North Beach Deja Vu

mini booths w/ paintings

Back when I was trolling Yelp for a good North Beach place to check out for my bday party, one particular restaurant, Tommaso Ristorante Italiano, kept popping up. I really wanted to go then, but they don't take reservations, and all the reviews said it got really crowded on weekends. I decided to queue it up on my lists, and finally hit it up for my last date night.

It's always fun going over to North Beach because it gives me the whole I'm so cool I freaking live in San Francisco and work at a video game company and life is awesome <:D feeling. Totally irrational, but it happens. This time I was geeking out especially badly because after 15 mins of looking for parking, I finally got a spot (90 degree angle space!!) that had an incredible view of TransAmerica building on one side, and Coit Tower on the other. Such good times

When we got to Tommaso's, I had this crazy flashback deja vu of being there with my dad back on one of my many college trips to Cali. As soon as we opened the door it was totally confirmed as I recognized the mini booths with faux Mediterranean frescoes on the walls. We had to wait a few mins to be seated, and then we got stuck in the middle of the giant communal table.

It was late-ish when we got there (prolly 8:45) and so people were starting to clear out. It was pretty ridiculous because the way the traffic flow went, everyone left the center table except the parties directly on either side of us :P. Truthfully, worse for them because both Carlos and I were still in our many bouts of loud coughing fit sickness. It was kind of annoying though, because it made everything REALLY hard to hear. I have trouble enough trying to understand his accent anyways, so adding on excessive ambient noise did not help at all. It was a whole lot of "QUE?!"ing all night.

lasagna

The food itself was decently tasty. I ended up getting a cheese pizza with garlic, and Carlos got some lasagna. I really liked my pizza and the small was more than enough food for two meals for me (even with someone stealing a couple pieces :P). The lasagna was ok, but not as memorable. There were a bunch of varieties of pizzas, so it would be fun to go back with a group and order several to split. 

Overall the meal was good, but the loudness of the room and crowdedness of our seating kind of put a damper on it. If I went again, I'd try to guarantee getting a mini-booth for privacy. I haven't been very many places in North Beach, but I have a feeling I'd disagree with the many reviews calling Tommaso's the best. It's good, but not omfh amazing.

Fun Foods from the Rewe

[>: | blogger is being stupid so the pics have to go at the bottom. apologies]

  Ok, so not all of these are actually from Rewe, I just like the name because it reminds me of wawa :). This post just contains the fun convenience store/grocery packaged good German food stuff I bought. Similar to anywhere I go, I love checking out the local candies, cookies, and sodas so I stopped pretty much every night on my way back to my apartment.

First off, I LOVE FANTA ZERO!! Germany has a really tiny selection of sodas, especially diet. I think this is pretty status quo for Europe, but hard for a thirsty American like me who drinks like 100 ounces a day of beverage :p. Fanta Zero was one of like 4 diet sodas on the market, but it was all I needed! As everyone knows, non-USA Fanta is way better and kind of tastes like a combo of mineralwasser and Sunny D. I bought a liter almost every night of my trip and finished them all before leaving. I also tried "Mezzo Mix Zero", a Coke product that tasted kind of like orange hinted cola. It had nothin' on my FZ.

Another funny beverage I found in the Schwerin (Florence of the north!) train station was Hello Kitty soda. It was a mix of like strawberry-raspberry Capri Sun with mineralwasser. It wasn't that good, but I couldn't not buy an adorably pink Hello Kitty bev.

I hit the Haribo hardcore too :). I made a big effort to buy flavors that aren't common in America. I discovered an amazzzzzzzzing new type: yogi gummy. They are little cream fruit flavored gummies with liquid yogurt in the inside. So good. I bought like 10 types to bring home including caramel filled cows, fruity tires, pico artists, phantasia and Freddy Furkel pigs just to name a few.

Also got a new fav flavor of packaged cookies. Liebeinz cookies are square biscuits with a choco coating on one side. Difference is, the choco is actually super high quality delicious unlike most packed cookie ingredients. Mmmm. I only bought a couple Milka bars and Richter Sport because although delicious, they are pretty easily accessible in America.

