Updates!

My goal to stay sane while studying for the MCAT is to update this blog once a week, no more, no less.

You'll notice I made it a little easier to navigate. On the right hand side I've grouped entries based on cuisine and meal types. You can also subscribe or follow the blog (and make me very happy) by showing your love and commenting or becoming a "fan."

Any suggestions for how to make this site more accessible will actually be considered.

Procrastinate Much?

I spend a lot of time surfing the interwebs. Sorry, Mom and Dad, but in-between studying my butt off and over-spending on eating out, I waste a ton of time. All is not lost; I feel as though I've been able to come up with a pretty reliable list of go-to's on the internet.

Bored? Tired of pressing reload and waiting for me to update my blog (all...three...of you...)? So I won't stress so much about posting new blogs all the time for my wide readership, I'm linking to some of my friends' sites that are getting up and running:

Erik is a science writer and has some fun articles posted on his new webpage: www.erikvance.com.

My friend Anna is getting her fictional blog up and running at: lezcity.blogspot.com.

Nnekay has a great thing going with her stories about being a librarian: www.nnekay.com.

Adventures in news photography written by the always hilarious Chris: photocalypse.blogspot.com.

The entertaining musings of a foodie dieter are posted by fellow Bourdain-lover Leanne at: mshappysteak.blogspot.com.


And of course, a few mainstays that aren't written by my friends that I think everyone should take a look at:

Dissing Food Network: www.foodnetworkhumor.com
Best of Craigslist: www.craigslist.org/about/best/all/
Passive Aggressive Notes: www.passiveaggressivenotes.com
Most Delicious/Worst Looking Food Ever: www.thisiswhyyourefat.com
My Favorite Comic Strip: www.nataliedee.com

Get it together, Michael Bauer!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=26&entry_id=36319

For those of you who didn't receive or read my overly enthusiastic email, my letter to Michael Bauer made it into the Chronicle the other day!

I'm currently on a search for authentic Japanese noodles. I want real ramen in a murky, white pork broth that's been simmered for days, served with chili oil, bamboo shoots and pork. I want fresh cold soba and cold udon served with hot, salty, concentrated broth to dip the noodles into.

I don't want the bland, dry pork tenderloin that's served over the non-house-made noodles from O Chame that come in a fusiony yet bland seafood broth. I want real Japanese comfort food.

When I first dissed O Chame some angry peruser wrote that I just have no taste in food and want something laced with MSG. I deleted it because like so many things in the world, this blog is NOT a democracy and I only post the comments I like. That said, I'll address their issue. Sure, I've been known to love many terrible restaurants that probably allow their meat to swim in MSG. But, I also know what good, flavorful, authentic broth can taste like without it. I want authentic Japanese noodle soup. O Chame doesn't cut it. While they do have some good qualities to their food, M. Bauer needs to stop referring to them as a noodle house.

I'm looking forward to trying some of the places that these readers suggested. Anyone out there aside from my family reading this? Got anything to weigh in on? I miiiiiiiight just publish your response.

Little Plearn, Berkeley

It's about time for a negative review...Andy had never had Thai food before, and Zoey and I were in the mood so we decided to take him out. This was before the days of my distrust in Yelp, so we decided to go to Little Plearn, "the best Thai food in Berkeley!" Little did we know what was in store for us.

I don't care if it was an off-night for their cook, the food that we had was inexcusable, as was the service. The girl who served us seemed to not be able to care less as to what we ordered, and didn't give us any suggestions for food when we asked. Eventually, we went with chicken satay, pad thai, and a chicken curry dish.

After waiting forever, Zoey and I got our Thai iced tea, which was thicker than usual and also sweeter. I was only able to drink about half of it before already starting to feel full.

Then, our underwhelming chicken satay came. Ignoring the annoyingly and borderline retarded couple behind us who kept saying, "oh my god I can't believe how authentic this place is," we dug in.

The chicken was dry and burned on the edges, and totally flavorless. The peanut sauce, which I usually look forward to, was thick and tasted like it had sweet cream in it. Not good. The creamy flavor took over the entire sauce so it didn't even taste like it had peanuts in it. Maybe there was peanut extract, if that exists?

