The place is literally a window down the middle of Ritch St. which is kind of near the ballpark, off 3rd street. It’s really a hidden gem – unless you know it’s there, you would never go there.

The guy working the window was really nice, and I liked him even more because he was wearing a Phillies hat!

Here’s the window, so cute!

They had a tiny skillet of 1.25″ buttons… I took one of course.

Here’s the menu…

And here’s the little area next to the food window where the hot sauce and other condiments are.

I preferred the honey jalapeno hot sauce on the right… omg so good – sweet and spicy!  So for my meal I ordered the chicken and waffles with 2 pieces of chicken.

OH MY GOD. This is the BEST FRIED CHICKEN IN SAN FRANCISCO.  Actually no, it’s the BEST FRIED CHICKEN IN THE WORLD.  I’ve never had such good fried chicken in my life. The first bite sent me right over the edge… I took a bite of the wing first.  The meat was tender and juicy and the skin was super crispy and thin (no chewy bits, not soggy), it was seasoned absolutely perfectly. Turn on the vacuum, this box of food is ready to get inhaled.

The skin was awesome because it wasn’t oily and greasy like a lot of fried chicken. It was absolutely perfect – thin, not too much breading, the seasoning was flavorful, and I ate it all down to the bone. I usually don’t go so far as to eat every last crumb of breading, but I couldn’t stop myself.  The chicken was really good to dip in the hot sauce, in between bites of waffle (I preferred the green one).

The waffle was also very excellent. It was crispy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside, which was perfect for the syrup, which was absorbed right away after pouring it on. The waffle was savory and filling yet it was not heavy and soggy, even after being covered in syrup. Together with the chicken it was the perfect combination.

There’s not really anywhere to sit and only a 3ft counter to stand at… but there’s a loading dock across the street that people sit on to eat… everything’s to go so you can either sit there or go back to your car or office.

So, the chicken is like a DRUG.  It’s been a day now and I’m still thinking about it… I definitely see myself measuring all future chicken and waffles against the chicken and waffles from Little Skillet… paradise in my mouth! I can’t wait for this chicken to get back in my body, it was that good (holy crap!).

Little Skillet
360 Ritch St
San Francisco, CA 94107
website

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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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HOLY CRAY to the 5th…. this place is AWESOME. It’s kind of fancy inside but don’t be fooled, you can be as dressy or casual as you want. There were people in jeans (including myself) and people semi-dressed up (after churchers). They were playing Barry White and Aretha Franklin… perfect!

I took one look at the menu and knew instantly what I would order: CHICKEN FRIED BENEDICT. I got a side of bacon too (applewood smoked) and Hav and I split an order of the beignets as a morning appetizer. I’m going to post the photo of the chicken fried benedict first, because I want that image to appear on the homepage…. lol.

NOTE: Bacon was extra… the dish doesn’t come with it, I just put it on the plate to make the plate look fuller. Basically, the dish is called “Chicken Fried Benedict”. It’s fried chicken (boneless) atop an English muffin, with a poached egg on top, covered in hollandaise sauce. They also give you a little side of their house special smokey hot sauce, mmm.

I’m not the hugest benedict person mainly because it’s too wet and mushy, but I decided to try this dish because the idea of juicy fried chicken in the morning sounded perfect. Let me tell you, this dish is AMAZING. Everything about it was awesome – I think the fried chicken really balanced out the soft liquidy/creaminess of the benedict. The hot sauce was also super yummy and it had the perfect ratio of heat to hotness to smokiness. My only suggestion would be to add toast or home fries or something else as a side item because I would’ve liked something to dip in the sauce.

Now check out the beignets:

The beinets were just simply to die for. They are soft and light and have a sweet sugary buttery flavor. The powdered sugar really give them an extra kick. They’re very rich for being so light… soooo good we even took the last one home!

Hav ordered grits with her meal. As much as I love corn, I’ve never really been a huge grits person – but the grits at Pican are seriously so good I would add them to my last meal list. These grits are so buttery and corny – you know what I mean! They have an extra kick of the corn flavor – salty, sweet and buttery corn. I was already stuffed from the chicken benedict and I couldn’t stop myself from eating these grits. I will definitely order a side for myself next time…. and had I known I was going to eat the grits I would’ve taken a photo of the dish without spoonmarks… sorry!

Lastly here’s a photo of my orange juice and latte. What a nice simple presentation!

Pican is A-CLASS… LOVE IT and can’t wait to go back and try something else!

Disco fries all the way baby!

2295 Broadway
(between Grand Ave & 23rd St)
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 834-1000
www.picanrestaurant.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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oooh the mystery’s killing me!

Voila!

The first bite. It was ok. Honestly, at first bite I was expecting to sink my teeth into a juicy chicken patty smothered in buffalo sauce and blue cheese.  It was really dry and there was hardly any sauce on it… WTF.  I was deteremined to try to like it, so I took a few more bites…

This is what happened after I took a few bites out of each of the sandwiches.  You can obviously tell that there was an excess of bread.  It’s not that these sandwiches were that good that I even ate this much… I was freakin starving!

