Happy February, everyone!

Umamimart turns 5 years old this month, and I thought it would be fun to celebrate NOODLES! We’re all fans of noodles here, and there are pages and pages worth of posts, since 2007 (!), dedicated to the almighty noodle on Umamimart.

The column name “Great UM Noodletown” is an homage to one of my favorite late-night spots in NYC Chinatown called Great NY Noodletown. With roasted birds dangling from the windows, I had many a meals there–both solitary and rowdy–all on the dirt cheap, with slices of oranges always for dessert. Thank you, Great NY Noodletown. You hold a special place in my heart.

To start off the column with a big bang, I give to you Misoya, a ramen chain from Japan that has made its way to Santa Clara, CA. The first U.S. outpost opened in the East Village, NYC (looks like the owner of Totto brought it over). It’s right around the corner from Ippudo, a mega-popular ramen joint, but I hope it’s holding its ground there regardless. Personally, I think Ippudo is garbage and I absolutely cannot believe there are still lines to get in. I mean $15 for a bowl of ramen in a techno-club setting?? No thank you. Yamahomo bitched about it when it first opened. We have not been back since.

Anyhow, here’s Misoya, set in a strip mall right across the street from a hospital in sunny Santa Clara, CA. Welcome to the sprawling suburban nightmare that is my childhood. But you know I love it!

I think it’s hilarious that the South Bay Area (San Jose, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Mt. View) has all the awesome Asian eateries, rather than SF proper. [Sorta like having to go to boondocks Queens from Manhattan]. I have to say that it’s testament to the fact that the audience in the South Bay just has higher standards for Asian food. I’ll get a lashing for saying that, of course. But it’s true!!! Dim sum, Viet, sushi. Alright, I admit, the East Bay has superb Korean and Thai though.

Miso. Soul. Japan. Holla!

Don’t you dare seat yourself, asshole.

I always come early enough so there’s never a line. You get a view into the kitchen from the counter.

Hungry. The bowl of rice is FREE! Carbs with a side of carbs, please!

Misoya is known for… wait for it… their MISO ramen.

The miso broth here is komemiso, which is a Hokkaido-style, darker blend with a hint of spice. They put a dollop of the komemiso on top.

Soup is deep and hearty.

Grease bubbles are muy importante.

Noodles are bouncy and squiggly, just how I like.

It is imperative that you order the cha-shu pork ramen. I ordered the regular ramen once, thinking that it would come with the standard two slices. WRONG. That was a sad, sad day.

They boast that this cha-shu is special because of the way it is grilled over an open flame. It is the fattiest piece of pork you will have for the week, but well worth it.

Now this puzzled me: the fried potatoes in my ramen.

This must be a Hokkaido thing? The Tokyo-girl (ok, Saitama) in me shuddered a little bit.

The gyoza were chive-y pork bombs. I peeped a guy in the kitchen making them from scratch.

Delightful!

So I didn’t finish my potato, but did pretty well otherwise.

The ramen was $11, gyoza $4. Not bad!

The ramen at Misoya is a damn fine bowl of noodles. While I will refrain from using declarative statements like “Best in the Bay”, I will say that this is the CLOSEST you will get to the ramen you will find in Japan. This means: hearty, heavy, greasy broth, which is all the rage in Tokyo. Not surprising that Misoya was started in Chiba, which is where I had a great bowl of ramen at Tonikaku, on my last trip.

Washi calls most ramen he has here generally as “California Ramen”. This means an assari (light), clean, broth. Most ramen broths you find in the Bay Area are definitely light and seemingly “healthy”, California-esque. Don’t get me wrong, I like an assari, salt-based broth, but I have to say that my go-to has always been miso.

Misoya is located right across from Orenchi, which is always packed for some reason. Skip the line and just walk across the street! I am happy to have found a great miso ramen, even if I have to drive 45 minutes for it.

I’ll be writing about noodles all month! All year! Forever! Comment below if you have a noodle spot you love. And thank you for supporting Umamimart all these years!

Yoko and I have been invited to give a presentation at the world-renowned Pecha Kucha forum next Tuesday 1/24 in San Francisco. The theme is “chaos”, and we will be speaking about our experiences in Japan last year in regards to food and radiation. In the typical Pecha Kucha style, it will be a rapid-fire presentation of 20 slides with 20 seconds per slide to talk. Whew!

