Mission Mission

Fuck yeah! The Mission dominated this year’s 7×7 2010 Big Eat SF with 26% of the 100 recommended restaurants. Take that, Hayes Valley! I’m not going to bother calculating that number for the other ‘hoods because who cares about them right?

Here’s the goods:

2. Coffee-rubbed pork shoulder at Range
3. Carnitas taco at La Taqueria
8. Morning bun at Tartine Bakery
11. Pork sugo with pappardelle at Delfina
21. Pizza margherita at Pizzeria Delfina
23. Beer sausage with sauerkraut, grilled onions at Rosamunde Sausage Grill
25. Loaf of bread straight out of the oven at Tartine
32. Pupusas at Balompie Café
35. Salted-caramel ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery
39. Pierna enchilada torta at La Torta Gorda
45. Secret Breakfast from Humphry Slocombe
46. Chips and salsa at Papalote
50. An obscure Belgian beer at The Monk’s Kettle
52. Coconut buns from King’s Bakery
54. Spiced-chocolate doughnut at Dynamo Donut with a Four Barrel coffee
56. Nuevo Paloma at Beretta
60. The Little Star at Little Star Pizza
64. Paper masala dosa at Dosa
65. Cookies-and-cream cookie and milk at Anthony’s Cookies
78. Super burrito at Taqueria Cancun
83. French fries at Universal Cafe
86. A cheese slice at Arinell Pizza
88. Buckwheat crepe and a French cider at Ti Couz
92. Bacon-wrapped hot dog from a cart in the Mission
97. Lamb schawerma at Truly Mediterranean
98. Bloody Mary with brunch at Foreign Cinema

San Francisco’s Mark Growden is finally back from months of touring and he’s playing at the Porto Franco Art Parlor on Liberty and Valencia this Friday. The last Mark Growden show of this type sold out pretty quick, so only advance tickets are available. Grab them here.

Mark is an amazing songwriter and musician who plays the chromatic button accordion, an instrument that is pretty damn rare in the states. You pretty much have to walk into an accordion shop, glaze over the bountiful piano accordions, and say, “fuck it, I want to play the harder one”. I guess the added bonus is that no one will ever ask to play it during your set break. If only I had a nickel for every time some dude walked up to my guitar and said, “hey dude nice axe, hey can I show my friend this RHCP tune I just learned?”

Oh, have you seen that video of Mark Growden playing bicycle handlebars? It’s outta sight!

BTW if any of you musically-inclined cyclists are into collaborating on an all bike parts band (“bikestra”), he’s totally down.

Pizza Zone (‘N’ Grill!) on Duboce and Valencia.

Look, I’m not going to pretend I know anything about street art. The closest I got to “tagging” was repeatedly drawing the Stüssy S all over my binder in 7th grade.

But I think it’s really tacky when businesses paint their signs in graffiti text. It reminds me of those arcade machines in the 90′s that would show you a tag-font “Stay In School” splash screen when they started up. Even then I was cynical enough to see through their ridiculous attempt to appeal to my “urban” side.

Sure, we’ve sung praises for the yodelin’ Japanese cowboy Toshio Hirano before, but I just found this video profile of him done by PRI that deserves some attention:

Toshio has a charisma and passion for music that is really sobering to all the cynical young musicians like myself. Here’s a guy who loved classic country music so much that he literally up and moved straight to the source. (Ok, so my love of burritos may have moved me from the east bay to San Francisco, but that’s not exactly the same thing.)

He’s no fool either, he’s well aware that there’s quite a bit of the novelty/freak show draw to his act. But hey, if that’s what it takes to get people to come out and see him doing what he loves, then he’s ok with that. Oh, and his between-song banter is hilarious… that’s no act. This man is funny.

Toshio will be playing tonight as part of his monthly residency at the Rite Spot Cafe on 17th and Folsom from about 9pm-12. Go get your two-step on.

photo by Eric Wolfinger - http://ericwolfinger.com/

Move over gamelan! Accordion is the new hotness. Marié Abe plays at Tartine Bakery on Fridays (TONIGHT) from 6-8pm. I don’t even know why I’m bothering to type anything else since after seeing the HOTT picture above I’m sure you have already left this site and you’re totally myspace-stalking the shit out of her.

Marié is from Japan and was April in 2009′s Accordion Babes Calendar. She plays in a ton of groups including the Japonize Elephants, Tango No. 9, and Thorny Brocky. Most of her music is pretty damn heavy and experimental, but at Tartine they keep it a bit more accessible for the baked goods crowd with jazz, Brazilian choros, French musette waltzes, and such. She’ll be joined by Darren Johnson (Nice Guy Trio, Brass Menazeri) and Lisa Mezzacappa. No cover, so tip well.

And if that’s not enough accordion for you, head over to Amnesia from 7-9pm for Rob Reich and Craig Ventresco right afterwards, playing some good old ragtime, blues, and early jazz.

Wow, this brings me back to the AOL days. It’s hard to imagine, but those Translink add-value kiosks are probably making these sounds somewhere behind the scenes. I wonder if it says “Goodbye!” after it’s done with your transaction.

MrEricSir might be able to clarify on this, but if it’s true, that’s OLD SCHOOL.

That being said, I guess if it aint broke don’t fix it. Oh wait, it is broke. On the bright side, when those kiosks go down, the bus drivers usually just wave me on when I flash my rendered-useless Translink card. Playing these odds probably works out in your favor when compared to the ever-inflating MUNI pass prices.

Write your own caption contest! GO! (No prizes, don’t be mean, Sexpigeon auto-disqualified)

Snapped at 16th St. BART. God we’re creepy.

No big deal, just a picture of someone enjoying an El Farolito quesadilla, right?

Psych! It’s a picture of someone enjoying an El Farolito quesadilla in the East Village, NYC!

You can do it too: On the way to SFO, hop out at 24th St. station. Run into El Farolito and order that quesadilla to go. It’s probably a good idea to avoid the sour cream. Immediately double-ziplock bag it and toss it in your luggage. When you land in NYC 6 hours later, call up your friend and tell her that you’ll be bringing lunch. Don’t worry, as a previous mission resident, the concern of a salmonella infection will be dwarfed by her longing for decent Mexican food*.

Your clothes will smell like carne asada for a week, but the look on her face will be worth it. She’ll give you a big hug and tell you that this was a way better gift than the “Alcatraz Swim Team” T-Shirt you brought last time.

The question is, what can your NYC friend do for you? Imported pizza? Nah, contrary to what they think, we have plenty of good pizza here.

*The “Mexican” food in NYC borders on the terrible. Trust me when I say I wish it were otherwise.

Mission Loc@l posted a video (well, audio slideshow, really) behind the scenes at Arinell.

If you’re still on Windows 95, here’s the gist: employee Neil Aviles talks about eating “tons” of pizza (“like 3 slices… in 4 hours”… I’m pretty sure Andrew Sarkarati has broken that record), dudes passing out in the store, failed crank deals, mission gentrification, and yuppies.

Oh no he didn’t just drop the Y-bomb! Careful Neil… I got in trouble for that this week.

If you like listening to a proper English gal sing about anal sex, hot water bottles, and proper cunnilingus technique in a punky cabaret backdrop, you’ll love the Trifles! They are playing tonight at El Rio at around 9pm with the Barbary Coasters, and the Cheshire Rock Opera.

These guys are awesome and I wish they would play more often. Singer Linda Robertson is hella talented. She plays a bunch of instruments, was Miss Accordion San Francisco 2004, and is the author of a high-larious memoir “What Rhymes With Bastard“.

Here’s a video of them playing at the Makeout Room last year: