Mission Mission

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.

Mission Local caught it with its door open just a crack yesterday, and it looks as though it is possibly filled to the brim with a gargantuan pile of trash.

Click through for a closeup.

Local designer James T. Edmondson has created a new font based on the lettering found on laundromat windows in the Mission, aptly named Lavanderia. Fancy!

Here’s what James had to say about his font:

Laundry is an incredibly tedious task—the antithesis of glamour, so I have massive appreciation for the guy that decided to letter the window with a script that captures all the essence of what a laundromat lacks. Excitement, passion, love. It’s all in that script.

How nice it is to create something beautiful, where boring, stagnant lettering would have easily sufficed! My latest typeface Lavanderia is a celebration and a tribute to the enthusiasm that influences those who go above and beyond to create beauty where there is none.

Inspiration came from San Francisco’s Mission District, a vibrant and at times foul smelling part of town, rich with dive bars, taquerias, and unemployed twenty-somethings who look extremely creative but actually do very little. It’s a magical place.

Download Lavanderia here, and consider leaving a donation. Making fonts is hard!

Fans of San Francisco’s premiere ex-joke-reggae band will be pleased to hear that two of the band’s tracks will be featured on tonight’s episode of the popular comedy The Office. @Sarah, it’ll be on Hulu tomorrow.

[via We Built This City]

UPDATE: People close to the source has informed us that “The Hott Chord is Struck” will be one of the featured songs, in case you want to prep.

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.

Our pal Kai fills us in:

Tis true, a swing has materialized.  This one is rigged with steel cable so to frustrate our local slasher.  The workmanship leaves something to be desired but the spirit is sound. Here are a few pics.

Yay! Suck it, fun-hating grinch!

(Thanks again, Kai!) (And thanks to @fiid for the original tip.)

UPDATE: Some French guy named Michael P. late last night sent Helen a picture of the heroic team that installed the swing:

So say thanks if you see ‘em around!

Our pal Tag hipped us to this time-lapse video of a bike locked to a rack in NYC for a year. As you can imagine, it slowly disappears, but not quite as fast as it would in SF wethinks. Says Tag:

It’s six months before anyone even goes for the water bottle. New York
is pussies.

See for yourself:

[via Gothamist]

It’s a killer throwback to that time in the ’90s when everybody seemed to think rap was the key to promoting anything and everything. See for yourself:

I love the cheddar bit:

It’s a hot look for sure, but on a freezing night like tonight? Possibly a poor choice.

Still, definitely a hot look.

(Thanks, MarcusParcus!)

Some Aussie friends of ours were perplexed to learn recently that hot water bottles are not really a common household item here in the Mission. Some Missionites hadn’t heard of them at all, and they’re not exactly readily available at the corner drugstore like they would be back in Brisbane (the best our local Walgreens could do was a douche bag).

So, where do you go? Bed, Bath and Beyond, surely, but they’re a giant corporation. Some cute shop on Valencia, maybe? We should all have hot water bottles now that it’s THE DEAD OF WINTER.

If all else fails, just make a douche sweater for your douche bag like Laura here did:

Thanks for the story and the photos, David!