Restaurant

I spent a few hours at the SF Street Food Festival, which is not just any collection of food carts but a fundraiser for La Cocina and showcase for its members (“The mission of La Cocina is to cultivate low income food entrepreneurs as they formalize and grow their businesses by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance and access to market opportunities.”) This year I tried to eat at “La Cocina member” booths I hadn’t heard of and mostly skip the known-good usual suspects… and dish after dish was delicious. The nine things I put in my mouth are below (I got the “small plate” option at every booth to keep going as long as I could…): ...

Traveling across Iowa and Wisconsin, I tried a fair amount of local craft beer… and a lot of meat and potatoes and ice cream (along with one fancier excellent meal at Forequarter in Madison). A few memories: The West O ( West Okoboji) lager was nicely crisp and well done. I finally had the all-the-rage New Glarus Spotted Cow and a few others from New Glarus and they were solid, good beers but didn’t blow me away. ...

In Madison for a few days, I had one deeply excellent dinner at Forequarter. The pan-roasted broccoli, the ham plate, the scallop crudo with fennel and grapefruit, and especially the carrot pasta with carrots and a rich carrot greens pesto were all very good.

I found myself in Bavaria recently. Unfortunately, I’m not really a fan of German food and the continuous stream of meat-and-white-starch (and to my disappointment, so many of the sausages and pork chops just weren’t very good), but a handful of meals or beers were memorable. Bamberg was a cute city and great place for beer. Schlenkerla is one of the few old breweries still making a rauchbier (smoked beer). Their Marzen tapped straight from a wooden keg was intoxicatingly campfire-smoky in smell, but not bitter or harsh in taste, with a modestly roasted malt and creamy body (and all this for about $3). Delicious and definitely worth a visit. ...

Plate of sashimi. Friendly couple who greet me by name even if it’s been 6-12 months. No fuss, no elaborate rolls.

One of the best pasta tastings I’ve had there. The anise-ish tarragon in the beet mezzaluna! The stripes of mint in the tagliatelle with bottarga!

A reservation made months ahead of time turned out to be on the evening of a special cider-themed collaboration with Bushwhacker Cider. How fortunate. Kitchen and dining room: The chicories with leek ash and egg (no photo) were amazing. Chestnut soup with fried Jerusalem artichokes: Pickled quail egg, salmon roe… Gin-barrel-aged cider. And Alice (their granny smith cider) on tap. Butter turnips. Excellent rutabaga. And sure, some pork. ...

Apizza Scholls: still one of my very favorite pizzas in the US (New Haven style), up there with DiFara’s in Brooklyn and Pizzaiolo in Oakland. Amazing crust texture (thin, pliant, slight crunch), balanced tomato sauce… yes.

In Portland recently, I had delicious Indian street-food-style dishes I’d never heard of, in a casual airy space with mismatched chairs and Bollywood movies on a projector. The highlights were the vegetarian kati roll (paneer, egg, pickled onion, chutney rolled in a paratha– every bite delicious) and the vada pav (potato dumpling dipped in chickpea flour and fried, with chutneys).

The morning of my flight home from Tokyo, I headed to Tsukiji market to find some delicious raw fish. Quick phone research on the train suggested Daiwa was very well regarded and known for their toro (fatty tuna), so I had a plan. Arriving, I saw a line into the street that folded back and forth on itself 8 times. 8. Looking back at the phone, my eyes caught the “only 11 seats at a counter… the wait can be two to three hours” bit I’d skimmed past. With a flight leaving in 5 hours, waiting, eating, and an hour or two on trains back to the hotel and then airport would be cutting it very close… and what if the wait were longer and I had to leave the line, hungry, at the last moment? ...

Striking a few ramen spots around Tokyo opportunistically on the first and last days of the trip (and at the end of the trip finding one amazing one whose name I still don’t know, in Southeastern Tokyo near the Daimon station). Many major train stations have a nearby food alley, and I heard Shinagawa station had a “ramen alley” Shinatatsu. After landing at Narita but before hopping a shinkansen to another part of Japan (Shinagawa’s conveniently one of the shinkansen connection points), I dragged my suitcase out the West exit and then South along a dark sidewalk. It felt like I was in the wrong place– an industrial sidewalk hugging the station wall, with no business or signs of life, and cars rushing by to my right. But just two blocks later, a glowing entrance beckoned me to step down to a wooden boardwalk below street level lined with 7 or 8 ramen shops. ...

The only actually good (as opposed to “huh, that was better than my low expectations”) food I’ve ever had in an airport– an excellent all-tuna sushi plate (with a range of grades of fattiness) at Sushi Kyotatsu near gate 36 in Narita: And, if you’re (un)fortunate to fly enough to have gold status on some airline in Star Alliance (United, etc), that also gives you complimentary access to the ANA lounge, which has light snacks and a serve-yourself range of sakes you can taste. ...

I was in Japan recently. I didn’t go in with a food plan or have much time to explore, but still had some great, mostly-cheap eats. One highlight was near Yurakucho Station in Tokyo: “One of Yurakucho’s most interesting draws is the lively restaurant district built up under the brick arches beneath the elevated train tracks of the JR Yamanote Line. Known in Japanese as Gado-shita, from “below the girder”, these favored watering holes of Tokyo businessmen occupy virtually all of the free space under nearly 700 meters of track.” ...

A chilly, dark evening without plans in a strangely quiet city had me craving the buzz and chatter of a social Italian restaurant. I showed up at La Ciccia (Sardinian) in Noe Valley as they opened and got a spot at the bar. And what a dinner! Out of respect for their “no cameras” sign: Tender, creamy burrata (the best I’ve had) on arugula, with very good olive oil. Freshly-made fettucini (perfect) with tomato ragu, sausage, veal, and olives. ...

This was by far my favorite Thai(ish) restaurant in the US. I like it far more than already good Pok Pok or the (I feel somewhat overrated) Lotus of Siam. First, the “stir fried rice cakes with green garlic”: A surprisingly smooth, creamy, stiff texture almost like a fried rice pudding, with fresh, flavorful green garlic. A good start. And then: The pad see ew was fantastic– their homemade wide flat noodles with just a little chewiness and a smoky flavor, a locally-made tofu, wild mushrooms, and some toothy greens sauteed in soy sauce. ...