The Slanted Door

The Slanted Door
1 FERRY bldg.
#3
San Francisco, Ca.
94111


First a small disclaimer, my daughter spilled her juicebox into my keyboard a while back, so I may get a couple of "DOUBLE CAPITALS" while the shift button decides to release itself from it's sticky grave and re-exhume itself on occasion.
NOW, my rather wealthy in laws decided to take us out to the Slanted Door on San Francisco's wonderfully (re?) developed Embarcadero. My wife & I each brought a pair of decent clothes on our vacation for such an occasion, but we got unexpectedly scooped up at my aunt's place. So as we walked into the swanky front bar / reception area, I felt like a pauper of sorts. We were toting along a 2 year old child which was met with a tolerant grimace from the hostess. As she led us to our Large-Marge seating in the very back corner of the restaurant, past all the black turtlenecks, I was feeling like this would not be such a great fit. I kept thinking of the Woody Woodpecker cartoon where the City Wolf invited his country Cousin to the city. Maybe you remember that one....
In retrospect, the corner was the absolute best place for us. We had the glass windows towards the bay on one side and a large plate glass wall enclosing a private dining room on the other. My daughter had a perfect little zone to roam around in and not escape. Plus I though it was hilarious every time she would knock on the windows of the private dining room. The exclusive party in there was getting off on seeing us common folk pressed up against the glass, staring in at their private luxury.
THose of you who perused my Third Ward Cafe blog may recall my amazement at the casual blowing of lots of money there. The Slanted Door had the same vibe, but on a much larger scale. This was just a casual place to go out if you were freekin RICH. My sense of what is considered formal is obviously skewed from watching too many Jeeves & Wooster episodes. I mean, if this place isn't considered formal what is??
All ranting aside, the food was some of the best I've ever tasted. Now, I'll let you link to the website posted above for the full story, which IS interesting and doesn't bear repeating here. The Slanted Door's menu has a Vietnamese-fusion theme, but the dishes we ordered were strongly influenced by CHinese cookery instead.
We started off with several appetizers. First up was the barbecued Niman Ranch pork spareribs with honey-hoisin sauce ($13). These had an obvious CHinese pedigree. Let me say, this was one of the best dishes I have ever tasted in my life. The freshness and quality of the locally produced, organically raised pok was fantastic. They were prepared to perfection and the sauce was a masterful combination of sweet & savory.
Next up was kabocha squash rice cakes with fresh coconut and sesame ($11). The small bite sized rice cakes were topeed with pureed squash, coconut and chopped herbs such as cilantro. This was probably the most Vietnamese inspired dish we ordered, but the coconut-milk soaked rice cakes also reminded me of South Indian CHAT style snack foods.
The entrees were served family style and all arrived at once, as requested. More Chinese style fare arrived in the form of chicken claypot with caramel sauce, chilies and fresh ginger ($16) The Bubbling-hot sauce was full of complex flavor and the freshness of the chicken was excellent...well worth the price.
cellophane noodles with fresh dungeness crab meat ($18) was a bit of a disappointment. I detected very little, if any, crab meat and the noodles were drenched in sesame oil and seemingly very little else. I could have made this dish in my Riverwest kitchen for about 35 cents. Incidentally, the cents sign is not included on a keyboard any more. Also... Blackberry's have a specially located shift key exclusively for the dollar sign. Incidentally, I'd never seen as many Blackberry's in one place as I saw on the corner of FIllmore & Union in Pacific Heights.
Our main entree, steamed whole striped bass with ginger, scallion and soy ($33) was a fantastic specimen. I am assuming the striped bass was farmed in some ecologically guiltless fashion, but no pedigree was supplied. Nevertheless I had a swell time stuffing my proletariat face with this dish. THe creamy flesh was succulent and deeply infused with the flavors of it's undoubtedly Chinese inspired ingredients.
Star Route Farm baby spinach with garlic and caramelized shallots ($11) was our choice for a vegetable accompaniment. It was much like the snow pea-pod greens that can be found on virtually any chinese restaurant menu. The spinach was wilted in a wok with sesame oil & minced garlic. Surely I was the only one looking at the price tag. I should relax, I'm on vacation, right???
Several interesting beverages were consumed such as Affligem tripel creamy, strong Belgian abbey ale (750 ml [$12]) You can do the metric / U.S. conversion math, but I will say that this bottle of beer was about level with my forhead as it sat on the table. Interestingly, it was served in a wine glass. I expected a Chimay style footed goblet, instead.
The Elderflower spritzer [seltzer sisters' soda water with Nikolaihof biodynamic elderflower syrup] ($4) required a wetting of the whistle after merely pronouncing it's name. It was served over ice in a frosted highball glass. Elderflower has a Lychee-like taste, but it was mixed in such a way as to not be overly sweet, PHEW, I need another drink.
We declined on desert and deferred to GHIRARDELLI SQUARE, where I pigged out on a DOMINGO. But that of course, is another blog.
All told, we had a splendid evening at the Slanted Door. The food was excellent Our worries of bringing a child to a seemingly adult establishment was washed away in it's surprisingly egalitarian atmosphere. And last but not least, the service was friendly, prompt and detail oriented to an impressive degree for such a large establishment.
Many people back at home had, to my amazement, heard of this fine establishment. The Slanted Door is worthy of their good reputation. I'm going to recommend it as a must-visit if you go to San Francisco.

