Mission Mission

If you’re a Toronado type you know how important it is to have proper glassware with your beer. The tulip shape of a Chimay glass lets you get your nose closer to the aromas, you know?

Well, two neighborhood beer bars are working hard to keep you in propriety. Monk’s Kettle has a handsome Moonlight Brewing Co. glass for your Death & Taxes (above, photo by .laz), and Pi Bar has teeny-tiny mini steins for your teeny-tiny raspberry beer (below, photo by only taciturn). Drink up!

Previously:

Don’t Drink Rapaciously Evil Corporate Beer

Strawberry Socks

Incoherent Ramblings made this monstrosity last summer. And we might never have known about it had reader Emily not spoken up. Thanks, Emily!

Previously:

Narwhal Free-For-All

S. Pigeon explains why this cookie is what to get next time you’re at a Mexican bakery.

Do you love bacon in stuff? Of course you do! Well hey, guess what? Baconcamp is in the Mission this year!

Next Saturday afternoon, May 8th at Chez Poulet, you will be able to crowd around a small table with other wild-eyed baconnoisseurs and unapologetically shove folks out of the way to get at the salty goods prepared by local bacon experts. Or if you’re smart you can wait by the kitchen and snatch things off the trays as they are making their way across the room. Ah, this all brings me back to dinner at Cloyne Court Co-Op in Berkeley.

If you’re thinking about entering a bacon creation this year, be advised that bacon and eggs smiley face is old news and review the following categories:

• Best Overall – This is the audience choice award.  All attendees will have a chance to vote.
• Top Savory
• Top Sweet – a dessert or candy
• Top Condiment or Drink – sauces, infusions, seasonings
• Inspired – best presentation inspired by bacon.  This category is for art, sculptures, photographs, demonstrations, poems, stories, music, etc.
• Inventive – most creative use of bacon.  it’s unexpected and tasty
• Photogenic – when you see a picture of it, you want to lick your screen

More info at baconcamp.org

The messenger-bag-PBR-can-storage arms race continues! Check out Rickshaw Bagworks‘ game-changing “Beerdolero”  innovation, which combines space-saving strap storage and the highly-fashionable Mexican Revolutionary look. All of this comes at a cost though: none of this actually keeps your beverages cool.

There’s another catch: apparently, only five of these were made and they were given away a month ago as part of a St. Patty’s Day promotion. LAME.

Now, I know some of your Rickshaw folks read this here blog. How about another test run for the summer season?

Previously:

Cool Kids Use Cool Stuff: Dolores Chiller

Mikey snapped this pic and tweeted about it a little bit ago, so I tried to do some reporterly sleuthing and asked him about ‘em:

Sadly, scrumptious though they looked I didn’t bite the bait

Anybody else bite the bait?

Photo, title and everything by Mike Chino.

Previously:

Mission Minis Opens Grandly

Mission Minis Shut Down Unceremoniously

Ramona might be onto something:

You go to the coffee shop with a friend, because that’s what friends love to do.  “Let’s go get a coffee?”  It’s either like get coffee or get a drink, which means alcohol.  There’s no middle ground.  You never hear people saying “Hey Chloe, wanna go get some Sprites?”  “Wanna meet for a Gatorade after work? A pitcher of spring water?  Sparkling? Yeah okay.”  I’d like to meet for a Gatorade because at least that would be hydrating, but no, the meetings always revolve around most water depleting thing – the coffee the beer, so you have to be like drinking water all day just to prepare for this meeting with your friend, who you don’t even want to talk to unless you can get either a stimulant or a depressant in your system.

Read on to see what happens when Ramona meets her friend for a coffee.

Photo by under one sky.

I was feeling a little nostalgic, so I decided to make one last shopping trip to Delano’s for old time’s sake.  It was fairly disarming to witness firsthand the depleted shelves and bins throughout the store.  A few other shoppers milled about, almost seeming more interested in surveying the scene than picking out groceries. 

A somber air permeated the place, and not even the sounds of ABBA emanating from the tinny overhead speakers could shake out the funk.

Some of the more depressing shelves (plus an UPLIFTING STORY and an UPDATE!!!), after the jump:

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Brainslip paints a sobering alternate history of a Mission under the influence of LA foodstuffs. Carne asada fries are a slippery slope, my friends:

First it started with the dreaded droopy carne asada fry invasion.

Then they took pizza. How could we lose pizza? Well, we did, to a cardboard tasting menace called Dominos, which began to infiltrate the Mission block by block from 30th to Division, Guerrero to Potrero. Heroes fell one after the other – Papa Potrero, Serrano, Cybelle, and perhaps remembered most fondly- Zante.

You can take my Indian pizza from my cold, dead hand.

Next up: tacos – soon deep fried was all they tried – Baja style. No more boiled chicken, shredded pork, sauteed fish, etc.

Scared?  You should be.  It gets worse:

After a year of sensory dullification we lost the only thing that mattered: burgers. In-N-Out opened at 20th @ Valencia. A bikes only drive-thru , how could we resist? Free air, free water, valet bike parking: all so delightful.

First they came for the pizza. And I didn’t speak up because there was too much bufala.

Then they came for the taquerias.  And I didn’t speak up because there was too much pollo asado.

Such SoCalized medicine flooded the streets. Everywhere were carts, huts, & shacks – all shaped in the like of their foodstuffs. A nonstop barrage of fried chicken, chili fries, and pastrami became too much for neighborhood morale. Defeated, they gave up what mattered most, and signed over the rights to their BART tube for conversion to a freeway tunnel.

Oh dear.  Food has consequences. The Great War of the Californias indeed.

When we’ve got this guy ready to take its place?  Nice enclosure!

Previously:

Delano’s IGA on the Ropes?