I also hit the yogurt/pudding sections pretty hard. I really love those back home, and Germany had a way better selection. Usually I'd add one (or two....) on to my Fanta purchase as a late night dessert. I was really happy with the variety of flavors, especially in the rice pudding selection. I tended to stick with caramel and cinnamon, but ventured out and tried some yummy raspberry versions as well. Super wish they had such a wide selection in America. They also sold many quarks as yogurts which surprised me as I thought that was strictly a dipping/baking ingredient.

Rewe made me happy :) although the non-English speaking cashier lady totally thought I was retarded by the end of the week since I was in there every night, and always struggled at the end when I was pulling out my Euro coins to pay. Plus... I don't think normal people spend about $40 in 5 days on sodas and candy ':)

Non-German Foods in Berlin

 

Throwback to Germany! Just remembered there were a couple posts I forgot to get out. Sigh sigh

Supposedly Berlin is like the "San Francisco" of Germany because of the huge variance of people and foods in the city. We actually ended up eating a lot of non-German meals, and it was interesting to see how they differed from American versions.

 
I tried a couple of Italian dishes in Berlin, and truthfully, neither of them impressed me much. Granted, we were going to cheaper places that probably weren't that great. I would think due to sheer proximity, the food would be more authentic than back home... But who knows.

The first was doomed for the beginning cuz we brought a freaking 11 month old baby with that had been dragged around all day sans much food. I don't want to go in to the graphic details, but Margaret had leave with it after attempting to very very messily feed it fettuccine alfredo. At that place, I tried a pizza. I thought i was getting a chicken parm pizza, but somehow it ended up with giant slabs of prosciutto on it. Stupid language barriers >: /. It was actually pretty good once I pulled most of the toppings off. The other pizza I had was from their fav local shop in Charlottenburg. I ordered it because it had egg and fresh mozzarella. I love egg pizza so it was promising. The menu mention that it contained spinach which I am ok with.... but they weren't kidding. There was seriously like 2 lbs of spinach on this thing. It was in giant piles on top and even baked under the cheese :( it quickly got to be that nasty seaweed consistency and I had to pick most of it off.  Was jealous that my dad's veggie pizza had corn on it though (Carlos!!). Overall it was just bland stilll.

In Schwerin, we ate at a supposedly Czech cafe, but it seemed to have a generic menu. I got some weird "hawaiin" steak dish that had a giant slab of chicken with ham, pineapple, and cheese on top. It was actually pretty tasty :) although pretty fake American seeming. The best was the "cake buffet" there :D unfortunately not the same definition as a US buffet, but still fun to pick a slice of super delicious cake from behind the glass. I loooooooved the one I got. It was a big slice of very sweet lemon mouse cake with a cookie crust. I normally really dislike lemon baked goods, but somehow this was total win and one of the best baked goods I had all trip.

I actually ended up with another hawaiin ish dish at separate place! Apparently pineapple is popular in Berlin. At Marg & Danny's fav place, I grabbed a "fried turkey curry on rice". I was super hoping it would be like the japanese tonkatsu curry... but of course it wasn't. The curry was more of a cream sauce with little to no spice :(. It was ok... But nothing special either. I had a funny highly European "hawaiin mango lime lemonade" there as well, which was just a soda with no lemonade consistency. Nick got an "indescribable in English" Bavarian dish at this place. I can describe it... it was a freaking dennys grand slam :p fried eggs on ham with breakfast potato. Not saying that's a bad thing :)

Grabbed a couple yummy deserts too. This one might be German... But oh well. To my suggestion, we hit up the cafe on top of my family's fav Berlinian choco shop. The shop itself was super awesome. It had a gigantic selection of gourmet chocolates in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. Brought back lots to share so hit me up ;). They even had huge choco models of stuff like the Reichtag, Berliner Dome, and the Titanic. Fun!

The cafe was awesomeeeeeee!! Had a really tasty raspberry mouse tart thing. My dad got a delicious passion fruit tart and Nick got an intense choco puff. It was such a cute date spot overlooking the cool part of dowtown and it made me wanna come back with people my age.