Despite ordering our pad thai "spicy," it was overwhelmingly sweet and had no chili flavor in the slightest. I realize that pad thai is probably the most westernized dish of them all, but the waitress was no help in that area. The noodles stuck together, and there were about a pound of green onions in the dish. Plus, the limes that were served with them were dried up and when squeezed produced nothing.

The last dish that we ordered was a yellow curry with chicken. I've made a similar dish according to what my mom told me to do over the phone ("just throw some curry in a pot with oil and veggies"), and it came out better than this. Again, the sauce was overly sweet and had no spice to it. Aside from a few pieces of chicken, there were maybe three carrots and two bites of potato.

If the sauce had been delicious, that would have been okay, but it wasn't. Even the rice was terrible--it was mushy and stuck together. Yep, we were still hungry, and no, we didn't want to try dessert. Not that we were asked.

The most entertaining part of the night was the fact that we ended up having about three bags of leftovers because none of us could eat the food. Zoey and I felt bad putting it to waste so we thought we'd bag it up and give it to a homeless person. Apparently the homeless in Berkeley aren't hungry--we walked around for about thirty minutes and NO ONE wanted the food.

Thank you, Little Plearn, for a terrible dinner, overpriced food, a little bit of exercise in downtown Berkeley, starting my distrust of Yelp, and a reality check as to the eating habits of the Berkeley homeless.

Scott Spencer's House, Piedmont

I have probably bragged to most of you that my buddy Scott catered my BBQ a little while ago for only $2.50 per person, and that the food was amazing. Well, he is now currently working at Town Hall in San Francisco and decided to spend some of his newly earned money on his friends, cooking a five course meal for eight of us.

As I told Scott, I wouldn't be writing him up in my blog if I wasn't impressed with his food. Instead, I'd just continue reviewing some of the other restaurants I've eaten at and not mention him. Scott really is that good.

In exchange for all of us bringing wine, the occasion being for our friend Kranzthor's last night living in the East Bay, Patton and I showed up at Scott's house in Piedmont at around 7:15. He had already been hard at work all day, planning, prepping, and re-planning our menu. The focus was going to be on using the highest quality ingredients, cooking them perfectly, and arranging them beautifully. I am getting increasingly angry at myself for not bringing a camera to this meal.

All eight of us sat down and took turns playing waiter, bringing in food from the kitchen while Scott cooked. Our first course was two mini-courses. The first that I will describe was an heirloom tomato and watermelon salad with honey champagne vinaigrette. When Scott first told me about this combination, I was really, really skeptical. And wrongly so.

Two ripe heirloom tomato slices, fresh from Scott's garden, were cut into squares and stacked with two slices of sweet, crunchy watermelon of identical size and shape. The green vinaigrette was drizzled lightly on top. Again, reading this you might be doubtful, but somehow the two textures and flavors melded perfectly; the sweetness of the watermelon enhanced the tomato's flavor, and the crunchy watermelon texture contrasted with the tomato's firmness. I couldn't stop eating it, despite the fresh hamachi tuna that sat next to it on my plate.

The hamachi tuna, flown in fresh from Japan that morning, was cut sashimi-style and topped with a smoked salmon beurre blanc flambe. It was my turn to play waiter during that course, so I got to see Scott take a torch and lightly brown the top of the sauce.

The tuna was melt-in-your-mouth good. It had a smooth, sweet but savory taste that one can only understand after having ridiculously fresh fish. The sauce was smooth and tasted strongly of smoked salmon. My only critique on this dish is that I would have liked to have had less sauce on the fish. The two flavors worked together nicely, so I wouldn't want to get rid of all of the sauce, but I would have liked to have had just a dot of it. That way, the salmon flavor would have enhanced the fish and allowed us to really taste the tuna.

Next on the menu was salt and pepper calamari with a fresh tomato and kaffir lime leaf cocktail sauce. My only complaint was that this was on the menu. I do like calamari, but it didn't exactly fit in with the whole feel of the meal. Fresh grilled squid would have fit in fine, but unfortunately, fried calamari was a request by our guest of honor. Needless to say, Scott was up to the challenge of cooking Kranzthor's favorite food. The calamari was lightly dusted in flour and nicely seasoned with salt and pepper. The tomato cocktail sauce had a great kick to it and a really unique flavor from the kaffir lime leaves.