DETAILS
Date: Tuesday 1/24
Time: 6pm
Location: SPUR – San Francisco Planning + Urban Research
654 Mission Street (Between Annie + 3rd St)
Tix: $20/ $10 member

Other presenters on the roster for the night include Harley Dubois (Burning Man, Founder), Nicholas deMonchaux (Urban Designer, Professor, UC Berkeley), Jeffrey Tumlin (transportation planner), James Tracy (author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times) and Tal Klement (public defender, SF criminal justice system).

Wait, there’s more! Yoko is in the midst of finishing a documentary on food and radiation in Japan, which she is submitting to the Uranium Film Festival in Rio Di Janeiro, Brasil. Please check out the Facebook page, LIKE it, and stay tuned to all the nuclear happs.

*Photo by Yoko Kumano 

Chicken + waffles at Lois the Pie Queen in Oakland.

I was fortunate enough to peek into the Peko Peko kitchen this last weekend, while they were preparing all 40 boxes of their highly coveted annual osechi bentos. What a crew! Sylvan had about five people working the kitchen — peeling, dicing, de-shelling 40 Dungeness crabs… wow.

Sylvan and his right-hand chef Yuko took me through one of the dishes in the bento, tataki gobo. Tataku means “to strike” in Japanese, and that is exactly what we did to the very tough gobo (burdock root). Then, we simmered it and dressed it in a sesame-vinegar sauce.

Gobo is eaten on New Year’s Day, to symbolize deep roots, hence, stability, long life and perseverance. With gobo popping up on many menus in the Bay Area these days, I thought this would be a great recipe to have on Umamimart.

INGREDIENTS
1 gobo root
5 cups dashi
6 tbsp mirin
6 tbsp soy sauce

Dressing
2/3 cup white toasted sesame
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp usukuchi shoyu (light soy sauce)
3 tbsp rice vinegar

METHOD

1. Peel gobo and soak in water. This is to keep it from discoloring.

2. Strike the gobo with a heavy object.

3. Make dashi.

 ”
In Sylvan’s kitchen, we use freshly shaven bonito.

Briefly boil bonito in water

Strain

Make your own dashi using Yoko’s definitive Japanify guide.

4. Meanwhile, put gobo in water and vinegar for 3-4 minutes to get rid of the aku (scum) and keep it from discoloring

5. Add soy sauce to the dashi

6. Strain gobo from the vinegar, and put into the dashi mixture, and add mirin

Put the gobo on low heat for about 30 minutes. If you can, use a wide pan so it sucks up much of the liquid. You can even use a drop-lid or make one with foil. Turn off the heat after 30 minutes and let the gobo cool down.

7. For the dressing, use a suribachi if you have one, to grind the sesame (if not, just grind sesame separately).

8. Add sugar.

9. Grind together

10. Add the soy sauce and vinegar. Mix together.

Should be wet and sticky

10. Add the gobo, once it has cooled. The gobo should have a nice crisp to it.

11. Mix lightly with a paddle

Make sure the dressing covers the gobo liberally

12. Plate!

Gobo is full of fiber, and this is a fantastic, simple way to prepare the tough root vegetable. I love the tartness from the vinegar married with the sweetness.

But the gobo dish was only one of the many dishes that the Peko Peko crew prepared for the osechi bento.

The bentos would be stacked in three tiers, in cedar boxes hand-made by Sylvan

Sylvan’s master plan


Clockwise from top left: grilled pork in orange marmalade, kurkinton (chestnut + sweet potato mash), homemade kamaboko (fishcake) with fresh wasabi, kuromame (black beans)

Sylvan somehow wrangled up some perfect, fresh wasabi roots from Oregon. Each bento got one, as garnish for the kamaboko.

WOWWWWWWWW!!!


Clockwise from top left: dashimaki tamago (egg omelette), tatuskuri (candied toasted anchovies), steelhead roe in a yuzu cup and kazunoko (herring roe), tataki gobo, gindara no kasuzuke (black cod marinated in sake lees), kombumaki (kombu roll).

And the main event…

Photo by Yuko Sato

All the crab meat had been pre-picked, then mixed with namasu (daikon, carrot, persimmon vinegar salad). It was very impressive.

A nice, abundant surprise under the crabface. 

Gorgeous! Photo by Yuko Sato

Photo by Yuko Sato

Happy 2012 to all!

