patties, onions, relish, ketchup and mustard for a total of five dollars even.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, it shouldn't surprise you that I got the cheeseburger. My predicatability stems from the fact that cheeseburger quality swings wildly from good to bad depending on where your order it from, so that it's a greater indication of how the food at a particular place is as opposed to relying on the hot dogs. Besides, there aren't many places in the Bay Area where you can reliably get a decent hot dog because, let's face it, they're an East Coast/Midwest thing. And as far as I know, the only decent hot dogs come from Top Dog in the East Bay (and don't even tell me about "What Up Dog" – that place is crap).

Fact is, cheeseburgers are a West Coast thing.

So deal with it.

Drive-ins, drive-thrus, carhops, wide-scale teenage exploitation, and the fast food nation all started in or around California (with the exception of White Castle) and they all centered around the burger. Incidentally, so did fast food-related obesity, but don't knock us. Southerners are so fat they could sit on a dollar bill and spit out four quarters – probably from all that sugar and pork fat they put in everything (hello, Paula Deen?).

The gardenburger, like the Church of Satan and the Zodiac Killer, is also a West Coast native. King Diner offered a gardenburger, but I'm not having it. It seems that right when I considered something other than the cheeseburger I saw this message stuck to the window, no doubt left by a good Samaritan as a warning of some kind.

Frankly, "suicide" is a little too vague. I think what they meant to say is "Yucatasia".

But getting to the burger, this cheeseburger was actually pretty good! Well, except for the actual "meat part". The burger patties were precisely the kind either Eric Schlosser or Michael Pollan (I forget which) warned us about when they wrote that a typical hamburger at a fast food joint contains the remains of thousands of cattle.

These patties looked extremely processed and industrial. Still, it's amazing what a little char-grilling, American cheese (processed, of course), mustard, and relish can do to something as processed as these patties. Also, the burger was served scorching hot, which is exactly what my body was craving at the moment. A salty, hot, grease injection of vitamins C (heese) and B (urger).

This is the kind of food you crave and devour, but are too ashamed to tell your friends about. You might as well be stepping out of a porn shop with a sack full of foie gras and a Smithfield country ham. It's the kind of place your friends shake their head at you for even suggesting, and perhaps changing their opinion of you in the process.

But, you know what? You're okay with me.

And if we run into each other, say after a protest march or a Slow Food convivium, I promise not to tell.

So long as you do the same.

k.

Taishan Cafe

2006-10-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

I'm talking about the Taishan Cafe restaurant.

My co-worker, whom I'll refer to as "G-spot", tipped me off to Taishan after listening to me complain, day in and day out, about the fact that Hong Kong Claypot City is now a dim sum restaurant. G-spot, Taiwanese by birth, has also led me to some interesting finds in the last 2 years, including uber-dive - Star Lunch. Anytime, I feel the need to ask "exactly what is Quickly?" or about weird flavors at 100% Healthy Dessert, he's da man.

So when he told me about a place on Clement that specializes in claypot, where no one speaks – nor is anything written in – English, I knew I had to go...and drag Bruce along with me.

The mere fact that this place may have scared off the gweilos with its lack of English signage or, yes, speakage (how's that for English?), put it at the top of my dive priority list; right underneath "Fear Factor". Of course, being somewhere people don't speak or write English doesn't scare me.

I grew up in the Confederacy, you know.

That, and I had an excellent translator with me.

Taishan, for the most part, falls in the gray area of what I consider a dive since, although it's a small, relatively cheap, mom-and-pop-owned place that has old ladies and construction workers as regulars, and even a bit of the fear factor (for non-Chinese speakers), it's new, clean, and, so far, without a place in the history of the neighborhood.

I use to love eating at Hong Kong Claypot City. Back in the day (ok, it wasn't that long ago), it was the best, if not hottest (as in temperature), place in Chinatown to get a steaming hot claypot of chicken and salted fish. The other place, Utopia Café, got more attention from the guide books, but their claypot was no match for HKCC. Even though HKCC was on Grant and had the foot traffic – mostly tourists wondering why they were suddenly in a place that unabashedly served frog – it also had a strong following of locals, both Chinese and non-Chinese, who both knew and appreciated it.

I've been looking for a Chinatown replacement to HKCC ever since it changed it's menu, but unfortunately nowhere I've been comes close (although the chicken, mushroom, and lop chong claypot at The Garden Restaurant on Kearny is pretty good).

So even though Taishan was out of my immediate vicinity, I felt it was worth a trip over to Clement and Park Presidio to check it out.

At first glance, G-spot was right. Almost everything is written in Chinese. Luckily I found out the name beforehand, since I probably would've had a hard time figuring it out.

Since I can't read Chinese, I'm not sure if Taishan refers to the famous mountain in the Shandong province or the area directly west of Hong Kong in the south. Since I heard the owner say "thank you" to customers in both Mandarin and Cantonese (basically the only Chinese I know), I was confused even more.

I take it that the huge nighttime photograph of (what I assume is) downtown Hong Kong, which stretches along the upper part of a side wall in Taishan, suggests that the namesake refers to the province of Taishan, not the mountain.

In the end, I guess it doesn't matter since I'm really here for the claypot experience, not a geography lesson. But how about a history lesson?

Did you know that the majority of Chinese immigrants to North America prior to the 1970s were Taishanese? And that the Taishanese language (a dialect of Cantonese) was the main language spoken until then? In fact, one of Dive's loyal readers (and a dive-master in his own respect) is of Taishanese descent.

Right, Leland?

After walking into Taishan, we were immediately seated at a side table under the previously mentioned photo of Hong Kong. In front and behind us were Chinese laborers chowing down some grub before heading back to work, as well as a table full of old women seated by the window. I could hear some kind of commotion from the back of the restaurant which later turned out to be eight men (also laborers) who had just finished their meal and were making their way back to work.

The owner graciously thanked them and made small talk as they walked single-file out of the restaurant. Just then, a young couple with a small child walked in and got the super-gracious treatment from the owner. These folks were obviously regulars, and the owner seated them like they were family.

Or, in the case of those of you who come from families that annoy the shit out of you, this means they were treated nicely, as opposed to being resented and nagged at.

It's a small restaurant and, other than the glossy wall photo above us, and the menus printed on Christmas and birthday paper posted on the wall at each table, the place is pretty much a no-frills establishment. The tables and chairs were noticeably without the well-worn usage that comes from years of serving hungry people, and for small things in life such as these, I’m always grateful.

One sign on the wall was kindly translated into English, which provided us with more entertainment and good-natured laughs than the original author probably intended. I mean, who knew that lotus leaf was still the "major thing" and that both the leaf and the food can "observe" each other?

Despite the fact that everything else seen and heard was in Chinese, there was, luckily, a menu in both Chinese and English to accommodate the rest of us non-Taishanese/Cantonese/Mandarin speakers. The menu probably should've had better descriptions of the dishes rather than "House Combination Claypot", but then we wouldn't have had the pleasure of having the owner explain to us that "combination" included yellow eel and frog.

Yeah.

These folks must be from Southern China. It's been said that the Cantonese eat anything whose back faces the sky, although occasionally the Japanese give them a run for their money.

From perusing the menu, I quickly realized that Taishan specializes in two things: claypot and food "wrapped in lotus leaves steamed in a bamboo box" (actually an everyday, run-of-the-mill bamboo steamer).

While I'm sure the steamed lotus leaf dishes were fine, that's not why I drove all those miles from the backseat of the car the whole way here. I 'd decided, before I even left the house, that I would have a claypot dish, even if it killed me - so, kindly, talk to the hand with all that steamed food stuff and murder me with some claypot already.

Keeping with the season and my current obsession with preserving things, I ordered the Preserved Mixed Meat claypot while Bruce decided on the less exotic Chicken and Mushrooms claypot.

While we waited, we were served hot tea and pork consommé.

Sometimes I can judge the quality of a restaurant based on their pork broth. Because it's such a common thing in Chinese restaurants, cheap tasting soup can sometimes warn you ahead of time about what the rest of your meal will be like. Luckily, the soup here was tasty. The tea was average, but fresh and not the recycled tea bags stuff you find in your typical dive joint.

Soon after we finished our soup, our food arrived one by one, with Bruce's chicken and a side of braised cabbage drizzeled with oyster sauce arriving first. When the claypot came to the table, it was still covered, darkened and heavy looking – and no doubt scorching hot. This was apparent when the lid was lifted and a cloud of steam bellowed upwards as the sound of rice still sizzling on the bottom could be heard.

On top of the sizzling white rice were medium-sized chunks of chicken coated in a thin, transparent sauce of some kind, slices of shitake mushrooms and carrots, diced green onions, and cilantro (aka, coriander).

The owner then brought Bruce a small dish filled with a thin brown sauce that had some slices of jalapenos in it and suggested pouring it over his food. When he does, even more crackling can be heard from the rice and a fragrant puff of steam rose once again from the pot.

My claypot arrives just when Bruce is ready to dig into his. Again, steam bellowing, sizzling rice, smoky smell of burnt rice on the bottom – you know where I'm going with this.

In addition to the same toppings Bruce had in his claypot (minus the chicken), there were chunks of Chinese sausage and dry-cured bacon.

This type of dish is one of my favorite uses of Chinese charcuterie, as the flavor from the sausage and bacon melts into the dish and is observed by the rice.

Many people wouldn't find this dish worthwhile since it's so mild - being flavored primarily by the meats. They also wouldn't enjoy the sweetness of the sausage or the fattiness of the bacon – or the fact that the rice on the bottom is burnt and crusty and gives the dish a faint smoky flavor.

They also would be turned off by the lack of English spoken here, the occasional gawking of an old lady amused to see Westerners using chopsticks, and the noticeable absence of sweet and sour pork and fortune cookies.

Luckily for them, there's Panda Express.

And luckily for me, there's Taishan.

Feel free of mind to pay them a visit sometime.

k.

Of Mice and Michelin

2006-10-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

Note: Due to the length of this post, I've divided it into two parts. See if you can guess the mystery restaurant I'm going to review...

Ever since the Michelin Guide laid the smacketh down on San Francisco's candy ass, the once self-congratulatory high of Frisco's foodie establishment has plummeted into a low blood sugar depression that no locally-grown, eco-friendly ingredient or nostalgic, grill-marked trip back to 1980 can cure.

Hit especially hard were the Franco-San Franciscan chefs who, perhaps being away from L'Hexagone too long, thought they shat truffles and turned Frisco tap into Châteauneuf-du-Pape; no doubt led to believe so by eager and fawning Provençals - scratch that - provincials. Unlike other Bay Area chefs and foodies, whose predictably lame excuse went something like "they just don't understand our cuisine", the chefs and owners of the local French restaurants had no xenophobia card to fall back on.

As it turns out, San Francisco, not all that glitters is gold.

A long time ago, a wise, old, mentor of mine once warned me of "the curse of beauty". In a nutshell, it's a warning that easily and overly adored things can ruin the person or thing being adored. It was also a warning in the classic "be careful of what you wish for, or you just might get it" sense, since beauty so often rides with vanity, self-importance, jealousy, and ultimately self-destruction.

As with restaurants (and people) in San Francisco, a thing of beauty comes to know itself rather quickly. Charles Phan seems like a nice guy and is definitely an American success story if there ever was one. His Vietnamese-influenced restaurant, the Slanted Door, has been consistently good ever since it opened in a little storefront on Valencia Street.

Now, unfortunately, it knows itself a little too much, and its prices reflect that. Maybe the researchers for Michelin, who were both American and French, just weren't dazzled by the dishes they could've had at half the price at the less-hyped, unsexy, and virtually unknown Tay Giang?

Granted Phan and other Bay Area chefs, whose restaurants are continuously praised as being the best in Northern California, are now saying they could care less whether they were awarded a Michelin star, the truth is, I suspect, that they all knelt beside their bed each night, folded their hands, blessed mommy and daddy, and prayed like hell they would get the restaurant equivalent of a fully blinged-out grill from Michelin.

However, the tastiest bite of sour grapes in this not-very-important episode has been from the local paper of record, The San Francisco Chronicle. Not only was their resident know-it-all practically apoplectic at hearing the results but, in the tradition of any true backwater rag, a smear campaign was immediately launched to sully the reputation of the messenger. Indeed, never pick a food fight with folks who buy ink by the barrel.

A word to the Chron: don't hate the playa. Hate the game.

For one thing, your guy would be better off if he learned and practiced a little humility. As it stands, his panties are so twisted by that little "French tire company" that he's lashed out at the first innocent bystander to ever have the displeasure of serving him a starter of crab cakes. It would've been adequate to mildly critique the herb-encrusted rack of lamb, but did he have to go and tear those appetizers a new asshole?

I know hearing this burns like holy water, Michael, but Frank Bruni never would have stooped so low as to nitpick technicalities with a 106 year old, prestigious publication and then take out his hostilities on a poor little defenseless restaurant in Tiburon.

For shame.

This whole Michelin thing has reminded me how, despite the passing of time, San Francisco (and many San Franciscans - transplants especially) still maintains its dream of being something more than it is or ever will be. Imperial San Francisco – annexing Napa Valley so that you could have at least 1 Michelin three-star restaurant to call your own, 56 miles from your city limits.

Imperial San Francisco – obsequiously hanging around, then jumping into the spotlight once San Mateo and Santa Clara County (aka Silicon Valley) gets a smattering of attention. San Francisco, you will never be the Paris of the West everyone hoped you'd be. You are not the only City.

I understand this small town yearning well, but a little advice, Frisco: learn to love who you are, not what you wish you were. You will never be New York, London, or Paris. And though you scorn LA, give it a rest. Comparing yourself to others only creates jealousy.

Instead, take pride in what you do have.

Take pride that every year, for one week, young and impressionable servicemen and women come to your shores and see not the den of iniquity they've been warned about, but a place of beauty, depth, history, and occasionally kindness.

And sometimes crazy people.

Take pride in your children, in your streets, in your buildings, and in your neighborhoods where, despite poor taste in paint, homes like this can and do exist.

And take pride, that down the street from this home, in the Outer Richmond, is a similarly painted restaurant that will never see the well-worn heel of a Michelin reviewer nor your sole Daily's Golden Boy, but nevertheless adds much genuine character and life to this little 7x7 square mile city; more so than a restaurant in Yountville ever could.

I'm talking about the _________________ restaurant.

To be continued....

k.

Beep's Burgers

2006-10-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

Oh, God.

It's Fleet Week again.

And once again, every pacifist, peacenik, anti-war extremist, crank, and me will be obliged to sit through a week of wooshing planes shaking our homes/places of work, frightening our pets, and, in general, being a big fucking loud nuisance.

I did try to relax and enjoy Fleet Week last year. I even went to the Golden Gate Bridge to watch the ships roll in. That was the day I walked across the bridge and back, and then all the way home.

I walked by the Marina Green where everyone was gathered to watch the airshow, and by the Marina Safeway where there were vending booths set up, ranging from cell phone companies to the local hate-talk radio station to lots of flashy and marketing-savy military recruiters. Indeed, for a few days, that part of San Francisco was a Red State.

I tried to blend in as much as possible, but from the looks of some of the people gathered, I think I reaked commie, hippie fag – or maybe I just forgot to put on deodorant that day. I seem to remember I skipped my morning shower.

And I think I read something about Michel Foucault before I left. So, who knows?

Regardless, I did try to be open-minded. I realize the military has a hard time recruiting nowadays, but can't they do it some other way? Like, some way that doesn't make noise?

What happened to the good ol' days where military recruiters would pull (rescue) you out of the middle of Latin class and wow you with promises of super trips around the world? What happened to the days they would call you, and call you, and call you, and call you, during dinner time only to have your old man pick up the phone and tell them to leave you alone and not call back?

Memories...fresh as the morning air.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll tolerate it again for the week it's around. Plus, the influx of teenage sailors does give the strippers, the sex clubs, the dive bars, and the male and female persons presenting themselves as commodity allotments within a business doctrine some business – ain't nothin' wrong with that!

Always looking out for the small business person, I say.

That's why today I'm stepping away from any place remotely inhabited by People of Uniform and headed out to the southern edge of the city, where I am exploring the intricacies of the finer diner known to you and me as:

Beep's Burgers

Beep's is one of those places you pass by a million times, like on the way to Sloat Boulevard, fascinated by the looks of it, yet never feel an overwhelming urge to stop. Because I don't live or work or go to school in the neighborhood, I've never stuck around long enough to take the dive into Beep's.

Despite this fact, I'm glad that I finally took a special trip to Beep's to determine whether it was dive worthy or not, because judging from the food, it definitely was.

The restaurant has been in the same location since at least the 1960s (if not before) and doesn't look as if it's changed much, despite the changing ownership. Down the street is a high school and the main campus of City College, as well as the Balboa Park BART/MUNI station. Across the street is a K-line stop that's usually packed with students on their way home, as well as a major turn-around for other city buses.

Despite being so close to public transportation, the majority of Beep's customers drove up in cars, leading me to believe that this must be where the name "Beep's" comes from – as in "beep your horn". I imagine at some other time, way back when, Beep's was more like an old-fashioned drive-in where one would pull up, beep the horn, and a car-hop would come out and take your order and bring you your food.

Nowadays, it's the reverse. You drive your car up, get out and place your order at the window, wait in your car, and when your food is ready, the guy inside tries to get your attention by shouting through the window that your food's ready.

In a way, it's sad that real car-hop service no longer exists at Beep's.

Changing ownership and times can do that to a place. It also can affect the menu, as non-traditional drive-in dishes, like chicken teriyaki, appear on the menu, I suspect to appeal to the majority of Asians who live in the neighborhood, and partially because the owners are also Asian (though, ironically, not of teriyaki-eating origin).

However, contrary to the notion that this classic American drive-in is becoming less American and more Asian, it is actually the opposite: Asian is becoming more American - much in the same way that Italian food in America is more of America than of Italy.

But I'm sticking with the burger, because like the sign says, burgers are what this place is about – and some things don't change.

I could've settled with the quarter-pounder burger, but what good American of any ethnicity simply settles for the smaller size? Is this not the land of Super Target, Hummers, and XXL clothing? So I get the half-pound cheeseburger which, including fries and a glass of water, comes out to be $4.80 plus tax.

A few minutes later, I'm called to the window and handed a carefully wrapped package.

Being sans auto, there's no where to eat other than a lone table on the other end of the building, which happened to be occupied by someone else. Lucky then that Beeps has a stainless-steel counter top that lines the outside rim of the restaurant. And even though I have no choice, I kinda like standing for a change.

Besides, standing while eating, I'm free to move around, do a little dance, check out the action across the street (uh, there is none really) and check out one of the public courtesy signs that Beep's has kindly posted in the interest of promoting good health.

I appreciate that, Beep's!

I open the package and, honestly, I'm a little blown away. Considering I've had pretty shitty burgers recently (in the service of this blog), this Beep's burger is a welcome surprise.

The first thing I notice is the sauce peeking out from underneath the bun. Admittedly, it is a weird color. Mustard mixed with ketchup? Radioactive, cancer causing condiment? Whatever, it was good.

And then I noticed the charred-grilled color of the meat. Maybe I was on crack, but this burger didn't look like it was fried on a hot plate, although I couldn't see back into the kitchen.

The crispy, perfectly-cooked, golden fries that snuggled around the burger had to be moved a bit so that I could see the rest of it, since a full 1/3 of the burger was obscured by fries. Once I picked it up out of the package, I could see it better and was able to appreciate it more.

After 1 second of appreciation, I macked.

And I didn't stop macking until I managed to pull myself away for one last "fond farewell" bite, which I relished and cherished and said fleeting sweet nothings to.

I also have to give serious accolades to the fries. They were perfectly crispy and tasty and whatever they're fried in, please don't stop – State of California be damned.

All in all, Beep's Burger was a fine way to spend a $1.50 MUNI fare and part of an afternoon. It's one of those dives that really come through for you - in this case, with an awesome cheeseburger made like a cheeseburger is suppose to. And although it would seem impossible to go wrong with a cheeseburger anywhere, many places just fuck it up. Don't ask me how, but they do.

To the contrary, Beep's keeps it real, keeps the prices reasonable, and obviously keeps them coming back for more.

Need an excuse to go? Enroll in a class at City College.

Or make something up.

But don't wait around for it to bite you in the ass. It won't. Take my word for it and jump on a K, M, J or Daly City/Colma train, or yes, drive on over today.

Just don't beep your horn.

k.

Silver Crest Donut Shop

2006-10-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

The crazy people in this city are getting on my last fucking nerve.

In the last week, I haven't been able to walk or ride the bus anywhere without some screaming lunatic barraging me with his or her psycho-babble. And I know I'm not the only one who's noticed it.

For some reason or other - maybe a passing comet? – the insane in San Francisco are out in full force and it's an everyday thing now.

I'm use to crazy people, trust me. I know all of the crazies in my neighborhood very well, and I've even come to depend on their outbursts as a sign that things are well and normal in the city of Saint Francis.

But there are times, like yesterday – and the day before, and the day before that- when someone is just screaming the most vile sort of things you wish you hadn't heard; things about raping and killing and racist, evil shit. This kind of stuff is becoming all too common in this city and, frankly, I'm about to snap myself.

There are times when I feel myself becoming more and more inclined to act out violently against these people, because as I've said, I'm accosted with it every single day now - by totally different crazies, and at random places and times.

Right when I know I'm going to just wail on some nut, a tiny piece of calm and reason comes from deep inside me and I eventually remind myself that these people are sick beyond any choice of their own. I'm reminded that it wouldn't be right to beat the living shit out of someone who's sick. It wouldn't even feel good afterwards.

In fact, I'd feel really horrible, with good reason.

Still, something is going on, and I just hope it passes quickly. Being an election season, I'm not holding my breath - since there's going to be a lot of jive-talkin' from every single candidate, even the ones I like.

The crazy lady on the bus yesterday was switched on #7 on the crazy nob and luckily I didn't have to sit by her. Still, everyone on the bus, myself included, were treated to the pleasant sounds of "that's my goddamn box, not yours. If I want to call Mississippi, I will goddamn it and you can't stop me, motherfucker. Who said that? Well, tell that bitch to stay away from me. I eat apple pie for motherfucking lunch and dinner, you son of a bitch."

It wouldn't be long until I reached my destination and then I could comfort myself in the endless racks of musty and dusty clothes at Thrift Town.

I needed some retail therapy in a major way, and what better way to spend your ducats then at Community Thrift, Thrift Town, and some of the other second-hand shops in the Mission? Of course, right when you think you're getting away from the crazies, you just encounter them again in the aisles of Thrift Town. But there you could at least throw a macrame owl at them.

Nevertheless, good bargains were to be had and I bought a (basically) brand-new pair of black Levi's, a "vintage" short-sleeved, button-down baby blue shirt, a long-sleeved shirt made in the UK that looks exactly like an old Ben Sherman, and a canary yellow (yeah, not usually the color I would pick out) Derby of San Francisco windbreaker.

Most of these I tried on over clothes I had on, but when trying on the baby blue shirt, I had to go bareback. As the day progressed, every little itch I felt made me paranoid that I had gotten cooties from that shirt.

After tiring of shopping, I walked over to Potrero to catch the number 9 bus. Twenty minutes later, a bus rolls up. It's bursting with people, so much so that I can't even see the driver. Instead, I see the driver's hand motioning me to get on at the rear of the bus, which I do.

On the lower step of the back door.

And the door closes in on me as it's trying to shut.

And there's a Mexican family of 12 with trays of drinks and food-to-go from McDonalds precariously perched above my head.

"This a motherfucker", I think.

"If I can just keep it together...all I have to do is wait 'til this bus crosses over to Bayshore and I'm free."

My destination: The Silver Crest Donut Shop

I was really hoping the Silver Crest could pull through for me. It had been a long day and all I'd had eaten was a cup of yogurt and a can of sardines.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I had been curious about the place ever since the days Goodman's Lumber was in business. The restaurant is located on Bayshore, across the street from McDonalds and Smart and Final. In fact, there's a lot of chains out there, simply because the area has few neighbors – other than the homeless encampment on the hillside at Oakdale and Bayshore – who'd keep them out. Instead, the area is one of the major districts for industrial and factory businesses to operate in, and dives that cater to people who work the graveyard shift abound.

In fact, we're right down the street from Jerrold Market Place.

As I walk in through the front door, I immediately notice that there's no one dining. It's 5:30 PM, so maybe I'm a little early for the late crowd.

I'm seated by a very nice older woman who helps me decide what to order. Hmm, maybe help isn't the right word for it, since when I asked her what the special was and what she recommends, she pushed the $12.95 steak choice on me. I told her that I wasn't that hungry and what about the sandwiches? She recommended the cheeseburger, and pretty soon I realized that, in fact, nothing was really special here.

I also got the feeling that the old Greek husband and wife team who operate the place probably coached her into pushing whatever they could sell.

Prices here weren't cheap, especially for a dive. And believe me, this place is truly a dive.

Some of the menu choices, which includes a large breakfast selection (apparently served 24 hours), include the steak dinner I mentioned earlier, a filet of sole ($10.95), pork chops ($10.95), a deviled egg sandwich ($6.95), and the cheeseburger ($7.95) and cup of coffee ($2.25) I eventually ordered.

While I waited for my cheeseburger to arrive, I sat for a while (took pictures of course), stared at the table jukebox that didn't work (typical selection choice: "greek song"), and watched out of the corner of my eye some haggard, mess of an old man with a $10 fist full of quarters play the pinball machine until it was so abused and tired it appeared to be ready for the glue factory.

In between tipping the machine from side to side (that's cheating, old timer!), he stepped outside for, yes you guessed it, a smoke break.

I myself took a quick jaunt to the men's room, which – have you seen that movie "The Descent"? You know that scene when they're crawling through that narrow passage from one cave to the other and that chick gets stuck and starts freaking out?

Well, imagine that's the men's room at the Silver Crest, only with a 90 watt bulb, neon-blue paint over everything, and the smell of urine wafting up your nose.

One Xanax later, I exit the men's room and walk back to the booth I'm sitting in. But as I do, I pass by the bar which is seperated from the restaurant at the rear of the building. The bar seems like the only place happening, and from the quick glances I gave it, it looks pretty retro. Or at least the bar counter does.

There's a pool table in the back and 70s wood paneling covering the walls. Papa Papodopolous (or whatever his name is) is tending bar and I keep hearing this woman (his daughter? God, I hope not) saying "Papa, how do you say 'moonshine' in greek?"

And, "Papa, how do you say 'Camero' in greek?"

I want to say "Papa, how do you say 'drunken skank ho who should learn greek and shut the fuck up already' in greek?", but then my food comes.

I guess you all are starting to realize that I'm easily annoyed by now, right?

Anyway, set before me is check: condiments, check: napkins, check: coffee, check: plate of food. The cheeseburger is, well, kind of, underwhelming. For one thing, Mama Popodopolous's eyes must be getting worse (or she hit that wine bottle I saw her earlier with a little too hard) because she put the patty on the wrong side of the bun. Now I've gotta eat an upside-down cheeseburger, which considering how my day has gone, is quite fitting.

I'm halfway through the cheeseburger but I've already downed my third cup of coffee. Considering I could've had a Starbucks decaf grande banana mocha light frappuccino light on the cream with extra mocha drizzle to-go for basically the same price, I slammed back the coffee and pounded the mug back on the table.

I devoured the cheeseburger (mostly because I was starving) and starting working on the fries, kicking my South Beach diet in the ass. The fries were hot, but there wasn't much flavor to them. To tell you the truth, they could've been a little more greasy.

Luckily, I couldn't have finished them if I had wanted to. This diet has lowered my food shoveling capacity, and I'm thanking my Higher Power for it as I sit in the Silver Crest waiting for my tab.

The total came to be $11 and a few cents. I give the lady $15 dollars and tell her to keep the change. She looks happily surprised.

I want to tell her "don't get your hopes up, lady."

A good tip from me the first time I'm in a joint is like the kiss of death. When I tip shitty, chances are I'm coming back. Tipping great the first time does nothing but set a too high a standard; one which I typically build up over time if I like a person or place.

I leave the Silver Crest and cross the street to catch the bus. Forty-five minutes later it comes, it's crowded, but I get a seat...in front of a Weed Whacker.

The guy smells like a walking pot club and probably was. He makes a phone call and I listen in. He says to the guy on the other end, "you got a pencil for fifteen?"

What that means, I don’t' know.

But at least it doesn't sound crazy.

k.

Mimi's Manor House Restaurant

2006-09-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

I've put this post off for far too long, and I probably should apologize to Mark and you all for it. But, as you can see, I have my excuses.

So without further ado, I present to you Mimi's Manor House Restaurant.

Mimi's is a restaurant Mark Ellinger turned me on to after we hit Taqueria Cancun to discuss his photographs of SRO hotels in the Tenderloin.

While we're on the subject of Mark's photographs, please go to the Partners in Preservation website and vote on your favorite landmark that's in need of funding and restoration. We here at Dive are rooting for the Tenderloin Façade and Neon Sign Improvement category because, frankly, we can't imagine San Francisco without the Lafayette Coffee Shop or Original Joe's signs.

I arrived at Mimi's early one Sunday morning and grabbed a table while I waited for Mark. When I say grabbed, I literally mean grabbed. The place was jamming, and almost everyone at Mimi's were vying for a seat.

When Mark showed up, I was somewhat relieved since I no longer felt like I might have to fight off a few Tenderloin denizens for the extra seat I was holding on to.

I've thought about this post for some time and to be honest, I've been very reluctant to call Mimi's Manor House Restaurant a "dive". It has some of the qualities I list as being dive-worthy, such as the Regular, the Rock Bottom (ie,. price), and the Idiosyncratic factors. It, to a certain extent, even as the Fear Factor – we're in the Tenderloin after all.

But I'm not really sure I should call it a dive.

What it is is a restaurant that's attached to a low-income residential hotel in a run-down area of town that recently had a major facelift. And while I generally approve of remodels, especially when it benefits the needy, I'm a preservationist when it comes to dives – so hands off the yellowed photographs and Formica countertops, already!

Trust me, I've watched Antiques Roadshow enough to know that you don't fuck with the patina of anything old.

Unfortunately, the interiors of the Manor House Restaurant are utilitarian to a fault. Bright fluorescent lights glare onto walls painted in institutional, calming colors - as if one could be sitting in the waiting room of the VA hospital. Wear and tear is noticeable on the square support columns and chair rails where tables, chairs, wheelchairs, and God-knows-what else has banged into them.

But despite the cold feeling you get from the interiors, the feeling the staff gives to the customers is warm, particularly from Mimi herself. Despite envisioning her as an elderly mother figure, the real Mimi is a young woman of Asian descent who knows each and every regular and what they usually will have to eat. I can see why Mark speaks so highly of her, as she shows such politeness to random strangers, some of whom, unfortunately, do not or cannot reciprocate.

Don't think I'm being too down on the customers at Mimi's. For the most part, they are there to be fed and then go about their business. It just happens that some of their business involves selling drugs or getting back home before their parole officer calls (as was the case with the woman sitting behind me).

The day I met Mark, a high roller parked his brand new SUV out in front of the restaurant. Out of the large plate-glass windows that line the exterior of Mimi's, I could observe all that was going on outside.

The guy sat there for the longest time, watching all that was going on, or maybe passing the time until his next appointment. Eventually I looked up and he was gone.

At that point, a portly, old school, high roller, perhaps not so high or old, walked into Mimi's with an outfit that screamed either pimp or complete idiot. It was a suit jacket that had wide lavender and white vertical stripes, worn with white pants, shoes, and a wide-brimmed hat. I think he even had a pimp cane. The guy looked like a walking circus tent and suddenly made me crave taffy, cotton candy, and drunken clowns.

Meanwhile, a black guy sitting at a corner table near the entrance, who had scrutinized every single person who walked through the doors (including yours truly), finally saw the guy he was waiting for – a young, unkempt white guy with stringy, greasy brown hair. They both exchanged a curt greeting and left the restaurant together.

At this point, our food finally arrived. Mark had the corn beef hash with fries and eggs ($4.55), plus a side of bacon, and I had the pork chops with hash browns and eggs ($4.45). While most of the food was hot and plentiful, my pork chops were a little lifeless and cold. The eggs were ok, but kinda greasy.

I really wanted to like the pork chops and I definitely had my hopes up, but they were way too flavorless and fatty.

I think Mark had the right idea with the hash and fries, since those looked much better than mine. Still, it was hard to argue with the price and the quantity of the food set out before us. Combined with the standard side of toast and the bottomless cup of coffee, this is what you'd expect from a good greasy spoon, even though you wouldn't know it was one at first.

I can see why folks in the TL love this place so much. It has a strong "commitment to the neighborhood" feel to it and the food, while not always the greatest (I'm still waiting to try this famous cheeseburger I keep hearing about), seems to be pretty solid.

And even though it seems as if I do, I don't rate food higher because of the price/quantity ratio. However, the low price of a breakfast at Mimi's remains just a little bit shocking to me, even as I write this long after my first visit. In a city where the average omelet and homefries will start you off at around 7 or 8 dollars, the prices at Mimi's, with a few exceptions, average out to $4.00 a plate.

If it weren't for the short hours it was open, I'd be making more trips over to the Manor House Restaurant. As it is, I'll have to find another Sunday to go over and try the lunch menu.

Until then, I must give up my seat to someone who's ready to eat.

k.

Harvey's Place

2006-09-21T23:32:00.000-07:00

It sounds counterintuitive to have a big, greasy, carb-laden breakfast right before you visit the doctor for a yearly check-up, but that's exactly what I did when I stopped by Harvey's Place.

I stopped by to grab a quick bite at a dive that's become more interesting to me since I started a blog about hole-in-the–wall places to eat. However, this could've been a passive-aggressive reaction to visiting the doctor - an act I often revile.

I should consider myself lucky that I can visit the doctor and only have to pay $10 to do it. Yet, I never look at it that way. Instead, I find the process a stressful and inconvenient way to spend my time.

What annoys me most, besides the fact that my doctor's assistant (bless her heart) and the English language are two star-crossed lovers, is that I see the doctor at his convenience and not mine. Since I cannot see him after work or on the weekend, I have to take time off of work to make my appointment.

In other words, I lose money or use precious sick time – sick time I'd rather cash in being fake-sick at home watching Tyra, Oprah, and Judge Judy.

In my underwear.

Eating leftovers.

Plus, it's never "take an aspirin and call me in the morning". Rather, it's "go to the lab so I can do some tests…only…they're not open right now. And you have to fast overnight before you go".

So then, I have to take time off work again, to have them take samples so that I can come back, yet again, so that my doctor can say "you're fine, although you should probably lose some weight. Call me if you have any questions".

Oh! and if I have a question, it's actually impossible to call and speak directly to my doctor. Instead, I get "ummm, ohhhh, he not in now. Who this? What?"

"(sigh) Hi. It'ss Keee-viiin (last name). I'mmm patient of Doc-torrr (last name)."

"Okay, yeah."

(long pause)

No, of course he doesn't have email. Should it be as easy as sending Herr Doktor a short message and having him respond in his down-time, the supersized hand of God would reach down from the fluffy white clouds and swoop me up into the sunbeaming sky.

No, answering questions is what my insurance company wants some total stranger at a call center to do. And trust me, I've called them. You know what they said?

"Talk to your doctor."

So this is why I find myself at Harvey's Place, early in the morning, and consuming what is possibly the greasiest, greasy spoon breakfast I've had in quite a while.

Honestly? I'm eating it with a pissed-off reckless abandon. In fact, throw in a side of raw spinach while you're at it.

Harvey's Place is a small, unassuming (well, besides the graffiti mural on the side of the building) convenience store with a lunch/breakfast counter in the front. It sits on a long, wide-open stretch of 5th street that still has that old, industrial area of town, classic South of Market, pre-loft construction, feel to it. It's precisely the area of town I have stumbled long city blocks down at 3 in the morning on my way to AllStars Donuts.

As unassuming as it is, Harvey's (like The Wall) remains a landmark in the history of San Francisco's bike messenger subculture. Since the late 1970s, Harvey's has been a popular spot for bike messengers to meet, hang out, and sometimes organize each other into unions. In terms of labor and cultural history, Harvey's should be mentioned in any complete SF history book.

However, maybe it's a sign of the times that, in the last few years, I've rarely seen hide or hair of a bike messenger in Harvey's vicinity. New technology, such as email, faxes, scanners, plotters that can scan and send construction documents electronically from person to person, have lessened the reliance on human-powered delivery, and thus bike messengers in San Francisco have dwindled from over 400 in 1998 to below 200 in 2005.

Or maybe Mo chased them away?

Somehow, I doubt it.

Mo, short for Mohammed, Asghar is the guy who seems to be running the show at Harvey's Place – which is now called Mo's Place (according to the menu at the counter), even though the outside sign says different. Harvey Woo, the long-time owner of Harvey's Place, must have moved on or retired since the business name is no longer registered in his name, but in Mo's. When I called to see if Woo had passed away, Mo said that Woo was still the owner and still around.

I don't know if Mo is as revered in the bike messenger world as Harvey Woo is, but he seems like a decent guy to me.

The morning I was in, he was tending the cash register and baby-sitting one of the homeless guys who came in, sat at the counter, and started reading a new copy of the day's paper. Instead of kicking him out, Mo grabbed the paper, carefully folded it and placed it back on the rack, and sternly gave the guy yesterday's paper.

"This is yesterday's paper", the guy whined. Mo shouted something back – something to the effect of "take it or leave it". They both knew and tolerated each other. Barely.

Meanwhile, I waited at the counter to order the eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns. The old man who took my order had a small, faded tattoo on his forearm. He had a full head of hair, which was gray and uncombed, and a 3-day stubble wrapped around the leather-like skin on his chin and jaw. He wasn't much for words or very direct.

A small cup of coffee was laid out before me. It wasn't the cleanest cup, either.

Cheap silverware and a napkin were also laid out and I fiddled with them while I took in my surroundings. To one side, the store; filled with the usual cheap goods, mostly beer and liquor, with some candy bars and bags of chips thrown in to disguise it's sin.

There was a cold case, likely for the cheapo egg salad and diarrhea/vomit-inducing, pre-packaged sandwiches you find so often in these types of places. At one point, when I had more of a death wish, I use to pick up one of these at Jack's Market, along with a bottle of Stolichnaya.

Perhaps the vodka killed whatever was bad in the sandwich, or perhaps I just got lucky.

The kitchen and counter area of this place had seen happier days, but it's not the worse I've seen. Chinatown is full of kitchens so filthy looking you might as well call work and tell them you'll be out sick before you ever leave the joint.

All Harvey's needed was a little housekeeping. Near the windows, there was a bright, semi-circular nook that had what could've been a nice place to sit at a table, only the seat was half covered by a filthy-looking sheet; the kind bugs, scabies, and staph infections like to commandeer.

By the time my food arrived, I was working on my second cup of coffee, and please, don't mention Blue Bottle, Graffeo, or any other coffee snobbery here in these parts.

Instead, I tried to savor as best as I could the eggs and the hashbrowns which seemed to be one and the same – same color, same thickness, same shape, same flavor. Fortunately, the bacon rescued the plate from the monotony of the eggs and hashbrowns with it's wide, meaty strips.

Bacon this wide is rare to find, and frankly, it scared me a little. Nevertheless, I didn't let that smudge on the rim of my coffee mug scare me, nor did the cast of morning characters that filtered through. Why should I care now?

Besides, slap it on toast and suddenly the scariest bacon, sausage, and eggs on one's plate becomes something more. It somehow transcends and rises to the level of….something else, I don't know what. But toast will do that.

In fact, toast – plain old white bread toast, sometimes smothered in butter – should be a metaphor for all things good in life.

"He likes his toast buttered on both sides."

"The room was warm and toasty."

French Toast. A toasted cheese sandwich. A toast to life. It shouldn't be "to have one's cake and eat it too", but "to have one's toast", with a cup of coffee.

After pondering these critical thoughts, I wipe the corners of my mouth, check my watch, feel for my wallet, and walk over to the register to pay up. The whole breakfast sets me back four dollars and some change, plus the dollar or so I leave at the counter.

Peering through the convenience store paraphernalia that blocks the view of the customer and the person at the register, I finally get the attention of Mo. Mo, whose sour face hasn't changed the whole time I've been around, smiles and graciously thanks me. Like we had been old friends all along, he invites me to come again and even says please.

And why wouldn't he? I'm the kind of customer Mo likes.

I bring in my own paper.

k.

Sam's Pizza

2006-08-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

I walked by Sam's Pizza a year and a half before I realized it wasn't closed for good - only closed between 3 AM and 5 PM.

During the daytime, with the inside lights turned off and a rickety metal gate blocking closer inspection, it looks abandoned and lonely. Because the décor hasn't changed in the 40 years it's been open, from first glance, one isn't sure when it closed, if it is indeed closed.