Our third course was one of my favorites: a roasted heirloom tomato tart with caramelized onions, garlic confit, and basil sauce. The tart was very buttery and flaky, one of my favorite textures. Scott said he had been roasting the tomatoes all day, and it showed. They were rich, garlicky, and delicious. Patton doesn't even like onions, but I noticed that she scarfed down her tart just like the rest of us!

My favorite course, however, was the main course--the duck. I've said many times how the only duck I will eat is the Chinese-style roast duck. On Thursday night I added a second duck to my list. The duck breast was seared and served on a bed of baby carrots, artichokes, and green beans with a port and dried cherry mustardo.

Since the duck breast was seared, it stayed very moist. The meat was tender and the skin kept crunchy with just the right amount of fat on it. I thought that the vegetables that Scott chose to prepare it with were also cooked perfectly, and I liked the selection. In many restaurants, I have seen duck served on a bed of spinach, which completely ruins the flavor of the duck and makes the skin soggy.

In this case, the vegetables were lightly cooked, still crunchy, and very colorful. The thing that pulled everything together was the sauce. At first it tasted a lot like hoisin (Chinese plum sauce) sauce, which I have always loved on duck. But then, after another bite, I tasted the tartness of the dried cherries, which just added even more to the flavor. I liked the sauce so much that I even took my vegetables and started dipping them into it.

Our last course was dessert, which was a nilla wafer bread pudding with root beer syrup (homemade!) and homemade vanilla ice cream. This, as with all of the other courses, was delicious. I usually don't even like bread pudding, but this was great! As I shoveled mine into my mouth at record pace I began to get a little embarrassed until I looked around and noticed that everyone else was doing the same thing.

Now here comes the fun part. You can get Scott to cater for you, too! He's the self-proclaimed cheapest caterer/chef in the Bay Area (I can attest to that), who cares more about the integrity of the food and honing his skills than taking your money.

Scott is great at discussing menus and figuring out what works for his client (i.e., "I don't want to spend a lot of money but I want gourmet food." --me). He can be reached via email: mrspencer@gmail.com, but it's probably easier just to call him at (510) 301-2130.

Please help the WCC!!!

I normally don't do this, and I'm sure that PAP smears are the last thing you want to think about when looking at a food blog. However, desperate times call for desperate measures.

At one point in my life I was a huge advocate for Gavin Newsom. Mostly because he is hot but also because he spoke at the UCSF Young Women's Health Conference and consistently donated money to the Women's Community Clinic. Unfortunately, his hotness does not trump the fact that he cut the Women's Community Clinic out of his budget this year!

In one fell swoop, the clinic that I volunteer at, the WCC, lost 20% of its funding. We are all actively writing and emailing the San Francisco Budget Committee members.

Before I go into how I would LOVE you all to help, let me tell you a bit about the clinic that Mayor Newsom so heartlessly cut the funding for.

The Women's Community Clinic, known well in my family for creating the uterus sweatshirt that I wear everyday, is a FREE reproductive health clinic in San Francisco that provides personal, client-centered, informative care to all uninsured women who walk through our door (or younger women who do not want to go through their insurance for confidentiality reasons).

Not only is everyone at the WCC committed to providing exceptional care to our patients, they also put an extraordinary amount of effort into the training of their volunteers. I, as a volunteer at the clinic, have undergone over 40 hours of reproductive health training, which allows me to do client intake, teach women about birth control options, and provide information regarding sexually transmitted infections. Soon, they will be paying for me to go to a week long training in San Francisco that will get me state certified to counsel for and administer HIV tests.

During my training with the WCC, I learned a lot about meeting clients "where they are at" and about providing information to clients in a non-judgmental way. Our passion for our clients' health even seems to rub off on them, just take a look at our Yelp! page:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/CojgU6g_ApTlfgPmkwWmqw

We also have a website:

http://www.womenscommunityclinic.org/

Now, on to what you can do to help:

If you live in San Francisco, find out who your supervisor is by visiting http://www.sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp?id=4385 or Google: San Francisco Board of Supervisors District Information. Then, please write them a letter and send it via snail mail AND email. Please see below for a sample letter.

