Mission Mission

Mission Street Food announced yesterday the next step in their great experiment’s evolution: They’re opening a restaurant of their own. And not only that, they want us all to invest! For the low, low price of just $500, you can tell your mom or your http://www.missionmission.org/2010/02/01/mission-street-food-going-full-time-seeking-investors/ friends that you’re an investor in the hottest new restaurant in San Francisco. Link.

Photo by snackfight.

Signs be damned, these sofas must be free. On Liberty near Valencia.

As Ron Perlman uttered in Fallout, “War. War never changes.” Accordingly, the fourth major theater of the San Francisco Food Wars stormed on today at Thirsty Bear. Herbs, cheeses, grains, and nuts fleshed out the theme: Yeast Affliction — that’s bread disease to you and me.

Sourdough was, as one might expect of an SF event, a competitive genre. Palo Alto’s Mayfield Bakery had a particularly wonderful sourdough and Jen Rosa took the gold for her Rosemary Sourdough — a well earned victory.

Your correspondents’ personal pick of the show was Wild Yeast‘s Semolina Sourdough with Fennel, Currants, and Pine Nuts. Seriously, that was some amazing shit.

And the enticingly named “Hurricane” (not pictured) totally deserved people’s choice: brown rice and seaweed! The seaweed was intense but with a slab of butter proved perfectly balanced. Your correspondents can’t wait for the recipes to be released.

The Fancy Boyz easily swept up the coveted Mission Mission best-dressed award. Their fermented Pain a l’Ancienne wasn’t half-bad neithers.

It wasn’t all buttery and fluffy, though. While Stable’s yard is large enough to allow for mingling, Thirsty Bear couldn’t really handle the volume. Any time your correspondents tried to stop and enjoy the bread, we were accidentally blocking someone or unintentionally in line for something. While the event was fun, we hope future battles retreat back to Stable.

Photography by Ashleigh Cole

Any of y’all go?

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.

I tried to tell Penelope Popsicle that these golden-Beretta-heeled kicks of hers are only almost as good as designer Iris Schieferstein’s golden-revolver-heeled Gun Hoofs, but Penelope retorts that whereas Schieferstein’s shoes are just art pieces, these babies you can actually buy at Shiekh Shoes right here in the Mission!! Awesome point!

“You had such an opportunity!  Why didn’t you go for it?”

“I dunno.  I guess I’m sad.”

Photographer Karoline Collins this morning took us back in time to the summer of 1998 and some kind of punk picnic in which a bunch of Mission kids piled into a van and went up north somewhere to catch some rays and have a swim.

“This is the first time I can remember seeing lots of punk rockers in bathing suits,” says the photographer. It’s a rare sight, right? Happy Friday!!

Previously:

Flashback: Mission Hipster, 2003

Throwback: Mission, 1989

Throwback: Mission, 1975

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.

Update! Agent Chaos of The Derailleurs is here to spread the word that there is a Bike Dance Cabaret in town. The Derailleurs will be debuting their Tweed Ride Polo Dance Movie and also the Derailleurs Coloring Book.

Come see what the saucy cyclists have cooked up for you.

Dance performances by the Derailleurs, the Bombshells (punk rock burlesque), and the Cheese Puffs (lounge burlesque)

Live music by The Nerv (hard hitting, straightforward inspirational punk), Jessie Roadkill (quirky singer-songwriter), and Tongue and Teeth (haunting and passionate)

Dance music by DJs Zelko (of Kafana Balkan), Miss Rowdy (booty), and Mega Bitch (more booty)

When: Jan. 30th

Where: The Box Factory 865 Florida #1 @ 21st

How Much: $7

[photo by derailleurs]