By chance, I finally figured out that it was open for business on a night I was in the neighborhood. Very rarely am I in the vicinity of Columbus and Broadway at night, and frankly, why would I be? The only difference, though a significant one, between that area during the day and at night is that the strip clubs and tacky bars are open, populated by the drunk and coarse American versions of British chavs who flock to them.

It's generally not in the chav nature to post restaurant reviews, although a few do, and they are often easily identifiable by their Yelp reviews (keywords: "drunk", "2:00 AM", "bar-hopping").

The sui generis character of the area is further enriched by the hordes of horny incognito gentlemen of all backgrounds who swarm to the quarter-booths on Kearny and Broadway for practically endless hours of jack-off time.

Sorry, but I don't have enough anti-bacterial Wet-Naps to navigate the hundreds of potentially touched door handles in that hood after sunset.

It helps to look at this neighborhood through the lens of history, because when you realize that virtually little has changed since the days of Sydney Town, the Sydney Ducks, Dirty Tom McAlear, and the Chileno harlots who sent up camp on the slopes of Telegraph Hill, you come to view it all with a quaint nostalgia, even as you turn your nose up at and away from it.

If there is any place in the whole Bay Area where history is still alive, albeit with different players and different dives, it is in this area.

Sam's Pizza looks as if it has changed little as well, except for the prices. There is something to be said with sticking with what works. Times may change, but true dives rarely do. That's what makes them either distasteful to some or homey to others.

My visit to Sam's revealed that it is homey, most especially to others – "others" being passed out homeless men and lower working class stragglers. Because my visit wasn't between 12 and 3 AM, I was luckily spared the conversation of some mooks who decided on Sam's because they were too drunk to find Clown Alley.

Nevertheless, the conversation of the two other coherent diners and the cook wasn't much better. It fairly ranged between discussing the reason a friend was booked on a felony charge (slapping a police horse's ass) to where to shop for ghetto fabulous clothes in New York, and which Market Street store had the best brand clothing (note: not the one that sells mostly to whites).

Sam's Pizza is a fairly cramped dive that's dominated by a short bit of counter space and some small wall tables that seat one on each side. Like a lot of Broadway dives, it's not the cleanest joint, and perhaps rivals You's Dim Sum in terms of the Sticky Icky Factor.

The walls are cluttered with yellowed and aging menus and the look of the place is fairly dingy. The smell of grease from the fryers hangs heavy and mingles with the bus exhaust and cigarette smoke drifting in from the bus stop outside. Despite its age, it has all the charm of Jack in the Box on First Street.

After I began eating my cheeseburger and the previous two customers had left (one of them throwing his wadded-up garbage down on the street like a slack-jawed moron*), the young Arab-American cook wearing a Kangol hat walked from behind the counter, stood at the entryway, and began smoking a cigarette. He stood there for several minutes, watching the never-ending stream of Chinese people walk by, and seemed to be passing the time until the non-Chinese invaders appeared - drunk, loud, and obnoxious.

*We, here at Dive, HATE litterbugs.

When he came back inside and walked back behind the counter, I instinctively waited to hear the sound of running water, and yet nothing. Suddenly I looked down at the food in my hands and a not-so-strange thought entered my mind. Could it be that this 8-dollar cheeseburger and fries were touched with unwashed cigarette hands?

A hard gulp followed.

I squirted more ketchup onto my paper plate. The fries, although hot, were previously frozen and not any different than what you would buy off the cheap shelf at the supermarket. The cheeseburger was fairly non-descript and a pale rendition of the burger at AllStars, at double the price. Perhaps I should've ventured over to Clown Alley instead.

Clown Alley, which is just about as old if not older, unfortunately isn't a dive…anymore. It's had one too many remodels and now is a fairly clean and nice place to get a great cheeseburger. The price for a cheeseburger, fries, and a coke reflect that (upwards of $10 for all three).

The price at Sam's Pizza for the same, unfortunately, doesn't. And that's too bad, because I really wanted to like Sam's, especially after the long wait.

Sam's, however, is a great example of how a place can have strong elements of a dive and yet have no redeemable qualities. Sometimes sticky tables, a skanky clientele, an aloof cook with questionable sanitary practices, and overpriced mediocre food makes a worthless shithole just that, and nothing more.

That, my fellow divers, is what we must trudge through in our ongoing journey to the top, by way of the bottom.

So take another deep breath and follow me.

k.

Taqueria Cancun

2006-08-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

Walking South of Market on unwashed sidewalks deformed, broken, and raised up by overgrown tree roots and years of neglect, I told Mark Ellinger the other night that I thought his and my blog were of the same spirit and similar in purpose; kindred spirits of a sort.

After sleeping on it and thinking about it more today, I can't help but feel that, maybe, I egotistically put myself on a level that I don't deserve.

After all, Mark's work is much more subjective, while the places I write about often place me in the role of an outsider discovering a place for the first time. Still, I would like to compare what Mark does and what I do, if only because, egotistically, I'd feel honored to be mentioned in the same sentence as him.

I think part of the appeal of what we both do lies in what the scientist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, meant when he said "discovery is seeing what everyone else has seen, but thinking what no one else has thought".

Of course, not all of the places I write about have previously gone unnoticed, while not every hotel Mark photographs has remained unphotographed and ignored by the people who live there. Rather, it's the way him and I connect these seemingly isolated elements together that make them seem, at least to some people, new or interesting.

Mark's hotels are just ordinary buildings until, through his photographs (and essentially, his eyes), we see them, and we think about them, in a way we may have never seen or thought about them before.

If eyes are the windows to one's soul, then we also see a part of Mark himself in, and attached to, each photograph. In each one, he seems to bring out a personality or a feeling - sometimes brazen, sometimes timid - in each hotel or sign or stairway he photographs. An open window can be heavy with insinuation, while a surreal sunrise can reveal a tender moment in the life of a structure seemingly frozen in time.

"Dawn Over Taylor Street", photo by Mark Ellinger

Where dives are concerned, I only wish I could accomplish with the keyboard what Mark does with the camera. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. If I had to type a thousand words for every dive I visited, I'd give this shit up and start drinking again. Your ass is lucky I can barely scratch out the few words I do!

The night of our walk, I had the opportunity to talk to Mark about his work over a burrito at Taqueria Cancun. We had originally planned to meet for dinner at Mimi's Manor House Restaurant but, to our disappointment, it closed at 5 PM. Instead, Mark suggested we head over to Taqueria Cancun at Market and 6th Street.

Now, I've never actually been to the town of Cancun, but I've read about it, and something tells me that Sixth and Market is about as far away from this margarita-swilling-sunburnt-Americans, sanitized tourist resort as you can get.

Nevertheless, I wasn't certain at first that this place would meet my dive criteria. True, it's on Market and Sixth, which is hardcore dive territory. However, everyone and his sister in the greater Bay Area has known that Taqueria Cancun (at 19th and Mission) was the shit for burritos, at least as far back as I can remember (12 years). Like with the new location of Taqueria Pancho Villa down near the Ferry Building, I figured this new Cancun location might be a less dive-worthy joint and/or attract an upscale, non-neighborhood crowd.

Excuse me - but what crack was I smoking, again?

On my visit, Taqueria Cancun's crowd was predominantly working class, and to a certain extent, the up-to-no-good class - or what a hyper-PC acquaintance of mine would consider "survivors" of the "street economy".

During the brief time Mark and I spent eating there, the crowd ranged from a table of young and streetwise latinas; a DPW worker sneaking in some break time; a young, scowling, wheelchair-bound guy (totally hit in a drive-by, I'm sure); an uncomfortable looking 30-something white guy in a suit; a bike messenger who looked oddly familiar; a security guard/serial killer; a couple of giggling hipster girls; a guy who's probably uttered more than once the words "don't hate the playa, hate the game"; and a skanky, crazy guy whose face had been recently punched black and blue, and who was immediately told to leave upon being noticed by the guy behind the counter.

Inside, there's not much room to move around or sit down. The few tables that exist line the wall of this narrow, one-room dive leaving very little space between the counter and the line of customers ordering and waiting for their food.

From the front of the dive, directly back to the door with a "NO RESTROOM!" sign above it, the entire place is one, small, open space; the only divide between you and the guy making your food being the counter itself.

Luckily having the opportunity to visit more than a few upscale, trendy restaurants in my day, I'm pretty familiar with the "open kitchen" concept. However, Taqueria Cancun takes this concept to an absurd extreme. We were sitting so close to the dishwashing action, I think my glasses steamed up a little. Any closer and we would've had dishpan hands.

The place basically works best as a take out place, and for the most part, that's the business they were doing. Up front, next to the window, a guy was chopping freshly roasted pork and carne asada, while another lurked unseen behind a range hood. In addition, there was a guy taking and making orders and another working as back up – washing the dishes when things got slow.

Mark was an excellent Taqueria Cancun dining partner, especially since he lives right around the corner and Cancun is one of his regular haunts. When a guy like this recommends the al Pastor, you don't give lip, other than "I'll have the Wetback Burrito, al Pastor."

"Please".

Something about asking for a "wetback burrito" from a taqueria worker who may or may not have once dipped his gams in the Rio Bravo del Norte is a little unsettling, especially to a fragile, politically-correct gabacho like myself.

For a second, I thought about ordering the "er, uh, the you know, ahem, w-e-t back burrito", but I just bucked up and said what I wanted, wetback and all. At that point, the guy behind the counter, apparently not amused with my reluctance, gave me a look so cold it could freeze blood.

I know he was thinking "Oh yeah? A wetback huh? Let's see who's a wetback after I bitch-slap your punk ass."

I just know it.

Mark had ordered a regular al Pastor burrito that had been grilled and then wrapped in aluminum foil, and both of us were chomping away on the tasty tortilla chips, guacamole, and salsa, but I was completely focused on this "wetback" burrito.

He was filling my brain with stories of going to diners with his grandparents as a child and of San Francisco dives from the 70s and 80s that have long since passed but, honestly, it was really hard to concentrate with this radiant, tasty burrito sitting before me - and I speak to you as someone completely burrito-jaded (though probably not as much as this guy and these people).

Still, if all insulting stereotypes tasted this good, I would be one regular offensive eating motherfucker.

Nothing could go better with this food other than a nice cool agua frescas, and this sweet, refreshing cantaloupe drink was a perfect sidekick to the melange of flavors set before us.

True to Mark's word, the al Pastor burrito (with beans, rice, onions, and salsa) was damn good and the addition of the toppings (enchilada sauce, green salsa, melted cheese, sour cream, and more salsa) made this burrito to die for.

Or at least suffer a heatstroke.

Seriously, if this is what illegal immigration tastes like, why are we even having this "debate"?

Ya basta, fools!

Open those borders already and get your ass to Taqueria Cancun, pronto!

k.

El Gallito Drive In

2006-07-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

Can I be lame and not type out a long ass post like I usually do?

I can?

Oh good, cause as much as I love doing this, I realize that whenever I start writing I can go on, and on, and on, and be really, really long-winded, which is good in some respects because I've ended up with a readership that reads and thinks as much as they drool over pictures of pork feet (which is difficult to cultivate in this age of point and click, 5-second attention spans, of which I'm also guilty), but means that sometimes I don't get this shit posted for frickin' days, or even weeks!

Uh oh. I've already started.

OK, well, El Gallito Drive In in Brentwood, California.

I had to do some web searching, and at one point I thought of asking a Mexican, but I finally found out that El Gallito means "The Cock" in Spanish. It's also a pretty popular Mexican restaurant name.

Hmmm.

One would naturally think that The Cock would be a pretty common and irony-free descriptive name of a gay bar, but after searching high and (mostly) low...ok, I mean loooowwww, I came up with plenty of names like The Stud, The Powerhouse (Jesus, I feel sore just typing that word!), Aunt Charlie's, Ginger's Trois, more of "The Eagle" than actual eagles existing in the wild, and even a gay latino bar called Esta Noche ("Tonight"), which has that "shhhh, I won't tell if you don't, Father O'Sullivan" ring to it.

Yet, only two Cocks. What gives?

Anyway (see how I'm already starting to get off track), I'm not a frequent visitor to Brentwood, so to find a place to eat, I did a Google search and found El Gallito. God only knows what search terms I typed in to find a place like this, but my Dive-ine Higher Power must have been guiding my algorithms that day.

The El Gallito Drive In was everything I wasn't expecting and more, and what that means I'm not sure yet, but give me a minute to think about it. It's mascot (I assume from the sign) is a sombrero-wearing, goose-stepping (which is weird in so many ways), red pistolero Cock.

It had that casual, hole-in-the-wall, "whattya have, honey" quality about it, and that's simply my first impression from the outside. Half of the restaurant is walk-up/take-away while the inside has sit-down service.

Good sit down service. Friendly waitress, clean tables, and the bathroom...(record scratching).

Actually, the bathroom was ass-nasty.

But other than that...

Prices here are cheap, probably because the price of an updated cooling system isn't included in your meal. Because there isn't one. However, like so many people I know who live in hot climates do, cooling down a room is often as simple as closing off every source of natural light and sticking a floor fan up on a counter to blow less hot air towards you.

This, as well as a cool neon Corona beer sign, has the bonus effect of making you feel as if you've suddenly been whisked away to some tropical nightclub somewhere in, say, Tijuana.

The chips and salsa here were good, and when I say good, I mean the chips weren't stale or greasy or so thick you could wind up with a very expensive dentist bill afterwards. The salsa was thin (not chunky) and tasted very fresh, like tomatoes, and not very hot.

When our food came, Bruce had the pork tamale, which came with rice and beans. Nothing out of the usual here but good Mexican food.

When we asked for hot sauce, it came in this little maple syrup or cream container, which I thought was pretty cool, but then I'm easily impressed (oops, I probably shouldn't have mentioned that). Like the salsa, this was obviously made on the premises.

And it was super, crazy hot!!! Yow!

I had the Super Burrito, because the name "super" in front of anything just appeals to my American senses in a way I just can't describe; much in the same way "World of", "Barn", "House of", or "Just" does. It's creepy.

Don't worry, though. I often make important decisions this way.

I decided to go with the Super Burrito with Chicharrones because for a minute there I was out of my goddamn mind. Oh, wait, I remember thinking "hey, I've never tried this before!". Or, "I haven't seen this on a menu before, I think I'll have that!" I had a vague recollection that chicharrones were pork in substance and fried, maybe even fried skin. Still, it was in a Super Burrito, so how could you go wrong?

While I could guess that the burrito, under any other circumstances, might have been good, especially the whole pinto beans and stuff, and it definitely was super (ie, big), I couldn't really get into the huge chunks of cracklin' that dominated the burrito like a pistol-packing rooster.

Something about saving the stuff leftover from rendering fat and then putting it into a burrito just isn't quite right. I mean, did I miss something? Was I suppose to be drunk while I was eating this? Is that what the neon beer sign is for? To remind you of what you're suppose to be doing?

Oh, oh, oh...and you know that cute little container of hot sauce I mentioned earlier? It seems I couldn't operate it without being drunk either, since I accidentally poured half of it over my burrito.

This was not what I meant to get into.

I know you may find it hard to believe, but despite my mishap, if I were ever in Brentwood again, I would go back to The Cock in a flash. I liked the character of the place, I like the fact that it's been around forever and that it's still family-owned (by the original owners), the food was solid, and the service was very quick and friendly.

Wait a second!

I was in Brentwood?

Oh yeah. That's right.

k.

New Hong Kong Menu

2006-07-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

The New Hong Kong Menu (NHKM) restaurant looks like, smells like, and acts like just about every other Chinatown restaurant.

However, there's a twist.

It's not exactly in Chinatown.

It's close to Chinatown and it's arguable whether it's in or out. It sits on a somewhat quiet block of Commercial Street, between Kearny and Montgomery, smack dab on the border that separates Chinatown from the Financial District. Fittingly enough, it has elements of both. And as far as dives go, it definitely fits several of my criteria (see right hand side bar), especially initial the fear factor.

However, what I like about NHKM is the fact that it's a Chinatown restaurant, not exactly in Chinatown, that you wish the real Chinatown restaurants were more like. I can't tell you how many Chinatown menus look the same, and frankly, are fucking boring! Lucky then that this menu is a little different, and by different I'm talking offal.

At NHKM, you can get beef tendon, tripe, pigs' feet, and other goodies done several ways, including with braised noodles, in soup, in clay pot, or over rice. The best part: almost everything is under 5 dollars.

Of course, NHKM could charge more if they wanted to; they certainly have the business. Believe me, New Hong Kong Menu is no secret. During lunch this place is jammin'. True, a lot of the traffic comes from people who couldn't get in or wait long enough for the dim sum service at City View across the street. But, like me, there are plenty of those who pass up City View to delight in the inexpensive meals at New Hong Kong.

The customers are an interesting mix of young Chinese and Chinese-American white-collar workers, often with their non-Chinese friends, people in business suits, and construction workers. The best part: no tourists! (This may explain why the food is so good and cheap.) The place can get pretty loud, so don't count on getting a few pages of The Barbary Coast by Herbert Asbury* read while you sip the soup.

*I'm only up to Chapter 2, "Hounds and Harlots".

But like I said, the place is a dive. The walls are wallpapered with this funky green bamboo pattern that shimmers. The restaurant is pretty dark and most of the light comes from the windows in the front. The tables can sometimes be sticky and if you are by yourself or with one other person, you may be asked to share a table with another group. However, I've often been lucky to find a table by myself. The wait staff, all of whom are friendly and accommodating, have never coerced me into taking a table I didn't want.

While I've had the fish here, as well as a few other conventional dishes, I've never had any of the offal dishes until today. For the most part, I only eat offal in restaurants since I'm pretty chicken (there's a pun there somewhere) when it comes to cooking it at home. I've thought about it, but then I get cold feet (pun accomplished).

Today, I ordered the pig's feet over rice. First, I should back up. Before I put in my order, I was seated and brought a plastic glass of hot tea and a small bowl of vegetable, and possibly pork, broth. The broth was pretty good, and I appreciated that there wasn't the occasional piece of pork gristle, lotus root, and mystery melon/gourd floating in the bottom. Others may like this, but I'm all about the broth.

Then it came time to order.

"Are you ready?" the waitress said.

"Hi, I would like the pig's feet rice plate."

"Ok...the PIG'S FEET?" she said with a smile.

"Yes, the pig's feet."

(What? Like I'm going to be the 100th white person who's ordered the beef with broccoli or chicken chow mein today? Don’t think so.)

"OK, would you like the combo?"

She turns the menu over and smiles really big.

"See. The combo. You want the combo", she says as a matter of fact.

"Ok, sure." Why argue. The rice plate was three dollars and something, while the combo ($4.95) was only slightly more.

Not long after, my food came delivered to my table. "Wow, that was pretty fast", I thought.

The pig's feet came served in a bowl, with sauce coming halfway up, and with a plate of plain white rice. With it came a big bowl of wonton and baby bok choy soup. Though I had already had a small cup of broth, I didn't waste time in starting on the soup.

I'm not a big fan of wonton soup, and this didn't change my mind. However, I did make a good effort to try some, and for the most part, it was pretty good. I appreciated the fact that the bok choy was of a manageable size, since I hate trying to eat it when comes in huge stalks. The pork wontons were small and mildly flavorful. I ate them right away since wontons are, in my humble opinion, the best part of wonton soup.

Moving on to the pig feet, I noticed that these flimsy little napkins were just not going to cut it. Make a future note: ask for more napkins next time (or better yet, bring a clean handkerchief and a wet nap). First, the pigs' feet were mostly bones surrounded by a soft and very flavorful gelatinous substance, likely being tendon. From what I've read, pigs' feet must be slow-cooked for hours to get it to the right consistency. Considering how quickly my food was served, I figured it had been sitting in a pot just waiting on me to walk in and order it.

I loved the sauce the pigs' feet came braised in (especially poured over my rice). It was rich and sweet, tasting noticeably of hoisin sauce and the pork-heavy braising liquid. It was topped with chopped scallions that offered up its onion flavor to the dish. The feet were very tender, however, I don't know if it was the sauce, the feet, or the combination of both, but after touching the feet, my fingers became so sticky that the flimsy little napkins would cling to my finger tips and break off.

This probably isn't a dish you would want most people you respect see you eat. That is, unless they happen to be eating the same. Nevertheless, it's a good thing this place has low lighting.

Though I had eaten plenty, there was still one last thing: the dessert. Typically the dessert at NHKM is a small bowl of what I assume to be a mango (or sometimes strawberry) flavored pudding with tiny balls of grass jelly floating in it. It's pretty bizarre to most folks, me included.

Still – waste not, want not.

Yum.

All in all, New Hong Kong Menu scores high on my dive-ometer and great Chinese restaurants list. This tiny, no frills place has great food, decent portions, good service, and a price that can't be beat.

k.