There also were tonnnnnnnnns of "eis" (ice cream) shops all around. I'm putting it here because we ended up getting gelato in the Potsdam station which I'll pretend is Italian. They were pretty similar to American gelato stops except the flavors were odd. I got a double scoop of marshmallow (amazing) and the intriguingly bright blue schlumpf (I think it was maybe cotton candy). Really enjoyed that :)

The aforementioned foreign sweets were among the best things I ate on my trip. Kind of sad... Haha

PROLLY CUZ I NEVER F-ING GOT MY KARTOFFELPUFFEN >:(

Giant Meatball Action

outside wall

One of the few rules of RDN is that we can't go to a place without the submitter being present. Luckily for us, Panch has yet to put anything in the hat, or we'd all be SOL :P. But lately, we've been running in to the same issue with the newly promoted lead: Manu <3. For like a month we had been tabling Emmy's Spaghetti Shack until he was finally able to go last Monday.

awesome bread

hipster vibe

We decided to be nice and invite Ken to this RDN as a new job special. It was a decision I immediately regretted as he showed up late, and Emmy's is strict about their "no seating till the whole party arrives" rule. Emmy's is a cute, well-known dive place in Bernal Heights across from the Safeway. It has fun art on the outside of the building and the inside is very hipster. It is decorated to look shack-like, and has things like laundry hanging from the ceiling. The menu is pretty simplistic, but there are a variety of Italian dishes. All of us went for the famous spaghetti and giant meat balls except Manu (since he can't have red meat).

cute menu

I think one of my favorite parts of the dinner was the free appetizer bread. It was a chopped up focaccia with olive oil and so insanely good. I can't even remember why, but I know we gobbled it up in like a minute and luckily they promptly brought more. I think it may have had Rosemary on it, cuz I freaking love Rosemary.

The pasta dishes came and were HUGE. All of us were pretty hungry and no one got more than half-way through their food. Each spaghetti came with three large meatballs. They were about the size of your fist and very filling and tasty. The pasta itself wasn't particularly notable, but like most such dishes, it still tasted good since spaghetti is hard to screw up. I was happy that even after being stuffed I had a giant dish of leftovers to take home.

giant meatballs & spaghetti

Emmy's seems like a nice, dependable, neighborhood joint where you go if you are in need some some serious meatball fix. It isn't too big, so unless you want to wait, it's probably best to go at an off-time or a weeknight.

Sharon's Super Baked Specialty!

happy last BGM!

I made my fame at EA by being the BGM (baked goods Monday) girl, but long before that, I was known for one very special dish: Fruit Pizza. I feel terrible taking the credit for this amazing creation because I totally learned it from Chelsie back in the days of high school debate. We once had to present a "how-to" demonstration to our peers... this fortuitous assignment is where she brought the delicacy to my life. In the following couple years, the two of us made a plethora of these delicious dessert pizzas. In 2005 when I first got my FB account, my pension for photographing fruit pizzas quickly spread the concept to my new friends who all wanted to be a part of the magic

For some reason that probably revolved around expense and perishability, I had never brought one for BGM at EA. Since last week was my last, I thought it would be appropriate to go out with a bang... so I brought personal (aka cupcake format) fruit pizzas :)

crusts for filling

Fruit pizzas are pretty simple to make. I generally prepare them in giant cookie sheets, but pretty much any pan will work. All you need is: 2 tubes of sugar cookie dough, 2 pks cream cheese, powdered sugar, and as much delicious fruit as you can afford. Prep is rather easy as well... spread the cookie dough like a crust and cook it until it's just barely done. Mix a sauce of cream cheese, powdered sugar, and a pinch of fruit juice for flavoring. Spread. Artistically apply chopped fruit. Done. :)

final product :)

Super simple but the results are always magical. For some reason the flavors just combine so perfectly in to the tastiest dessert ever. It is crazy addicting and because of the fruit, you try to convince yourself that it's healthy. It's not. I don't have much more to say about it beyond it's like the greatest dessert on earth, and everyone should try. Enjoy!!

