So, it was a TUESDAY and I thought I would sneak in a quick lunch at Geta around 1:30pm (assuming the lunch rush was over), but I get there to find a completely full restaurant, people standing outside, and no room at the bar. Whaaaat?!! I had to wait about 10 minutes… since I was alone I grabbed a seat at the sushi bar.

The miso soup at Geta is totally legit. I’ve had a lot of bad miso soup in my day and this soup is freaking awesome. Can’t go wrong with the miso soup here.

I looked up above the sushi bar and saw this… Darn, didn’t try anything on any of those signs.

This is the fish in front of me.

…it’s almost sushi time!

Wahahahaha my favorite roll, the classic shrimp tempura. The only thing I wouldn’t mind leaving out is the lettuce. Since when do they put lettuce in sushi? Weird to me.

Spicy tuna roll, mmmm….

Here’s the outside.

Geta Japanese Restaurant
165 41st St
Oakland, CA 94611

The post Geta Sushi: Spicy Tuna Roll, Shrimp Tempura Maki appeared first on Fryhole.

This time I planned on getting there early enough to get a seat! Swan Oyster Depot opens promptly at 10:30am. We arrived at 9:50am on a Thursday. We were the first people there! So we walked up the street and got a cup of coffee and walked back to the Swan to officially get in line. It was about 10:10am and we were still the first people in line… but not for long.

People began to appear and suddenly the line was about 20 people deep. Apparently this was a “slow morning”.

Here’s a guy setting up the windows. The sun was beating down so he had white paper covering all of the fish until the sun wasn’t so direct.

This shot was taken right after they put all the stools down… 5 minutes before this shot all of the stools were piled up in sets of two against the wall. This is it though, this is the entire restaurant. One main counter with stools. It doesn’t seat many people, hence why there is always a line to get in. It’s awesome, old school, authentic and everything you’d hope a seafood diner would be.

Yay, they finally opened and we took our seats about halfway down the bar, directly in front of the menu on the wall. I ordered what I had the last time I was there – the combination seafood cocktail and a bowl of clam chowder.

There was a huge bowl of oyster crackers every 3 feet or so… we were lucky enough to sit right in front of one! When you sit down you also get a big hunk of bread and butter, but I forgot to take a photo of that…

My view from the bar…

Ahhh the combination seafood cocktail! It’s served in a little sundae dish and it looks small but boy does it pack a big punch. The bottom is filled with lump crab meat, it’s topped with a jumbo shrimp and an oyster. And you get a big dish of cocktail sauce to dip everything into. It’s pretty mild and ice cold which is yum.

The first time I had this clam chowder I remember it being the absolute best clam chowder I’ve ever had. This past time I beg to differ but only because it was slightly luke warm… but I’m going to blame it on the fact that it was 10:30am and we were the first people in line. It was still very good and I ate almost the entire bread chunk they gave us.

What makes this soup so tasty is the fact that the broth is super flavorful and isn’t not super chunky… it’s definitely creamy but on the thinner side which makes dipping bread into it completely OCD and oyster crackers absorb the broth faster.  It’s really, really good.

So, long story short, place is great. Despite all the hype surrounding this place, I still think it’s worth going (if you have time). The seafood is super fresh, nice and cold, and the ambiance brings me right back to the diners of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  You really don’t find many down home places like this in San Francisco. I love everything about it, except the super long line.

Swan Oyster Depot
1517 Polk St
San Francisco, CA 94109

The post Swan Oyster Depot – Seafood Cocktail and Clam Chowder appeared first on Fryhole.

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

The post Fresca: Arroz con Mariscos appeared first on Fryhole.

Anyhow, I was frigging starving because I had an early photoshoot this morning and was running around and squatting down on the ground trying to shoot these two super cute dogs… so I was ready to really go all out and have a nice meal.  Something I didn’t notice last time I was there was that there is ALOT of vegetarian food on the menu.  Actually, the brunch menu is basicall ALL vegetarian minus one dish – the blackened cod (with eggs)… the sausage is fake and so is the sausage gravy (for the biscuits).  So I was out of luck in the pig department, ugh!

I went with the Huevos Rancheros, a fish taco and an order of the mixed french fries and sweet potato fries.

Check out the Huevos Rancheros (above).  I was disappointed in this dish because the tortilla below the egg was just a regular flour tortilla, soft and uncooked.  If you look closely, you will see a very thinly cooked egg atop a tortilla… yes that is an egg that is covered in tomato sauce.  The dish was just OK.  I was honestly expecting a crunchy tortilla shell as the base of my rancheros or at least some tortillas on the side to dip with, but I got none of that.  To me, everything (minus the cabbage which I didn’t eat) was too mushy and soft.  The egg was cooked sunny side up so when you cut into it, the yolk just spilled out everywhere making a big ol mess on the plate.

