Woody Allen enjoys overpriced small plates in the Mission

Our pal Carlos saw someone who looked like Woody Allen in front of Esperpento at 22nd and Valencia. Turns out it was him, along with his wife Soon-Yi Previn, confirmed by the NY Post (whose logo font kinda looks like ours… coincidence?).

I smell field research for Vicky Cristina Barcelona II: Vicky Cristina San Francisco.

Update: Woah, Esperpento owner Carlos Muela, who’s apparently a good sport about my gratuitous “overpriced small plates” jab, just sent us this:

If there’s any good time to throw the devil horns, it’s when you’re taking a picture with Woody Allen.

Update 2: According to tablehopper, he’s in town filming a new, untitled movie with Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, and Louis C.K!

Countdown till a “Cate Blanchett having a beer at Zeitgeist” post.

Drink of the week: Magnolia’s “Tillie’s Union Ale” at Namu

Just had a jar of this golden ale made with rice, presumably to complement the quasi-Asian Namu menu. Magnolia brews some of the best beers in the city, so getting an exclusive from them is a pretty big deal. This bright, slightly bitter sunny-day ale is great for anyone who is sick of paying $9 for a 12 ounce bottle of Hitachino.

Halberstadt Fencers’ Club puts the Mission in the Olympics

Been watching the Olympics and looking to get in on the action?  Check out the Halberstadt Fencers’ Club on 17th and S. Van Ness, which besides having one of the raddest murals in the neighborhood also serves as the training grounds for local Olympian Alexander Massialas!  The next time your dumb jock friends try to tell you that everyone in the Mission sucks at sports, ask them if anyone from the Marina is in the Olympics.  Touche!

[Photo by JASON ANFINSEN]

Previously:

I guess this is one way to inform your lunch companion that the person to your right at the counter at St. Francis Fountain is problematic

Or maybe they were talking about the butter knife? Anyway, if you were being annoying at St. Francis this afternoon, you know who you are, I guess?

[via LLL]

Whimsical handbills on Mission Street: ‘I hate my fucking babysitter’ and ‘Lost 1996 Motorola Memo Xpress Pager’

These were submitted by Georgia McNamara via our Facebook timeline. See a few more here.

UPDATE: SFist spotted a similar bunch over in North Beach.

Escaped monkey on the loose!

The Fog Bender: Too High

Plastic bag street art

20120730-083642.jpg

There seems to be a new street art movement sweeping the neighborhood (or perhaps just 23rd St), and you’ve still got a chance to get in on the ground floor! And you don’t even have to have a real plastic bag–even a torn tortilla wrapper will do!

Whether it’s commentary on environmentalism (Greenland’s ice sheets are melting!) or consumerism (weren’t plastic bags outlawed in SF?), or merely the work of some bored homeless dude is up to you, but you’ve at least got to admire the variety here.

Also, FYI, none of these can be recycled in your apartment’s street-side bin (only HARD plastic can be), so tell your dumb housemates to stop throwing these in with the recycling!

Did you lose your bag about 20 feet above Cancun?

‘Cause I may have found it. Better go claim it before that window looky-loo figures out where it is.

On second thought, this could be the turning point in some really good story involving cat burglars, a mystical ankle bracelet found in a pawn shop, and roof people versus alley people.

La Boulange owner gets real on Tartine

Pascal Rigo, who just sold his bakery to Starbucks for $100 million (in other words, 10% of an Instragam), had some choice words for famed local bakery Tartine:

“[San Francisco] is the only place in the world where a bakery will make money by having bread at five o’clock in the afternoon. And it’s what—40 or 50 loaves, and each one costs seven bucks? It’s good, yes, but to call it a bakery … it’s bull-sheet.”

We’re perfectly happy that La Boulange has made a bunch of money, especially because they deliver great product. Not sure why he’s so mad at another bakery that people are happy to line up to patronize. Read on at grubstreet.