Pancho Villa Taqueria

Pancho Villa Taqueria
3071 16TH ST,
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.
94103

"The enlargement of the burrito to humongous, Americanized proportions may be the Mission's supreme contribution to Western civilization..."

John Krich, 'San Francisco's Real Mission'

Well, the whole fam-Damnily went on a whale watching trip in Monterrey and we ALL got seasick. Not just our party of seven, mind you, but every paying passenger on board. Even the co-captain was sick by the end of it.
I got a bad feeling about the tour right from the start. The other, more expensive whale watching tour company in town was a bona fide outfit. They had a big, cushy ferryboat looking thing that cruised by us out of the harbor. Meanwhile, our bargain $35 tour was a hack attempt to gain some revenue off an unused fishing vessel. It featured the "SEA WOLF II"... a craft similar to the one used in the last scene of JAWS.
The trip started off innocently enough, we coasted out of the harbor past the break wall full of precocious sea lions. We glided past schools of sea bass and jellyfish. However, after we passed the marine layer, we began to encounter extremely large sea swells. The SEA WOLF II was tossed about like a plastic duck in the spray. I felt like I was in the SEARS TOWER express elevator jockeying between the 1st & 10th floors over & over & over & over again.
The only two passengers that didn't get ill were the Marine biologists aboard. They narrated the tour. They were some kind of freaks of nature which inspired the thought: 'Many a Ms. America hopeful has dreamed of becoming a marine biologist only to have their dreams dashed in a bout of sickness aboard the SEA WOLF II'.
As I sat on a bench with my head slumped to the side, one of the biologists approached me and said, "You're missing the whales! They're over there at 3 O'clock!!" I leered at him from underneath half closed eyelids and reminded myself under my breath 'That's right, we ARE here to see whales aren't we?' I summoned up my ears & stomach and stumbled to the railing as the SEA WOLF swung hard to starboard. The sea sickness became more pronounced as the boat ground to a halt. The humpback whales were disappointing black semicircles about 200 yards away. I thought we would be right alongside them, petting the big critters and pulling krill outta their freekin baleen. Note to self and anyone else who wants to listen: watch the whales on Public Television instead.
What does this all have to do with a San Francisco Mission taqueria? Please bear with me, I'm getting there. See, this whale of a tale is only the middle of the story. Before we even got to Monterrey, my sister in-law requested that we stop at a Vietnamese bakery in San Jose. This request was met with silence in the car. Nobody wanted to challenge my high maintenance legal relative, though we were all thinking the same thing: Vietnamese sandwiches aren't that great, and maybe we should pick up some more neutral food, at least out of respect for my 70 year old aunt who probably doesn't want to experience pork loaf with jalapenos right at this moment.
The awkward silence was broken by my sister in law defensively answering herself. She said 'the bread was very fresh there.' I had no doubt about that. It was the freshness of everything else in the sandwiches that concerned me. My Bro-in-law gritted his teeth, smiled at his wife and pulled off HWY 101 and made his way through heavy traffic to the Vietnamese strip mall.
I ordered two turkey sandwiches and one Chinese BBQ sandwich. They were all filled with the same mystery meat and mine had a strange pate' smeared across the yellowish - brown "turkey". I could not finish my sandwich and instead, I tried to eat one of the dim-sum-like vietnamese buns that my sis in law purchased. These consisted of the typical white bread - like outer dumpling and contained a tasty morsel of sausage, a piece of hard boiled egg and a not-so-tasty lump of chinese style sausage which I discarded.
