Mission Mission

I am stupendously enamored of this shirt.

[via Matt]

As fun as it may be to leave clothesline booby traps for cyclists attempting to traverse the narrow gap between the parked cars and moving cars, if you forget to flip it, some bigger car will always come around and do it for you.

The first couple times I went to Hog & Rocks, the schmancy joint on 19^th and San Carlos that bills itself as San Francisco’s first ever ham and oyster bar, I skipped over the namesakes and went straight for the entrees (and cocktails, their cocktails are outstanding.) Recently I discovered I was totally missing out. I’m not an oyster enthusiast and lots of places have oysters, but the meats at this place are really something special. Each mound of prosciutto, Serrano ham, etc. is paired with something to bring out the meat’s specific flavors, from pickled grapes to mozzarella. The other night we ordered the large sampler and tasted all the current selections. Here’s some specifics:

• La Quercia prosciutto with pickled grapes: subtle and smoky, smoky like a barbeque not a chimney fire. If you’re not into salty, this is definitely the best pick.
• San Daniele prosciutto with fresh mozz: Probably the saltiest on the menu but I liked it a lot. Dry and intense, like it’s 10% of the way to becoming jerky. The mozzarella doesn’t do much except maybe cut the saltiness a little.
• G&W Hammery with pickled onions: creamy and fresh tasting. The onions were pickled in red wine vinegar like the onions on fancy burgers, which are pretty clearly great.
• Redondo Iglesias Serrano ham with sun-dried tomatoes: Another salty one, also good. Not quite as intense as the San Daniele and the tomatoes were just okay, but still a good pick.
• Broadbent’s ham with Fresno chile syrup: gross, imho. The meat was bland and chewy. The syrup was overly sugary, and it didn’t capture the orange-bell-pepper-y deliciousness that makes Fresno chiles great (see Youk’s.)

Happy ham-eating!

[photo]

Chef Anthony of MCF just called to let us know that the…

SF branch of Mission Chinese will be closing soon for our annual summer vacation, when the owners of Lung Shan go back to China. We will be closed starting May 30 and will reopen June 14. (NY will stay open, of course.)

Thanks, Anthony!

[Photos by tudorose]

I was a little boy. My dad took me, and I had a lot of firsts that day:

• My first experience with a real shit-show
• My first time seeing (and RIDING ON) an articulated bus
• My first time riding in a taxi
• My first time walking lots of miles
• My first time staying out really late

(Now I do all those things all the time!)

Don’t remember much about the festivities except that there were a jillion people on Marina Green and I was right at butt-height, and there were fireworks. Mainly I remember the odyssey that was trying get the hell out of there afterward. Tried a taxi but got out after a block or two because gridlock was so bad we weren’t getting anywhere. So we walked what seemed to me at the time to be about 30 or 40 miles through the Marina and North Beach before we were able to catch a bus that would get us where we needed to go. This was also my first experience with the stress of transit logistics, and I still feel that same exact dread now when I can’t get a cab or my bus doesn’t show up when Muni Alerts says it’s gonna.

I don’t think I’m gonna go to the Marina tonight for the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th Anniversary party.

(I wrote this post for Tumblr originally but then I was like fuck it.)

So there was a Scientology float in the Carnaval parade:

And then this happened:

Carnaval rules!

[via Meesha]

Tonight, at Mission Comics and Art, my brother Calvin Wong and his girlfriend Hellen Jo are back in the Mission with a release party for their new comics: Ramble On #2 and Deep Cuts. It starts at 7pm.

We recently lost them both when they took a gig working for Regular Show for Cartoon Network in Burbank. The show’s creator apparently likes to poach indie comic talent from the bay, and they also feature Berkeley’s Minty Lewis as voice (for a nerdy racoon) and writing talent. It is a a hilarious cartoon, though.

If you’re into this stuff be sure to pick up these hott, limited-print-run, comics and triple-polybag them immediately. Then obsessively look up their value in each month’s issue of Wizard comic book magazine and price guide.

Oops sorry, thought this was 1994 for a second.

Remember that time you were lost in the nacht, the moon was full, and everything seemed effin’ awesome? Well, get your corpse over to Warm Leatherette at Submission this Saturday for a joyous incision of fog fueled tunes from below and an early live set from Brooklyn bloodletters, Pop. 1280. Regular djs Riegler, Nihar, and Jason P will be turning out top notch nocturnal lullabies guaranteed hijack your heels.

The other day I got thoroughly bummed out by, and then posted about, some video footage of the May 1st “Valencia Street” riot. It put me in a bad mood, and my takeaway was basically, “Wow, look at how fearlessly they attack this cop car — this is scary.” The first seven minutes of unchecked carnage were enough to blind me to the one ray of hope in the footage (which begins around the 7:25 mark). And my mood got worse as the comments flooded in. Until this one:

I was still living in San Francisco during the Giants non-sense and watched a woman drive through the mob and get her car jumped on which seemed to completely render the trunk usable as well I’m sure plenty of damage I didn’t witness. In retrospect, I wish I’d been the guy in the video who ran up shouting “Hey! hey! hey!” Instead I pulled out my iPhone and took a picture which I’m pretty ashamed of. At least the story the video tells, lots of spectators doing nothing, and one guy running up to defend the neighborhood. If you’re looking for something to take from this video, be that guy who runs up in front of the window being smashed or the car about to be spray painted. And when they start swearing at you, don’t introduce violence because that changes the game, but just say you love your neighborhood and this isn’t what you want. [link]

So there are two silver linings here. 1.) This one citizen standing up to the mob means there’s still good in the world, and 2.) This one commenter bringing some positivity to the discussion means there’s still good in the Mission Mission comments section.

Happy Friday, everybody. Love your neighborhood!