I really love this place, so much that I was even on the fence about even sharing it. The best thing though is the Tuesday special, $7 cheeseburger and fries! It’s printed on the table tent that sits on each table, otherwise you wouldn’t know about it unless you read…

Here’s the beautiful cheeseburger and fries! The burger is pretty darn big and the fries are crispy crinkle cut.

The french fries are crinkle cut – glorious, crispy, hot and salty. My very favorite kind!

The cheese is cheddar. It comes with a side of mayo.

Here’s a shot of the inside. It’s a real classic place, lots of locals, really laid back and really good food. All of the people who work there are very nice and friendly. I’ve never had anything I don’t like here, will definitely have to Fryhole some more stuff soon (the cheesesteak, the club, the danish meatball sandwich… omg).

The Lighthouse Cafe
12 Tamalpais Drive
Corte Madera, CA 94925

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Some background… one night Hav and I were watching tv and we saw a feature on KoJa Kitchen on the Food Network (I think?) about this place… I remember them talking about the rice buns and how they had the molds custom made… and the special hot sauce had a ton of ingredients. The buns were what initially peaked my interest. So we decided to go to the Off the Grid at UN Plaza in SF to check it out. I was so excited… !!

We got there right before lunch time so we just missed the long lines (whew), and as we were looking at their very high tech food truck (they have tv displays with the menu, whoaaa), I saw it….

KAMIKAZE FRIES. OMFG. So I ordered the KoJa combo with the beef koja and the kamikaze fries.

Here it is!! The presentation was amazing (that’s the vegetarian koja on the right… holy crap I couldn’t find a place fast enough to sit down and dig in!!

The Koja sandwich was AWESOME!!! The garlic rice bun was toasty and kind of crispy on the outside but still sticky rice-like on the inside. It was really good and a super unique alternative to traditional buns. The beef was very tender and flavorful! It was so good I ate every last bit.

Now for a truly life changing moment… THE KAMIKAZE FRIES. Let me just say that it has been almost 2 months now since I’ve had these fries and they are still a) on my mind almost daily, and b) have saved me from awkward situations as the topic of many conversation starters. When I’m bored and thinking about what I’d like to be eating at any moment, the kamikaze fries are either 1st or 2nd on my mind.. I’m not kidding.

If you didn’t know, I freaking love french fries. They are my favorite food EVER and it’s been a real challenge out here on the west coast to find a) good fries and b) disco fries of any kind. So hail to the fry gods, lord fry is here!

Take a good look at the fry pic. I know it’s not that good. That’s because I was so eager to eat that I just took a few really fast pics after I received the food from the window (because a long line was forming around me)… When we finally sat down I was too impatient and started eating right away so I messed up my opportunity to take amazing photos… but that’s ok because I know I’ll be back.

Anyway, back to the fries. They are WAFFLE fries and are topped with – or should I say drenched in korean bbq beef (ground up), sour cream, hot sauce, green onion, and probably some other stuff that I can’t remember – but it doesn’t matter because it’s A-MAZING and you’ll be snarfing this little paper tray of fries faster than you can breathe. The waffle fries are perfectly fried and crispy. I don’t know what kind of oil they fry them in but whatever it is, don’t change it!

Basically KoJa Kitchen is the freaking BOMB… you need to go there asap. Holy shiitake! Since experiencing KoJa Kitchen for the first time in Oct, I’ve definitely found myself first in line at 10:50am waiting for fries… need I say more?

KoJa Kitchen travels around the Bay Area – they’re always somewhere different everyday… so follow them on Facebook and Twitter to find out where they will be next!

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The inside of the restaurant is a giant u-shaped bar.  Not a drinking bar… but a food bar – like in real diners.  There were pretty many people there too – I got there around noon.  Everyone inside was talking to each other and there was an Asian woman taking orders and another woman cooking.  It was pretty cozy inside and I felt right at home.  The place had a nice campy feel – kind of like a jersey diner meets a California chinese restaurant meets diner food… I loved it, and I didn’t mind being alone!

I ordered grilled cheese and fries.  I actually ordered hot ham and cheese but I don’t think she heard me say ham because I got only cheese.  It was ok though because it was a bangin sandy.