Lafayette Coffee Shop

2006-07-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

If you wake up one morning and find that you've slipped through the cracks of society, you may find yourself reflecting over it at the Lafayette Coffee Shop.

Situated deep in the TL, it is not a place one usually seeks out, despite its relative proximity to the Hastings College of Law, the (soon to be old) Federal Building, and City Hall. The neighborhood is a partial mix of newly arrived immigrants from Pakistan, the Middle East, Vietnam, and to a smaller extent, Latin America. Alongside them are impoverished American-born residents, the majority of whom are black (though there is a good share of whites), who drift in and out of homelessness and prison.

While there are plenty of dive bars and (mostly ethnic) restaurants, the biggest employers in the neighborhood are non-profits and, yes, Poverty Pimps, who provide everything from 3 hots and a cot to clean needles and condoms. Junkies, winos, crazy people, thieves, drug dealers, crack whores, hustlers, and tranny prostitutes – there's plenty of grant writers for everyone.

The street scene is as such where shouting is constantly heard. No one is overlooked and most looks are hard or suspicious, especially if you are male. It’s probably not too wise to get into the staring game here (you know the one I’m talking about), lest you inadvertently pick a fight with someone just paroled from Corcoran.

If you feel the need to find a crooked cop, look no further than the TL. In fact, you may want to try Original Joe’s first (just a hunch).

Legend has it that the neighborhood got its name from crooked beat cops whose shakedown of the common criminals and other purveyors of vice made working in the TL easy street, thus they could afford better cuts of meat. There's no reason to believe anything has changed.

With all of the madness of street life, there is an oasis of calm in the Tenderloin and that oasis is called the Lafayette Coffee Shop. Unfortunately I can't tell you a thing about the history of the place or anything about the current owners, other than the fact that the waitress runs the show here and knows everyone by name.

Like many other coffee shops and cafeterias serving American food, most of whom have changed little since they were new, this coffee shop/greasy spoon is run by people of Asian descent, in this case (I presume from listening to the waitress's conversation with the cook) Vietnamese.

I had read before that the waitress knows everyone by name. What wasn't mentioned was that she also knows what each person is going to have. In fact, as soon as I sat down, her first words to me were "is this your first time here? I've never seen you in here before."

Considering San Francisco is a city of 740,000 residents (plus 169,000 daytime commuters, plus thousands more tourists), that's a pretty impressive memory.

The restaurant is no frills – and then some. Décor consists of one small, thrift store painting of a fishing village on a dirty beige wall and dozens of bright, bright flowers – all fake of course. Rarely do I get creeped out by fake flowers, but these looked like they were rescued from a Colma cemetary.

The seating cracks me up. Imagine red naugahyde covered booths, without the stuffing in the seat. It's like sitting on a wooden plank.

The lighting fixtures are second-hand Burger King, circa 1975. Other than the metal-trimmed, plain white, formica-covered tables and the wide, metal, venetian blinds, that's it for style.

There's not even a sign on the restroom – probably for good reason (throws the junkies off the scent).

What the Lafayette Coffee Shop lacks in style (inside of course; the outside signage is awesome), it sure makes up for in substance. As I said before, this place is an oasis of calm. Despite the noise and cacophony going on outside, it was so quiet on my visit you could hear my camera open from across the room. For the most part, it was dead silent in the place.

Most of the patrons were reading. All of them were old men, sitting by themselves, not speaking to anyone and minding their own business. Each man who came into the place or left was greeted by name.

"Oh, hi Bill! Will it be the same today?"

"Ok, thank you very much Mike! See you same time tomorrow, ok?!"

"Ok, Jerry, just like you wanted. Two orders of potatoes, no gravy."

All of this was said with the utmost sincerity and kindness. One might assume the waitress was an angel who had somehow got lost before she made her way to that late-night diner in the sky. One, especially a blonde crack ho who didn't cough up the money for her cheeseburger, would be wrong.

This one blonde crack ho, and later her crack Joe (or John), who forgot they spent their last fiver on a rock down on McCallister, mistakenly tried to bargain with someone who wasn't having any of it. And thus, tonight's dinner theater.

Whoever said dinner theater was dead never sat down in the Lafayette Coffee Shop.

And that brings us to the food.

While there was so much typical diner food to choose from, and even daily specials, I went with what seemed like a safe choice. Somehow, veal cutlets in this setting just seemed wrong.

I went with the ($6.95) Cross Rib dinner and a glass of water.

The dinner came with salad, soup (with crackers), bread and butter, which was brought to my table almost immediately.

The bread, and I say this in all honesty, was actually better than I've had in mid-range Italian restaurants (for one thing, it wasn't stale, and probably not recycled). The butter, contrary to being rock hard, which is one of my BIGGEST restaurant pet peeves, was room temperature and easily spreadable.

The salad. Well, the "salad".

What can you really say about a saucer of iceberg lettuce with one slice of a half-ripe tomato covered in industrial-grade 1000 Island dressing, other than it totally works for this place. The soup tasted as if it was poured from a can and embellished a little with the addition of carrots, celery, onions, and barley thrown in.

Despite being a foodie's nightmare, the combination of the bread, the soup, and the salad set the course for a healthy-ish, rib-sticking, good greasy-spoon, meal.

Soon, my dinner arrived and it didn't look half bad. Considering the neighborhood and the place, I would say it was rather decent.

The cross rib was plentiful and cooked medium done, with just a little bit of pink still visible. Unfortunately it was a little too fatty, but otherwise it had a good beefy flavor, made even more so by the small pool of jus it was resting in.

The potatoes were pretty good as well, covered in gravy and just the right consistency – with no weird chunks or artificial flavors (hell, maybe they did come from a box, but I couldn't taste it). And next to them was a pretty basic "vegetable medley", likely pre-cut and frozen. I had to add salt to the steamed veggies since they were unflavored, but fortunately not overcooked.

And let's not forget about dessert! Think clumpy, lukewarm, sweet rice pudding with a faint touch of cinnamon. I would tell you how horrible it was, but then I would have to explain why I ate every bit of it.

It wasn't, or it isn't, lost on me how much of a service the Lafayette Coffee Shop provides to the single men and old timers in the neighborhood. For under $8, one can have a full dinner, with good service, in a quite place, a haven from the chaos of the Tenderloin, that (to tell you the truth) isn't any worse or better than Tommy's Joynt.

I hear they even serve coffee as well!

As dives go, it's a classic. However, the real jewel here isn't the food, it's all of the good stuff that comes with the food – recognition, friendly service with a smile, peace and quiet, affordability, and just a little bit of theater thrown in for good measure.

k.

PS For a very nice photo of the LCS at night, click here. Also check out Mark's website - a magnificient look at the TL from the perspective of its hotels.

Little Lucca Sandwich Shop

2006-07-16T13:05:00.000-07:00

"Holy mother of Jesus!"

I thought sitting outside of the Little Lucca Sandwich Shop yesterday.

"I think I've hit the sandwich Holy Grail!"

And maybe I'm right. Judging from the constant lines outside of this 26 year old South City institution and the sheer number of Yelpers who agree, it seems as though I'm the not only one who knows this.

Until now, South City has been defined in my mind as that place, not really San Francisco, between us and the airport. Famous in my mind for the hillside graffitied in big Hollywood letters "South San Francisco – The Industrial City" and for having a good library, South City has always seemed to me as being the red-headed stepchild of peninsula towns; not really San Francisco, but constantly bewildering newcomers arriving from the airport believing they have arrived within San Francisco city limits.

South City also suffers from living in the shadow of the former Paris of the West, as it, Brisbane, San Bruno, (non-cemetary parts of) Colma, and parts of Daly City all seem to run together forming one large, indistinguishable, high-density suburban clusterfuck between San Francisco and the airport. Driving down El Camino Real, or off of a random exit from 101 or 280, I can never figure out which town I'm in.

However, I'm beginning to learn. When roaming through the hinterlands, what's helpful in learning where I'm at are landmarks, such as the South San Francisco library on West Orange Avenue, which is right off of Westborough Boulevard, which if you cross the street right there is a Filipino restaurant called Ong Pin, which is kinda "eh" and too damn expensive considering it's a place full of screaming kids, their asshole parents, and a cd player playing cheesy Filipino pop music that skips in the middle of the song everytime the waitress pulls a soda out of the refrigerator the cd player is sitting on.

However, now I have a new landmark, and what a landmark! Little Lucca is now, officially, a destination. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: every town, no matter how large or small, has a culinary jewel. It may or may not be obvious, often it's not, but every town has at least one.

I can't tell you how many times Bruce and I have driven by Little Lucca where I've thought to myself, "that place looks like a dump....I kinda like it."

It's not alone. Little, funky, hole-in-the-walls dot that whole section along El Camino Real, forming a small stretch of a diver's paradise. Yet something about Little Lucca seemed to call to me. Perhaps it's the building it's in, which looks like an old shack built in the early part of the 20th century. "Any no-frills place in a building that old must have some kind of history", I thought. "The place must be a local favorite."

One day we decided, on a whim, to see what exactly was up with this little deli. We got as far as the door when we noticed that the three or four people standing outside in front of us were standing behind a horde of people, whose shadowy figures you could see waiting inside.

"I can't eat here now", I told Bruce. "I don’t have my camera."

Little Lucca is sandwiched between a Shell station and the New Mandarin Chinese restaurant, itself looking rather divey and not very appealing. The parking lot shared between Little Lucca and New Mandarin has its parking spaces territorily staked out, with one side saying "Little Lucca Parking Only" and the other saying "New Mandarin Parking Only".

Only, something tells me that Little Lucca's customers tend to ignore this minor inconvenience. That little something may just be the fact that, after peaking our head into the New Mandarin, barely a soul could be found, despite a full parking lot.

But here we were (not parked in a New Mandarin's space) getting ready to see what all the fuss was about.

We arrived shortly after 2:30 PM and were prepared to wait in line, so it didn't bother us when we stood behind a few people several minutes before making our way through the doorway. While patrons squeezed by us carrying bags of sandwiches with them, I made small talk with a guy who had a heavy Spanish accent standing in front of me. He told me that he usually calls his sandwiches in for pick-up but had decided to stand in line instead.

He wasn't the only one. More than a few people had called their orders in, as I later found out. Those who didn't and were standing in line, must have done so only out of sheer boredom. Still, any place like this that can draw so many people, all of them obviously local and who are willing to wait patiently in line, in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon, must

Once we made it inside, the buzz of the room was noticeable. The line was maybe 15 persons deep and went down along the outer wall, made a U-turn, and continued alongside the counter area. A somewhat abrasive, but motherly, older woman who tended the cash register would occasionally shepard those of us in line to move down and make more space so that we got the "too much intimacy with my neighbor" effect as much as possible.

And yes, sir, that is my hand on your butt.

Behind the counter was a team of sandwich makers who were furiously trying to keep up with the demand and who never got a minute's lag-time between one order and the next. Behind them, sourdough and Dutch crunch rolls were piled high, ready to be filled. I guarentee you that none of those rolls had ever lived to be 24 hours old. Seeing the sheer volume of sandwiches fly out of that place just in the 20 minutes I stood in line, as well as considering how much STUFF they put on the sandwiches, I would venture to guess that nothing sits around too long at Little Lucca, staff included.

Many of those of standing in line weren't just ordering for themselves – they were ordering for their whole family! One woman left with 5 sandwiches. Another guy left with 7 or 8. Almost everyone got their sandwiches, got in their cars, and left. Seeing them leave with so many sandwiches might not have made an impression anywhere else, but at Little Lucca (whose t-shirts and aprons read "where size does matter") it's jaw dropping. Of course, your jaw would have to drop just to take one bite of these sandwiches.

Seeing them wrapped and ready to go, it's almost impossible to believe there's a sandwich underneath that paper. However, I soon learned that seeing is believing. Little Lucca, the place where size matters: out of this tiny, unpretentious, one-room deli comes a gargantuan sandwich.

It was a tough decision, but by the time I got to the counter, I had decided I would have the $5 Little Lucca Combo, with Mortadella, Salami, and Provolone cheese, with everything (mayo, mustard, pickle, red onion, lettuce, tomato, hot pepper sauce and garlic sauce) on it, on a soft (not the hard, crusty kind one usually encounters) sourdough roll. Bruce, also after long deliberation while standing in line, ended up ordering the $5.75 Toscano Salami and Provolone on sourdough (though the Dutch crunch was tempting) with everything, plus extra hot pepper sauce.

As the woman fixing my sandwich grabbed the roll, cut it in half, and began slathering it with mayo and garlic sauce, I began to wonder if and when my sandwich would transform into the enormous creation I saw others leaving with. Pretty soon, I stood in shock and awe as a saw lettuce, onions, cheese, and finally meat bombard the bread I thought would collapse from the weight at any moment. Just when I thought that there was no way you can get anything else on it, she topped it with the other half of bread and, using her body weight, held the whole thing down while she sliced it in half.

Size did matter as I declared victory, paid for my food, and attempted to squeeze out of the deli past a rather large woman blocking three-fourths of the entryway. After I caught my breath, and after Bruce managed his way out, we headed towards the partly sunny patio behind the shack. It was practically deserted.

There we sat, amazed at what we had sitting before us.

My Little Lucca Combo was everything I had dreamt and more. I couldn't believe how much of a difference the garlic sauce made on this sandwich, with this bread. It, with the combination of everything mentioned before, elevated this sandwich to a higher plateau.

Bruce's sandwich was just as good, if not more so, as the guy making his sandwich made an extra trip out back to grab a fresh piece of the Toscano salami and sliced it fresh for him on the spot.

Luckily, Bruce and I hadn't eaten anything the whole day, so our empty stomach were able to stretch the necessary distance for the full on Little Lucca experience. At first, there was no way I thought I could eat the whole thing. Once I got half down, I looked towards the sky, thought "Higher Power, if you're with me, I can do this", and proceeded to work on the other half.

Don't be surprised with the spiritual reference: a lot of eating we do here at Dive is faith-based – mostly praying that we won't choke, get poisoned, get shot, or rupture any internal organs from trying to down a Little Luccaesque sandwich.

Sitting here, a day later, I still can't believe I ate the whole thing. In fact, that sandwich was the only thing, other than a small slice of pizza later that night, I had eaten the whole day. But, man; was it worth it!

South City: you have yourselves quite a little deli there. Now when I hear the words "South City" or "South San Francisco", I will no longer think derisively of the Industrial City.

Instead, I will immediately think of the wonderful time I had gorging myself on a five-dollar sandwich that could choke a sumo wrestler.

k.

East Bay Express Article

2006-06-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

Hello DIVE virgins.

Thanks to food critic Jonathan Kauffman for the mention in this week's EBX! Restaurant owners who need a physical description of Mr. Kauffman can send me your bids at baconprss at yahoo.com. Note: Michael Bauer prices are at an all time low. Plus, Celebrity Chef star maps are half off this month.

If you're looking for info on hofbraus,

START HERE.

Otherwise, scroll on down, scroll on down, the rohh-ohhd.

k.

PS......Chicken head photo is gratuitous.

Bryant Wok Shop

2006-05-26T16:17:00.000-07:00

The Bryant Wok Shop always seemed to me the perfect little hole-in-the-wall restaurant. In fact, so perfect, I never wanted to stop by.

I've walked past it for years, usually on my way to the Post Office. Because it's a Chinese restaurant, I've always been curious about how it was, but then I thought about the other Asian restaurants in my hood: Bill's Teriyaki Kitchen, Rainbow Way, and HRD.

If the Bryant Wok Shop was even remotely similar to those places, walking on by was the least I could do. Running might be better. There aren't many dives in my neighborhood, but those that are have so much divitude that it more than makes up for the upscale places down the street.

Still, the Bryant Wok Shop stood there, unmoving, unchanged after all of these years. Like a motherfucking tree that stands by the water, it has not been moved. Every time I passed it, it seemed to call out to me, like a hooker, "Hey! You! Yeah, you! I bet you want some of this, doncha?"

Or at least a crack dealer. I guess I could be mistaken. There are several crack dealers on my block (sorry Bryant Wok Shop!)

Of course, I tried to ignore it, but the more I ignored it the more I wanted to go in. Only, they were always closed! Well, not always. Only when I'm around it seems, which is after work and on the weekends. You and I both know that we desperately want what we cannot have, even if it's cheap, greasy, and of questionable origin. But the kicker is, I wasn't even sure it was all that. I just figured, "hey, look where it's at."

You know Meredith Brody isn't penning whimsical about this joint.

So today, yours truly had the day off, which means yours truly is in the midst of a four-day weekend.

Can I rub it in just a little?

But don't take that as meaning I'm not working today. Hell, you're reading my work at this very moment. Besides, I walked all up and down this little town today buying salame at Molinari's, some crusty bread from some crusty, but cute, FOB Italians at Danilo Bakery, gai lan at some place on Stockton, and Chinese dry cured bacon, duck legs, and lop chong (sausage) at the only place I would buy such things, Guang Zhou King and King sausage.

And I was busy taking pictures of trucks that deliver food to restaurants and markets for a new photo project and possibly blog entry for Bacon Press.

So after all of that walking and shopping, I was ready to take on the Bryant Wok Shop.

What I thought would be just an ordinary Chinese lunch ended up turning into a very serious reminder of how much things in this neighborhood has changed, and in turn, the real hardships some of the local business owners have had to endure.

But first things first, the food.

Nothing truly special. Sorry.

I walked in to the restaurant and was immediately greeted by an old man and middle-aged woman standing behind a steamtable. Since there were no menus in sight, except for a very bare-bones sign above the steam table, I ordered from the steam table.

Actually, the steam table entrees were pretty much pushed on to me. With just a little too much enthusiasm, the lady behind the counter kept grabbing various spoons and ladles, opening various covered trays and such, saying "Do you want this? This? This? Fried rice? How about some noodles? Two entrees just $4.50."

I could just see her inching that fried rice onto my plate, but I held back, almost sadistically, saying "Hmmm, I don't know. How much for two entrees again?"

Finally I said "OK, two entrees. How about the Chicken in Black Bean sauce. Hmm, and the Thai Curry Chicken."

"Oh, you like it spicy!" she said.

"Lady," I thought, "don't be playin' no games with me. I've had the *Ring of Fire consistently for several weeks now. You have no idea who you're talking to."

*Ring of Fire: Commonly, or uncommonly, known as Bung Burn, Red Star, or Fire in the Hole....Go ask your mother.

I grabbed my plate, or actually she grabbed it and brought it to my table. As she sat me, she pulled out a newspaper and placed it on my table and then smiled at me. "That was mighty considerate", I thought.

The food wasn't half-bad. It's what you would expect from a hole-in-the-wall like this. True, there are hole-in-the-walls with exceptional dishes, but this didn't seem like one. Because as I knew before, this is the same neighborhood which spawned Shan Indian and Pakistani restaurant, which despite the rave reviews it gets on foodie messageboards, continues to be the most mediocre South Asian food I've ever eaten (well, there was that place on Brick Lane).

As I was getting ready to leave, I asked if I could take a picture of their menu. After the usual "sure, no problem", I asked how long they had been in business. To my surprise, they've only been around 8 years, which is only one year longer than I've lived in the hood.

This question, to my surprise, provoked a long story by the chef/owner, a kind and humble older man, that by the end made me feel guilty that I hadn't bought ten entrees and given them to the winos up by Jacks Market. Depressing isn't even the word. I'm talking Travis, ok.

According to the owner, when the restaurant opened, the dot com boom was in full swing and his restaurant was so busy, he had doubled the seating and had 5 employees. All was well for 2 years, and then suddenly the crash came.

Business hasn't been the same since and now he's down to 2 employees. He keeps waiting for the supposed biotech boom that everyone seems to keep saying is going to happen, but as for now, his restaurant is mostly empty, even during lunch. The guys who work down at the auto mechanics shops down the street don't come in since most of them brown-bag their lunches. Truckers and other blue-collar workers still come in, but only because the price is low.

The folks who work at Organic, Wired, and other high-tech related businesses and who eat out favor the more expensive restaurants now.

"This neighborhood has changed a lot", he says. And actually, I was really, really touched and really sad for him. I saw a side that I knew was there, but until now, never felt much empathy for.

Because, you see, I looked at the dot com boom and eventual bust as a renter, as a working-class schmoe who could be evicted at any moment and displaced to the East Bay or further. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't feel the real estate speculator's noose around my neck. When the industry imploded, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not only could I stop worrying about being evicted so that more ugly and unaffordable lofts could be built, but there was less traffic on my street as well.

