If you haven’t been to Homeroom yet, it is a mac and cheese restaurant. It’s really good and you should definitely go!

Here’s the outside. There’s usually a line, even on really hot days. I’m always surprised because it can be in the 70s and sweltering hot, yet people are still waiting around to stuff their gullets with creamy mac n cheese… I don’t get it, but whatever lol!

I start off with an iced tea. It’s house-brewed and has a floral essence to it… really good.

Ahhhhh the TRAILER MAC, my FAVORITE. Mac and Cheese mixed with hot dogs and topped with a generous handful of potato chips. BEST. In the spirit of my fat kid soul, I usually start inhaling this by the forkful – a few chews, but mostly so good I end up swallowing it whole before the heat wears off. I don’t suggest doing this – if you can, try to slow down and enjoy it.

OMG, the homemade oreo cookie. I don’t usually crave baked goods, but this cookie is too good to be true! It is NOT a cookie for sharing, get one of your own!

Homeroom Oakland
400 40th St
Oakland, CA 94609

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I love the garlic bread, it’s soooo good…

Here’s the spaghetti and meatballs. The sauce is the thick and tangy kind, not overly spiced. The meatballs are LARGE and provide just the perfect amount of meat for the dish.  You don’t feel like scrappin the spaghetti because there’s no meatball left.  These balls are big.

This place is good if you have a strong hankering for basic spaghetti and meatballs.

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The place is long and narrow inside with a long community table down the center of the restaurant, a some tables against the wall on either side. I didn’t take a photo because it was getting pretty crowded and they turned the lights down shortly after we sat down.

We ordered a couple of appetizers – the pork shoulder appetizer and what our server called the “phyllo dough”.  We didn’t know what that meant but when it came to the table we discovered they were fried spring rolls. In any case, they were delicious… perfectly crispy and not too greasy. Yummers.

Here is the pork shoulder appetizer. It came with a very tangy and spicy sauce…

The chicken pad thai! Sorry the photo is sloppy. When it was brought to the table, the food runner said it was “tofu pad thai” so it was given to my vegetarian friend, who picked at it and ate the top off (including my extra egg), until she realized there was chicken in it. Then she gave it to me (above).

Overall, I was very impressed with Lers Ros. It was affordable and super tasty… it suddenly got crowded after we sat down and by the time we were ready to leave, the line was out the door! We got there at 6:20ish and narrowly missed the dinner rush!

Lers Ros Thai
730 Larkin St
San Francisco, CA 94109

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I went to Fresca Restaurant in Noe Valley to shoot the restaurant and some food.  Fresca is a Peruvian restaurant and all of the dishes are rich and flavorful.  They even have a fresh oyster bar and serve ceviche and a number of other fresh seafood appetizers.  In the process of shooting, I met the chef’s mother, who insisted that I stay for dinner after the photoshoot was over (yay I was so happy!).  As I was shooting some food, one of the dishes that caught my eye (and nose) was a big bowl of what I thought was paella.  It smelled amazing and it reminded me of this awesome paella that I ate in New York City last fall.

Anyway, after all of the photos were taken, the chef asked me what I wanted and I told him I’d love to try the rice/paella dish with seafood.  They brought it out to me and I couldn’t wait to dig in.  All I can say… PARTY IN MY FREAKING MOUTH.  This was a total fiesta de mi boca… the most amazing rice and seafood dish I’ve ever eaten.  I seriously can’t even describe it… maybe it doesn’t even deserve words?  All I can say is that it’s been 2 days and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

If you look closely at the photo, you’ll see that the dish is made up of seasoned rice, scallops, shrimp, mussells and calamari.  It’s also tossed with some peas.

I sat alone at the oyster bar and inhaled every last piece of rice.  All that was left were empty shells.  I can’t wait to go back and have it again (or try something new).  I’m really kickin myself for not taking a picture of my empty bowl to add to the Clean Plate Club gallery…

Fresca has 3 locations in San Francisco (Noe Valley, Fillmore and West Portal).  I visited the Noe Valley location.

3945 24th St
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 695-0549
www.frescasf.com

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The line was terribly long and out the door.  People were standing around on the street waiting for their food.  The place is as small as a freaking closet.  There isn’t a clear menu on the wall either – I couldn’t remember the name of the sandwich I picked out on the website so I described it to the woman working there and she knew immediately which one it was – but she actually put my order in wrong anyway.  What I wanted was the King Koopa Sandwich – which is filled with meatballs, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers and marinara sauce… what I got was the Super Mario Sandwich – which has meatballs and mozzarella sticks.

We waited a long time for our food to come out.  Apparently they were slammed and they even had one of their employees (who was there picking up food) log in to help take orders and work.  We waited a longass time for our food…. it was ok though, because we just snagged one of the very few tables outside after a really annoying family left.

