My friend and I decided to try it out for lunch last weekend, and boy am I glad we did!

Here’s the outside. The Star is on Grand Ave, probably the last exciting thing on the street before it turns residential. Parking can be quite hellish in this neighborhood, just an FYI. You might have to park up the up the big hill on Elmwood (free) if there are no spots on Grand.

This is what it looks like when you walk in… There’s another dining area directly to the right (not pictured), that faces the street.

We started off with the Greek salad. It’s salty and tangy, and big enough to share.

They have roasted Brussels sprouts on the appetizer menu! They come covered in parmesan cheese and sprinkled with bacon.  They’re sooo good (I ate the whole bowl), I’m a huge weirdo for brussels sprouts.

You can order a personal size pizza during lunch hours, so I ordered a personal sized Golden Gate pizza. The Golden Gate features meatballs, ricotta, onions, and fresh mozzarella.

The pizza came out piping hot, plenty of steam. The mozzarella is baked into the crust, then the meatballs are sliced flat underneath the globs of ricotta. The meatball is sliced pretty thin and there’s a meatball slice on each piece of pizza.  The meatball itself is on the denser side. As you can see, the sauce is very thick. The sauce is sweet and savory, and chunky. I probably should have eaten my pizza with a fork and knife, but I picked it up and ate it with my hands (no shame).  The amount of sauce was a little overwhelming so I scraped some of it off… the crust is thick, crispy, sweet, corny and amazing.

Would I return? Definitely.

Have you been to The Star? How did you like it?

The Star on Grand
3425 Grand Ave, Oakland, CA 94610
www.thestarongrand.com

The post The Star on Grand: Golden Gate Pizza appeared first on Fryhole.

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.

The post Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack – Spaghetti and Meatballs appeared first on Fryhole.

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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Here you have it! The Portico Meatball Sandwich.  It wasn’t bad!  The bread was soft (just a normal soft roll), and the meatballs were hot and there was alot of cheese inside.  If the sandwich had just a tad more sauce it would’ve been perfect, but overall it was good, and I would probably get it again.

Portico
245 Market St
(between Drumm St & Main St)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 777-9950

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I ordered the Meatball Sandwich.  I also arrived at an off-peak lunch hour so there was no line which was nice.  The sandwich was ready in about 5 minutes, during which I had time to pick out a bag of chips and grab a soda.  I will blog about the chips in another entry, as they were 5 fries themself!

Ok so here’s the sandy:

It looks like any old meatball sandwich.  Actually, the meatballs were small, and you could tell there was more bread or filler in the mix than beef (or it was just shredded up ALOT) because the consistency gave the meatballs that softer, “smooth” kind of bite vs. meaty/chunky kind.  Actually, they look frozen, like the cafeteria kind… (they’re probably from costco) – I hope I never find out the truth!

Anyway, I thought the sandwich was amazing.  The combination of the softish meatballs (which were very flavorful btw) with the really good marinara sauce on the toasted soft roll was to die for.  The roll was kind of sweet, and they toasted it just enough so that the outside layer had a little crunch, but soft enough that it was easy to bite into and chew.  The marinara sauce was on the sweeter side and there was the perfect balance of tomato and spices.

Another thing, it’s very rare to find a good sandwich that is heated up so much that the cheese is actually soft enough to ooze out.  This sandwich was perfect and the mozzarella was melted perfectly and strings of cheese did ooze out when I got near the “inside” of the sandwich.  It was awesome. This meatball sandwich was heated perfectly and you could even see the steam waffing out of it up til the last bite.

Overall, this sandwich rocked and I really can’t think of anything that would make it better.  I finished it pretty quickly, as it was so good that I couldn’t resist slowing down for fear it would cool off too much… i didn’t even get around to drinking my soda or eating my chips, it was THAT good.

…this sandy was HISTORY!

Here’s a shot of the cool wall of toasters:

…and lastly a shot from outside.

The Toaster Oven
145 2nd St
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 243-0222
www.thetoasteroven.com

The post The Toaster Oven SF: Meatball Sandwich appeared first on Fryhole.

Something I really like about Working Girls is their selection of bread. Although you have the option of choosing your bread (see photo below), most of the sandwiches are already designated with a bread selection so you don’t really need to worry about choosing one… but it’s nice to see them all lined up anyway.

The chicken Parm sandwich is really good though, and I think most of it has to do with the fact that it’s on a soft roll with sesame seeds. Those sesame seeds really give the sandwich a nice “nutty essence” and the top isn’t crunchy per se but it has a nice texture (not as hard as dutch crunch, not as soft as a soft roll). Otherwise the chicken and the parm (cheese, marinara sauce) are pretty standard, nothing too special about it. I have to say though, the chicken is nice and tender and I really appreciate it because sandwiches on hard bread usually instigate a bat with my TMJ, a lifelong annoyance.

I do recommend this sandwich. It’s good. Not so “Italian” the way you might think, they put a California twist on it by throwing in a slice of tomato.

Working Girls Cafe
122 New Montgomery St
(between Minna St & Mission St)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 537-1170

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