Even if you don't live in San Francisco (I don't but I'm writing anyway!), please write a letter and send it via snail mail AND email, to Supervisors Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano, Bevan Dufty, Ross Mirkarimi, and Sean Elsbernd. These supervisors are all members of the Budget Committee. If you write to Ross, please start by thanking him for all of his support of the Women’s Community Clinic.

And now, a sample letter. Please feel free to just copy this, or add whatever you like. When sending emails, please copy all emails to our Clinic Director, Carlina Hansen, at carlina@womenscommunityclinic.org. If you need stamps, please contact me and I will gladly set you up with a set of envelopes and stamps:

[Date]
[Supervisor Name]
1 Carlton B Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102

Dear Supervisor,

I am writing to urge you to restore funding to the Women’s Community Clinic in the amount of $202,785. I am a (supporter, patient, volunteer, board member, staff person) at the Women’s Community Clinic. This funding was approved by the Health Commission to be awarded every year for 4.5 years starting in 2006. Despite this approval, this funding has been cut after one year. [Information about your relationship to the Clinic here and why the City should support us]. The loss of these funds will seriously endanger the 4709 health care visits we provide with this funding to women who would otherwise lack access to care.

The Clinic is providing a vital service to the community by providing free health care services to approximately 2000 women per year and harm reduction based street outreach services to approximately 500 women each year. The Women’s Community Clinic has provided these services to the community since 1999. Each year the Clinic has grown in the number of women they see and in the services that they offer. The Clinic serves women who lack health insurance, 60% of whom fall below 100% of the federal poverty level and the remainder of whom fall below 200% of federal poverty level. The majority of these women fall between the ages 20-35 and their only access point for health care is the care they receive for their sexual and reproductive health needs. The Clinic provides 5000 appointments per year to 2000 women – for many of our clients, the Clinic is their primary care provider. The Clinic is a vital access point for these women to receive much needed care – care that would otherwise be deferred and fall on the City to provide. In many cases, the Clinic is saving women from costly visits to the SFGH emergency department.

The Clinic prides itself on its resourcefulness and peer based, client centered model of care. It relies on over 100 volunteers to provide health care services. Volunteers come from all over the community and are health care providers; RNs, NPs, MDs and acupuncturists in addition to lay volunteers who provide outreach services, health education and act as medical assistants and medical office administrators. They donate more than $300,000 in time each year! Clients consistently comment on how amazing these women are and over 97% of our clients rate their experience at the Clinic as “Excellent” or “Very Good.”

While the Women’s Community Clinic has been successful in fundraising from private sources and leveraging volunteer support, they would NOT be able to do what they do without the support of the City. They receive NO other City funding; the City should support agencies that are efficiently run and who can maximize the return on the City’s investment. They rely heavily on these funds to provide direct health care services to women. I urge you to support this funding being added back to the City’s budget. This is a time that the City is sending a clear statement to the public that health care for the uninsured and underinsured is a priority, it is NOT the time to de-stabilize our provider network. I urge you to continue to manifest this commitment and to support the Women’s Community Clinic in its provision of health care services to women in need.

Sincerely,

[Your Name and affiliation, if appropriate]

Cafe Gratitude, Berkeley

Guest Wannabe Food Critic (I actually conned her into writing this): Zoey! Zoey is my younger sister who is currently a student at Cal. I think she's becoming a better writer than I am.

“We invite you to step inside and enjoy being someone who chooses: loving your life, adoring yourself, accepting the world, being generous and grateful everyday, and experiencing being provided for. Have fun and enjoy being nourished. Welcome to Café Gratitude.”

In commemoration of my friend Theo’s 20th birthday, a group of us shared a table at Café Gratitude in Berkeley for a “celebration of aliveness.” The restaurant boasts organic ingredients that “honor the earth and ourselves” and food that “is prepared with love.” When invited, I had no idea what kind of restaurant it was. Running late, with double chocolate cake in hand (from Virginia Bakery), I bolted through the door to find a half-dressed pregnant woman swinging her blonde dreadlocks to the music, the overwhelming scent of wheatgrass being grinded, and Theo adorned with all his friends sitting around a shared table.

Café Gratitude is a vegetarian restaurant that specializes in organic, vegan (no animal products – this includes eggs and milk), and live foods (food, drinks, and supplements that have not been heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit). However, the young coconut is not always organic; you must ask – how dare they? The soups are served warm, the pizza not baked, and the coffee cold pressed.