Sidenote: Don’t you hate it when you go to a restaurant and you’re in close proximity to a table where everyone is complaining about something (really loud, then they complain to the people at the restaurant)?  Apparently they ordered a sandwich without the Dirty Sauce (which is standard on all sandwiches.  What they didn’t know is that the dirty sauce (a garlic aioli) is actually baked into the bread.  When their sandwiches came out they then decided that they wanted the dirty sauce after all and complained that they didn’t get any on their sandwiches.  They caused a scene, holding up the line inside and even made the cook come out, who had to explain that the sauce was baked into the bread but that they actually ordered their sandwiches without it anyway.  UGHHH.  People like this annoy the hell out of me.  Shut the EFF up already and eat your gddamn sandwich! OOohhh they were makin me so mad!

Ok, so here come our sandwiches.  The anticipation was killing me so bad that it made me forget that I ordered the most fattening greasy sandwich ever… I didn’t care… I just wanted stuff those meatballs and those crispy jalapeno poppers and mozz sticks right into my little fryhole….

When the sandwich came, IT WAS MISSING THE POPPERS!!  Take a good look… I just died… ohhh the poppers were the only thing I was truly looking forward to, but I didn’t have the patience to go back and order another one (or the gall to complain about it… at least the mozz sticks were there).

THE TASTE: I was sadly disappointed.  The hype about the mozz sticks and poppers definitely got me extra excited about this sandwich, and it ended up being a lukewarm mushy mess.  I gather that the mozzarella sticks were pre-fried in bulk because they were FAR from crispy and the cheese inside was not warm… with each bite the mozz stick just mushed along with the meatballs, you couldn’t really taste either of them separately – it was just a big mushy mess (and there’s nothing worse than eating something that’s supposed to be crispy and hot and sinking your teeth into a soggy mush instead).  The marinara sauce was not bad and the bread was pretty good, but overall what I thought would be a party in my mouth turned out to be a total buzzkill!

If you go to Ike’s Place, I recommend looking at the menu on their website at www.ilikeikesplace.com because it’s kind of difficult deciding what to get on the spot when your’e there.  The menu online is also huge and overwhelming – unless you know specifically which sandwich you want, you probably won’t find it on the wall at the actual location because the entire selection is not posted anywhere big and bold…. just an fyi.

Lastly, and this is very important info: THEY DO NOT SERVE FRENCH FRIES ON THE WEEKEND!  My little fried heart nearly stopped beating when I waited in line for the 2nd time because I forgot to order fries, and when I finally made it to the cashier 15 minutes later, she said they don’t serve fries on the weekend. Just shoot me why don’tcha! UGHHHH!!!!

Sorry Ike’s Place, you only get 3 fries.  It was good but not great.  If I return, I will probably try something way way different, and come during the week so I can have french fries.

3506 16th St
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 553-6888
www.ilikeikesplace.com

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I was excited to find out that it was Hawaiian food… nothing better than eating a slab of fried meat, macaroni salad and a scoop of rice and feeling like a fatty in a food coma all night… so what did I order?  Hawaiian fried steak of course (yes, with rice and macaroni salad) and 2 orders of spam musubi (one for me, one for my friend).  Oh, and a raspberry iced tea.

Check out the Hawaiian Fried Steak (taken with my iphone):

I never had Hawaiian Fried Steak before.  Like its name implies, it’s like chicken fried steak only with the Hawaiian style gravy.  The fried steak was just perfect. It was fried and it stayed crispy and crunchy even after all that gravy was slopped all over it… pretty impressive! I can’t really describe the gravy – it’s kind of like, teriyaki sauce meets brown gravy.  It’s salty but tangy and a little sweet… and it goes perfectly with the crispy slab of sliced up fried steak.  There were two more scoops of rice underneath the meat… I couldn’t even touch the two scoops up top next to the macaroni salad…

All and all it was amazing.  In fact it was so good (I was eating this in the car) that I splattered gravy all over my shirt… need I say more?

The spam musubi was a TANK! You can see that they are stuffed chock full of rice.  (pic was taken with my iphone) Definitely more rice than I’m used to from L&L spam musubi… What I appreciated most about the 88 Ricebowl spam musubi was that when I finally got home and ate my roll 1/2 hour later it was still hot.  Yum!  Better yet, I ate the other roll for breakfast the next day and it was even tastier than the first one!!

Here’s a shot of the leftover spam musubi (taken with my real camera):

I am glad the nearest 88 Rice bowl is all the way down in Daly city otherwise I’d probably look like a spam musubi.