One of my worst pet peeves is ordering sandwiches with an excess of bread… not enough meat or cheese or whatever’s supposed to be inside, and the Mini Buffalo Ranch Chicken Sandwich was definitely a victim of too much bread (and dry).  Disappointing…

Jack In The Box
1257 Park St
Alameda, CA 94501
(510) 522-8865
www.jackinthebox.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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(Yes, I live in West Oakland). For those of you who don’t know anything about West Oakland, it is very industrial and not quite the developed picture-perfect neighborhoody kind of place you’d imagine when you think of “neighborhood”. I like it for convenience, but there’s nothing to do… no bars, restaurants, shops… it’s the “untouched” part of Oakland.

Anyway, so when we got there, it was really crowded. We ended up standing there and waiting about 20 minutes for a table which wasn’t very fun, but eventually we got a table. Brunch on the weekend ends at 3pm and we got there around 2:30 so we just made it!

My friend said they had fried chicken and waffles at this place so I decided that’s what I would have even before we arrived. I’ve never had this dish before and I’ve always wanted to try it, so this was perfect. It’s funny because just a few days before I was watching the Food Network about chicken and waffles, mmm so I think it was destiny that we had to come to this place.

Check it out:

Now, this picture is just alright… I took it with my iphone because I didn’t bring my good camera… but you can get the idea. Yes, that is a big scoop of butter on top of the waffle and there is a little thing of cider syrup above the chicken.

Like the organized eating Leo that I am, I ate the waffles first, then the chicken. The waffles were good but definitely not substantial enough. They were interesting because they were actually really “light” tasting, vs. other waffles I’ve had, and also slightly crispy. Actually, I wasn’t even close to feeling full after I finished this plate of food… I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. The cider syrup was good and light and it wasn’t so thick and gooey like other syrups, it was more viscous and “thin”, if you know what I mean. I guess I’m used to eating softer, thicker, more substantial waffles, that’s all.

The chicken was good. It was well seasoned and skin was thin and crispy and had a slight bite to it. Yum. It was fried just right and the meat was tender and juicy.

Lastly, I do have to mention that although the food was awesome, it was a really loud inside. For sound/ambiance, it was one of the loudest places I’ve ever been to that wasn’t a bar. They should throw some carpets up on the walls or something… I felt like I was screaming across the table to my friends.

Be warned: OVERPRICED. I understand you’re paying for a meal from an award-winning chef, but really… we live in the Bay Area where amazing food is everywhere. The place is loud and overpriced. It’s good every now and then though.

Overall, I liked this meal and had a decent experience. I want to give it a 3.5 but I can’t do half fries. It set me back about $14 though for the meal plus $2 for the syrup (doesn’t come with the waffle), but it’s ok, I will probably return to the Brown Sugar Kitchen.

Brown Sugar Kitchen
2534 Mandela Pkwy
(between 26th St & Campbell St)
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 839-7685
www.brownsugarkitchen.com

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I was telling my friend about how disappointed I was in T-Rex’s fried chicken sandwich and she told me about Bakesale Betty’s fried chicken sandwich. I decided to go there immediately the following weekend to try this thing out myself.

I live in Oakland and I don’t really do anything over here in the East Bay so I was excited to try out something new. Bakesale Betty’s is in the Temescal area of Oakland, kind of near Rockridge I think… Anyhow, the place had a line outside that went down the street, AND it was raining. I waited in line, and it reminded me of the line outside Tartine in SF on a weekend (kind of looked like Tartine too).

Once I got inside it looked like a deli on the righthand side with a whole bunch of pastries and muffins. Everyone was yelling their orders and when it was my turn I said I wanted a fried chicken sandwich ($7.00) and along the back wall was the “fried chicken sandwich station”. It was seriously a factory line of fried chicken sandwiches, and someone bagged one up and handed it to me. There were no chairs left inside so we went outside and sat down at the dryest ironing board table we could find.

Here she is, the fried chicken sandwich. Intially when I opened the paper and saw it, I was surprised at how much slaw there was in there… I’m not a huge slaw person. Slaw aside, I picked it up and took a bite. The abundance of slaw is probably my only complaint becauase it was really wet and greasy – otherwise, this is the best gdamn chicken sandwich I’ve ever had. I seriously wanted to scream out to the world to eat one. The bread was soft and buttery, the chicken was tender, moist and juicy and the breading around it was buttery, crunchy and salty. The slaw had a freshness about it – the vinegary kind, not the sweet kind with a little bit of pepper… It was really, really good.

I ended up getting one of the sandwiches that was premade in the pile of chicken sandwiches when i went in — I imagine if I got a fresh from the fryer sandwich where the breading was hot and crunchy it would be 2349328947572x’s better, but I wasn’t so lucky. So yes, the sandwich was still amazing even though the chicken was cold.

This sandwich is also not small. It took me a while to eat and I chewed each bite to its death before swallowing.

Lastly, a shot of yours truly, in the midst of consumption. This was the best chicken sandwich I have ever had.

Bakesale Betty’s
5098 Telegraph Ave
(between 49th St & 51st St)
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 985-1213

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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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