For the last four years, Sylvan of Peko-Peko catering in San Francisco has been making osechi bento sets for the first of the year. Osechi, as you know from Yamahomo’s annual posts (here and here), are foods that are traditionally cooked for the new year, that are consumed for good luck. There is a special significance to every dish, often word plays (medetai = joyous; tai = snapper), and are usually stews and foods that can be eaten over the course of several days. Osechi is usually cooked well in advance, so housewives can rest for the first couple days of the new year (hence they are generally foods that are not easily be perishable, mainly for back when there were no refrigerators).

At $250 a box, Sylvan’s osechi is a lux way to kick off the year — he has built quite a cult following here in the Bay Area for his carefully assembled osechi bentos. The boxes themselves are handmade by himself and his father, and this year they are filled with traditional osechi foods such as: kuromame (sweet black beans), tastukuri (candied fish), and ikura (sake-cured salmon roe) in a yuzu cup. Lucky for us Californians, he’s also including the creme del la creme of the Pacific, like Dungeness crab, miso-cured black cod, handmade kamaboko (steamed halibut cake), and his house-cured kazunoko (herring roe) from herring caught in San Francisco Bay.

I’ll be dropping into the Peko-Peko kitchen next week, to get some behind-the-scenes shots of all the prep work that goes into making these meticulous little dishes. But for now, take a look at le menu below.

Order by Monday, if you are in the SF Bay Area. Do it for your health, wealth, and FERTILITY!

“After September 6th, everything will make sense,” a friend told me. She’s referring to New Years Day of the Mayan calendar. It was supposed to be a comforting prediction, but I prodded her with questions. So, the Mayan calendar was developed thousands of years ago by a civilization known for their advanced math, writing and astronomy skills. They consider corn a gift from the gods and they nestle babies in between cobs for protection at night. In Chiapas, ghostly cobs bother travelers, urging them to plant corn instead of coffee. In this region, wasting food is an eternally damning sin, plaguing whole families when only one kernel is dropped and forgotten. The Mayan corn god has long silken hair, like the silks from the blessed stalks, and the “8th day” of the week is dedicated to him.

Alec Dempster; Maiz Moderno, 2006

The Mayan relationship to the earth is an attractive religious trend, and extremists are already selling stories to the media. Turns out, a lot of people believe that the Mayan Calendar predicts the end of the world to be in December of next year, 2012. But, according to this article:

“University of Florida anthropologist Susan Gillespie says the 2012 phenomenon comes from media and from other people making use of the Maya past to fulfill agendas that are really their own.”

Basically, the media made it up to further current political agendas. The Mayan calendar does not predict the end of the world at all. But! The Mayan New Year is definitely a time of rebirth, cosmically speaking. And this year, we felt it for sure.

More specifically, two of my closest friends (along with a bunch of other folks in the community) are going through totally epic, long term relationship break-ups. Nothing puts a band-aid on the situation better than mani-pedis and tequila! So, we swooped up my recently singled bestie and went to the East Bay’s favorite Mexican spot, Dona Thomas.

At first glance, this place is kick ass. The menu is killer. Its also entirely based on corn, and anything that has dairy in it is clearly stated in the descriptions. This is great because it means that my friend (who is deathly allergic to dairy) and I won’t have to ask a million questions about all the food. Also, I can eat all but two things they serve. Jackpot.

But as I ate, I realized that these folks are not nailing the basics at all! Housemade tortillas, not amazing. Refried black beans, ok. Guac, ok. Ceviche, ok. I mean, B-A-S-I-C-S. To me, if you chef a restaurant under the slow food umbrella in Oakland, your basics should be the best ever. I’ve had better refried beans at crappy taco stands. What happened here?!

So, we tried again a couple nights later at the Haight’s gem, Nopalito. Jesus, what a place. My bestie and I had yet another amazing not-having-to-ask-a-bunch-of-questions moment with the Nopalito menu. Jackpot, Part 2. Also, I was staring down the barrel of several high-end mezcals. Oh man.

I love mezcal. Its like drinking a tequila soaked leather boot, in a good way. It’s like chipotle pepper on acid and somehow contained in a glass. Its Mexico’s answer to a good whiskey. In fact, as food trends tend toward more soulful and heritage foods, mezcal might slip into the whisky spotlight for a bit.

We were corralled into this semi awkward area between the register and the really tiny dinning room for probably 45 minutes. But! Who cares when you are swigging Palomas (a fizzy, grapefruit and tequila cocktail that they make with mezcal) like it really is the end of the world. The bartender was total ham. He probably once had to display “flair” at work, but (as a former Starbucks-er) who am I to judge?