Here is a shot of the fish taco and the french fries/sweet potato fries.  I’ve had the fish taco before at Weird Fish and it is good.  It was good today too.  The mango salsa on top is sweet and fresh and the fish is lightly breaded.  Taco = A+, Fries = C.  …Sorry french fries/sweet potato fries mix, you are waaay too dry and overcooked, so much that there is hardly any potato left inside!

I decided to take a shot of my friend’s meal too.  This is the Capp St. potatoes with a side of fruit and a side of fake sausage.  Doesn’t it look amazing?  It tastes amazing too, must be that sour cream!  No, it was really good, I would get this over my Huevos Rancheros in a hott second.  They mix both sweet potatoes and regular potatoes into this home fry mix, top it with red beans, sour cream, salsa and avocado.

Here’s a quick shot of the inside.  I love the color on the walls — it’s like a muted aqua/tealish color and the decor is old apothecary jars on the shelves, old vintage picture frames, and starfish-like found things.

Brunch was decent.. I wasn’t wowed to the ultimate but my hunger was tamed.

Weird Fish
2193 Mission Street
(between 18th St & Sycamore St)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-4744
www.weirdfishsf.com

The post Weird Fish SF: Huevos Rancheros, Fish Taco, Fries appeared first on Fryhole.

I had Shrimp Tempura Maki, Hamachi and Yellowtail Sashimi and Chicken Donburi with egg.

The shrimp tempura maki was pretty good.  The only issue I had with it was that the shrimp tempura wasn’t freshly cooked — either they pre-cooked the pieces to use in the maki or they didn’t fry it long enough because the tempura had no crunch… (but the finely sliced pieces of cucumber did).  It was interesting to me to have cucumber in the shrimp tempura maki – most places either do a simple shrimp tempura with nothing else or sometimes with avocado, but I’ve never really seen the basic shrimp tempura maki with both avo and cucumber.. Anyhow I was very impressed with how fine the pieces of cucumber were sliced.

Above is the sashimi.  It was super fresh, nice and chilled and just melted in your mouth.

I really liked the chicken donburi at Sanraku.  Not only were there very fresh ingredients (onion, pepper, green beans) but the chicken was also nice breast meat and was juicy and tender.  I’ve had bad chicken donburi at places that use gross rubbery dark meat and I have to say that Sanraku really does a good job with this dish.

For those of you who have never had this dish, there is rice underneath these sauteed veggies and meat (and egg).  On top of the rice is a sweet donburi sauce and it is traditionally covered on top with a fried egg (in my case it was scrambled and wasn’t included with the dish).  Anyhow, it was really good, and I definitely suggest getting it with a nice fried egg on top – totally rules.

Thank you Sanraku for a great lunch!

Sanraku
101 4th St
Inside Metreon
(between Howard St & Minna St)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 369-6166
www.sanraku.com

The post Sanraku: Chicken Donburi & Shrimp Tempura Maki appeared first on Fryhole.

I ordered the Charbroiled Prawn with steamed rice because I thought that it would warm me up withouth making me feel like a total load.

Take a second and try to count how many pieces of food there are on this plate.  1 Scoop of rice, 1 dish of fish sauce, 4 pieces of broccoli, 7 shrimp.  I’m sorry, but that is not enough food… not for $8.50 and not for a starving Kir… I gobbled up the shrimp and the broccoli pretty fast, and I was still really hungry so I ate the white rice which you know is soooo not filling in a “filling” way… *sigh*.  Will try something else there next time.

Oh yeah, the shrimp was good.  It was just sauteed with some pepper and garlic, pretty simple… the broccoli was lightly steamed.  The fish sauce was good and the rice was good too… cooked perfectly, not too soft, not too grainy and it had that nice popcorny smell.

I’m giving today’s lunch 2 stars because I think it wasn’t enough food, and it wasn’t oh so spectacular.  It was good but it wasn’t good enough for $11… but I will go back to try the garlic noodles – they smelled divine.

Perilla
510 Mission St
(between 1st St & Ecker Pl)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 777-1893
www.perillasf.com

The post Perilla SF: Charbroiled Prawn appeared first on Fryhole.

So what is the Vietnamese Crepe you say? It kind of looks like an omlet – it is a sort of crispy pan fried rice flour folded-over shell stuffed with chicken, shrimp and bean sprouts (mung beans). They also make it with turmeric and cornstarch so it has a nice golden color and a yummy corn-esque flavor. The crepe itself is for the most part, is pretty thin… it should be both chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside, if that makes any sense.

Today I went at lunchtime which was a completely different experience than going at dinner which I usually do. This was the first time in 5 years that I’ve gone to this place when my 2 favorite waiter dudes weren’t working – it was a woman and another guy (they were both very nice, don’t get me wrong). And they had an easy listening radio station playing too. I never noticed music before in there, so maybe it’s just a lunchtime thing… it was nice though, and it was also nice how it wasn’t so crowded and there were other “singles” eating alone too.