I was glad it happened, and frankly I was a little glad to see these neo-49ers leave town back to Seattle, Austin, or wherever they came from. I admit that I was happy, even though I knew they wanted to stay and that many of them weren't the evil, gentrifying bobos that they were made out to be.

I met one of these ex-dot comers weirdly enough while working out at the gym. He approached me and asked if he could take some photos of me. After getting over being creeped out and figuring out that he wasn't some perv, he told me the photos were to be part of a series of advertisements for the new Palm Pilot. I guess the scheme and business venture never went forward, since after the photo shoot at some 60s motel on Lombard, I never heard back for him. But if you come across a touched-up, photoshopped version of this photo in any ads, let me know. It's the closest I've come to America's Next Top Model.

TYRA MAIL!

That's me on the nightstand...losing my religion.

Unless things pick up very soon, I have a feeling the Bryant Wok Shop won't be there for much longer. That's a shame since the folks who run it really seem like good and honest people. And you know, we need more, not less, places like that around here.

OK, ok, ok. So the food isn't fabulous. But come on, Quiznos or Subway or McDonalds is?? You know for the price and the hot, freshly made Chinese food, plus the standard American breakfast items, the Bryant Wok Shop can't be beat...welllll, unless they're up against HRD, but then HRD's Chinese menu can't compete with BWS.

So if you are reading this and you work in the neighborhood, do me a favor. Patronize this little joint. If not every day or every other day, which is understandable, then at least once a week. I know it's like charity and in the food and business world there is no place for charitable giving, but try it once. At least. And then, do whatever.

Ok. Speechifying over.

k.

UPDATE: As of March 17, 2007, the Bryant Wok Shop is no more. It finally succumbed to the hardships it endured. In its place is V2 Malaysia Cuisine. Good luck to them.

HRD Coffee Shop

2006-05-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

It's taken a while for me to figure out what I like and don't like about the HRD Coffee Shop.

Initially, when playing hooky from work, I sometimes use to put on my sandals, the baseball cap from the company I was laid off of, and dark sunglasses and mosey on down to HRD for some cheap and greasy Chinese food. Of course, with it being so close to home, I almost never stuck around since I still had hours of watching Montel, Ricky Lake (Ricky's Real!), Mother Love, and a bazillion technical school commercials left at the hizzouse. Hey! Know this one? "With Western Career College…duh-duh, duh, duh, duh, You can doo-oo it!" Or how about, "for the best car rates in town, call 1-800 General now!"

Anyway, before I plopped back down on the futon, I would open my styrofoam to-go container to reveal a beef chow fun that was neither much fun or chow-worthy. It looked like beef chow fun, kinda smelled like beef chow fun, but was missing something.

After a few more visits, I realized what it was missing. It was missing "wok breath". No need to brush your teeth, wok breath (or wok hay) is what Grace Young describes as the act of breathing "energy into a stir-fry, giving foods a unique concentrated flavor and aroma" that only a wok can give.

Instead, it had more of a "griddle breath" flavor, which is the energy going into a dish that gives it a concentrated flavor and aroma of hot cakes cooked together with sausages, eggs, cheeseburgers, chow mein, chow fun, chicken steak, and the occasional clumsy hand. And you may brush your teeth now.

For this reason, I'm not so hot on the fried noodles at HRD. So instead, let's travel from the East back to the West without ever leaving the comfort of our counter stool.

Walking into HRD, one feels as if one is walking into some gritty, urban diner from yesteryear, and actually one is, so that kind of blows away my analogy I was just trying to work up here.

Anyway, I swear, nothing in this place has changed, except probably parts of the menu and maybe a few decorations hanging on the wall. The window sign has taken decades to peel and fade away and if I could drag the whole place to the Cow Palace in my Big Red Radio Flyer for the Antiques Roadshow, one of the appraisers probably would suggest I insure it well over its actual worth and warn me not to repaint or touch up anything lest it loses its patina, which apparently is like gold to a collector of anything, especially Chinese American diners.

And HRD is in a really old brick building that was built at a time before sleek modernity and cheap-ass developers who take no pride in building anything grand or of beauty anymore.

While it looks dark and forboding from the outside (I blame much of this on the ratty awning), it's actually quite bright and warm on the inside. Everything concerning your food is straight ahead of you as you walk in. There is the open kitchen, the steam table, the menu, and the cashier.

There are counters in the front for sitting (one at the windows and one directly behind) and tables in a backroom, which has never appealed to me seeing as it looks depressing back there. Besides, the counters are sooo cool, with original Formica finishes in that old 50s whimsical pattern. Despite it's age, the furnishings in the front and the kitchen itself looks well taken care of.

In it's layout, it kind of reminds me of New Lun Ting, only a little smaller and with more counter space, like a true, old school coffee shop. Like New Lun Ting, HRD is run by Chinese people often serving American food to non-Chinese people (actually more so) and having that one-on-one relationship with repeat customers. Something tells me that if I went into HRD, as I have in New Lun Ting, and ordered the same thing twice, by the third time the hosts would know my name and exactly what I was having. I know this because they don't shy away from making eye contact and trying to establish who you are in their minds.

But besides this, I suspect that the reason HRD has so many local regulars has to do with serving basic American diner/greasy spoon food. I've noticed often that while staring up at the menus above the kitchen, trying to decide on what to have, most of the customers a) frequent HRD on a regular basis, b) know the owner, his wife, and daughter and are on a first name basis, and c) don't order the Chinese food.

This is totally speculation, but here it goes nonetheless. The HRD Coffee Shop probably started back in the 40s or 50s serving basic diner food to all of the warehouse workers and the locals back when the neighborhood was predominantly black and Filipino. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the original owners were black, Filipino, or American-born Chinese. Eventually, the original owner closed shop and transferred the restaurant to the new owners, whom I've always assumed were the man (cook), the wife (waitress/cashier and sometimes cook) and the daughter (extra help).

So I called HRD to find out.

To my surprise, the husband and wife aren't the owners. According to the daughter, HRD is owned by an "old man" whom she doesn't know. I found this strange, so I went to the website of the Office of the County Clerk – Fictitious Business Name index (God I love the Internet!). According to them, HRD is owned by Chan Sir Lit and Chiang Lai Sheung, and the business under its current owners has been around for at least 20 years (the index doesn't go back any further). If you're reading this now, Chan and Chiang, can you let me know a little more about the history of the restaurant?

Apparently the name, HRD Coffee Shop, was inherited by the new owners. When I asked the daughter what HRD stands for, she said "Human Resources Department". I couldn't tell if she was bullshitting me or if someone joked about the initials once and it just stuck. She sounded serious, though.

Or maybe she's just sick of people asking. Maybe she just calls it what others supposedly do, the Chinese Diner. Nevertheless, Human Resources Department probably isn't far from the truth since it seems to be the local grub stop for cops, garbage men, postal workers, construction workers (gee, they seem to know where all of the cheap grub is), and the occasional geekazoid from across the way at Wired Magazine.

While I still had the daughter on the phone, I asked her what the most popular dishes were, to which she confirmed what I knew all along: the chicken steak and the turkey. The turkey lunch (with tax, $5.31) is what I had the other Saturday. After wasting my time with the chow fun, this is when I realized why people ate here. All this time I've been thinking, "God, this Chinese food sucks. Other than being dirt cheap, what the hell else do people come here for?"

It's the turkey, stupid. Or maybe it's the cheap breakfast, or the cheap hamburgers cooked to order, or maybe a whole bunch of these things. I'm not saying no one comes here to eat Chinese food. But a whole lot of what makes up for HRD's business seems to be that guy who just walked in and ordered a plate of hot cakes and sausages.

My turkey dinner, even on a Saturday, was a joy to eat. Simple, yet satisfying. After ordering at the counter, I waited until the cook slices my turkey, straight from the bird, and piled it onto a plate loaded with mashed potatoes and gravy (which tasted eerily like KFCs, yet less processed – did they steal the recipe?) and sesame flavored steamed broccoli, which was buried underneath the turkey.

I just had water to drink, which was a "help yourself" deal – an empty glass near the register and a jug of water sitting in the soft drink cooler to the right.

The turkey was tender and no knife was necessary. It wasn't juicy moist, but neither was it tough and dry. The broccoli was also very nice and flavorful, and the addition of a steamed, green veggie served the meat and potatoes well.

Sitting there eating the meal, I got a little disappointed that HRD is so off limits to me. Seriously. It's only open in the morning (not far, but too far out of the way for me to walk when catching the bus) and the afternoon until 4, well before I get back to the neighborhood from work. It's open on Saturdays, but those are the days I sleep in and mosey around until well past 2, their closing time. They're closed on Sundays, to the consternation of the fashionably-dressed man and woman I saw walking by just the other day, asking the Korean convenience store owner next door, cleaning the sidewalk, what time they closed.

"They're not open on Sundays."

Pause.

"What?!"

Seriously, they were like, "Awww"! Totally whining. Something just isn't right in the world when the local Post Office closes at 5 and HRD closes at 4. Even the BoBos agree.

Human Resources Department: I'd like to lodge a complaint.

"Dear Mr. Chan Sir Lit, aka Old Man."

k.

Eatin' Good in the Neighborhood

2006-05-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

You know, the San Francisco Bay Area really has such a great foodie scene.

I mean, if you just look at the sheer number of food-related blogs that originate from here, some of which rank very high on the food blog chain, you'll realize that we Bay Areans (ok, bad choice of words) loves us some grub.

While there are many notable foodie thingys about the Bay Area, like

- a prestigious (despite some legitimate criticisms) Food Section in our largest daily paper
- amazing Farmers' Markets
- a crazy number of restaurants per capita, some of them hidden
- several culinary schools and ongoing classes
- unique, region-specific foods and dishes
- innovators in the organic food movement
- and innovative chefs and authors,

one new and notable development is the rise of a new species of foodie referred to as the Locavore.

And since many of these Locavores are also bloggers, well it was only inevitable that an Eat Local Challenge would strike the food blogosphere with a resounding clang. Last August, I think it was, was the first Eat Local Challenge, followed by a very unsuccessful "Eat Uncomfortable Challenge" put forth by yours truly at Bacon Press. You could say I was given as much attention from the food blogger status quo as Stephen Colbert was by the MSM following that dinner last Saturday night.

But I'm not bitter!

Anyway. While I think, for the most part, it's a worthy goal, Theme Months are beginning to take on the air of kitsch. I, of course, love kitsch. In fact, I've begun collecting and wearing vintage colognes from the 70s and 80's, such as High Karate, Jovan, Brut, English Leather, Aramis, and Drakkar Noir. I call it Olfactory Retro-Camp.

So, even though I'll often pick up the tomato grown in Tracy rather than Mexico, I'd like to think of myself as an Eat Globally, Shop Locally type of guy.

In otherwords, there ain't no month that I'm going without my bananas, my Roquefort Carles, my Parm, or my sardines. But if I can buy strawberries in front of the field in which they were picked...

Like these were last weekend

...or avocados, eggs, milk, bread, and so on picked, raised, grown, made locally, and I can buy them in an independently owned shop or at least one that has local ties to where I live, then hell yes I'll buy them! But please. Any absolutes on anything or high fallutin preachin' and you'll see me marching in the opposite direction.

As far as preachers and sinners are concerned, I consider myself a lifelong habitual latter, though I've had more than enough good times with the children of the former.

I've already said what I have to say about elitism and "eating locally" on someone else's blog (me = bacon press), so I won't go back over it here.

But I will entertain this notion of an Eat Local Month, if only because it currently jives with an excuse to post about dives that I don't have to venture into the TL or the southern part of the city for. In fact, I can walk 5 minutes down the street and be diving long and deep for your reading pleasure.

Thus I present to you:

DIVE's Eat Local Challenge
A month of eating and reviewing dives within the author's immediate neighborhood so that he can come back home, type this shit up, and get to bed at a reasonable hour.

Some background on my immediate neighborhood:

I live in the area that consists of the southern half of Rincon Hill, South Park, and Tar Flats (a term no longer used in the local vernacular). This neighborhood in the last decade has taken on the nickname Multimedia Gulch.

There is a deep and rich history to this area, starting with the fact that it was home to the first wealthy enclave in San Francisco, as well as the first slum. These days we have a fair mix of both. There are neglected streets here where the concrete has been worn away reveal the original brick foundations...

...and that are used predominantly by high-priced cars of the paleo, nouveau, or in this case, used-to-be riche.

In this area is the former location of the first public school West of the Rockies, which benefitted mostly the poor and orphaned children of Tar Flats.

Rincon Hill was once a magnificent and wealthy enclave...for a short time. A myriad of factors changed it forever into the original skid row of San Francisco, but in a weirdly circular way, it's once again becoming an enclave to the rich. In the 1980s, South Park was a hardcore wino and junkie park. Within a matter of years, in the early 90s, it had significantly gentrified. The flagship of this gentrification, was/is the South Park Café (duck confit with your Night Train, ladies?).

The alley that runs parallel between South Park and Bryant during this period of the late 80s/early 90s was being used at least twice a month for television and movie scenes since it was one of the grittiest, graffitti-ridden (thus, photogenic) alleys in San Francisco.

Jack London was born a few blocks down from where I live at 3rd and Brannan. Recently, Borders Books opened 1 block down in a new mixed-use development consisting of market rate housing (in SF that means $700,000 for 1,100 square feet) and chain retail stores that one can find in any generic suburb. I asked the clerk at Borders why there were no prominent Jack London displays in their local authors' section (being a former bookstore clerk myself) seeing as though his birthplace is right down the street.

The guy didn't even know who I was talking about.

Good thing I didn't mention another Jack - Jack Kerouac. He wrote a lot about this area. He use to work and live and play and write and get in trouble around here. You've read or heard "October in the Railroad Earth", right? I love that piece.

When I think about what he would've felt seeing the Hotel W at Third and Howard (or Little Harlem), I feel as drawn to hit the bottle as hard as he did. Maybe it's a good thing he died early.

But as gentrified as the area has become and is becoming, it still has its, eh hmmm, charm. For one thing, as long as 88 Perry Street exists, there will always be a constant supply of women walking around in SpongeBob SquarePants slippers and stretched-out, stained, white t-shirts while buying cheap liquor at Jacks on the corner of Stillman and 3rd.

Added to that is the fact that the 15 from the Bayview, aka SF's most violent and depressing ghetto, runs towards downtown up 3rd and back on 2nd. Or that two large drop-in shelters for homeless men sit both on 1st and Harrison and 5th and Brannan. The methedone clinic on 3rd and Bryant is gone, although we now have a psychiatric outpatient clinic of the VA, complete with an oversize portrait of W staring from the inside at you, sitting on the eastern corner of 3rd and Harrison.

Of course, there are the bootie clubs (such as the western corner of 3rd and Harrison) that draw 18 and 19 year olds from the Outer Mission and the immediate suburbs into the city every weekend (and some weekdays); the majority whom generally are well-behaved except for the occasional graffiti, the drunken screaming, bottles of Hennessy and Bombay Saphire strewn about, and the endless stream of broken glass from car windows caused by petty thieves who prey on the weekenders.

Jack's Market, the neighborhood flagship of sin which has the dubious honor as the one-stop-shop vice market on 3rd, has it's own interesting history. For years it was owned by a short, fat Jewish guy named Maz whose claim to fame was that he starred in a California Grapes commercial where he was dressed in a bellboy's uniform holding a tray of grapes. Afterwards, he had a picture of himself from the commercial taped up to the register. He would also always take your last coin and roll it on edge when he'd give you your change. Apparently, from what I've been told, Maz was also too busy to excuse himself to pee and had a trough sitting below his seat where he sat at the register.

I found out this interesting fact out from the new owners...Palestinians. In an interesting twist of Arab/Jewish cooperation and equitable land swapping, Maz had sold Jack's to a group of Palestinian men whom I've grown to know as Mazen, Mahmoud, and...oh, now I forget his name, but it should've been "Buddy", cause that's what he called everyone else.

Mazen and Buddy have moved on and at first I wasn't sure if they had joined the Intifada or what (ok, stereotype, I know), but recently I saw both of them in business suits looking like they were moving up in the world of convenience store ownership. This was a startling change from years of seeing both in raggedy blue jeans and white undershirts. I was happy, to say the least, that they hadn't travelled back to join in the struggle.

Now Mahmoud, the guy I previously referred to as "The Oaf", runs the joint with his sometimes Asian girlfriend and a young, but super-nice, fella by the name of Khalid. Now that I've gotten to know him better, I no longer think of Mahmoud as an oaf, and he's actually helped me out when I've been stupid myself.

The neighborhood lowlifes now latch on to them like they did Buddy and Mazen and it seems as though things never change, although the introduction of the young kid and the Asian lady has provided some relaxation. Buddy and Mazen were always no-nonsense, straight-up, "what'll you have" business. It took me years to get acknowledged as something other than a crack whore by them.

Mazen always loved to talk about politics. He was the smartest one of the bunch. Buddy...well, Buddy was nice, but I wouldn't trust him to deliver my mail. But if you ever needed malt liquor, cigarettes, rolling papers, plenty of porn mags, a lotto ticket, and a bottle of Ginseng Royal Jelly, which you can smoke your rocks out of now that those Miniature Roses have been cracked down on, he's your guy.

During the crazy real-estate speculation phase that accompanied the dot-com boom, I thanked the bums and crazies everyday, often giving out money to make sure they stayed on my street. Call it what you will: It was my form of housing security. It seemed like everyone was being evicted in those days, and of course, many were. Even the sweatshops on my street were forced out. And now that it's gaining strength again, these bums may be the frontline against a economic assault that will eventually cleanse, ethnically or otherwise, the neighborhood.

But, for now, they're still here and thankfully so am I.

k.

Tommy's Joynt

2006-04-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Did I save the best for last? Well, kind of.

As far as hofbraus go, Tommy's Joynt is perhaps the best known and most famous, and for good reason: it has a whole lot of character, it hasn't sold out to attract a younger/more affluent crowd, and it has a crazy loyalty among both San Franciscans and those who, whenever they visit, make a point to stop at Tommy's.

Plus it has everything any decent hofbrau should – the cheap food, the bar that serves cheap drinks, the sports on the television, the big meeting space in the back, the dimly lit rooms, and walls covered with all sorts of memorabilia.

It even has one of those funky condom machines in the men's restroom, which in this day and age seems pretty progressive. Although, the tranny and hustler prostitutes congregate just one block over on Polk, so maybe the machine was installed by the Department of Public Health – who knows?

One of biggest plusses that makes the atmosphere enjoyable at Tommy's are the customers. Sure, there are a lot of tourists, but often they seem flanked by the locals. The heavy presence of locals also makes the eavesdropping at Tommy's a very special affair. For instance, the night Bruce and I were there we overheard a man at a table of four, just seated, middle-aged gay men complain to the busser, "Sir! Oh, Sir!", as he pointed to a small crumpled up napkin left by the previous table. After the busser picked it up and brushed past our table, Bruce and I began cracking up as we could hear him mumble a litany of abuse in Spanish towards the guy. Hmm...I think I heard somewhere in there pinche and pendejo.

Then, there was the table of young women behind us, one woman in particular, who were just shredding one of their female co-workers in that total catty way women do.

"I know. Can you believe it? Oh, and do you remember Brian? Well, he called me and he even told me that he thought she was self-centered. Seriously. What? Yeah, I heard she was on anti-depressants, too. That's pretty sad. I feel the most sorry for her boyfriend. Can you imagine living with that?"

God! Sometimes I wish I was recording this stuff.

I imagine Tommy's Joynt has had this atmosphere since they first opened in 1947. The original Tommy, Tommy Harris, was a popular young crooner in the 1930s on the local radio station, KFRC, who eventually moved on to NBC. While a radio personality, he co-starred with future legends Morey Amsterdam and Meredith Wilson. Eventually he left the radio business and settled into San Francisco politics, but not before opening the institution that would bear his name long after most people forgot who he was.

One thing about Tommy's – it's not in any danger of closing, at least as far as business is concerned. It seems that anytime I go by it, it has a line of people waiting to eat or people standing in the doorway. Fortunately for us, that line moves pretty quickly as folks, many of them who know exactly what they want down to the specifics, give the guys behind the steam table their orders.

This steam table isn't as long as I've seen in other hofbraus, but apparently they can fill a whole host of requests, from barbecued beef sandwiches, turkey leg dinners with spaghetti, buffalo stew, and even broiled salmon.

Standing at the steam table can make anyone who stands 5'-9" or smaller feel like a little kid, since it's situated higher than most and, when you grab your tray or pay at the register, you are reaching up and over the top. Packed closely between the people in line, the steam table, people seated at tables behind you, and customers entering and exiting, it could make some people feel a bit claustrophobic.