We sat down and promptly ordered almost everything on the menu. Our server said, “that’s a lot of food.” I know it is. I was hoping to have leftovers. Instead, I hurt myself eating it all. It was so good that I don’t even remember what I ordered. I had a gordita, with beef. Something with squash blossoms, and… I ate it all.

Gordita

They nail the basics. The house made tortillas are made from house made masa. That means, they start with an ear of corn. They cook it, dry it and grind it into flour. Then they make tortillas, chips, gorditas and everything else on the menu from something that grows out of the earth, not something that comes in a box or a bag.

Taquitos

I literally dream of eating at this place. And, even though I don’t want to admit it, my neighborhood slow food Mexican place is nothing in comparison to Nopalito.

Squid ceviche

Open kitchen

Salted rims

Taking names

The Mayan corn gods would be pleased.

I must admit that Washi and I have more-than-healthy appetites and the lunch boxes at the Edible Schoolyard event did not satiate our piggie tendencies. After our pleasant, healthy sandwich meal, we decided to check out the latest the Financial District had to offer in terms of ramen. Thanks to a tip from my brother-in-law we were off to grease-ball it up at San Francisco’s newest ramen joint, Ramen Underground.

But first… look who we met on the way there!

Ramen Underground turned out to be a great encore to the main event. The tiny shop seats about 15 people and the interior is painted black. Each bowl of ramen is $8 with $1 toppings.

Notice the MSG option as their toppings

I got the shio.

Shio ramen

Noodles

The broth was excellent, smooth and dimensional without being salty. Although the noodles were a little rough (my sister dubbed them slightly “ropey”) and the chashu a bit tough, I was thoroughly charmed by the broth.

Miso ramen with spicy topping

Egg topping

Ramen Underground just opened last Monday and I really look forward to it getting better with time.

Overall, a very memorable lunch outing.

Maiden Lane in San Francisco on Wednesday at 12:30 was swarming with people chowing down on really affordable organic lunch boxes. The event was sponsored by the Edible Schoolyard and Levi’s and went something like this: get in line, grab a lunch for a suggested donation of $5, eat at long farm tables, maybe buy a book or t-shirt and scoot off back to work.

Lines, farm tables…

Only $5! And it goes to education.

The box consisted of a sandwich crafted on an Acme bun, with Soul Food Farms chicken, Dirty Girl Farms shallots and tomato, La Tercera piccolo fino, cucumber and radishes, Happy Quail Peppers, Knoll Farm figs, Little City Gardens herbs and mustard greens, and Lagier Bronx Grapes.

The sandwich had a very agreeable taste with the baby frilly greens adding a nice textural touch to the lightly aioli’d chicken.

Unwrapped!

Sandwich monster attack

These were perfect

I enjoyed the event for its simplicity and focus on feeling good about the food you are eating. Sure, there was a short speech by the president of Levi’s and Alice Waters, but it was a brief parting of the clouds made of conversation and jazz-rock throughout the event.

Alice Waters and Robert Hanson President, Global Levi’s® Brand

Jazz-rock

The limited edition Levi’s brand t-shirts were designed by Sofia Coppola, David Byrne, Dave Eggers, and Maira Kalman. All proceeds from the event and t-shirt sales go to the Edible Schoolyard Foundation which educates students on farming and cooking.

T-shirts

Eating

More eating

Tomo with her “event-face”

*Events celebrating Chez Panisse’s 40th anniversary begins today. This entire weekend will be filled with events, with proceeds going towards the Edible Schoolyard Project.

1. Sushi
2. Pho
3. Burritos

Pho can interchangeably be “noodle soup”, as ramen would fall into this category. As would dan dan mein. Or Sichuan-style egg noodles with sliced pork and pickled mustard greens. Or Cantonese-style egg noodles with pork/shrimp wontons and roasted duck. Ad infinitum.

Noodles + Soup FOREVER.

Throughout the years, I’ve tried most of the ramen spots in San Jose, as it’s usually the Saturday lunch of choice in the Akabori Household (fast and cheap). Although Orenchi only just opened in 2010, it is definitely in my top three favorites in the Bay Area.

Orenchi translates to “my house” in Japanese slang. It was opened by the folks who run Sumika, which is a yakitori joint in Los Altos (also South Bay).

There is always a looooong line out front, especially on weekends.

