Mission Mission

I have been putting off going to Locanda, the newest addition to the Craig Stoll empire, because I figured it would be 1) a shitshow and 2) incredibly expensive. After continually seeing it referenced as one of the best places in town to get a drink, I stopped by last week and found neither of my suspicions to be especially true. I easily got a seat at the bar around 6 and ordered Il Professionale, a mix of bourbon, sweet vermouth, Amaretto, and a bunch of mystery bitters.

It was great. The Amaretto makes the drink considerably sweeter than your usual Manhattan variation, but it was strong enough to balance it out. If the rest of the drinks are as good as they sound on the menu, this place joins The Hideout and West of Pecos as one of the best places to get fancy cocktails around here. Hey, when is Trick Pony opening?

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

Our pal Sarah recently “retired” to Oakland but realized that the only way she could get her SF friends to visit would be to educate them about all the rad things the East Bay shares with the city, so she constructed this comprehensive compendium of comparisons between the various bars, restaurants, and other fun that each side has to offer.  Even your groceries are covered:

Rainbow Grocery (The Mission) / Berkeley Bowl (Berkeley)

Can you imagine Rainbow but twice as large, half as expensive, and with a fantastic meat and seafood selection? If not, go visit Berkeley Bowl, or its newer location, Berkeley Bowl West. The Bowl is an East Bay staple, and can satisfy every hippie, health nut, hipster, and politically conscious bone in your body.

She’s got an Oakland answer for everything from Bender’s and Bi-Rite to Toronado and Tartine, so if you’ve ever been the slightest bit reluctant to venture to the other side, please do read on.

First meal of the year at Mission Chinese! Yum. twitter.com/PadmaLakshmi/s…

— Padma Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) January 1, 2013

Last night after midnight counts.

Woohoo! Last year’s Rice Paper Scissors New Year’s Day Brunch was the best meal I had in all of 2012 — and I had a lot of great meals in 2012. So, look forward to this:

We’re popping up for our annual New Year’s Day Brunch at Whiz Burgers, the iconic burger joint on the corner of 18th and South Van Ness avenue.

On the menu: fried egg banh mi’s and pho and Vietnamese coffee and everything else to make life feel alright (and maybe even awesome.)

Excited to start the new year with y’all.

Valerie + Katie + Zoe

Plus, you’ve probably never eaten at Whiz Burgers. What a way to break your streak!

RSVP and invite your friends! See the full menu here.

[Photo by Telstar Logistics]

Here’s the deal:

Bike Basket Pies is coming out of “retirement” for one night!

This Sunday, December 30th, I (natalie of bbpies) will be selling pies at the Unresolved Love Life of Evelyn Lee from 9 pm to close. I’ll have 3 dozen miniature pies in 3 varieties:

-potato, leek, & cheddar
-shaker lemon
-pear ginger

Pies’ll be $4 a pop. This probably won’t happen again, so I hope so see you Sunday!

Evelyn Lee is at Mariposa & Potrero, and it’s a bar so this party is 21+.

Can’t wait! RSVP and invite your friends!

P.S. If you’ve still got some belated holiday shopping left to do, consider the Bike Basket Pies Booklet, available online or at a fine local bookstore near you.

P.P.S. I might just get there right at 9 and buy (and eat) ALL the pies. So you better be there on time — and be ready to rumble.

Sounds cool, thanks.

I’m pretty sure the first time I ever had a whiskey smash was at Slow Club, about five years ago. Now it’s my all-time favorite brunch drink. The mint and lemon make the drink crisp and refreshing, but the unmasked malty bourbon reminds you that it’s really irresponsible to be ordering drinks like this in the middle of the day.

Slow Club calls their version the Sunday Smash, and it’s still the best one I’ve ever had. Even after making several at home, I haven’t been able to capture the magic. Slow Club sweetens theirs with maple syrup instead of honey, which is maybe what pulls it together so nicely.

It’s the perfect drink for resigning yourself to the fact that you’re not taking Sunday easy this week and you’re just going to have to tough it through Monday with a hangover. Try one this Sunday (they’re open, I checked), although that’s kind of cheating because you have two days off.

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

They’ll serve their last meal on New Year’s Eve. Mission Local reports:

The restaurant at 16th Street and South Van Ness Avenue serves Northeastern Italian and Central European food and wine has been highly rated since its opening in 2006. But Losa said the saturation of new restaurants on Valencia Street has impacted the foot traffic on 16th street and drawn customers away from Bar Bambino.

“Our location is being left out of this vortex of transformation on Valencia Street,” Losa said.

Yet, Losa has faith that 16th Street will see its own transformation in the future – even if it will be too late for Bar Bambino.

Sad beans! “Vortex of transformation!” Read on for more, including Christopher Losa’s letter to his employees.

Surprise! You don’t buy a carton of eggnog!

Our pal Eric (as part of his beautifully shot, edited and scored Thirsty For… series) shows us how it’s really done:

Yum, that sandwich was damn good! As usual! And now Pal’s needs our help! Their existing space can’t sustain them any longer, so they’ve started up a Kickstarter campaign to help fund their move to some place better:

Pal’s is moving into its fourth year inside Tony’s market on 24th St making friends with everyone in the surrounding neighborhood and serving all organic locally sourced innovative sandwich and salad creations.

We have been blessed by having the best and most loyal customers a small local shop could have..our goal has always been to use the best local products in our little bread-surrounded creations

Your inspiration, suggestions, interest and recurring support drive us every day to create new and tasty things to help make your lunch day a little brighter and a little tastier.

Now after almost 4 years inside Tony’s market we have outgrown our current location and we need to move to a new location sometime in February or March of next year. so we can take Pal’s to a new creative level.

Visit the Kickstarter page to see how you can help (mostly you pledge money and they pledge to give you sandwiches and t-shirts). And there’s only a couple days left, so hop to it!