one of my favorite food media things in san francisco is this column from eater detailing good dishes the editors ate in sf that week, but it seems to have fallen off lately? i thought it would be fun to talk about what i ate in sf this weekend, not all good, not all in restaurants, but all worth discussing (i guess everything to me is worth discussing). i have been back in sf for three months now; i rarely go to restaurants on weekdays and am sort of out of the loop with new openings, but i’m still excited about what i’m cooking and the meals i am eating out for what it’s worth. just a note — this is not every single thing i ate this weekend, i.e. popcorn while watching problemista is omitted.
my weekend sort of started thursday night because it had the energy of a friday night. thursday night dinner was at shandong in oakland, one of my favorite chinese restaurants solely because of their thick, hand cut noodles. we got the sesame noodles, mapo tofu, and eggplant (more than enough food for three people, we had leftovers) and they were all delicious and i ate until i was sickeningly full. go here!!
friday afternoon had to be spent in dolores park to enjoy the weather — i made the nigella lawson chocolate guinness cake for a friend’s picnic and snacked on it through the afternoon. this cake has been on my mind for a while and nyt cooking posted a picture of it this week, so i decided to come out of a baking hiatus to attempt it. it’s easy to make and uses a cup of guinness which is a fun ingredient to bake with. some notes — i don’t have a springform cake pan so i opted for two 8-inch cake pans, doubled the frosting to accommodate a middle layer of it, and added a splash of baileys to the frosting. next time i could even use three cake pans to make this a full birthday cake, or halve the recipe, which it’s set up well to do. the cake is moist, airy, and rich at the same time. i love the detail of the cream cheese frosting on top mimicking the foam on top of a guinness. it’s nice that the cake uses melted butter so you do not need a stand mixer to cream any ingredients, and everything comes together in one bowl.
after spending 5 hours in dolo, dinner was needed and sandwiches were suggested: my go-tos in the area are turner’s kitchen and rhea’s but both were closed so we opted for the sandwich counter at bi-rite market. i got the tofu bahn mi (which has now been rebranded to the davidson ??) which i have had before and not loved, rational because i am not expecting to love a bahn mi from bi-rite. the sandwich lacked spice and tasted too grassy; a friend said that none of the flavors shone through. post-park was a jaunt to true laurel to celebrate a birthday — my classic favorites here are the in the pines and martini, but i opted for amaro and club soda, the former of which they had a long list of. the candied and kale tossed bar nuts were sweet, crispy, savory, and reminded me how easy it is to make something ordinary into something complex and fancy. i need to start serving elaborate bar nuts when friends come over.
saturday morning consisted of an impromptu trip to bread belly, which i may now need to go to every weekend because i want to try every single thing on their menu. DO NOT skip the kaya toast. i’ve had kaya toast in singapore and know i love the creamy, almost cloying jam, but bread belly does the extra step of making an ultra-laminated milk bread which almost feels like a croissant. we also had the curry bun and a cheesy cornbread-type pastry with a boiled egg inside, both were good but i would not order them again just so i can try more things. i had the iced yuzu americano: pretty sour and fizzy which are some of my favorite things; my friend had the black sesame iced latte which was creamy and nutty. i need to try the egg coffee next weekend.
later on saturday i enjoyed the sun in golden gate park and went on a walk with a friend. we optimized our route to hit an annie’s hot dog stand to get some veggie dogs, one of my all-time favorite foods. i will always choose every condiment available to me — this dog had grain mustard, ketchup, hot peppers, sauerkraut, relish, and three types of onions (raw, grilled, and onion sauce). i could eat one of these every day. we wanted to grab soft serve at twirl and dip after but the line was too long, sad because i had already popped a lactaid.
i had plans with friends on sunday to go to the fort mason farmers’ market and make lunch afterwards; something about sunny weather just makes me excited about being in the kitchen and using fresh produce. this nuoc cham that sanssho posted a few weeks ago kept popping in my mind, so i knew i wanted to make something similar and build a meal around that. my nuoc cham included mandarin orange, cherry tomato, thinly sliced shallot, mint, radish, and cucumber (all of which were acquired from the market). i also was excited to try this crispy tofu method from eric kim that involves frozen tofu — i froze my tofu on saturday evening and took it out to thaw before leaving for the farmers’ market sunday morning. i served it with a simple peanut sauce, fresh red lettuce, and avocado. i also used a carton of shiitakes i got at costco last week to make a simple stir fry with garlic and an omsom mala salad packet (very spicy, nice and salty). everything was served with rice for a neutral base.
it was a good food weekend, and i’m excited for what’s coming to the farmer’s market in the next few weeks. a couple non-food recommendations for you that i’ve loved recently: too much and not the mood by durga chew-bose, everything from hender scheme (i just got one of their leather bags for a great price on ebay), hoka ora primos (i wear mine every day on my morning walk), and the mr. and mrs. smith tv show on prime.
see you next time!
I also love the SF Eater column so I really enjoyed the weekend eats write-up! I highly recommend the peanut butter mochi at Bread Belly if you have it the next time you go. I think it’s hard to beat butter mochi one could bake at home but that one is excellent, I’d like to try recreating it!