Mission Mission

Special effects in the kitchen, special effects on the web. Check it out.

Previously:

Ninja Jesus

Ninja Poodle

Skechers Ninja

Cheap and easy!

Happy Birthday, All of Them Witches! Thanks for sharing your friend Sarah’s charming idea!

Previously:

It’s-It Tip

TK over at 40 Going on 28 delivered a downright tasty review of Hog & Rocks over the weekend. Here’s some of it:

All the main courses are like $10 or $12, dig? No wonder the place was packed. I wasn’t that hungry because I had already like 16 beers so I got some jamon serrano. You know what that is? It’s a pile of ham. That suited me just fine. Stephen and Jessica are vegetarians so they were pretty much fucked because it’s called “Hog & Rocks,” not “Potato & Rocks.” They got some side dishes that were really good, though. There was a brown bean kind of thing that tasted OK.

Read the rest. And for god’s sake, be real careful doing a Flickr search for “hog and rocks.”

P.S. No way is that dude still 40. I’ve been reading that blog for like three years.

Yeah, we’re a little late to the game, but damn… I think this is the best $8 I have spent on food in recent memory. The newly established Mission Chinese Food’s invention, the Peking Duck Chinito (also comes in Vegan!) is really, really great.

It’s duck confit, crispy skin, cucumber, cilantro, and spicy hoisin sauce. All of this is stuffed in a “chinese donut”, wrapped in rice noodle, then chopped sushi-style. What’s a chinese donut, you ask? I wasn’t sure either but once I saw it, I recognized it as the puffed, oily, bread stick that I would dip in rice porridge or warm soy milk as a kiddo, a food item that was previously known to me as (roughly) “Yao-Jok -Gwai“.

The blending of crispy duck, sweet hoisin sauce, donut, and soft rice noodle was something completely new, but still distinctly familiar. The Chinito might really catch on, and I would not be at all surprised if we see some copycats popping up within a year, much like the Korrito. Get in on the ground floor, folks.

The atmosphere at Lung Shan was interesting to say the least. The older, weathered Lung Shan staff seemed to be casually lounging in the dining area while these youngsters shuffled around their kitchen. Looks like I wasn’t the only one curious about this odd dynamic, as Chow asked about it in this recent article:

I just couldn’t get over the strange-bedfellow relationship of the old-school Chinese restaurant and nouveau Chinese restaurant. I asked Myint, who features a Lung Shan dumpling dish as a kind of homage on his own menu, whether Lung Shan chefs would be “trained” to make items off the Mission Chinese menu, too.

“They don’t really need our training,” he said, pausing to let the ridiculousness of the question sink in. “They’ve actually taught us some things.”

Bonus: The kind server threw in the Szechuan pickles free of charge, thus confirming your suspicion that us orientals hook each other up.

Previously:

Mission Chinese Food Is Open!

What is the provenance of this peerless napkin? And what possibly supernatural phenomenon is being depicted? S. Pigeon has some theories.

Has anyone better capitalized on the “so drunk that everything I eat right now is the best thing I’ve ever had” market better than Virginia? She’s definitely saved me from more than one night where it seemed like sucking on old ketchup packets in my empty fridge at 2am would have been “dinner”.

The Tamale Lady celebrated her 57th at Zeitgeist two weeks ago and SFGate brings up this enlightening interview full of such gems as:

Is it still a surprise when you show up in a bar, or can people follow you on Twitter now?

I am all kind of places on the Internet. Face … Face … what’s that Face thing? I don’t know it, but my son put me on there, yeah. He does the Twitter, too.

Read on at SFGate.

Well, I guess I know what I’m doing this weekend.  Slo-mo is back!

Thanks Nico!

[Link! for those of you on Reader]

We’ve been hipped to a new blog making the rounds featuring an exhaustive collection of burritos from around Mission (and elsewhere), each standing vertically with the firm posture befitting its pedigree as a MISSION BURRITO.

From the looks of it, this guy has eaten a lot of burritos.  Now, I’m no slouch myself (as Vic can attest having witnessed me eating three super burritos in a single day), but the thought of taking this dude on in a burritopacolypse death match makes me just a little queasy.

All hail the Burrito Whisperer (although he didn’t seem to get the memo about how the dudes at Jarritos are a bunch of jerks).

[Photo by The Byrd]

Previously:

Bobby Flay Can Eat A Big Fat Burrito

The World’s Best at La Taqueria

The first MCF review is in, from YMFY. It cuts to the chase pretty quick, but along with the above picture it seems good enough for me:

Really spicy, really tasty.

Read on.

UPDATE: Looks like Doc Pop delivered the first review, well earlier, and with the same pic no less. Those two must be buds. (Thanks for the tip, Kevin!)

Previously:

Mission Chinese Food Unveils Menu

And it looks like solid gold. I can’t wait to eat several of the Vegan Chinito, and I might have to put my vegetarianism on hold, briefly, so I can eat the Ma Po Tofu. See the whole menu here.

Eater SF reports that MCF will be open for business starting Monday morning. Just in time to CURE ALL OUR HANGOVERS.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!