Mission Mission

Josh is tracking it on his own hand. Go up on your roof and watch it happen!



I rarely go to Ritual because I live closer to Four Barrel (and I LOVE it), but I ended up at the former this evening. Ritual’s vegan apple nut bread is very mediocre: nothing is horribly wrong with it, but it’s too sweet, too dry, and has little character. But they sell all their pastries for $1 close to closing time, so at least I didn’t pay more than it was worth!

Next time I’ll just try harder to get to Arizmendi before it closes.

It is now warm enough to enjoy ice cream. Sweet. What has two thumbs and loves Bi-Rite Creamery’s chocolate coconut vegan ice cream? THIS GUY.

Most ice cream places provide a vegan option in the form of a fruit sorbet, and those are great, but they do not really ring your ice cream chimes. This one does, and you can get it on a vegan cone.

Bi-Rite also currently has a Morrissey-themed vegan sundae combining aforementioned ice cream, blueberry compote, and crushed Newman O’s. Has anyone tried it? I didn’t find it as compelling as a good old fashioned scoop on a cone, but if I’m missing out, let me know!

Bender’s has two amazing vegan tacos on its menu: the seitan taco and the grilled veggie taco, which, in addition to grilled veggies, also has smashed-up pieces of their homemade vegan burger in it. Both feature hunks of avocado, tangy pickled red cabbage, and, surprisingly, enough salt that I didn’t need to add any – remarkable since I have never in my life eaten anything and thought it was too salty.

You know what’s great about Bender’s? They don’t refer to the seitan taco as a “fake chicken” taco. I like this because seitan is real food, not fake chicken: it’s just real seitan, in all its chewy, crumbly, mouthfeely glory. Two omnivorous vegan-taco-enthusiast friends joined me for dinner and chose the vegan ones over the meaty ones on the menu. On purpose. Also, a friendly black dog named Mortimer wanted to steal them.

That’s right, friends: Seitan is real. And it’s saltier that the sweat of John Henry’s brow.

There is nothing unique about a feverish devotion to Mission Chinese Food, but I have one for the record books, and Mission Chinese keeps giving more reasons to adore it more. (This is despite the fact that I got a piece of accidental bacon in a dish there once, and it’s the only place I have ever returned to after that happened.)

My favorite thing on the menu is the tiger salad. It is superlative. The Mission Chinese magicians switch up their menu fairly often, but they never bench the tiger salad, which is the most flavorful salad in the world.

Word to wise vegans: If you haven’t been to (or ordered in from) this place, I won’t judge; I have never seen ET. Anyway, when you go, scan the menu for the Vs next to each of the vegan menu items.  You can get the Thrice Cooked Bacon done vegan, but not the Ma Po Tofu. Surprise!

In other news, I’m going to SF Vegan Drinks tomorrow night. Want to join? There will be sweet potato tater tots.

UPDATE: Just got a note from the Vegan Drinks people:

We recently saw your post about Mission Chinese and that you’re going to be attending SF Vegan Drinks tomorrow. Unfortunately, we had to cancel this month due to a scheduling conflict, but we’ll be back on in May. Hope to see you there!

Bummer!

Dudes, we are getting our own vegan storefront. And it is within a slow 60 second walk of my casita! The owners announced it on the Facebook last week, so yes, I am fashionably late to the party, but I’m still excited to be there!

The shop will be called Pinko’s Vegan Mercantile and will open May 1. I, for one, am planning to race over there on my lovely but old and slow bicycle after work as fast as my two little legs will carry me and then spend as much of my paycheck as I can muster on delicious and/or beautiful vegan items.

OK and yes, let’s put it out there: being a pinko and running a store where consumers part with their money might seem a but contradictory. But look at our neighborhood culture: Ritual and Little Star have commie-influenced logos, so Pinko’s is hardly the first communist/ capitalist establishment here, mkay?

En route to Minako, my friend warned me about the service. “The woman who runs the place is really friendly,” he said. “Cool,” I replied blandly.

“No, but almost too friendly. She talks to you the way your mom might. She sorta crosses a line sometimes.” This turned out to be unassailably true; the proprietor has a distinct personality that establishes itself early in conversation and makes its mark on every nook and cranny of the physical space as well. I like distinct personalities, so I dug this place, though it might not be for everyone. In fact, one of the things that drew me to Minako is the extremely polarized love/ hate reviews it gets on Yelp. Differing opinions? Sign me up.

Minako is unique, and so is the woman who runs the front of the house. There’s no doubt about that. But what the restaurant lacks in convention, it makes up for with delicious soup broth, homemade umeboshi, and clearly labeled vegan and vegetarian options. (When something is vegetarian but not vegan at Minako, it’s labeled “Ovo-Lacto.” WIN.) It also has lots of things for your omnivore friends, so you can take them there when they get sick of you suggesting dinner at Cha-Ya… again.

My soup had lots of seaweed and pickled plums; the latter were prepared by the proprietor’s mom 12 years ago, while I was driving around my hometown in a beat-up old Jetta listening to Weezer.

The twice-cooked eggplant had a beautiful texture – crunchy on the outside, mouth-melty on the inside, like a savory M&M – and came with a little pile of minced ginger, which was a perfect foil for the salty, fried dish.

We also got free agar dessert, which my friend thought was white grape and I thought was aloe. It wasn’t great, but it was free, who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

Drawback: it’s pricey, so save it for a night when you’re a) flush and b) willing to look past it.

I never ate at this restaurant, and now it’s closed.

Vaya con Dios.

UPDATE: Oh and it’s going to be a Burma Superstar, nbd.

Carolina is my Spanish name.

The first time I ate at Herbivore, I left deeply skeptical of the enterprise. I ate lunch there with an ex-boyfriend (amicable, but still), on a rainy day between two job interviews (neither of which panned out), so looking back, I probably wasn’t in the best state to be critiquing my cuisine. The space was dark and cold, and the most memorable dish I had fell squarely into the category of mediocre. After that lunch, I made up my mind that the only thing Herbivore had going for it was that it was vegan. I was like, “What is this place even doing here?”

I heard they had revamped their menu lately so I decided to give it another shot.

Started with a small green juice, which was good and, at $3.95, was definitely cheaper than Sidewalk around the corner.  (Though I still like SWJ’s a little better.)

I was in the mood for a simple dinner, so I got a salad and a side of hummus.

The salad had lots of fresh greens and perfectly ripe avocado. Thumbs up.

Now, for my money, Old Jerusalem has the best hummus the Mission has to offer, but this hummus was still very flavorful and it came with these adorable pickle crosshatches:

So, here’s the deal: if you have the time and energy and daylight and sunshine to run around to make your own salad and then pick up juice and hummus from different locations, you can probably get better options.

But Herbivore has everything in one place with friendly, attentive yet not intrusive, and remarkably well-paced service. My server ran outside after me when I left my umbrella inside (I do stuff like that a lot). It’s clean and quiet and reasonably priced and no longer freezing.  It’s exactly the kind of thing I want to eat on a Monday night after a boozy weekend, or after getting off a plane.

Glad I gave it another shot. I’m going back and looking forward to it!