Month: June 2018

In the mood for tapas? Look no further than Barvale, San Francisco’s local tapas bar. With options like patatas bravas and paella, the restaurant is a popular destination for local foodies.

With no reservation, we arrived at the restaurant at 5:30, when it opened. We were seated on high bar stools and given a flurry of recommendations, such as the fideua, or squid ink noodles, and the pulpo, a Spanish take on octopus.

The restaurant’s tapas options are limited but traditional, each prepared on small plates and beautifully garnished. We ordered both the pulpo and fideua based on the recommendation, as well as my favorite, the patatas bravas.

The pulpo arrived first, served on a bed of fingerling potatoes and olives. The octopus was rich in flavor and topped with paprika, made delicious by the way it was cooked and the quality of the octopus, not by the garnish. While I’m not particularly fond of olives, the fingerling potatoes were a nice touch to the dish.

It is a well-known fact that potatoes are everyone’s carb of choice. It’s certainly mine, and these patatas bravas filled my desire for both spicy food and potatoes. The brava sauce underneath added that little bit of spice and the crispy potatoes topped my whole meal off.

The fideua proved to be the most instagram worthy of all the dishes, garnished with delicious peppers and paprika sauce. The squid ink noodles did did turn my mouth black, but it was well worth it.

While not quite as delicious as my unbeatable meal at Kitchen Story, Barvale was an excellent choice for Spanish tapas. Their traditional yet simple dishes were well-done, and I’d definitely go again.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

My days in SF are numbered, but I’m taking advantage of every moment! I’ll see you next time,

Anya

Thai fusion meets Californian cuisine– that’s Kitchen Story. The restaurant is located in one of my favorite districts in San Francisco, the Castro. Dinner-goers are met with a busy dining area, the smell of bacon, and excellent service.

Kitchen Story’s most famous dish is their millionaire’s bacon, which has swept San Francisco like a storm. It originated in their first restaurant, Sweet Maple, which is open solely for breakfast and lunch. Kitchen story, on the other hand, is available for dinner, and even accompanies another one of their restaurants, the aptly named Dessert Story.

Naturally, we had to start with their most famous dish, the Millionaire’s Way, which comes with two strips of millionaire’s bacon and asparagus. Their bacon was unashamedly the best bacon I have ever had (and trust me, I’ve had a lot of bacon in my humble years). It’s coated in delicious Maple syrup sauce, which they somehow manage to make both spicy and sweet. The bacon itself is perfectly cooked, fatty but crisp. Any Kitchen Story or Sweet Maple goer should definitely give their bacon a try. No regrets!

For entrees, we tried both the Pacific Pad Thai and the Open Faced, based on our waiter’s recommendation. The pad thai was among the best I’ve had, helpfully coming with sides of both red pepper flakes and peanuts. The accompanying seafood– calamari, shrimp, scallop, and crab–was fresh and delicious. Warning, though: do not put all of the red pepper flakes in at once! We made that mistake and our mouths were burning for hours afterward. Luckily, Kitchen Story offers homemade thai tea to stop the burning. Give that a try, too!

See that crunchy side up above? I may be a sucker, but that stuff is almost as delicious as the pad thai itself.

Like I said, our second entree was the Open Faced. Served on a layer of ginger rice, the entree is basically a deconstructed burger with bonus pork belly and fried egg. While a bit on the pricy side, the burger patty is made of Wagyu beef, which stands uncontested as the best kind of burger out there. The entree is also extremely filling, but well worth it for a taste of the combination of avocado, wagyu, pork belly, fried egg, mushroom, spinach, and cheese.

This meal left me more full than I’d been in quite some time– a testament to either the quality of the food or the large amounts of thai tea I drank. It’s probably more of a combination of both, which, either way, speaks to how truly amazing this place really is. Kitchen story is one of the best of San Francisco, and I highly recommend it.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 1/2

Over and out!

Anya

Healthy eating is all the rage in San Francisco, from açaí bowls to poke. Located in the inner Richmond district, Heritage Restaurant delivers on its promise to serve farm fresh healthy eats. Its chef, Cameron Lewark, brings in influences from Maui and Wolfgang Puck to create delicious Californian meals.

We came just in time for happy hour, which meant that some of Heritage’s signature dishes were cheaper than normal. While a little on the pricy side, Heritage serves healthy and good-looking meals to its customers. Our server (who was very good at selling the restaurant by the way, and deserves a bonus) recommended almost everything on the menu, but we decided to start out with their spicy salmon poke and avocado toast.

Since Heritage Restaurant changes their menu frequently, I’ll provide a copy of that day’s menu below and leave a link to their changing menu in the comments section.

One would expect that poke and avocado toast would be spread on toast, topped with poke, ready for consumption. Chef Lewark had a different take on the traditional meal, however, scooping out the seed of the avocado, filling it with poke, and toasting the bread with cumin and sesame. While I was skeptical of this modern take at first, it turned out to be both aesthetic for those foodie pictures and delicious.

After that initial appetizer, I ordered their prime beef New York striploin, paired with warm nectarines and sweet corn purée. Although I asked for my meat to be prepared medium rare, it came out of the kitchen a little overcooked. That said, the combination still turned out to be tasty, and I have no other complaints. Their sweet corn purée was perfect for summer and the nectarines were a nice artistic touch.

As a side, I tried their fried cauliflower, which was surprisingly some of the best (and probably least healthy) cauliflower I have ever eaten. Butter, cream, and butter. I would highly recommend it– especially if you’re trying to get your kids into vegetables. VERY successful.