They encourage you to share tables and to read through their very extensive menu. Everything is labeled with a clever and yet embarrassing titles of gratitude: “I am Heroic” gets you a quinoa salad tossed with parsley, mint, and cucumbers served with a lemon dressing ($8). “I am Fabulous” is a faux pad thai made of kale noodles (thinly sliced raw kale), cucumbers, tomatoes, sprouts, teriyaki almonds, and almond butter thai sauce ($12). “I am Rich” provides you with a mixture of orange, carrot, beet, and lemon juice ($7).

To order, the server asked me a pleasant “how are you feeling today?” to which I responded an embarrassing “I am sensational and beautiful.” For those of you who have not memorized the entire six page menu, I ordered a live pesto pizza ($10) with fresh basil hemp seed pesto sauce and olive tapenade served on a buckwheat and sunflower seed flatbread (raw toast) sprinkled with cashew ricotta and brazil nut parmesan (grated nuts). I also had a creamsicle milkshake ($7.50) with orange juice and vanilla soft serve (made of organic nut milk, dates, and vanilla bean).

The food took an incredible amount of time to prepare considering there was no cooking, baking, or steaming involved. When my server returned she looked at me and announced in an overly enthusiastic voice, “you are sensational and beautiful!” and set down my pizza and milkshake in front of me. The pizza resembled two slices of hearty bread sprinkled with chopped tomatoes, sprouts, and grated nuts. The mixes of “cheeses” and bitter sprouts combined with stiff bread made it incredibly hard for me to enjoy ingredients that I usually find so decent on their own--cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, and brazil nuts. It was hard to chew and even harder to swallow. The milkshake seemed to be a refreshing break from my jaw workout of a pizza, but I was left with an uncomfortable, unpleasant nutty and gritty aftertaste.

In honor of Theo’s birthday the host, servers, and “cooks” sang an enthusiastic “happy birthday” – taken from the Beatles’s rendition – and presented him with a free slice of raw cake. Although we had prepared to eat the chocolate cake from Virginia Bakery, it was cooked and therefore not kosher to eat on Café Gratitude’s untarnished plates and flatware. Sad.
After wiping my mouth on my 100% recycled hemp napkin I left Café Gratitude having survived my dining experience somewhat unscathed. I felt ripped off having spent $17.50 for an uncooked meal that resembled rabbit food and left me with my stomach grumbling, but happy with myself for being able to plug my nose and down my entire smoothie.

If I am to recommend something, maybe a salad is a safe bet. Although I entered the restaurant with “I am Sensational” and “I am Beautiful,” I left with the following feelings:

I am not satisfied.
I am not fulfilled.
I am not celebrating.
I am not as “Berkeley” as I thought.
But, I am beautiful.

Café Gratitude is located at 1730 Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley (one block from the not so certified organic Virginia Bakery). It is open 10 AM to 10 PM everyday.

Just for Fun

I've been looking all over for a place with good sides AND bbq, which no one seems to think exists. I was excited when I saw that a place called Looney's SmokeHouse BBQ opened up on Oxford at Bancroft. It looked like it might be a fun place, but I was skeptical after seeing a huge line after they first opened, and then walking by a week later to see the place empty. After checking out my faithful review site, www.yelp.com, I don't think I'll be going, but some of the posts were too funny not to pass on:

"I was expecting good BBQ. Granted the meat they served was cooked correctly, but it came covered in this awful, chunky, spicy salsa kinda of stuff. I was dumbfounded. I was pissed. I eventually took it home, rinsed it and added KC masterpiece, much better."

"So, I just back to my apt as fast as I can post this warning to prevent any of you from going there. This is by far the nastiest, driest, bland-tasting ribs I have EVER eaten."

"I had a brisket sandwich there a few weeks ago. It had fairly large chunks of fat on it, and was pretty tough. The cole slaw looked like kimchi. None of my co-workers enjoyed their food, either. Oh, and there were flies all over the place.
The server was pretty confused, and couldn't be found when we wanted our check.
I'm never going back there."

"I give them 1/2 point for the good mac & cheese & the crowd of people working at this joint & the big TV screen. I would have given them 5 stars for the beers on tap and if they didn't serve food fired all the employees."

So I guess we shouldn't be eating at Looney's...