Mission Mission

[via Vic]

One of the best parts about living in the Mission is the avocado supply. They are plentiful, cheap, and available at all the markets that occupy almost every corner of our fair neighborhood. Have you ever met anyone who was like, “Guacamole? No way, José.” I haven’t, and if I did, I wouldn’t want to be friends with them.

Much as I love avos, I’d never thought to put them into a dessert until I met Laura Miller at a raw, vegan desserts class at Pot & Pantry on 18th & Guerrero this weekend. She is rad, she’s a babe, and she runs Sidesaddle Kitchen, whose motto is “Raw. Vegan. Not Gross.” She also taught me how to turn avocados into chocolate pudding, and now I want to be her BFF (I promise I’m not trying to creep on you, Laura, despite my previous comment about how you’re a babe).

The crazy thing is that you can’t taste the avocado. Try giving it to your friends and not telling them what’s in it until after they are all like, man, this is awesome! Then you can be like, yeah, and it’s vegan and made out of avocado!

If you have a food processor, or a blender and a rubber spatula, you can make this in like 10 minutes! If you don’t have a food processor and you want one, look around at Goodwill and Craigslist. My mother-in-law got mine at a yard sale for $10 (Thanks, Sharon). It’s from like 1978 and it purrs like a kitten.

Laura’s teaching another class this weekend, and this one is about breakfast. We all want to be the kind of person who eats breakfast, right? She’ll make it totally fun and she’ll feed you. GO!

Here’s Laura’s chocolate pudding recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

2 large avocados (I used 3 small)
½ cup agave or maple syrup
½ cup cocoa powder
3 Tbsp. coconut oil
1 tsp. balsamic
½ tsp. nama shoyu (or soy sauce)
¼ tsp. salt

Directions:

Blend all ingredients in a food processor. Enjoy as is, or freeze overnight for an icy snack.

Southern Pacific Brewing opens for real this Friday, but we were lucky enough to get a tour yesterday. Here’s the view from the mezzanine. Two trees inside, one tree out on the patio, lots of light, lots of space. Capacity is 175 seated, 300 standing, so, yeah, lots of space.

Long communal tables give it a classic beer hall feel for sure, and in addition to the beer there’s a well-stocked full bar:

Inside Scoop published a first look at the menu yesterday as well, and it looks good. Here are the sandwiches and burgers:

Sandwiches

Smoked Pastrami, rye bread, pickles 11
Confit Chicken salad sandwich 10
Bahn mi, ipa roasted pork loin, kohlrabi slaw, cilantro, black garlic aioli 11
Sandwiches are served with Fries or Yukon gold chips

Burgers

House Burger, crispy shallots 8
Black and Blue, chili rub and bleu cheese 9
Lentil Burger, spent grain, fontina, grilled onion jam 11
Add bacon, avocado, aged white cheddar, 1.5

Opening weekend they’re only open in the evenings, starting at 7, but come Monday they open at 11AM every day, and push through ’til 2AM Thursday through Saturday. It’s on Treat just south of 19th. Here’s a map in case you can’t quite visualize it:

[Map by Google]

All photography by Ariel Dovas. After the jump, pictures of the brewing setup, and the grain silo (to give you another idea of just how huge this space is):

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The Bold Italic today takes a look at the state of hummus in San Francisco. Mission Street’s Old Jerusalem gets an honorable mention:

“I came here and I wanted to make a restaurant exactly like home,” the chef told me. His recipe uses no garlic and he looked offended by the mention of lemon juice. “Lemon salt,” he clarified. “The process is very important, that it’s timed, how long to soak, how long to grind, like a dance done to music.” The hummus was covered with lakes of olive oil, scattered clusters of paprika, and finely chopped parsley. It was slippery, disappearing down my throat quickly, but very filling when served with warm pita, and thicker than the summer humidity of Tel Aviv’s beaches.

Read on for lots more hummus.

When Cranky Old Mission Guy isn’t busy telling you damned kids to get off his stoop, he’s cooking up the latest in culinary cross-cultural fusion. Exhibit A: the Pizza-dilla:

Take a-holt of an even number of left-over slices of pizza. On half of them, spread evenly whatever left-over junk you have in your fridge. Turn the undecorated slices over, face-down, on the decorated slices. BURN THEM. Then flip and burn other side.

Bravo! Now wait as a food truck named Doña Corleone posts up in McCoppin Hub and charges $8 for one.

