Mission Mission

By Frozen Kuhsterd and Boba Guys! With Jameson-infused boba! At SoMa StrEatFood Park right now!

[via Boba Guys]

Do you love fancy beer? Do you love fancy chocolate? Well you’re in luck, because San Francisco’s most artisanal brewery teamed up with San Francisco’s most artisanal chocolate store to bring us Biere de Chocolat, a surprisingly easy-drinking chocolate beer that showed up in stores last month.

The beer starts out slow, light and fizzy with a faint chocolate smell, but once the carbonation dissipates the whole thing just turns into a chocolate bar. And not a Hershey’s bar, a dark, musky, roasty, bitter, not-too-sweet, fancy-ass chocolate bar. Delicious.  You can get it at Bi-Rite, doi.

Drink of the week is brought to you by Poachedjobs.com.

Apparently, today is National Margarita Day 2013. Three options come to mind off the top of my head:

1. Make your own lime/strawberry swirl frozen margarita at Puerto Allegre. (Pictured above.)
2. The “Carbonated Margarita” (featuring CARBONATED TEQUILA) at Kronnerburger.
3. Get fucking tanked at Latin American.

Any other ideas?

While NYC may have us beat when it comes to pizza and bagels, there’s still no denying how difficult it is to get a truly decent burrito on the East coast.  Even if you manage to find a supposedly reputable spot, chances are you’ll walk away with a flimsy imitation wrapped up by some skinny-armed hipster (or even worse, THIS crime against humanity).  It seems like every year there’s a new taqueria claiming to offer that exclusive Mission burrito experience no matter how disappointing previous attempts have been, and B’klyn Burro is the latest to give it a shot:

Like Tony Bennett, I left my heart and my appetite in San Francisco’s Mission District.  But now San Francisco Mission burritos are coming to Brooklyn with a taquero (burrito/taco chef) from one of the most respected taquerias in the game. Bite into one of our amazing burritos and you’ll be teleported to 24th and Mission, San Francisco. Food this good needs to be on both coasts.  Well guess what, IT IS!

From the looks of things, this place will only be popping up at select locations this week rather than going the brick & mortar route, so any New Yorkers curious to test its authenticity better hurry up.  I expect a fully-detailed report!

Rice Paper Scissors‘ monthlong Lunar New Year celebration continues this Friday at the legendary Verdi Club! Here’s what’s up:

Growing up, the Lunar New Year meant dinner with the family and lots of li xi (both great things.) But why not celebrate the Lunar New Year like you would for the January New Year?

It’ll be everything you know and love about the Lunar New Year: red envelopes, traditional dress and new year foods — but done with a modern take.

Red envelopes will be filled with Asian candy. Attendees are encouraged to dress in their best ao dai or cheongsam to sport in the photobooth. Vietnamese street food snacks will be available purchase.

The best part? Professional lion dancers will come join the dance party — all combining our favorite Lunar New Year traditions starting Year of the Snake our way.

Let’s party, B! Tickets, menu details and more right here.

RSVP and invite your friends!

Now let’s watch the Rice Paper Scissors team’s take on the Harlem Shake:

So I’m over at Thieves Tavern for “Fuckin’ Wednesdays” on Wednesday afternoon, and bartender Luke sets this bottle in front of me and says, “Have you seen this?” And I’m like, “‘Hophead’? Sounds dum– HOP VODKA???” Full disclosure: I myself am not a major hophead. I can appreciate the qualities of a fine IPA, but I usually prefer to drink beers that don’t make me sneezy and deaden my taste buds to other flavors. (I guess I could see an allergist or something.)

Hophead is basically like essence of hop. Real powerful. You have one sip and your mouth tastes like you’ve been drinking Blind Pig all afternoon. And some days, that’s exactly what you want to feel like you’ve been doing, am I right? Luke also mixed up a Hophead dirty martini, which worked pretty well, the salty and oily mingling with the hoppy nicely. It’s definitely weird. But it’s fun to drink.

So if Beer Week has you all beered out, but you still require a hop fix, Anchor Distilling‘s got you covered.

Drink of the week is brought to you by Poachedjobs.com.

Dude.

What will Ken Ken think of next? Here’s this weekend’s menu:

Sunday Brunch Set

Salmon Course Brunch  $13.00

Salmon Shioyaki / house cured salted salmon

Tamago Yaki – Japanese Traditional Egg Dish

Atsuage, Daikon Nimono // fried tofu, daikon

Miso Soup with wakame & tofu

Nori - seasoned sea weed

Tsukemono – Japanese pickles house made in 30 year old nukazuke

Side orders @ $5

Kabocha Nimono - Japanese pumkin nimono

Snow White Salad Yukke Style - daikon, jicama, nagaimo, raw quail egg yolk

For Vegetarians we also offer a beautiful Veggie Main consisting of  Grilled Eggplant in a miso / shoyu glaze

Can’t wait!

[via Ken Ken on Tumblr]

This week I tried out Hi Lo, the new BBQ place on 19^th and Mission. The fact that it was started by the people from Hog & Rocks was a good sign where cocktails are concerned, so even without a bar or bartender anywhere to be seen, I felt confident ordering off of the drink menu.

The Savory Collins, with lemon, pickling liquid, and tarragon, sounded like the kind of thing that would be better in theory than in practice, but I took the plunge and asked for it anyway. It came out in a pint glass, with thin-sliced pickled fennel and big strips of tarragon floating around. I started to worry that between the salty meats and sides and a mouth-puckering cocktail, I was going to spend my dinner grasping for my water glass.

In fact, the Savory Collins was delicious, satisfying, and not all that intense. The citrus added some sweetness, and the soda kept the pickle brine at bay. The result was somewhere between a lemon shrub cocktail and a celery soda.

I also had a sip of the paloma, also 16 oz., which was a doozy. I might have to write that one up separately, but suffice it to say that, in addition to tequila, it had a fucking shot of mezcal in it.

Drink of the week is brought to you by Poachedjobs.com.

So Saturday was Australia day – did you miss it? Well thanks to our Australian friend Jess, we definitely did not. Unlike America, the British basically just gave Australia its independence, but that didn’t stop the Australians from coming up with important Australia day traditions like making weird cakes and stringing up bags of Franzia. Wikipedia explains the latter, in a particularly head-scratching entry:

Goon of Fortune is an Australian drinking game between any number of individual people. The name of the game is a spoof on the TV show Wheel of Fortune.

“This game is based on popular game show wheel of fortune. 1 or more (depending on number of participants) goonsacks are pegged to a Hills Hoist and players sit under the perimeter of the clothes line. A mixture of red and white wines can be used if players are of expert level however only 1 variety is recommended for amateurs. A player spins the hills hoist to start the game and when the clothesline comes to rest the player/s under where the goonbag stopped must drink an amount of goon agreed upon before the commencement of the spin. Players are prohibited to impede the natural spin of the clothesline in any way [sic]. Penalties vary on surroundings.”

The quote is from a defunct website. You’re welcome.

Drink of the week is brought to you by Poachedjobs.com.

We are testing online ordering tonight at MCF San Francisco. Give it a try if you were thinking about ordering. missionchinesefood.com/sf

— Mission Street Food (@Missionstfood) January 30, 2013

My pro tip with Mission Chinese has always been to go for lunch or order takeout to avoid that 2-hour horribly disorganized wait-list BS. Well starting tonight you’ll be able to place your order online here. Hell, they will even deliver orders over $20.

Go ahead, slam them with more traffic and convince them it was a bad idea.

Update: I think they meant Thursday night. Mission Chinese is closed Wednesdays, as several commenters pointed out.