There must be a different cook during the day than night (duh), because there was only one difference in the crepe today than how it’s usually made at night. There were small scallion slices cooked into the crepe, they aren’t usually there at night. …No, seriously, I could talk about the Vietnamese crepe all day. Anyway, onto the pics!

[above] Fish Sauce!!

[above] Post-fish sauce

I <3 Vietnamese Crepe = DISCO FRIES!!

Sunflower Authentic Vietnamese Restaurant
3111 16th St
& 506 Valencia
(at Valencia St)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 626-5022
www.sunflower-restaurant.com

The post Sunflower: Vietnamese Crepe appeared first on Fryhole.

My lunch time dining experience though was just OK. When I first walked in I was pretty excited because I really like the old tavern/bar look and it seemed like a pretty cool place but my experience wasn’t so spectacular. Maybe it all started with the cloudy, sour iced tea or maybe our server’s sour attitude… but I was thrown on the wrong foot within the first 5 minutes.

My friend insisted that the calamari at this place was awesome so we ordered it as the app. If you like simple, fried calamari, the basket at this place is really good. The calamari is mostly rings and not so many tentacles, the rings are tender and easy to bite/chew and not as rubbery and dense as they are at other places.

For lunch I ordered a cheeseburger and fries. It looked great when it came out – the bun was nicely toasted and the fries were golden brown. When I was cutting it in half I noticed that there was only 1 slice of cheese (cheddar) and that it was the oily, cheap kind that didn’t cover the entire burger and that most of it had melted into the bun, so there was hardly any cheese left on the burger, waaah. So I slopped it with ketchup to mask the no-cheese flavor. It was pretty well done too = greasy from the cheese but dry inside.

My friend ordered the half rack of bbq ribs for lunch. They definitely looked better than they tasted. We were pretty sure that whoever was cooking them left them in the smoker for too long because they were dry and felt like biting into a piece of cardboard. It was nice and saucy though, but even good sauce can’t make hard dry meat good enough to wanna tear apart.

All in all, the experience was mediocre. I felt like I wanted to stay and hang around and have a beer because the place looked really cool, but honestly, I was really put off by our server’s “the world owe’s me something/i’m too cool for you” attitude and non-friendly service, so it made me want to get the freak out of there. Just because you work at a bar restaurant doesn’t mean you have to be so UGH. If I make it back someday, I hope I have a better time, because people deserve to have a good time at such a laid back place.

PS. I’m especially sensitive to these kinds of restaurants because I, myself, used to work at a bar restaurant as both a server and a bartender, so I understand the pangs of customer service and working in the restaurant industry.

Ben & Nick’s
5612 College Ave
(between Keith Ave & Ocean View Dr)
Oakland, CA 94618
(510) 923-0327

Viewer Rating: [ratings]

The post Ben & Nick’s: Calamari, Ribs, Cheeseburger & Fries appeared first on Fryhole.

There are 3 things I need to point out about Mixt Greens before I reveal my actual lunch selection…

Mixt Greens:

• uses all biodegradable/compostable utensils and containers
• the tables inside are made from recycled laundry detergent bottles
• the food is organic, sustainable and local

Nothing not to like about that!

I was feeling adventurous so today I ordered the Maui Salad instead of my favorite “Bachelor” salad.  The Maui salad is comprised of: butter lettuce, coriander-encrusted seared ahi tuna, avocado, cherry tomatoes, mango, cucumber, red onion, mango citrus vinaigrette topped with crushed macadamia nuts.  That is the exact menu description.  It also comes with a half slice of bread.

So, the salad was good.  When I read the ingredients for the first time I was expecting nice, soft lettuce, with a light, mango-esque dressing… light, healthy with a little salty kick from the macadamias… Well, it was good but it wasn’t really what I was expecting.  Overall, I think the avocado made the salad a bit too mushy for my liking… and I know the crushed macadamias were supposed to be the textural, “crunchy” part of the salad, but even macadamia’s are soft too… coupled with the soft fish and the soft mango… just a bit too mushy for me. The ahi was good and seared perfectly, but I think overall something is a little off, and I’m not sure what kind of suggestion I would have to make it better…oh well.

Aesthetically, all of the salads at Mixt Greens look fantastic, including this one, but I’m not sure I’d order it again.  Also, some people say that the price is a little steep, but honestly, the salads you get are so big (I can rarely finish an entire one unless I’m starving)… so I think there is definitely value in the price, in addition to the other great “green” features of the place and operation.  I also have to mention that the people who work at this location are particularly awesome.

Thank you to Michael Poulton for taking this shot of me!

Sorry Mixt Greens, today I give you 3 fries.

Mixt Greens
560 Mission St
(between Anthony St & Shaw Aly)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 543-2505
www.mixtgreens.com

The post Mixt Greens: Maui Salad appeared first on Fryhole.