[via COMG]

SFist saw our report yesterday and couldn’t wait to get down to La Cumbre and try it:

We sampled the texturally-enhanced savory roll to see for ourselves if—at last—the chippy addition made San Francisco’s gloppy and oversteamed burrito (unfathomably preferred by many) more palatable. It did. Texture can do wonders. While the chips did get a bit soggy, they provided a necessary buffer to the burrito’s inherent one-dimensional flavor and greasiness factors. We ordered ours with grilled chicken, regular salsa, and no beans. (Unless they’re of the cannellini variety and tinged with rosemary and olive oil, we don’t care for beans.) It came to us wrapped nicely in a perfect size portion. Mmm, good.

Read on for more analysis and lots more pictures.

Says our boy Plumpy:

Tortilla chips don’t seem like a particularly good candidate for the inside of a burrito. But Taqueria La Cumbre is trying it anyway.

I’m into it. I fucking love a good soggy tortilla chip.

[This is the debut of our new veganism correspondent, Caroline. She's good fun and writes a blog called OVOO (One Vegan, One Omnivore) about how she's a vegan and her husband Reese is an omnivore but they love each other anyway.]

As my first contribution to Mission Mission, I bring you this review of a new neighborhood eatery! Announcements of its imminent approach were made here in the past, but I thought I’d go check it out for all y’all.

Tacolicious is not a taqueria, of course, but it is a restaurant that serves fancyish California-style Mexican food. My ol’ man and I got there on Friday evning around 6:30 and were told by the cute hostess that there was a half-hour wait, and we could wait at the attached tequila bar, Mosto. NBD.

Drinks at Mosto:

The bar was packed—yes, with people who look like they work for and shop exclusively at Banana Republic—but the bartenders were nice and let us hang out by their station. They didn’t even make us move when they went in and out of the bar—they ducked under it. Just for contrast, see if you can picture the bartenders at Zeitgeist doing this. (I can’t either. Not that I don’t love the surly barkeeps at ZG.)

I had a glass of red wine on tap, while the man went with a michelada.

Micheladas are rad, and since Mosto makes theirs with tomato juice (not Clamato—gross!), Tecate, Tapatio, lime juice, and this weird Latin wheat gluten sauce (not Worstershire), they are totally vegan (yay!).

Guess what they charged for the above-described concoction. Guess.

$9.

The drinks on the Tacolicious menu are cheaper, so if paying $13 for a glass of wine (yep) or $9 for a michelada annoys you, stick with the $3 Tecates while you’re waiting and then upgrade at dinner.

Dinner at Tacolicious:

Our waitress was nice and was knowledgeable about which menu items were vegan and which weren’t. This was reassuring, since I’m often in the position of needing to ask taquerias to hold the butter on my veggie burrito. (I’m looking at you, Buen Sabor!) We started with chips (okay), salsa (minty!) and guac (fluffy!). They had a $3.95 vegan taco on the menu—butternut squash with swiss chard and onions—so I got that. I also had a side of Rancho Gordo beans, which I love. With the tacos, we got 3 more kinds of salsa to try: mild, medium, and spicy. The medium, chipotle-based one was my favorite; it had that smoky taste that we vegans go crazy for.

The main problem with the food: Not. Enough. Salt. And there were no salt shakers on the table. Why? why? (And no Tapatio orCholula, btw.)

The verdict?

Go if you want Mexican-esque food and are entertaining a valentine or fancy visitor, like a well-off aunt, especially if he/ she lives in the Marina or Orange County or something. What you lose in street cred by patronizing this establishment you can regain by discussing the inconsistencies in the perspective of the admittedly-pretty mural of the park.

Don’t go if you love salt or are a taqueria purist.

See you next week!

As mentioned before, Stuart has been holding down a Wednesday evening bar tending shift at Dear Mom. To make things a little more interesting, starting tonight, he’s making picklebacks:

The Pickle Back is a shot of whiskey with a shot of pickle juice as a chaser.  I know at first it sounds gross, but really, it’s amazing!  The pickle brine cuts right through the whiskey making even the most rotgut stuff totally tolerable.  But I’m not feeding you that rotgut shit; we’re doing Dickle with the Pickle Back.  And it’s even fancy pickle juice.  I’m getting the stuff  from the fine gentlemen ofWise Sons, who are already famous for the food truck and will be even more so when their new deli opens up on 24th St.

Stuart also implies that he’s the first to bring this concept to SF, but that’s erroneous because I’ve had many picklebacks at Mission Hill Saloon, and a few at Beauty Bar. But Stu’s are made with care and are still only $4, so who gives a shit? Let’s get drunk!

[Mission Hill Saloon pickleback photo by Rumback]

I’m always tempted to go for the $2 Fat Tire deal at Rosamunde, but then I remember it’s in a can. No such catch tomorrow, when Racer and Radeburger drop to $1 in celebration of two years of Rosamunde in the Mission. Happy birthday, dudes. (Starts at 5 P.M.)

[via Eater] [Photo]