However, I didn't feel that at all, in fact, I felt the opposite. I felt it was warm and welcoming. I felt it was more like a family potluck, with sweet Aunt Gladys and boisterous cousin Jimmy (who just paroled) and unassuming cousin Larry (whom everyone else is jealous of cause he just graduated from UC Berkeley) and that annoying uncle of yours who eats with his mouth open. Oh, and look, there's 3rd cousin Pierre who's in from France and cousin Takeru from Japan (he can really eat a lot)!

I have to admit, the choices at Tommy's can seem daunting. Finally, Bruce settles on the pastrami sandwich, while I choose the barbecued beef brisket dinner.

His sandwich was freshly carved and piled high on sourdough bread. The sandwich also came with a small container of jus to pour over your sandwich, should you chose to do so. In addition, he ordered a salad perhaps to minimize the onset of the meat sweats. Unfortunately, his pastrami sandwich was a little too fatty, likely due to the server's choice of cuts from the meat. The salad also came with 1000 Island dressing which was obviously watered down, leading us to both wonder why someone would water it down when it is so cheap to begin with.

My barbecue beef brisket was pretty good and the meat was plentiful. The barbecue sauce was sweet and kind of what you would expect for a place like this. In other words, I'm sure no one has gone to their grave protecting the secret ingredients of this BBQ sauce. My brisket, despite being tender, also was a little too fatty and I'm guessing the cuts of meat used here aren't what you would find in the case at Bryan's. However, considering that Bruce's sandwich cost $5 and my dinner plate cost $7, I'm not really complaining.

I made the mistake of ordering the side of potato salad seeing as I already had mashed potatoes on the plate, but I didn't realize that until I sat down to eat. That's too bad since the potato salad was pretty bland and couldn't even be beefed up with the addition of a little horseradish and salt. Actually, the potato salad over at Lefty's is better. The sourdough roll that came with the dinner was definitely the best I've had at any hofbrau, so that was a plus.

Tommy's also has a good crew who works the floor with speed and grace. The sole waitress seemed calm yet attentive and seemingly able to handle any emergency, translating basic phrases in several languages at once if she had to. The busser and door guy (I'm not really sure what his job was) also seemed to be friendly when treated the same. And in fact, other than the table of the four queens seated near us, attitude at Tommy's seemed refreshingly non-existent.

If anything, Tommy's seems like a great place to hang out with friends, have a beer, and (while the food is neither great nor bad) perhaps have a sandwich.

Is it worth a visit if you've never been? Absolutely! Is it the king amongst hofbraus? Well, that can be disputed. Frankly, during our visits to various Bay Area hofbraus, both Bruce and I've concluded that Lefty's had the best food while Tommy's had the best atmosphere.

So, in my opinion, here's how it stacks up.

Best Food (in this order):
Lefty O'Douls
The Chick-N-Coop
Bogy's Hofbrau
Tommy's Joynt

Best Atmosphere:
Tommy's Joynt
Lefty O'Douls
Jerrold Market Place

Now that I've made these conclusions, I can't tell you how happy I am not to eat another hofbrau-style meal, at least not in the near future. I'm glad I did this research, but boy howdy am I ready to move on. You will notice that I didn't visit all of the hofbraus in the Bay Area or in California, so if you have any dispute with my findings, I welcome your comments/additions on The Hofbraus of the San Francisco Bay Area page.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. Let's keep rollin'.

k.

Jerrold Market Place

2006-04-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

You can call it sheer chance that I stumbled upon the Jerrold Market Place hofbrau in the San Francisco Produce Terminal.

After hours of investigating what hofbraus there may be in San Francisco, I happened to find one small reference, in fact, a sentence, that someone wrote about a diner that was near a hofbrau at the Produce Terminal.

That was it. No names, no address, nothing.

I checked everywhere to find this hofbrau; a googol Google searches, the phonebook, the DPH violations page – all to no avail. So I gave up. I figured that with no mention anywhere, it must be long gone or perhaps in the original author's imagination.

But then, one Saturday around 1 PM, on our way back from Daly City, I asked Bruce to take a detour through the industrial area that was near the Produce Terminal. I knew from experience that some pretty divey places could be found around these areas, especially those that cater to truck drivers at 4 in the morning. I figured I could at least find a couple to write about after I had finished this whole hofbrau project.

A memorial to deceased Produce Terminal employees who lost their lives bravely weeding out the spoiled corned beef from the "mostly edible" corned beef at neighboring dining establishments.

As we drove down Toland and reached the corner of Jerrold, I cranked my head to see what was down the street that went past all of the produce warehouses. And out of the corner of my eye, what did I see in the distance but those grand words, "hofbrau", in big faded purple letters.

"Oh shit! Turn around! Turn around!" I shouted with glee. "That's the hofbrau!"

Bruce, less excited, let out a groan as he swung the truck in a sharp left turn, breaking all sorts of laws about signaling, driving over two yellow lines, etc., as we made a quick U-turn back to the Produce Terminal.

Neon beer signs were on in the windows and behind them I could see what looked like restaurant equipment. The entryway was dark and forboding and the thought that I had stumbled onto a true dive, that was also a hofbrau, made my nipples hard.

I stepped in only to see what I had been hoping for: a hofbrau steamtable set up to the left, and old bar to the right, a big television over the bar playing sports, and a seating area whose décor harkened back 30 years.

How many lonely truckers with bleary eyes have had their hearts broken we they realized that those buxom babes standing on the mezzanine were actually Beer Babe cutouts? Sad.

Unfortunately we had arrived after the hofbrau food stopped being served, but the small, older Asian woman offered to make me a sandwich.

I declined but said I'd be back. I asked her what the hours were and she said "from 3 to 3".

Then I thought, "Oh great! I can come here after work and check it out. Maybe I can get there around 10 or 11 and see if it's hoppin'." OK, I know. I can be a total airhead sometimes. After thinking about it for a minute, I suddenly realized that "3 to 3" wasn't 3 PM to 3 AM, it was 3 AM to 3 PM!

Hold on, now. I’m not waking up at the butt-crack of dawn, taking whatever bus crawls out to the southern end of town, just for some greasy hofbrau food. Granted, I'm sure it's quite a scene at 4 or 5 AM, full of truckers and dock workers, likely all Teamsters or some other union, either wide awake from popping cross-tops, or trying to shake off No Doze jitters at the bar while swigging down their third MGD right before they hit the road. In fact, if I was into the whole bar scene and sticking around past 2, I'd probably enjoy heading over to the Jerrold Market Place for some freshly carved roast beef and mashed potatoes to satiate my drunk munchies. Or if I was a loading dock worker, I'm sure I'd be a regular at Jerrolds and also be on a first name basis with the 3 or 4 people that work there, as well as the many old dudes that hang out, drink their coffee, read the paper, and play that stupid dice slamming game at the bar.

Six hours earlier, these tables were filled by guys named Bud.

But, as it is, I am a boring office worker at an architecture firm who regularly lifts boxes of invoices, and sometimes rolls of drawings, when I'm not parked on my ass in front of the monitor. The biggest on-the-job hazzards I routinely face are papercuts and/or the network server going down. And my greatest irritation at work are the men's restroom stalls whose doors open inward instead of outward.

This, however, doesn't stop me from going back to Jerrold's to see which came first, the hofbrau or the dive.

Today we drove back to the Produce Terminal and parked alongside several other cars in front of Jerrold's. The weather was cold and grey, and it was raining lightly. I made a mental note that across the way from Jerrold's is another fine dining establishment by the name of "J & V" which, from the looks of it, could be a dive score or a real pit. DPH gives it a 94 while Jerrold's scores ten points less at 84. But then, should I really trust health inspectors with greasy palms?

I was pretty disappointed when we walked into Jerrold's to see that the hofbrau was, in effect, shut down. Oh sure, there were a few meats (noticeably a big ham), although they were covered, and a dark green mass resembling a vegetable medley, but nothing looked hot. I didn't even bother taking a photo.

What I really wanted was a traditional hofbrau dinner for breakfast, but why bother if this is how things were looking. Bruce busted a move and got a real breakfast, which in his case was a bacon and (American) cheese omelette (with ice tea came to be $8.50), and I, ever the purist, got a sliced pastrami sandwich with coffee ($6.10).

I was a little confused since there were no trays to rest your plate on, but eventually after paying I realized that we were expected to have a seat and then the cashier, who doubled as waitress, would bring us our food when Bruce's omelette was cooked.

There weren't many people left in the place when we got there. The ones who were I imagine had been there for some time. There were two overweight old guys (can you say plumber's butt?) sitting on bar stools at the bar and carrying on with the squeeky-voiced female bartender, two other guys sitting at tables reading the paper, and a some guy who looked liked he worked for DPW finishing up his breakfast. A little while later, 3 younger guys walked in and sat at the far end of the bar.

Eventually, breakfast was served. In Bruce's case, the omelette had been fried on top of a grill that should've been scraped down and washed about 20 fried eggs, 5 patty melts, 16 breakfast links, and 40 bacon strips ago. Some would call the blackend residue on his omelette "flavor", yet that's not exactly his interpretation. Also I think his precise words were "I don't know how anyone could get eggs to be this tough" and something about being able to re-sole the bottom of his shoes.

I was like, duh! Why even eat breakfast when the place clearly says "hofbrau"?

So how was my sandwich? Well, the pastrami looked and smelled good. It was tough. Not tough enough to re-sole my shoes, but it definitely had a chew to it. I wasn't completely disappointed. The sourdough bread (which was authentic) the pastrami came on was toasted and buttered and there was sliced tomato and lettuce, as well as mustard, on the sandwich. It went well with my trucker, rock-gut, coffee which, while not all fancy like some, has it's place in the coffee community, though likely on the other side of the tracks.

Frankly, it would be hard to lure me back here (impossible to lure Bruce back), since the food wasn't that great and it's pretty isolated in relationship to where I live. However, while the food doesn't score high marks with me, the atmosphere, the friendliness of the staff (in particular Stanley), the fact that everyone seems to be on a first name basis, the unusual hours of operation, and the quirkiness of the place and it's location place this high on my dive score card. And of course, you know from reading me, that's a good thing.

I walked away from Jerrold's today still wondering if this place is a hofbrau dive or a dive hofbrau. Perhaps I should shut up, stop worrying, have some more coffee, and look for some shoes that have holes them.

k.

4/07/06 Check In

2006-04-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

Just the thought of one more helping of mashed potatoes and gravy is sending shivers up my spine and not in a good way.

I probably should've spread this hofbrau project out a little more since I feel so much pressure to visit each one and have the whole thing completed. In other words, it's becoming less fun.

In the beginning I thought each hofbrau would be a nostalgic little find, but what I'm finding out more and more is that quirky places like Lefty's and Tommy's are the exception, and while hofbrau cuisine is unique in its own way, probably just a small sampling of the more quirky ones would've been suitable for this blog.

That's why I'm passing up a few. I'm also passing up a visit to Pluto's for a few reasons: although it borrows heavily from the hofbrau concept (their website falsly claims their concept is new), it's neo-hofbrau and not really part of the same category the others I've written about are in. Also, Pluto's has been reviewed and written about before and there's nothing really to add to what hasn't been said already.

Lastly, this blog is called "Dive". I realize that many of the hofbraus I've been to aren't divable, but in the interest of the topic, I overlooked that fact in order to pay homage to the hofbraus of the Bay Area; something I believe is/was long overdue and unacknowledged (for example: there was no Wikipedia entry on the topic until I added it last week). That said, Pluto's isn't worthy of a hofbrau or a dive entry.

I have two more hofbraus that are, I believe, special (one is extremely Div-ine) and I will visit them soon and report back. After that, we'll be back on track and I'll be taking you to some places that are so divey you will wish you would've brought a cannister of mace with you.

This weekend I'll be out of town for a Rodeo parade and some homemade barbecued California Tri-Tip. Be sure to check out my other blog for more on that.

After that, back to the hofbraus.

Check back here sometime next week!

k.

Europa Hofbrau

2006-04-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

The first time I set foot in Orinda I was the guest of my roommate who happened to be a student in a private alternative school there. He invited me to come along since I and our other roommate published zines and we were there to teach the students how to start their own. After a few hours of "school", we ditched class and he took me to a private orange orchard where we stole a few oranges from the rich to give to the poor. Not finding any poor in Orinda, we decided to keep them for ourselves, since we were the closest poor we knew.

Orinda is well-known in the Bay Area for being a small enclave of the super-rich, super-white, and super-Republican. The town promotes itself as being a "family-oriented community" despite the fact that 56 percent of Orinda's 17,000 residents live in households of only 1 to 2 people. The median family income ranges between $120,000 and $130,000 with the average home price well over 1 million dollars, which means if you think it's hard raising a family with San Francisco's cost of living, imagine what it's like for an average middle class or working class family in Orinda.

However, if there is at least one place in this "family-oriented", albeit sometimes deadly, community that actually is family-oriented (and inclusive of those who don't live in mansions) it is the Europa Hofbrau.

The Europa Hofbrau is a family-run restaurant that is the most kid-friendly hofbrau I've been to so far. So much so that they actually have a kid's "play station" and a back room with those old things that existed before the X-Box called "video games".

Before I set foot in Europa, I noticed from the outside that the windows were frosted and I couldn't see in. It didn't strike me at first why this was, but as soon as I stepped through the door, my glasses fogged up as if I had just walked into a steam room.

Boy, was it hot in that place!

After my glasses adjusted and I could see again, I sat down my coat and umbrella at a table in a secluded part of the restaurant and proceeded to order at the steam table. The restaurant is pretty large and for the most part is one large open room filled with tables and chair (no booths). The décor is average, plain – ok, it's boring.

It's pretty hard to say if this place has been here 30 years or if it just opened yesterday. There is a bar, but it's pretty non-descript and seemingly misplaced near the back center of the room. There are televisions for when there's a game on and the Orinda Lions Club meets there once a week, keeping in the tradition of a hofbrau as a meeting place.

As far as the food goes, the usual standards were present but there didn't seem to be a wide variety of sides. This time I went with a roasted turkey leg, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans (the overcooked, mushy, salty, dead green kind).

The gravy on the potatoes was exceptionally good and perhaps the best I've had so far, while the green beans were as bad as they looked. That's too bad since green beans aren't that hard to cook and keep warm without overcooking.

You know, it's not that hofbrau food is all bad, some of it is actually simple and healthy (so long as you're not overeating, which is quiet hard to do in a hofbrau), but the cooking techniques are often stuck in the same time the hofbraus were when they first opened.

The turkey leg, for instance, was good; the meat dark and, because it was dark meat, not terribly dry. I only found that out, however, once I got to the meat through the leather-like skin. No kidding, that skin was so tough I couldn't even pull it apart with my bare hands. And frankly, you're looking at a skin eater. Crispy chicken skin, turkey skin, duck skin...it all makes me drool. Maybe I should've taken the skin with me and chewed on it like beef jerky?

While it's great that the Europa hofbrau can still eek out an existence in Orinda and remain a low-priced solution for many people with children and senior citizens, I won't be taking the BART back out there in any foreseeable future. It's just not a special destination place for me, even with the temptation of picking some more oranges.

However, I wish them all the best.

k.

PS Guess what?! Up until now there was no entry for "hofbrau" on Wikipedia, but someone was a little busy bee this past weekend and so I present you with this! Of course, it is Wikipedia, so make the necessary additions/corrections as you see fit. If any of you know how to make it that the title page, "hofbrau", can be distinguished not as a German restaurant but as a California-specific eatery, please do so!

Thanks!

Bogy's Hofbrau

2006-04-01T20:12:00.000-08:00

First thing's first: South San Francisco is not San Francisco.

The locals call it South City, mainly because South San Francisco is a mouth-full to say. Also because of the obvious confusion that exists in the name. You see, South San Francisco isn't the southern part of San Francisco, in fact South San Francisco doesn't even border San Francisco.

To add even more confusion to the mix, South San Francisco is just north of the San Francisco International Airport, which is owned by the City and County of San Francisco, which also owns the land, thus making it officially San Francisco territory. So, if I m getting this right, South San Francisco – the city/town separate from San Francisco – is both south and north of the City of San Francisco.

Hum.

My brain hurts. Time for some hofbrau food.

Lucky that there is such a place in downtown South City called Bogy's Hofbrau. While Bogy's is in an old, and very cool, building, the restaurant doesn't look that old, perhaps due to remodelings and ownership changes.

Downtown South City, which is a mix between new and old architecture, seems like a bustling little place, at least on Saturdays. Most of the businesses are either new businesses catering to the overwhelming majority of Asians and Latinos, or they are throwbacks to the 50s and 60s, back when the majority ethnic group was Anglos.

I imagine this explains Bogy's Hofbrau, whose cuisine is Old American and perhaps use to be run by Joe, but whose restaurant is now owned and run by New Americans, uh, that would be Jose.

At first it seems like your average Hofbrau, only there's no bar, and the sole television that's on is blank other than the words on the screen that mentions something about it being the R&B/hip hop channel. It actually should have said the CRAP R&B/hip hop channel, since every single hip hop tune that came out of it since we entered the restaurant was so amateurish, boring, unoriginal and cliché it bordered on nauseating. But then, isn't this the state of rap today?

The décor is reminiscent of pretty much every Mexican taqueria and restaurant I've been to, with high back, heavy wooden Mission-style chairs and colorful murals on the walls – one of a Spanish flamenco dancing scene and another of a Ye Olde European carnival, no doubt in town to lure all of the children away to toil in sweatshops. Both of the employees at Bogy's are Latino and, according to this Yelp poster, the owners of Bogy's also own one of the best taquerias on the Peninsula, which may explain the furniture.

Despite the fact that from the inside Bogy's looks like a taqueria, the food is pure hofbrau. And unlike Harry's Hofbrau, they don't front with some nasty-ass, pseudo, turkey "enchalada", even though I'm sure they could totally pull it off if they wanted to. No, here the food is straight up, traditional, American food.

Ok, ok, ok. I know that, especially in these circumstances, the term "American food" is a loaded term (read: white). Here we are at a "hofbrau" eating not sauerkraut, but roast beef and barbecued ribs, because this hofbrau is a completely uniquely American invention. But if they served burritos, gumbo, and succotash with a fortune cookie on the side, would it be any less American? No!

However, as it is, most hofbrau food (with the exception of the Oaks Corner – and even then it can be argued that the American Chinese food served there is uniquely American) is what is known as traditional American food – roast beef, corned beef, pastrami, ham, turkey, (sometimes barbecue) green beans, corn, pasta salad (I know, confounds me too), and dinner rolls. Maybe that's an age and era thing. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is.

But let's talk about the food, since that's why we're here, right? Trust me, I could go on and on about culture, race, class, history, blah blah blah, ad nauseum, but after a while it would be a bit like those hip hop songs, now wouldn't it?

"What? What? OK! Yay-uh!"

Bruce ordered the barbecue ribs dinner ($7.99) with a choice of two sides, in his case corn and rice. He says that "they were ok although they didn't have any smokey flavor and that most of the flavor seemed to come from the barbecue sauce. However, they were very tender. The sides were mediocre at best. The corn and the rice had very little flavor."

I also thought one of the sides, the corn, which came with my dinner ($7.99), was mediocre, but come on. It's corn, warmed over. What can you really expect?

I thought the mashed potatoes and gravy were decent although I wasn't a big fan of the gravy. It wasn't bad but it seemed a little too bland. At least they served it up right, unlike Harry's. Granted it was a Saturday, but the food could've been a little warmer. Also, I don't understand the point in serving bread, in this case a dinner roll, that has no flavor, is bland, is rock-hard, is too uniform on the inside, and is cold.

I feel like saying, "if you keep the bread and butter, can I get two quarters back?"

I thought the roast beef here was very good. It was tender, not overcooked, and not gristly or fatty. While I liked the dinner, the roast beef could've made an excellent sandwich and seeing as though the sandwiches are less expensive, it probably is one of the best deals in the neighborhood.

Cutting to the chase, I actually liked Bogy's. Despite the stupid music playing, I felt comfortable here and at ease. Also, if I was hungry and in the area and looking for a simple place to fall back on, no doubt I would head here. The food was plentiful and inexpensive and it seemed to have a down-to-earth, friendly vibe about it.

The only thing is...it's not a true hofbrau. Sorry.

The food is definitely hofbrau food, and very good, authentic hofbrau food, but Bogy's is missing at least two essential hofbrau characteristics. They've got the food and the regular, working-class customer bit down, but what they're missing is the atmosphere and the bar.