Even shared, this meal left me feeling very full. But I couldn’t resist a taste of their milk and cookies. The dessert comes with four different types of cookies: chocolate chocolate, chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, and vanilla almond. The chef also froths some milk, perfect for dipping. As you can see, it also makes a good-looking picture (check out that ombre cookie spread!)

My meal at Heritage Restaurant definitely exceeded expectations. While I was a little disappointed by my undercooked steak, the rest of my meal was well-done and the service was excellent.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 1/2

See you next time!

Anya (@inspector_food)

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!”

From vanilla soft serve to nitrogen strawberry buttermilk in a cone, ice cream makes our stomachs do a happy dance and our worries go away. It’s the universal cure for a bad day at work and brings out the inner child in all of us.

Centered in San Francisco, the Museum of Ice Cream does just that. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “a museum? for ice cream? seriously?” But let me stop you right there. The Museum of Ice cream isn’t just a MUSEUM. No, no. Nor is it simply an ice cream shop.

It’s the Disneyland for ice cream lovers. So hot in demand, in fact, that visitors have to book tickets three months ahead of time just to get in.

After all, who wouldn’t be excited about a Museum of Ice Cream?

Before entering the museum, a cheery employee asks each visitor to tell her one of their stresses. The museum of ice cream, she says, requires that each visitor be stress free before visiting… lest the gummy bears stage a revolt!

The first room in the Museum of Ice Cream is the ice cream vault. This time, the employees make you play a pop quiz on the history of ice cream. “When is National Ice Cream day?” they ask. Turns out, it’s in July. The ice cream vault is an interesting place. A converted bank vault, it contains all of the museum’s exhibits, including the sprinkle pool and Marye’s diner.

I’ll only go through the highlights of the museum–after all, I don’t want to spoil it all–but hopefully, this virtual tour gives you some insight on whether you want to visit the next time you’re in San Francisco.

After we passed the ice cream vault, we were brought to the museum’s dance floor, where dancing is required every step of the way! With whipped cream walls and a photo area, the room was filled with dancing foodies.

All that exercise on the dance floor left us hungry for food. And we got some! Marye’s Diner was our next stop, an old-school ice cream parlor with old records and tall pink stools.

At Marye’s, we were served some delicious pink soft serve ice cream, which nostalgically tasted like red, white, and blue rocket popsicles. And of course, I had to get my aesthetic foodie picture (I am a sophisti-teen, after all).

Marye’s Diner was followed by an area filled with cotton candy and cherries. “Who’s your cherry on top? Send them a note of love and appreciation,” they’d say. A heartwarming welcome to the land of cotton candy, accompanied with our very own sweet cotton candy!

Needless to say, the cotton candy was the cherry on top to this room (that was really bad– forgive me).

Afterwards, we passed through the famous gummy bear room to the mint chocolate chip jungle and most importantly, the UNICORN room! Filled with real fake unicorns and a dizzying mirror room, the unicorn room celebrated San Francisco’s beautiful diversity in honor of pride month. As a bonus, we also received some seriously delicious popsicles. I chose coconut– the whole thing was polished off in seconds.

Then, of course, there was the famous sprinkles pool. Filled with plastic sprinkles (NOT edible), the pool was the perfect photo op (though possibly an unsanitary one). This is the exhibit you always see in Instagram posts, where teenagers have there very own photoshoots, searching for the perfect aesthetic posts. Can you blame them?

Here’s my not so instagrammable picture 😉 :

And sadly, that concludes our virtual tour of the ice cream museum. Thanks for stopping by!

While it wasn’t a museum in an educational sense, the Museum of Ice Cream certainly brings smiles to faces. With its selection of ice cream, cheery employees, and photo opportunities, it’s a great way to spend an afternoon in the beautiful city of San Francisco.

Cheers, and see you next time!

XOXO, Anya. (@inspector_food)

Ahhhh, California. The beautiful beach surrounds me, the soft sand warms my skin. The ocean breeze flutters on my cheeks and the sound of the waves touches my ear.

Just kidding.

Today I’m in San Francisco, the home of bustling cars, busy traffic, rushed people, and a rainbow of diversity. Like last summer, I’ll be busy reviewing the best and worst restaurants of San Francisco. Prepare to receive a tsunami of sophisti-kids posts! And as always, remember to check out my instagram, @inspector_food for updates.

First stop: Pacific Catch. A San Francisco chain, Pacific Catch serves up some of the best West Coast seafood in town. From salmon to poke to seafood tacos, it seems like you can’t go wrong. Be warned, however: the restaurant is always busy. If you don’t have a reservation (we did not), getting a seat might be tricky.

We started out with good ol’ crab cakes, topped off with Thai-style mango and tomato salad. The crab cakes were topped with crunchy ponko, filled with the warm, delicious taste of crab. Combined with the tangy Thai salad, the dish proved to be an excellent starter.

For my entree, I decided to go with one of the most popular specials that day, the WestCoast salmon bowl. Definitely one of the more healthy items on the menu, the traditional salmon bowl is served with brown rice (I substituted mine for white rice). The dish also came with cauliflower, avocado, salad, cucumber, and pumpkin seeds. The seeds gave the dish a needed “crunch.” The salmon itself was grilled to perfection, but I do have one complaint. Although the salmon bowl was a delicious healthy meal, it in no way compared to the other entrees on the table. Moreover, the crab cake starter complemented tastes much better than the salmon bowl shown below. That said, this dish is a tasty option for anyone looking for a heavy, healthy meal.

Despite the business of the restaurant and a slight wait for food, the service at Pacific Catch was excellent. The server was helpful and attentive to recommendations. The seafood, of course, was of the highest quality.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Sophisti-kids, out! See you next time at @inspector_food on instagram or right here on our website at www.sophisti-kids.com.