4 Fries!

88 Rice Bowl
1901 Junipero Serra Blvd
Daly City, CA 94014
(650) 991-8863

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I started off with Tamarindo’s daily aqua fresca – it was cucumber melon. The most amazing cucumber melon aqua fresca I’ve ever had… you could taste the freshness of the cucumbers and the sweetness of the melons… AMAZING…!! (I had 2)

Since “antojeria” means “place of little cravings” you can simply say it’s Mexican tapas. We ordered a bunch of different things, starting with (above) the sopecitos. OMG I’m freaking out right now, these aren’t on the online menu, I wonder if they took them off?! Anyhow, I can’t tell you offically what’s on them, but I can try to remember…. There were 3 different ones. the first one was vegetarian and had potatoes, spices, onion and cotija cheese, the second one had chicken asada and the third had carne asada, all topped with some onion and cotija. These little puppies were amazing!! The mini sopas are all warm, and the sopa itself is warm a little crispy on the bottom. The carne asade one was really really spicy…

Next we have the chilequiles. What are Chilequiles you ask? Well, at this place, they are heaven meets my last meal in jail. They are not nachos — basically they are tortilla chips, tossed in chipotle puree and topped with cotija (white cheese) and cilantro. At some other taquerias the chips come doused in red sauce, but not at Tamarindo. First of all, the chips are the thick, crunchy homemade kind. They are awesome because they’re the kind that stay crunchy through the meal… no sogginess here! And even though the chips are covered in sauce and cheese and the outsie might get a little soggy, the inside is still crunchy! If you go to Tamarindo, you HAVE to get this dish. In the time we were eating dinner, I think almost every table had a plate of them – they looked so good coming out of the kitchen that everyone started ordering it!!

This is the rice and plantains side dish. Now, words can’t really describe how delicious this side dish is. I could probably eat 2 or 3 of them as my meal. The rice was special. It wasn’t just a scoop of regular white rice. They definitely cook it with spices and maybe some coconut milk or something sweet, because it is a light, slightly salty sweet rice. The plantains were soft and warm, and very plantain-like… nothing over the top there… it was the rice that really sent this dish over the edge.

Here is the Sopa Azteca. This wasn’t one of my choices but I tasted it and took a pic anyway. This is one of the vegetarian options. It’s a chili puree soup and has chunks of cheese and avocado in it. It’s spicy and has a very rich and spicy flavor… spicy in the heavy, smokey way.

Lastly, some nachos and guacamole. I was still hungry so I ordered this, and boy was it good!! I think it’s the chips that finally did me in — after I ate half a plate of those chilequiles and then an order of nachos… The chips are the addictive kind, the kind that are buttery, salty and super crunchy – the kind when you eat one, you need to eat another and another and it snowballs until you’re left swiping the crumbs up with your finger to eat them too. The guacamole was really good – the mushy sweet kind with chunks of diced tomato and sprinkled with white cheese.

Tamarindo definitely gets a slam dunk for this meal, thanks to the chilequiles, the rice and plantains and the chips. Woo hoo!!

Tamarindo Antojeria
468 8th St
(between Broadway & Washington St)
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 444-1944
www.tamarindoantojeria.com

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The turkey burger came with a chipotle mayo and the sweet potato fries are to die for. If nothing else, I would come to Zebulon just to stuff my little fryhole with those sweet potato fries… they are SO GOOD!!

The burger was AMAZING. It was juicy, HUGE and really messy. I think this was the best turkey burger I’ve ever had. And those sweet potato fries were sweet, salty and lightly crunchy on the outside and really soft on the inside.

15 minutes later….

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We started with the corn cakes. The plate came with 2 corn cakes, each about 4″ in diameter. It was pretty good, sweet, a little crisp on the outside and even sweeter with the sweet cucumber sauce on top. The corn cakes at Thaihouse were nice and simple… Basically, just corn flattened into patties. I’ve had corn cakes at other places where they had veggies and meat… these corn cakes were good. Less is more!

Above is the “award winning” Pad Thai. According to the menu, the SF Guardian has rated Thaihouse Pad Thai as the best Pad Thai in San Francisco. This reason alone is why I decided to order this dish. When it came out, I thought I smelled hamster bedding, but then I realized it was probably just the nutty smell of crushed peanuts mixed with the sweet sauce.

Overall, the pad thai was pretty good. I can’t say that it was amazing or even the best that I’ve had.. but it was good. It’s downfall was that the noodles were just a tad bit overcooked… they were so soft that it made the dish a little softer and mushier than I would’ve liked, but overall, it was pretty tasty.

Thai House Express
599 Castro Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 864-5000
www.thhexpress.com/

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When you microwave the wheat germ cookie tho, it falls apart in your hands because I don’t think it is made with flour (if it is, you would never know). It crumbles completely when you touch it.. the pieces just fall down everywhere. I always feel like a caveman eating this thing — shoveling pinched up chunks into my mouth with super greasy fingers… and lastly I need to say that although the recipe may lack substance to hold the cookie together, it definitely does not lack butter.

Specialty’s
101 New Montgomery St
(between Minna St & Mission St)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(925) 299-2507
www.specialtysdirect.com

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