Can't forget about Caturday!

A Mexican restaurant in North Beach

In San Francisco, the neighborhood of North Beach is known for it's authentic Italian restaurants. If you want a quality Italian meal, it's where you go. When you want good Mexican food, you go to a neighborhood like the Mission. Earlier this week I discovered the exception to this rule. We went to Don Pisto's (510 Union Street) in North Beach and it was an amazing experience. The restaurant may be a little hard to find, as there's no sign on the exterior, but once you walk into the brick building, it is bustling and filled with enticing aromas. The interior is brick with rustic heavy wood furniture. This fits with their Mexican street food offerings, infused with a little Baja peninsula style. To the right when you walk in, is the bar, offering tasty, unique spins on sangria and margaritas. Don Pisto's doesn't have a liquor license, which may be an issue for other Mexican restaurants (who doesn't love their tequila), but not Don Pisto's. They make their margaritas with wine, which makes them really refreshing and less harsh on the head the next morning.

Right when you get seated at a table, a fresh order of chips and salsa are brought to the table. I love their green salsa, as it's heavy on the cilantro and jalapeno (two of my favorite ingredients!). We ordered a side of guacamole to go with the chips, which didn't disappoint. Other appetizers we sampled included the ahi-style tuna, which was fresh and flavorful. We ordered the whole lobster, which comes with all the fixings to make mini lobster burritos. The butter sauce it comes with is dangerously good. We also ordered a plate of the oysters. Now, before I lived in California, I wasn't an oyster fan but since being here I have changed my mind. All the oysters I've had recently, included Don Pisto's, are succulent and go down smooth. There's not a hint of sand of grittiness, which can be found in cheaper oysters. For the "main course" (which I say with amusement because by this point I'm already stuffed full), we sampled the majority of their tacos. We had the carne asada, carnitas, pescado and al pastor tacos. I'm always a fan of carnitas tacos and they were all good, but I think my favorite was the al pastor. The grilled rib chop is diced up with grilled pineapple, creating the perfect sweet and savory balance. I will definitely be eating at Don Pisto's again. I heard that they are actually know for their hamburguesa, which seems like an odd choice to order at a Mexican restaurant, but it's suppose to be amazing.

A bar without alcohol

And no, just because I live in California, I'm not talking about oxygen bars. Last Saturday night I went to drybar, a blow dry bar. Apparently this fad is huge in LA and Southern California and is working its way up the coast. I actually had the owner for my blowout and she's from the O.C. The drybar  in San Francisco is on Fillmore and they advertise "No cuts. No color. Just blowouts. Only $35." Walking in, I was blown away by the cuteness of the place. The blowout stations are lined up along a long white bar. Everything in there is white with bright yellow accents. Sex & the City was playing on the TV. You get offered cucumber or strawberry-infused water. I waited on a comfy white chair next to a table with a vase of yellow roses. When you start, they take you to a back room to get your hair washed. For an extra $10, you can get a "floater" which is a scalp massage. After getting back to your station, you flip through a picture-book "menu" and pick which blowout you want. The options are straight up, mai tai (messy, beachy), southern comfort (big volume with curls), cosmopolitan (loose curls) or sleek & smooth. They also do a Shirley Temple blowout for kids and offer updos. I got the cosmopolitan and loved it. I think this may be my favorite new form of self-pampering. It would be a fun activity to do with a group of girlfriends before a big night out. My only qualm was that I though it would last longer but halfway through the night, it had changed significantly and my hair usually holds curl pretty well. But overall, a wonderful experience and I will definitely be back again. They take about 20-30 minutes. Just make sure to schedule an appointment. Saturdays can be booked solid and the lady I had said she'd probably done 100 blowouts that day!

An Tribute to Harry Potter

Sorry I haven't been very good at posting lately! I've been busy having the boyfriend watch every one of the Harry Potter movies so we can go see the new one together. We're almost through all of them and I'm so excited to see the new one but so sad it's the last one. It's breaking all kinds of box office records. So I thought I would do a little tribute to Harry Potter and run through the movies.

 

1. HP & the Sorcerer's Stone (book: 1997, movie: 2001): Look how cute and little they are! Both the boys are rocking bowl cuts.

 

2. HP & the Chamber of Secrets (book: 1998, movie: 2002): The baby fat is starting to disappear but Ron's still got his cute ruddy face.

3. HP& the Prisoner of Azkaban (book: 1999, movie: 2004): They're slowly starting to grow up. It's the beginning of the awkward "tween" phase.

4. HP & the Goblet of Fire (book: 2000, movie: 2005): I'm not sure who thought it would be a good idea to let HP have shaggy hair for this one. And I had to include a picture of Robert Pattinson as Cedric Diggory, before the Twilight franchise corrupted him.

5. HP& the Order of the Phoenix (book: 2003, movie: 2007): They're right at the awkward phase in this one. Hermoine is aging gracefully, the boys have a rough time getting through puberty.

6. HP & the Half Blood Prince (book: 2005, movie: 2009): They made it through puberty and are all grown up! Things in the book and movie start to get pretty dark.

7. HP & the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (book: 2007, movie: 2010): The gang's on the run and the sexual tension between Ron and Hermoine that's been building for the last 6 books reaches a peak.

7.5. HP & the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (movie: 2011) : I haven't seen it yet but I'm excited!! Looking back on how they grew up is kind of amazing.

Do you Shabu?

Until I moved to San Francisco, I'd never heard of shabu-shabu. Basically, it's the Japanese version of fondue, only more savory and not sweet. You cook vegetables and thinly sliced meat in a hot pot of boiling broth. Since we live next to Japantown, we see a lot of these restaurants around, but didn't try one until earlier this week. We actually went outside of Japantown to Inner Richmond, to try the new place, Shabu Pub. Shabu Pub (3809 Geary Blvd) has a fun ambiance, with lots of lanterns and bright colors. It gets a little warm inside, with a hot pot boiling at every table and at the bar. The first issue was apparent when we first came in, that they were severely understaffed. When we got seated at the bar, it turned out our server didn't really speak English. I get it, it's a Japanese authentic restaurant, but we had no idea what we were doing to see just had to peak around and try and figure out what other people were doing. We both got the combo meat plates, with slices of lamb, ribeye beef and short rib. Each meat plate comes with a large bowl of vegetables and noodles, which are also Japanese so I'm not exactly sure what some of the root veggies were. You also get to choose a flavor of broth, so we got a combination of spicy miso and Mongolian style. After asking the people sitting next to us, we found out that because the meat is so thinly sliced than you only have to have it in the pot for 10 seconds, or until it is not longer red. After that, it was a pretty fun experience (I mean, it's fun-due really). It's definitely messy to eat and not first date material. There's sesame and soy dipping sauces. I read that shabu-shabu should be served with a bowl of white rice, but they don't bring you one unless you ask for it. The meal ends with a choice of either green tea or chocolate ice cream. I wouldn't recommend getting a drink there, as I ordered a glass of brut and it didn't come until I had already started eating and was served in a soda glass over ice. Shabu-shabu was a fun experience, but I'm not sure if we'll do it again any time soon.

The most amazing restaurant in the Mission!

Last Friday night we had dinner at my new favorite restaurant in San Francisco. My new love is Lolo in the Mission district, located at 3230 22nd Street. The restaurant serves contemporary spins on Latin inspired food. They have wine on tap, sparkling sangria, small plates of amazing food, oh and did I mention WINE ON TAP?? The ambiance is fun, lively and colorful.

Getting to the food (oh the food), for veggies dishes we started with the grilled artichokes, coated in olive oil and Hawaiian black salt, with a mint aioli for dipping. The simple salt seasoning with the grilled flavors was absolutely clean and perfect. The other veggies dish we got was fried brussel sprouts, shallots and hazelnuts in a zinfandel vinaigrette. They were maybe some of the best brussel sprouts I've ever had and I like my brussel sprouts. The whole hazelnuts added a great crunch. On Yelp, everyone raved about the sparkling sangria and the crab tostadas, so of course we had both. The crab tostadas were Chris's favorite part of the meal, with chorizo, leeks, fried dungeness crab, sandia aioli and avocado puree on a crispy shell.We also had the taco tropical, which I think may be my favorite, although it's hard to choose. It consists of panko and spice-dusted shrimp, topped with tropical mango relish and spicy aioli. Instead of a tortilla, it was served on a slice of leek which added the perfect watery crunch. Last but not least we ate the gorditas, blue corn masa pockets filled with braised short ribs, roasted three chile sauce and pickled onions. For dessert we had the apple wontons, drizzled with strawberry sauce and a side of Mexican vanilla ice cream.

Everything is pretty well priced, although with small plates and so many options, it's definitely easy to run up quite a tab. The only downside was that the service wasn't terribly attentive. The people at the bar next to us got this amazing looking dish, so we inquired what it was and found out they had a nightly special that we were never told about. In fact it turned out only one couple in the area near us had been told about the special. Also, it gets pretty busy, so get there early, have a reservation or be prepared to wait. But it is definitely worth the wait...

Just something that blows my mind....

As I get more and more into the world of planning Online media, it continues to blow my mind how much time people spend on the Internet everyday across the planet. But who could blame us, pretty much everything you could ever want or need is available just a click away....

Where to eat late night in Chinatown

Last Friday night at 2am we ventured to Chinatown in search of late night food. A friend took us to this super small joint, which is apparently well-known and can have a line of cabs out front at 3am on a weekend. The place we went is Sam Wo (813 Washington St). It's this tiny little storefront that could be easily missed by people strolling by. When  you enter, you have to walk through the kitchen and up the stairs to a small dining area with a closet-sized restroom. Apparently it's been endorsed by Conan and Martha Stewart (Sam Wo commercial), which is pretty hilarious. The menu has a lot of options and everything is super cheap. It wasn't as greasy as some of the more low-end Chinese food I've had, so that made me feel better the next morning. The BBQ pork rice noodle rolls are amazing. I hadn't had rice noodle rolls before and am definitely a fan. The noodles are thicker than you would imagine and it reminded me almost like one of those Asian sticky buns, but not as sweet. Make sure to get the spicy mustard for dipping but watch out, it's not messing around!

We also tried the wonton soup, house chow mein and a dish not on the menu (duck and egg over rice). The rolls were what stood out. Everything else what you would expect for cheap food. But it's a fun place to go and hang out late night. 

Here's wishing you a patriotic Caturday!