This was the best grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever had.  Seriously… it was so cheesy and with every bite warm cheddar came stringing out… amazing!  I ordered it on wheat which was good but I think it would be even better on sourdough.  The fries were really good too – full of potato and fried perfectly… not too crisp, not too undercooked.  …I almost licked the plate clean!

Pretty Lady Restaurant
1733 Peralta St
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 832-1213

[ratings]

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I’m definitely a corn-ie and will rarely refuse anything with corn in it.  The Cream of Corn soup is pureed very finely (there are no whole pieces of corn in it).  They use alot of butter also so it is buttery and corn-y with a smooth n silky texture, yum!  (I actually went to Zebulon two days in a row to get this soup).

The sandwich on the other hand was just good.  Nothing spectacular about it.  My general complaint with most hot sandwiches is that they could be hotter (don’t just toast the bread and broil the cheese down, heat up the meat too, geez!), and this sandwich was no exception.  The sweet potato fries were excellent as usual – sweet, crispy and chock full of yam.  The sweet potato fries are magnet that keeps pulling me back to Zebulon, I could eat them everyday and every night for the rest of my life.

Overall, a good lunch.

Zebulon
83 Natoma Street
(between 2nd St & James Lick Fwy)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 975-5705
www.zebulonsf.com (this place is now closed)

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Overall, it was a good sandwich. Moist, filling and leaving you feeling light and refreshed.  Also, the fries at Ayola are some of my favorite in the city – they are chock full of potato!

This was a good lunch. The fries are so good they keep me comin back for more…

Ayola
118 New Montgomery Street
(between Minna St & Mission St)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 348-0808

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As you can see, these babies are little greaseballs.  No, that’s not the glare from lights above, it’s shiny griddle grease.  The fries are all fresh cut and Flames only uses Niman Ranch beef (antibiotic free).  The mini burgers came with bbq sauce, bacon, cheddar cheese, an onion ring, and lettuce, tomato and onion.

Now back to the french fries.  As I said before, these are fresh cut.  When I worked in a restaurant back in PA, I learned that you don’t change out the oil in the fryer very often – and that is what gives the fried treats their yummy flavor.  I think Flames changes their oil too much, because the fries (although crispy and chock full of potato) are kind of flavorless.  They taste like potato, but there isn’t anything buttery flavor and the assumed fry-like feeling wasn’t there.  They’re kind of like the fries at In-n-Out… how they taste so fresh cut or something?  Maybe that is my problem… maybe I only like crap fries and haven’t acquired a taste for fresh fries… but I’ve had fresh cut fries before at other places (T-Rex, for example) that were really good, so I think it all goes back to the oil.  Also, the potatoes that they use are small, so almost every french fry has one side that’s full of skin, and I’m not really into that.

…A cross-section of the burger.  It was good, greasy and had just the right amount of bbq sauce and bacon on it.  I usually don’t eat full on hamburgers because they leave you feeling like a big load afterwards, but I was really hungry on this day.

Flames
88 2nd St
(between Jessie St & Mission St)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 896-5084

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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

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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]

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Everytime I go to the Salt House I end up ordering Poutin. Poutin is basically fancy disco fries – aka a pile of thick cut french fries covered in fontina cheese then covered in short rib gravy. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I DO NOT like to share this (but I do anyway because I’m nice). The short rib gravy is not a thick and heavy, it’s a lighter gravy with big chunks of short rib… SO GOOD, and they put it on top of the fries tableside.

If there were no such thing as calories and fat and being slightly lactose intolerant, I would eat Poutin everyday. I don’t understand those people on Yelp and Citysearch who talk sh*t on this dish, it’s seriously the BOMB. I love french fries, I could eat them everyday… and coming from a PA/NJ diner girl where disco fries were born, I have to say these are AWESOME.

Poutin gets disco fries ALL THE WAY, BABY!

Salt House
545 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 543-8900
www.salthousesf.com

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I fell in love with this place a few years ago – for their FRENCH FRIES. Who would’ve guessed? I could eat them all day, they are just perfect – golden brown, packed with a ton of potato, crispy, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Maybe it’s the pepper that does it, I dont know, but they are like a drug. The chicken gyro is really really good too. The meat is moist (not “juicy”), and there is just enough tzatziki sauce on it to give the whole thing the perfect amount of punch. It’s light but filling – the way a sandwich should be.

Ayola
118 New Montgomery Street
(between Minna St and Mission St)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 348-0808

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