It's a nice place, but for now it's probably more honest to say they are a restaurant that serves hofbrau-style food, as opposed to being a hofbrau.

Moving on,

k.

Harry's Hofbrau

2006-03-30T21:16:00.000-08:00

I'm now going to write some things that will no doubt piss off many, many decent people who are amongst the many longtime faithful who patronize Harry's Hofbrau in Redwood City.

The food is beyond mediocre. It just plain out sucks.

OK, ok, ok. True, it was my first and only time there. Maybe I missed something. Maybe they have the most kick-ass carved or sandwiched roast beef or turkey leg or beef brisket, and if so I profusely apologize.

Or then, maybe once was enough and maybe that queasy feeling I had while we were driving back to the city was an indication of how much this place's food blows.

But first, some background.

Harry's Hofbrau is perhaps the Bay Area's only chain hofbrau, perhaps owing to its early success to it's original location in Redwood City (which in the 1950s and 60s was home to many young, large suburban families) and on the reputation and business savvy of it's founder, Harry Kramer, an Austrian immigrant who prior to opening Harry's had a history of operating a small chain of 24-hour restaurants called "Kramer's".

In fact, the original Harry's Hofbrau was so successful that, upon hearing of Harry's retirement from the restaurant business, that other famous (or infamous depending on who you ask) American icon, Denny's, offered to buy it in 1969. Instead, Harry's son, Larry acquired the business and opened up Harry's Hofbraus in many parts of the South and East Bay.

But as we all know, time hasn't been kind to hofbraus. While many still have their longtime regulars, and even a few new ones, many of these independent, family-run businesses have had to shut their doors for good, including the Harry's Hofbrau in Mountain View 5 years ago. Although, one has to speculate whether it was closed because lack of business (hard to believe from reading this article) or because it was the sacrificial lamb whose land value was so immense Larry Kramer willingly put it up on the chopping block.

Lucky for the original location that it's not in the prettiest part of town. In fact, it's right off of Highway 84 and El Camino Real, next to a shuttered Slavic bookstore, various mercados, and the former site of "The Answer", Redwood City's no-tell, gay bar – the type that historically sought out the loneliest, often seediest, parts of Californian small towns.

Despite this, Harry's Hofbrau must be the local community meeting hall, since a brief scanning over the Internet netted results such as the holiday party of the San Mateo County Council of the Blind and the Peninsula Channel Commanders (a flying radio-controlled model plane club) and the next meetings of the Loma Prieta chapter of the Sierra Club and the local Meeting For Good (a singles group consisting of volunteers) chapter.

In fact, while Bruce and I were eating, a group of 15 people charged in followed by a family of six and a group of 10 ROTC cadets with their commanders.

As far as décor goes, Harry's is more tacky than kitchy (including the spinning roasting turkeys in the window displays on either side of the entry doors) and a lot "Applebee's".

It's a huge restaurant where the bar area is separate from the dining area. In the dining area, there are no televisions playing sports and references to beer steins and German stereotypes abound in the midst of very un-German things such as old photos of general stores and other early 20th century American businesses. I don't know if it's the owner or the management twisting the whole American hofbrau model to fit a German stereotype, but it's quite pathetic. American hofbraus don't need to "act German", because unless they specialize in spaetzle, muesli, schnitzel, sauerbraten, and have a German beer selection other than Heineken and Amstel Lite, they're not.

Also, what kind of German hofbrau serves $8.60 turkey enchiladas (sic, "enchalada")? And while we're at it, what kind of German hofbrau serves enchiladas but no tortilla chips?

Also, the place is way too bright for my tastes and as everyone knows, the Germans and the Austrians are not exactly famous for being shiney happy people holding hands. I mean, have you ever listened to Rammstein? Because, if you have, you would know that that and Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man" which was playing at Harry's the night we were there, are about as polar opposite as Madonna and Judaism.

Note: I'm not dissing on Dusty. That's my girl.

The restaurant looked as if over the years they had remodeled to infinity until what was left was as characterless as the cheesy beer stein-print seat covers.

This was also the most expensive hofbrau I've been to yet. $12.48 is what I spent for a corned beef dinner and a glass of iced tea. The corned beef dinner came with freshly sliced corned beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, a "hot side" (mac and cheese) and a dinner roll with butter.

To break it all down for you, the corned beef was very salty and a little too fatty. I'm not an expert on corned beef, so if it was awesome, it was lost on me. Eating a whole plate of it made me ill. Also, what's with that rainbow sheen certain cured products have? That freaks me out.

Or perhaps what made me ill was the mac and cheese, which was colder than a witch's tit (no offense to wiccans, especially those who hold their annual meetings at Harry's) and congealed into one large Government-Cheesy clump. Blah!

Also, I thought the dish was called "mashed potatoes and gravy", heavy emphasis on the former. Instead, I got a small little ice cream scoop of potatoes floating like an island is a sea of pretty bad gravy. Contrast this with the side of mashed potatoes and gravy I got at the Chick-N-Coop and you'll understand how appalled I was.

And the roll?

Please, you could stone an apostate with it. Or at least crack your housekeepers head.

If I was a Mormon polygamist with a whole village of incestuous children and relatives to feed, I still would have to think twice about Harry's.

You know, if it was a true dive, I may have looked on it a little more generously because then you would expect shitty food in such an establishment. This place has an air about it and a price that tries to place it in a category above dive, and all I've got to say is: it is (shitty) and it isn't (dive-worthy).

Have you ever seen that show "Keeping Up Appearances"?

Think of Harry's Hofbrau as Hyacinth Bucket.

"…er, uh, excuse me, but it's bou-kay."

Normally, with the livelihoods of the workers in mind, I would be hard-pressed to tell you, my gentle readers, to avoid a place, seeing as I though I would never want to have the hardship of anyone unemployed hanging like an albatross around my neck.

But seeing as though Harry's Hofbrau isn't in any danger of losing the Amateur Radio Enthusiasts meetings, the blind people's holiday parties, and the large family factions, I feel at ease in telling you to skip it and head due north to the City That Knows How.

k.

"Lefty" O'Doul's

2006-03-27T14:08:00.000-08:00

I can't tell you how refreshing it is to go into any dining establishment and snap pictures left and right without nearly a wince from anyone working or eating there.

Lucky then that Lefty O'Doul's is located smack dab in the middle of the tourist hell that is Union Square. In fact, I think not taking pictures would make you stick out here.

I think it's awesome that an old school, inexpensive hofbrau still thrives in the heart of Niketown, Macy's, Needless Mark-up, Burberry, Coach, Bulgari, H&K, Williams-Sonoma, art galleries, and exclusive hotels.

In fact, any tourist to our city should feel lucky (like the Irish?) that without trekking to far off neighborhoods in search of an authentic San Francisco experience, you can get your high rolla shopping on and later take in a cheap, but filling, meal at Lefty's, all within the walking distance of a few blocks.

I won't go into much detail about Lefty's because if you've stepped two feet into Union Square more than once, you probably know more about it than me. In fact, everyone and their mother, father, brother, sister, and cousins can tell you about Lefty's.

However, this blog tribute to Bay Area hofbraus wouldn't be nearly complete without a visit to one of the shrines of California hofbraus, Lefty O'Doul's.

Many observations from tourists and out-of-towners who experience Lefty's remark that it is an Irish pub. Eh, wrong. I've also read that the place is overpriced tourist food and is bland and boring. Eh, wrong again.

In fact, it seems that most people who comment on Lefty's have neither hide nor hair of understanding about hofbrau cuisine. And that's understandable. For example, recently, I surveyed my close friends (some of whom were born and raised in the Bay Area) for hofbrau recommendations and was suggested a few restaurants with German-sounding names. But as I've said before, the hofbraus I'm talking about having nothing to do with German food or beer.

Lefty's may draw it's own local crowd - which is rare for a place smack dab in the middle of touristville – and that crowd may be crusty, sports-minded, and even lecherous, but that's part of it's charm. Of course, the food isn't to be sneezed at (though sneezed on, it may be).

What I like about Lefty's is that it "knows itself" and yet doesn't. You know what I mean?

Sure, they know they're an "institution". They know the place was started by a famous San Francisco baseball player/coach who "discovered" Joe DiMaggio and that, no doubt, there are countless guide books telling tourists to stop in and see a blowup of Norma Jean DiMaggio's ID card.

They know that even a whiff of a hint of them closing for good will bring outrage from the old timers and histrionics from preservation societies.

True, Lefty's is a cut above many other hofbraus. Not only do they have a baby grand in the front lounge (drunken piano karaoke anyone?), but they even have something unheard of for most hofbraus – a website; one with so much java-script and plug-ins it sends my antivirus and firewall software into panic mode.

So, even though this hofbrau "knows itself", the staff at Lefty's seem completely down to earth – albeit a little curt – but down to earth. And as far as the customers are concerned, this isn't the "sweater around the shoulders" crowd, although I'm sure there may be a few of them who are regulars.

But the real reason why we layeth the macketh down at Lefty's is the amazing hofbrau choices, such as the roast beef and the pastrami, and their assortment of side dishes. I've also heard the mac and cheese here is awesome.

Bruce and I both got the freshly cut pastrami sandwiches; his on rye and mine on sourdough.

As is the custom, my sandwich roll was dipped in jus and then topped high with the pastrami. Even though Bruce thought the pastrami was too dry, I liked it. And actually, it could've been more moist, but it probably had been sitting under the heat lamps a little too long. Despite the dryness issue, it still was a pretty decent sandwich, especially with a little mustard and/or horseradish sauce.

The pasta salad was good for being what it was. It basically was spiral pasta, a few black olives, and Italian dressing. Actually, I liked Bruce's red potato salad better. It needed a little more salt and pepper, plus a tad bit more horseradish, and then it was pretty satisfying.

If you are looking for an "only in San Francisco" and an authentic hofbrau experience, this is it folks. This is why I've devoted the next few weeks of my life to documenting the hofbraus of the Bay Area.

Now, about that late-night drunken piano karaoke.

k.

Chick-N-Coop

2006-03-25T19:49:00.000-08:00

It was a weird day in my part of the City today.

First, this weather has been more erratic than Paula Abdul. Is it going to thunderstorm or is it just going to be a heavy mist? Is it sunshining now? Cold? Warm? Windy? Is she happy or is she just drunk?

I don't get it.

Then, down at the baseball park, 25,000 youth shocktroops (and their shepards) for the New American Taliban are having a rock and roll/hip hop prayerfest which they say is "non-political", uh, except for that part where they held a rally on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, where, incidentally, 2 years ago the evil gays launched the Marriage Equality movement in the United States. But really, "we're not political".

(This just in: Bruce just got back from the Safeway closest to the prayerfest and said it was "nuts" and "packed with those damn Christians". The clerk at the checkout told him it was the same last night and that "they had stolen so much stuff, we had to call in extra security guards.")

Over at Moscone, the esteemed Learning Annex was holding a Get-Rich-Quick sideshow, uh, snakeoil, uh, scam artist, uh, "sucker born every minute", uh...really, I mean seminar that attracted thousands of true believers to worship and pray at the feet of secular capitalists priests like Donald Trump, Suze Orman, Tony Robbins, and the rich-dad-poor-dad guy.

Being a mere mortal and lowly human being, part of the animal kingdom as much as say, a hairy-eared dwarf lemur, the response of fight or flight kicked in and realizing I was outnumbered by jackasses, I jumped onto the L-Terrible (Taraval) and quickly headed towards the opposite end of town.

As if I had died and went the towards the light (Carol-Anne) at the end of the tunnel, when the train exited the underground at West Portal station, beams of sunlight shone down upon the sidewalks and the MUNI cars.

Uh, is the city giving these people extra sunlight cause they're wealthier and more politically connected? Is that why they call this area of town the Sunset? I may have to enact the Sunshine Law and find out.

The train let me off at 20th and Taraval, where it just so happens there's a cute little ol' hofbrau sitting on the corner. It's called the Chick-N-Coop and it's one of the few non-Asian restaurants in this little strip of a neighborhood within a neighborhood that looks down over the Pacific ocean.

The Chick-N-Coop looks like it has been there since the neighborhood was predominantly white. These days, that part of Taraval is predominantly Asian, with Asian politicians (and politicians), tropical fish stores, nail salons, and plenty of Asian places to eat like "Banh-wiches", "New Loi Mandarin Cuisine" (menu features a pork dish called "Ants Climb Up The Tree"), and "Szechuan Taste Restaurant". I guess you know where I'll be headed for dinner and lunch pretty soon!

Walking into the Chick-N-Coop, I was stunned by the clean and fresh scent in the air. The room wasn't dark and it was spacious.

Am I in the right place? First thing's first. I must pee.

That ride was long, and so I quickly set my coat and umbrella at a table and rushed to the men's room.

Oh, yeah. This is definitely a hofbrau alright.

After washing my hands and heading back out, I grabbed a tray and looked at the menu. You could buy a whole chicken here, but I stuck with the ¼ chicken. It came with mashed potatoes and gravy, as well as a side salad (got the ol' mac salad again!).

There were other meats to choose from, but I wanted to keep it real at the Chick-N-Coop, which is why I went with the chicken. The women behind the counter seemed pleased with my choice, although they were generally nice, so who knows. I couldn't make out the language they were speaking in to each other. It was like Spanish, but not Portuguese or Italian. Definitely not French.

Is there a colony of Esperanto speakers out in the Sunset?

As I sat at the table, I noticed the "frills". While the chair I sat in was off balance, the tables were clean, the chairs were all wooden, there were five-and-dime Hellenistic art pieces scattered about, and a lot of silk flowers and dangling plastic ivory.

This place is totally girly!

But yet it was a hofbrau!

There were the meats, sliced by hand, and the sides. There was sports (the ice skating championships) and even beer on tap (Budweiser and something frilly and wine cooler-like). There was a bar that inched one step away from being a silk Fern Bar, but the menus over it with the daily specials were dingy and old school.

This place was like the Lifetime of hofbraus. This could have been the hofbrau frequented by Jessie, of Murder She Wrote, or Bea Arthur in whatever she's in.

This place is definitely unique. It is perhaps the first and last and only feminine, XX-chromosome, Helen Reddy-listening, hofbrau of it's kind in existence.

In fact, let's dispense with male-centric paradigms. This isn't a hofbrau.

It is a hof-frau.

And being a hoffrau, let me just say that the roast chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy are exactly the same dear ol' Mom would make. The roast chicken is plentiful (although the breast is a little dry) and perfectly roasted and still on the bone. It tastes straight from the oven (or in the Chick-N-Coop's case, the rotisserie). The mashed potatoes are fresh-tasting, with small chunks of unmashed potatoes still floating around the mound that is topped by a meaty gravy.

But wait, because Mom loves you extra special, have a little macaroni salad while you're at it. This macaroni salad was made with extra large pieces of pasta and a few more herbs, because Mom thinks so much of you. It's good, in that Mom way.

But Mom ain't no doormat. You know, she raised you kids single-handedly while putting herself through school so that she could get a better job and provide for you and put you through college so that eventually you could have your own kids and home without going through the struggles she had to endure.

That's why Mom is charging you for this meal. You owe her...$6.95.

Now hurry on up or you'll be late for class.

Just leave your tray on the table.

k.

Brennan's

2006-03-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

Sitting practically underneath the University Avenue bridge, right off of the interstate, and practically out of site to most is a Berkeley institution most least likely to appear in the How Berkeley Can You Be parade.

Berkeley, as many know it, is the home of raging and aging liberals (competition for us SFers), hippies and punks, Leninists, Stalinists, Trots, Moonies, Maoists, LaRouchies, Krishnas, Fascists, Anti-Fascists, Zionists, Anti-Zionists, the former base of the SLA, where Huey Newton and Bobby Seal dreamt up the Black Panther Party, People's Park, the Free Speech Movement, Chez Panisse, and everything crunchy, granola, and painfully, insufferably PC.

The real Berkeley is a company town; the company being the University of California. The product - nuclear weapons and the future global managerial class.

But before the University came to dominate Berkeley's GDP, other industries flourished. Farming was one. And of course, the building trades.

One of those builders, a man by the name of John Brennan, built the restaurant that would eventually bear his name. But before entering the restaurant business at the age of 69, Brennan was unique among business owners of the time. A man who rose out of the working class to eventually become the owner of a construction company, he never stopped advocating for the rights of workers and was instrumental in securing worker's compensation for California workers who were injured on the job.

It is fitting then that the restaurant he opened 47 years ago still serves a clientele that is, at least on my visit, predominantly working class.

Bruce and I happened to visit Brennan's on a Tuesday night around 8:30 PM. For the most part, the place was dead.

Bruce and I grabbed a tray and perused the menu on the wall above the steam tables. They were a little too fancy, well-lit, and brightly painted, as was the rest of the restaurant, for my dive tastes. This is probably due to the renovation Brennan's underwent a few years back, no doubt some hairbrained scheme to attract new customers.

Bruce, who, in the early 1980s, use to stop by Brennans late after a long night working the Greek Theater for BGP, remembers it being a lot more divier, but says that the food hasn't changed all that much. From what he remembers, the drinks and the food were always cheap and plentiful.

We both ordered the beef brisket sandwich that came on a sourdough roll. The man behind the counter sliced the rolls and dipped them in the beef jus and then proceeded to thinly slice off pieces of the brisket. He piled it high on the sandwich and then sliced the sandwich in half.

I decided to get a bowl of the pasta salad, which was just like the pasta salad you would eat at any potluck or family gathering. In other words, the same pasta salad recipe that hasn't changed since the firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg.

We sat down near one of the many large-screen televisions that was blaring some kind of sports event or another. Bruce asked to see my keys, since those are what my TV-B-Gone is attached to. Alas, my TV-B-Gone B-Not-Working. Sigh...time to order a new one.

There were a few couples, but mostly there were single diners either sitting at one of the long rows of tables or at the bar. The guys sitting at the bar looked like trucker types and probably were. I imagine they must have stopped in to get a big meal and a brew before they had to get back on the road.

There was a woman with a heavy and tired face sitting by herself, an empty plate and a coffee cup beside her, her hand propping up her forehead, staring down at the book she was three-quarters of the way finished with.

Sitting across from us was a short, older husband and wife who bickered occasionally in spanish. Talking on the payphone near the bathrooms was a guy that looked like the redneck on the television series "Lost".

Bruce and I proceeded to mack down on our sandwiches. "Excuse me, do you have any Grey Poupon?" Good, because this sandwich needed just a little.

Nevertheless, this was a great sandwich. The meat was tender and juicy (and so was the bread, with all that jus and everything!), not at all dry or tough. I think you really need a side of something here to go with your meat or sandwich. The pasta salad did the trick.

I think, in total, my meal came out to be $8.25, with the sandwich, the pasta, and a glass of water.

While the food was good, I'm not sure if I agree with the Berkeley preservationists that this place is worth saving. Of course, I sympathize with those folks who want a cheap, hot meal at all hours of the night, a cold beer, and someone to talk sports with, but...I don't know.

It seems that whatever character this place probably had was lost with the remodel and that what most preservationists seek to preserve are their memories of a happier, divier, Brennan's.

k.

The Hofbraus of the San Francisco Bay Area

2006-03-23T19:25:00.000-08:00

California is, and perhaps always been, a place one comes to reinvent themself.

Sure, you’ve heard of the gold rush and the small-town girls who ride a Greyhound bus all the way to Hollywood in search of fame and stardom, but what about Gregg Rolie?

Who’s that, you say?

Dude, he only is the guy who moved down to San Francisco after his Seattle restaurant went kaput to form one of the biggest, legendary, stadium rock bands this Ci-tay has ever seen.

Um, yeah! I am talking about Journey. Duh?

You remember? Remember the feather-backed hair, the tight blue jeans, the big schnoz, the black guy on bass?

I mention all of this because whenever I hear “when the lights, go down, in the Ci-tay-ee” or (I love this line) “th'ssay that the road ain’t no p'lace to staahht a fam-lay”, I get all transported to a time when lunch was cheap, American beer flowed freely from the tap, and mash potatoes and big hunks of meat were plentiful.

In other words, I get transported to a Hofbrau. Specifically, a crusty ol' San Francisco hofbrau.

In most of the Western world, a hofbrau is, literally, a "court brewery", where many Helmuts and Gretchens got tanked while throwin' down Herr Kaiser's own homebrew - the most famous one being the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany (chain coming to you soon!)

But here in the American West, specifically California, hofbraus have very little or nothing to do with Germans or Germany. Instead, they are cheap (less so lately) places to grab a beer, watch sports, and eat hand-carved roast beef, ham, turkey, or beef brisket sandwiches or dinner plates in a cafeteria-style setting.