My gallery of fruit pizzas throughout the years :) many friends, much fun 

possibly the prettiest fruit pizza ever! (summer 2005)

Calley and I attempt to make one... so much fail (March 2006)

a bright and summery fruit pizza! (July 2006)

Stacie finally gets to make one with me :) (December 2007)

Chilean Comida

humita

Ahhhhhh sorry for the huge delay!! The process of leaving a job and starting a new one 2 days later is highly stressful and I was too busy/tired to blog. I will try to hurry and catch up now! 

cutely decorated

For some reason, despite the predominance of Latin food in the bay area and SF, there is apparently only one Chilean sit-down restaurant in like all of NorCal. After many failed attempts due to poor timing with meat-fasting Lent days, Carlos was finally able to take me to Berkeley to check Cafe Valparaiso out :)

pastel de choclo

I wanted the most authentic experience possible, so I let him do the ordering for me. We started out with a humita. Humita is a corn based appetizer that looks like a tamale as it is wrapped in its own husk. As a big fan of corn, I really liked it.

carlos con comida

For a meal I got the pastel de choclo. This is another traditional dish that is unlike anything I have eaten before. It too is heavily corn based, and then contains a variety of things inside such as beef, spices, raisins and egg <3. The consistency is pretty casserole-esque, and it kind of confused me while I was eating it. Carlos ended up getting a weird Chilean-trying-to-be-Indian dish. The sauce was all curry coconutty, but tasted a bit off. I think he was jealous of my dish ;)

Dessert was what I was most excited for because Chileans are super huge on manjar- their version of dulce de leche. We each got a dish to split. I had nino envuelto which were like caramel filled crepes, and he had torta milhoja which was a "thousand" layer cake. Both were decent, but I think I liked his better. It kinda of reminded me of baklava in its consistency, but it had a great variety of sweet flavors.

mmmm dessert!

The place was decorated all cute and the wait staff is from Chile. My only complaint is that the food is kind of expensive for what you get, and they are missing a few of the key dishes that I've been dying to try :(. At least it's something Chilean though! <:D

S'MACed Down

menu

Mac & cheese is totally one of my very favorite foods, and one that I pick restaurants especially for. I was overjoyed when a few months ago I read that a new, all mac & cheese place was opening up in Oaktown. Unfortunately, crossing the Bay Bridge is such a pain in the butt, it took me a couple months to drag my @$$ over there... but finally! on Friday night I hit up Homeroom.

trailer mac w/ hot dogs and chips

Homeroom is a restaurant completely dedicated to the delicious pasta concoction. I have been to a similar restaurant, S'MAC, in NYC and completely loved it, so I had high expectations for the awesomeness of the dinner. What I liked most about S'MAC was the tremendous variety of pastas, and the bold seasonings. Even though it was all macaroni and cheese, they did an amazing job with spicing. I think I ordered the Masala which was very Indian delicious. I also loved that they came in adorable little frying pans <3

vermont white cheddar

As I said, high expectations going in. Homeroom is cute and tried to be themed like a school room. It was actually pretty spacious and parking was quite easy. The menus are on brown paper, and there are even instructions of how to make them in to paper airplanes on the back. There aren't THAT many flavors of m&c, but I was still intrigued by several. Unfortunately, it was Friday so I couldn't order the hot dog & potato chip infused "trailer mac"... but luckily Carlos was along and nice enough to order it for me. Eugi got a swanky goat cheese version, and I tried the "creamiest" Vermont cheddar.

fancy cheese

The servings were a decent size, too big for me to finish. I tried the non-meat part of Carlos's before I think he even did :). It tasted very hot-dog-ey, but the potato chip crumble wasn't as loud of a flavor as I was hoping for. Mine was decent, but kind of bland. I definitely enjoyed the taste and it was quite creamy, but it didn't even seem as good to me as Annie's version of the same product. There really wasn't anything unique about it. Eugi's was a bit too much for me. I am a cheese lover, but I can't do too much strong weird cheese. I also wasn't the biggest fan of the noodles in any of the dishes. They were very large and thick. I much prefer mini-noodles.

All-in-all, it was a decent meal.... just not as good as I hoped/expected. I think they have an awesome concept, they just need to spend some time honing the menu and really making it stand-out.