The vision of the pate' was stuck in my head every time the SEA WOLF lurched off the crest of a wave. I returned to my seat as the boat suddenly jerked into motion. We picked up speed rather quickly & the biologists got all excited and busted out their cameras. Apparently we were following a large school of extremely rare Pacific White Sided Dolphins. One of the biologists sais she had never seen this species of dolphin in 25 years of observation. Just figures, right??? Seriously though, the dolphins were awesome. The boat picked up speed and the dolphins cruised right along side us. I didn't feel as seasick when we cruised along at 30 mph. BUT, I did feel like I wanted this trip to be done. The contents of my stomach, as well as 14 other kind folks, were evenly distributed across the greater monterrey Bay...
We finally returned to land and I nearly kissed the pelican ridden dock. Our family unit split up and my wife & daughter & I made it back to our SF hotel room. The next morning we woke up realizing that we had no food in our stomach for about 24 hours. I said "Why don't we go to the Mission & get a burrito???" So, alas, begins the end of my story. We boarded the #22 bus and headed to 16th & Valencia, the venerable heart of the SF Mission taqueria.
Back when I lived here in the early 90's, I loved going to eat in the Mission. I'd usually be as high as the Georgia pines and would head down there after band practice & snarf a Burrito and maybe a(n) HORCHATA. Once while walking down Mission after practice, my friend Clark & I saw someone quickly stumbling backwards out of a steep stairway. He fell backwards down onto the sidewalk, and then was shot with a .38 by someone chasing him down the stairs. We finished that evening by going to PANCHO VILLA.
It took me a minute to get my bearings as I hadn't been there in a good fifteen years, but AHHH-HA!!! there was PANCHO VILLA. It is easily distinguishable by its white stucco facade and tall windows with circular tops. The chairs are low slung leather stools and there is always a cook front & center doing a number on the steak griddle with two large cleavers. Although LA CUMBRE is arguably the original, PANCHO VILLA was always my favorite. It was even voted one of SF's best in BON APPETIT magazine.
Now, the San Francisco Mission Burrito is a serious affair. It even has it's own article at WIKIPEDIA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_burrito In additon, there are a number of serious blogs dedicated to the mission style burrito. Any fan of this blog should check out the BURRITO EATER web site http://www.burritoeater.com/ This site has reviewed hundreds of SF burritos and grades them on a complex scale using such categories as "BURSTAGE ABATEMENT" and "INTANGIBILITY BONUS POINTS".
We were extremely happy with our food due to our hunger. I ordered the SUPER VEGETARIAN BURRITO with PINTO BEANS, which consisted of rice, pintos, tomato, lettuce onion, avocado cheese & crema. My wife ordered the #1 COMBO w/ CHICKEN, which contained one flauta, one enchilada and one taco plus a side of rice & beans. We strolled to the back of the restaurant to the salsa bar & filled a couple of portion cups from the impressive variety. I remember being in total extasy as I devoured the savory dish. My daughter inhaled a good amount of rice, beans & tortilla as well.
Once I returned to Wisconsin, I was confused to find many negative reviews regarding PANCHO VILLA. Most of the complaints had to do with the food not being hot enough. Even a foodservice sanitation tracking website gave PANCHO VILLA low scores on keeping hot foods at the proper temperature http://www.cleanscores.com/168056/PANCHO+VILLA
Anyhow, I do not remember anything about the temperature of my food. All I know is that it was a superb dining experience, and as I held up my HORCHATA in a toast, we clinked our styrofoam cups together and said "Here's to dry land."