No one knows for sure who had the first California-style hofbrau since the modern-day versions, and the ones we know and love, all pretty much started around the same time – the 1950s and 60s. I have read some who believe hofbraus were once German-style, but changed over the course of time to reflect American tastes. I have also read some who say that the hofbrau developed out of the San Francisco "free lunch" school of bars at the turn of the century that served food to entice more people to drink on their lunch hour.

No matter who was first, the fact is that many are becoming the last.

A Citizen Fish show I went to at the old Hofbrau (punk shows happened on their second floor) on Broadway in Oakland. It's now Luka's Taproom.

Changing tastes, shifting demographics, and original owners passing away only to have their kids sell out have caused many of these restaurants to close down the steam table for good.

Some hofbraus have changed with the times in order to compete, with some even serving Asian food alongside the standard mash potatoes and gravy-covered turkey leg. Others have tried to spruce up and update their image, while simultaneously raising prices. In fact, some of these hofbraus do not deserve to be featured on these hallowed pages. However, I'll have to cross that greasy spoon when I come to it.

And while there are hofbraus located outside of the Bay Area, notably Sam's Hofbrau in LA which morphed into a strip club in order to survive, most of the old-school, truly unique, American, hofbraus are centered in and around the Bay Area.

Because I believe it's time these restaurants (and dives!) had their due respect, as places to eat and as cultural icons, Dive is going to be featuring them for the next couple of weeks.

As I visit and review each hofbrau, I will add it to the list below, along with the link to the post. Please bookmark or check this page often for updates.

Now, won't you join me for some rib-stickin', overeatin', cafeteria-butt havin' good times? Grab your wetnap, cause we're about to get greasay!

k.

Hofbraus of the San Francisco Bay Area

Brennan's
Chick-N-Coop
"Lefty" O'Doul's
Harry's Hofbrau (Redwood City)
Bogy's Hofbrau
Silver Spoon Hofbrau(closed)
Hayward Hofbrau and Chinese (closed)
Jerry T's Hofbrau (not a hofbrau)
Frank's Saloon and Hofbrau (not a hofbrau)
Gubera's Pub and Hofbrau (not a hofbrau)
Walnut Creek Hofbrau House (closed)
Europa Hofbrau
Jerrold Market Place
Tommy's Joynt
Sam's Hofbrau in Oakland (closed)
Robbie's Hofbrau (closed)

Article on Hofbraus by Jonathan Kauffman (and featuring your's truly)

---

First Annual Anti-War Dive Crawl

2006-03-19T13:17:00.000-08:00

Excuse me, but where were you?

Do you know how long I waited in front of the library for you to show up?

You must have been at home picking lint out of your belly button because I sure didn't see you with the Foodies For Peace contingent. Too bad, because there were lots of beautiful people (10,000 according to the Chron) and food lovers gathered yesterday for the anti-war demonstration and march.

Too bad because you also missed the First Annual Anti-War Dive Crawl.

Technically, it's the 3rd annual anti-war demonstration since the start of the Iraq invasion, but this year I cashed in a few chits, pulled a few strings, peddled a little influence and the end result was the first, Pro-Dive, anti-war march through, where else, the Tenderloin, Mission Street, 6th Street, and McCallister.

I mean, you couldn't pick a better route to highlight the diversity and magnitude of true, only in San Francisco, dives. Thanks to the organizers for heeding my suggestions!

Tour guides, take notice.

The weather for the dive crawl was wonderful and the crowd seemed energized to learn about, sample, and explore the culinary cantakerous cuisines of the TL and 6th Street "gourmet" ghetto. The event even brought out anti-divers!

You just can't plan this stuff, people!

Before the dive crawl began, however, I first had to sample the dive food concession stands, most notably the Uhuru stand. Before I began diving as a way of life, I would generally avoid the concession stands at various political demonstrations and street fairs, of which many were attended by the Uhuru Concessions people. In hindsight, I feel like I may have missed out on some of the better incarnations of the Uhuru concession stand, since I remember many years of being choked by all of the smoke coming from their barbecue.

I always thought it a little funny when Uhuru's barbecue smoke billowed over the head of the crowd, most of them, to be sure, vegan or vegetarian. Talk about strange political bedfellows. What's even stranger is that the guy who leads the Uhuru cult, er, I mean organization is a practicing vegetarian.

Hum? Could this be infiltration of the African people's minds by the petty bourgeosie as led by sell-out negroes and their honky, capitalist, imperialist masters?

Let's first have a bite of the cheesesteak and then decide, shall we?

As I was waiting in line, I happened to pull aside someone who had just ordered the Uhuru falafel sandwich. If there was falafel anywhere in that sandwich it had been drowned by a ton of something resembling tahini sauce. How lovely.

As a point of unity, I would like to suggest walking a block or two over to Gyro King to liberate your mouth from this catastrophic, imperialist, so-called falafel.

Now, I'm no stranger to cheesesteaks. Lord knows I've had plenty in my day and, in fact, at one time I use to make my living off of selling them (and other things).

Never did the steak come in processed, molded patties. And the cheese was never Kraft American singles. Sure there were grilled onions, but bell peppers? I don't think so. And they are served traditionally on rolls, not hot dog buns.

Even for $5 this was an awful and degrading impersonation of a cheesesteak. This was defamation of the cheesesteak.

In fact, it was downright oppressive.

It wasn't a field cheesesteak, it was a house cheesesteak! It made me want to break my chains and rise up in Socialist revolution against the well-meaning honkies running the concession stand and liberate the cheesesteak from their petty bourgeois claws, shouting "Uhuru! On The Move for the liberation of the peoples of the cheesesteak diaspora!"

However, I had a dive crawl to attend to. But take warning, I've penciled you in on my list, so-called "Uhuru" so-called "Concessions".

As bad as the cheesesteak was, and when I possibly thought things couldn't get any more divey at a protest rally food stand, I was encountered with the dive of all dives:

The Dumpster Dive.

You know, there is always at least one person or one faction at these events who has to prove they are more radical or more in-line with "The People" or more cooler or, in this case, more divey than another person or group. Often, this manifests itself in ways that are mockable, if not downright off-putting. I mean, do we really need one more point to our manifesto?

Please, let's stop this circular firing squad already because...this is just gross:

And who of all people do I see standing around this free-for-all, than our very own Frank Chu. Please, Frank, I'll give you 2 dollars. Go buy yourself a burger at New Lun Ting, already.

The dive crawl began on Larkin and made its way slowly into the TL. As we marched from dive to dive, we chanted loudly so that Bush, Cheney and the anti-divers could hear:

"Black! Latino! Asian, Arab, White!
Stop Hate, Stop War, Defend Our City's Dives!"

Here's a map of the dive crawl for your future use.

Instead of posting every single picture of every single dive, I've created a set over at Flickr, which you can view or you can click on the specific dives I list below. Here are just some of the dives we "toured".

Phu-Huong
The Lafayette Coffee Shop
Naan-N-Curry
Cabbies Burger (all halal and very non-traditional dishes)
Café Donut (bahn mi sandwiches)
Original Joe's
Crate & Barrel (not a dive, but I considered looking for a turrine dish)
Fu War(I've had delivery from here countless times)
Hooker's Gumbo Shack (hoping to try soon)
Tu Lan (what can be said that hasn't been said many times before?)
6th and Market Food Corner (this WILL be featured here soon)
Taqueria Castillo B (noted for it's awesome burritos)

There were a few I missed, like Harry Harrington's Hofbrau and some places on side streets. Otherwise, I would say this year's Anti-War Dive Crawl was a raging against the machine success!

In your face, Bush!

k.

Hustler Club

2006-03-16T22:51:00.000-08:00

The allure of titties and pole dancing wasn't what lured me into the Hustler Club at lunchtime.

It was the $5 buffet.

Before you ask, yes I am that cheap. Obviously the women do nothing for me, but the thought of a $5 all-you-can-eat buffet gives me a chubby like no other! Besides, all I have to do is look in the mirror and see all the man-breasts I want.

I probably should wear a manzeer or a "bro".

Anyway, while it shouldn't *seem* odd that a stripclub serves food, it does bring up several negative images in my mind. Don't worry, I won't share. Besides, I'm sure you have plenty of your own.

Fact is, men have been seeking out titties and food in this city since the Gold Rush, when not only was it common for bordellos to offer food, or for food establishments to be linked to bordellos, but often was the case that it was the food that lured men into the bordello first, not the prospects of getting jiggy with it.

Some have speculated that this is why San Francisco, a classic Gold Rush, anything-goes, city has so many restaurants and, of course, foodies. Hey! Food, sex...other than "meaningful existence", what's left in life?

And that third part is totally optional.

I've often speculated that one of the true signs of divitude, not to be confused with divinity, is any restaurant you must walk down stairs into a basement for. This is true with many of my Chinatown haunts, as well as the international food court off of Kearny that is home to perhaps the last Filipino restaurant left near the old Manilatown – The House of Lumpia.

Of course, any business with the words "House of" , "Barn", "Just", or "World" in their title always receives two thumbs-up from me.

But with these eateries you first step down into: it's like you literally are "diving". At the Hustler Club, I wasn't diving for bearded clam, and even if I was (which would be weird), there's none of that anyways. For that, you have to dive even deeper at the Crazy Horse on Market, and I'm not sure if they even serve food.

Instead, I walked down the entryway and told the doorman I was there for the lunch buffet.

Funny what the right words will do for you, since the poor schmuck in front of me paid full price (I think I heard $15) for exactly the same privilege.

Fifteen dollars? In Hustler-speak, that's like 15 Beaver Bucks!

"This club is poorly laid out", I realized when I almost twisted my ankle stepping down from the step you can't see as you enter the club. After almost falling face first into the darkness, you are immediately sized up by the bartender and the tables of bikini-clad women sitting near or at the bar, which is the most lit spot in the whole place – no doubt to see who's dipping from the till every now and then to pay for their breast enlargements.

A non-busty, fully clothed waitress tells me to "please help yourself to the buffet, there are napkins and forks and plates" and "help yourself", and at first what I thought was just a dark corner was actually a dark corner where two tables were set up and had a spread laid out. Squinting, I could see three covered metal serving trays, a big bowl of iceberg lettuce tossed salad, and dessert consisting of fudge brownies and chocolate chip cookies.

Suddenly I felt as if I had stepped into some stripper's potluck farewell party or babyshower and I was the friend of a friend.

The first tray I opened contained...I see pasta-like shapes like lasagna and something resembling melted cheese on top. Half of it was empty which made way for the glistening pool of grease previously suffocated by the non-essential artery clogging or bacteria-rich items, like food.

I lifted the lid to the next tray and suddenly realized that the Hustler Club went all Asian-fusion on my barely-legal ass, serving something resembling chow mein but was so overcooked the noodles had broken off into mush, and fat, burrito-sized egg rolls that were as limp and flaccid as dead John Holmes's prominent member.

The other tray contained another mystery pasta cassarole so I grabbed my fork, looked around the room for a well-lit or at least private place and found neither.

The oval stage takes prominance within the single-level basement and at the far side of the entrance, what I thought would be a private place to sit, was actually the front of the stage, closest to the pole. Three guys were sitting up against the perimeter of the stage watching the dancers and only two of them looked like they may have known each other. I didn't really understand this part since most of the club was empty, yet they were sitting shoulder to shoulder - practically touching penises! Or at the very least, sharing spittle.

Sorry. I had to go there.

Sometimes I think straight guys are a paradox wrapped inside of a conundrum wrapped inside of an enigma, and I never tire trying to figure out what the fuck is going on inside their minds.

Seeing that I wasn't engaged in the straight guy, lunchtime, circle jerk, at least I was at a fully functioning table away from the stage and away from flying folicles of foreign origin, trying to figure out what the hell was on my plate, unfortunately illuminated in a green glow, perhaps from behind The Green Door, from the stage. I started chowing down and realized that maybe it was fortunate that I couldn't see the food.

One bite of the eggroll and it was like sipping grease. Don't believe I'm exaggerating when I tell you that the level of grease on my plate was drinkable. I mean, there was more grease on my plate than in every scene and outtake of Ron Jeremy's last movie.

Clockwise From Top: Chow Mangled Mein, Egg Roll Over and Die, and Autopsy Pasta

Carving into the pasta was like that scene in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover where they start carving into the body of the dead lover. With each bite I took, something deep down just kept telling me, "nun-uh". In fact, afterwards I was literally grease-sick. It was instant food poisoning.

In between painful bites, I was propositioned for a lap dance by a busty Asian woman, who not only didn't make my dining experience less horrid, but got all pouty and petulant when I honestly told her I was just here for the buffet.

"Are you here by yourself?"

No. I'm here with the ghosts of gold speculators and young sailors who similarly keeled over from bad strip club dive food and your bodacious tah-tahs and flat ass are not kicking it up a notch.

The one highlight, seriously, was the black woman who was pole dancing to "Rock With You" by Michael Jackson, when she slid down the poll upside-down using only the muscles in her legs, when the lyric "and when you feel that heat" came up, she slapped herself on the butt insync with the downbeat, followed by the rest of the song, "and we're gonna ride the boogie".

It wasn't much, but this judge gave her a 9.5 for performance and artistic integrity/consistency, despite the fact her braided extensions were, like, Cousin It long.

I managed to snap 3 ghastly pictures of my food in the course of a few minutes. As you saw, they are horrible due to the lighting and the proximity; plus the fact that I'm photographing shit doesn't help either. They were also photos I took using the greatest discretion possible.

Nevertheless, within the course of 10 minutes, I had one security guy rush by me, walkee-talkee in hand, trying to bust me red-handed (every pun intended), followed by the doorman/manager approaching me saying that cell phones weren't allowed inside.

They couldn't see that I was taking pictures of the dancers (which I wasn't), but that I had my camera pointed down, so they assumed I didn't have a camera but a cell phone.

Actually, I'm sympathetic with this rule of no pictures of the dancers, but besides the food and the atmosphere, I felt as if it's the club who should pay the customer, not the other way around.

I mean, I was only there for the food. Imagine how cheated I would've felt if I had been there for the ladies which – sorry to jump bad - but most were so-so dancers whose jadeness and boredom was thinly veiled, if not blatant.

It's great that these women and men have jobs, but this club and the "buffet" are just lame. And as far as dives go – oh it certainly is one, and then some – there are no diamonds here.

Not unless Diamond's her name.

k.

Kam Po (HK) Kitchen

2006-03-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

Photo from About.com

Note To Self: Carry extra batteries.

Old batteries in a camera that sucks the life out of them quicker than the whole cast of Underworld: Evolution fanging out on a 130-pound, bespectacled pipsqueak named Herbert Twillowbee can certainly ruin a good blog post.

Oh, snap!

Actually, no it didn't.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed my lunchtime trip to Kam Po (HK) Kitchen today. Originally I had intended on going to Po Kee, a similar Chinatown dive on Stockton and Pacific that specializes in noodles and jook, all for an insanely low, low price. Alas, it was closed. I was there yesterday and had the braised noodles with "beef stew", which not only was god-awful but they sat me near the bathroom, whose nasty funk kept wafting up my nose.

Due to this, I believe I may have discovered the "funk" in "a Funky Chinatown".

Despite this, I'm willing to go back to see if I can fish out any gems. Although, this may be closer to the equivalent of fishing out of the bay rather than the clear, blue sea. Lots of poor people do it, maybe you've even engaged in it (or at least considered it), but deep down you know it's just nasty.

Let's face it: the bay is the dive of fishing holes.

Back to Kam Po, I arrived to find three, young hip (honestly, I hate this word, but let's just say they weren't square, which is another word I hate) Chinese guys waiting out front who had just been summoned into the charcuterie/restaurant by the (for lack of a better term – Chinatown has many of these style of eateries) charcuterie cook. I peered in through the door to find every table in the small restaurant occupied. To the left of the doorway was the charcuterie cook chopping up cooked chicken legs and other pieces of roasted, smoked, fried, or boiled meats and offal. Beside him, hung by their necks, were shiny, dark red, roast ducks, chickens, and bright orange squid. Some hot metal trays underneath held glossy red chicken feet, tripe, and other to-go foods.

I stepped in despite not seeing an open table, perhaps praying to sit at the table of people who were just leaving. Eventually I caught the glance of a waitress who asked me how many and then motioned me over to the table in the middle; the small one with someone already sitting at it.

Now I'm no stranger when it comes to sharing tables in Chinatown restaurants, but this was just ridiculous. The table fit two, snuggly. Even though I was instructed to sit at the table, I still felt like I was invading this lady's space. So before I sat down, I asked if it was ok. She kindly motioned for me to sit and moved her cup of tea closer to make room for me.

I'm not sure what prompted it, but after looking at the menu for a while, she said something to me and I said something back, and then eventually we were in the middle of a conversation.

She was middle-aged, Chinese, had dyed reddish brown hair, a green sweater (the kind someone knits for you), and spoke conversational English.

I asked her what was good or what was popular, to which she replied the noodles. This surprised me, actually, since the place has a fully functional charcuterie complete with the guy who'll cut things up for you on the spot.

But no, it was the noodles (Leland Wong mentioned the beef chow fun in a previous email to me). "How do you like them? Thin or fat?" she said.

After telling her my love for fat chow fun noodles and attempting to convince her that I was no ordinary gweilo who happened to venture too far from Grant, I asked her what she was having. This caused her to bust a poetic move in describing her dish, the pork chow fun.

As she described the noodles, I could almost see her frying them quickly in oil, but not too much oil (!), because she doesn't like real oily noodles. And then on top of these noodles were slices of pork, which I envisioned her carefully slicing by hand, or envisioned her envisioning slicing by hand - eyes squinting with glee and face turned heavenward as if to say "um, um, um" right as she generously ladles on the gravy.

Short-haired waitress finally takes my order – words that form the equivalent of "what are you having".

"Same".

"Same", I said pointing at my dining partner's plate of just arrived chow fun.

Short-haired waitress looks confused. I don't know why. Looking at Short-haired waitress, my gaydar went ballistic. No confusion there.

Seeing as though my new friend's food had just arrived and was still hot, I excused myself from conversation and, after asking if that was ok, went to reading this week's Bay Guardian. As we sat there, an older Chinese couple sat down at the table beside us.

My new friend, whose name I later learned was Julie, would occasionally look over at me, perhaps starved for conversation, or maybe not "starved", but wanting to engage in. I finally realize that I may be behaving rudely, so I put my paper down and made myself available.

Eventually our conversation struck up again, and as we talked, the old lady beside us would occasionally chime in, in Cantonese, with Julie saying something back like (I imagine, but could sort of tell) "oh, it's his first time here" and "he just knows a few words like 'Doh Jeh', ha, ha, ha".

Eventually, the old woman asked Julie, incredulously, if she was Chinese since her hair was light and she was sitting with me. This caused both of us to laugh.

When, after waiting a good, long while and joking with Julie about how they must be making the noodles from scratch, she finally shouted at the waitress who was serving another table something in Cantonese (or Mandarin, since she speaks both) like "hey, what's taking so long? This guy put his order in long ago!"

Damn! Can I take Julie everywhere with me? Like, say, the post office?

Soon enough, my pork chow fun came and oh, the fragrance! I could smell ginger, the mushrooms, some garlic, and that essence of wok. You know, wouldn't it be cool if they made a car air freshener like the pine tree, only it was essence of wok and it was shaped like a wok?

I imagine I'd be chewing up the upholstery after a long road trip.

I started chow funning down while Julie told me about how she had the day off and went to her CPA today. On her way in, she found a small purse laying on the ground. She picked it up and took it inside with her, telling the receptionist that she had just found it and asking her to open it for her. Inside was a medicare card and an ID. Also inside was a 20-dollar bill. Obviously it belonged to an elderly person who had lost it. Julie made sure the receptionist contacted the person it belong to because she understood the importance that $20 is to someone who is elderly and, most likely, poor.

Julie and I ended up talking for close to an hour about work, about her son at UC Davis, about her upcoming trip to Hong Kong, about Boston, New York, 9/11 and where she was, and about food.

When I finished and the waitress came by, I asked for the check and pointed to Julie and myself. When Julie caught wind of this, she immediately refused, but I insisted "no, no, no, no" and focused my eyes downward. She got out her change purse and insisted on paying the tax. I held out my hand as if to say "talk to the hand with all that nonsense".

The old woman sitting at the table next to us chimed in and Julie said something to her like "oh, this fella is going to pay for me and I don't even know him". More laughter.

When the bill came, it was a whopping $7.50.

Julie, you're a cheap date, but a damn fine one.

Here's to you and Kam Po!

k.