Mission Mission

If you liked “trash,” be sure to check out Mission and Highland‘s magnum opus on Pigeons:

Previously on Mission Mission:

• Trash by Mission and Highland

Now that Xanath has fallen, will the red tide of veganism put soy queso on every pizza at Pi Bar? (via vegansaurus!)

Previously on Mission Mission:

• “Vegans + Pi Bar = Outrage!“

…asks Brolores Park.  (link)

(Massan by Macaframa)

If someone figures out how to airlift this truck into my living room for my birthday, I’ll be the happiest man alive.

(via Sexpigeon)

Okay, we all hope they get their fryer fixed soon.  However, more important than their ability to make donuts is this question: will they start selling a vegan version of their famed “Bacon Maple Donut”?  Man, I hope so.

UPDATE (Wednesday morning): Everything’s back on track. Go get some donuts!

Coming soon: you failing to get some random play over a Tecate and slice of mushroom-black olive

In the post-American Apparel / Mr. Pickles era of Mission blogging, authors are desperate for controversial material to fill our lonely pages.  Luckily, the upcoming “Pi Bar” seems to be providing the necessary blogging fodder.  Since mid June, the new restaurant has had to endure a protest of vegans, a little bit of controversy surrounding the painted-over Suriya Thai mural, and even had to publicly address their neighbors (sounds familiar?).  And the general buzz?  3 posts on vegansaurus!, 3 on Burrito Justice, 5 on Eater SF, 3 on SFoodie, and countless other posts elsewhere.  If blogging was real life, you would have to wait 2 months to get a table.

Clearly, we are missing out on something here.

To bring you up the speed, vegansaurus! has been taking the investigative lead on this topic.  If you have not been acquainted with vegansaurus! yet, it is a quirky Mission-based food blog about eating cupcakes and calling people assholes in caps lock.  vegansaurus! recently placed a phone call to the new establishment to pressure them into making vegan pizza when they accidently uncovered a nefarious plot to open in a few weeks:

“Thank you for calling Pi Bar. We’re looking forward to a mid-August, early September opening; look for us then. Thanks for calling!”

That is pretty much verbatim with some license taken in the fact that we are lazy and didn’t want to call back to get it verbatim, you dig? (link)

(By the way, my post count about “Pi Bar” is now at 2.  I love being a part of something.)

EPA and around the bay has put together a great collection of painted traffic control boxes around the district.  Also, if you haven’t put EPA on your reader, get to it.

(link)

Reader Kostis spotted this topless Muni car yesterday on Church and 24th:

Incredible. When I first saw this, I thought somebody had bought an old muni cable car and transformed it into one of those cheesy open-air tourist vans. Then I noticed the pirate flags and the hanging lights and figured it was someone’s Burning man project.

And THEN I realized it was actually not a van at all, but running on the muni tracks and it was an actual muni car, stopping at stops and picking people up! Insane. If anybody’s knows if there’s a story behind this, please let me know. I love SF.

If I had to guess, the Muni is starting to do duck tours to help raise money.

Be sure to click the images for a full-size version.  Thanks Kostis / khtoo!

Update: reader Mr. Read brings us the official story in the comments.  Turns out that the “boat tram” mainly runs along the tourist path, which explains why a few people were surprised to see it.

We regret to inform readers that we have recently learned that the two main cooks at Bender’s Bar & Grill have moved on.  After I stopped crying into my PBR, I tried every piece of fried and tacoed seitan on the menu from the new cook, Justin.  Here is the breakdown:

1. The beer-battered seitan is still the best dish you can order anywhere in the Mission.**
2. The tacos are still delicious but not nearly as gluttonous.
3. The Buffalo girls sauce recipe seems to have changed (or, at least, it tasted different).  The panel of drunks feasting on the girls were pretty mixed on the new product.

(Photo Cred MattyMatt)

** Only maybe an exaggeration.  Let’s face it, everything tastes better with Jameson and PBR.