This day, we waited about 30 minutes. Kunio was not pleased.

Orenchi’s very enthusiastic poster that resembles those you would find outside food shops in Japan. Big bold colors and typeface and the requisite EXCLAMATION POINT!!!!!

A nice note from Chef Maruyama:

We started with Kirin on tap and I had an oolong hai:

Enter karaage (fried chicken):

Chicken is organic, yada yada.

Hideko got the shoyu (soy sauce) ramen:

Spinach, menma (bamboo shoots), a slice of cha-shu (roasted pork belly), naruto (fish cake) and scallions.

Look at all the grease balls in the soup! This gives the soup an all-encompassing, mouth-covering roundness that is crucial for good ramen broth.

I always get the shio (salt) ramen, as I enjoy a more refreshing broth, as opposed to the heavy tonkotsu (pork stock):

Chashu, mekabu, wakame, tororo-konbu, yuzu, scallions.

Bouncy, squiggly egg noodles, which are my ramen noodles of choice:

There is yuzu (Japanese citrus) in the soup, which adds to the clarity of the soup. I can’t get enough of it.

And, the best part…

…Tororo-konbu aka slimy seaweed!

I always order a side of soy-marinated soft-boiled egg for $1.

It’s usually yolky and boiled to soft-porn perfection, but this day’s egg was a total failure:

And let me share with you the BEST KEPT SECRET on Orenchi’s menu. Behold: the side of takana gohan:

Yup, carbs with a side of carbs, please–this is how we roll. Kunio declared this as Orenchi’s “point” (ポイント, or strongest) dish. It is a heaping pile of pickled takana (mustard greens) over a steaming bowl of rice. For THREE DOLLARS AND SIXTY CENTS. Read $3.60.

AMAZING!

And, game over.

Stay tuned as I’ll be writing about another fave South Bay ramen joint. In a supermarket.

The one and only Paystyle rolled into town a couple of weeks ago. Although he would be fully booked with personal engagements, I knew exactly how to get him to pencil me in. A few days before he was scheduled to land at SFO, I texted him, “Should we go on a SF cocktail crawl when you get here?”

How could anyone say no to that? Surely not Paystyle, who texted me back right away, with an enthusiastic YES!

Now, we all know that Paystyle is a tough crowd, and not just cause he’s a New Yorker. As a cocktail enthusiast, consultant, and bar chef himself, I couldn’t just take him anywhere. These spots had to be the cremè de la cremè of San Francisco. I take a lot of pride in SF’s cocktail scene, which is a eclectic mix of old school dives, grubby pubs, elegant restaurant bars and moody speakeasy’s, that have all moved and shifted to accommodate the thirst for pre-prohibition cocktails. I’m proud to be a part of this scene (I bartend at Camino in Oakland), and wanted to share this with Pay.

I figured we would play it by ear, but I had a general sense of where I wanted to take him. We met at Bar Agricole, drove to Smuggler’s Cove, then over to 15 Romolo. Then, we walked over to Rickhouse, and finished off the night with a big city bang–a huge late-night feast at New Sun Hong Kong in Chinatown (open till 4am!!!).

Here’s a recap of the night, and what Paystyle thought of the bars, his drinks, and the SF cocktail scene.

BAR AGRICOLE
355 11th Street // SOMA

Paystyle: Very nice clean set up and back bar. Had the type of setup bartenders can appreciate, with a very large workplace and room to move around. Compared with most bar setups, including my current one, it’s a dream.

Drinks were also great and simple. Nice house made stuff. The menu might not sustain my repeated visits but it was one of the top visits I had that weekend.

Kayoko: I had the ‘Fix’, made with mezcal instead of tequila. I really liked our bar man Craig, who graciously bended to my request for mezcal, then let us sample some of the “Hellfire” bitters (which tastes EXACTLY how it sounds). He can also impressively stir two cocktails at once while holding a completely serious conversation with a straight face. Extreme badassery.

Mezcal Fix at Bar Agricole.

+++

SMUGGLER’S COVE
650 Gough Street at McAllister // Western Addition

Paystyle: I had very high hopes for this place, and had I not been accustomed to the quality and attention to detail of Painkiller in NY, I would have been very impressed. However despite the appealing multi-story layout of the place, the execution and overall attention to detail lagged behind what I have become accustomed to at Painkiller, which has appeared to significantly up the Tiki-ante.

Kayoko: This was my first time I ever had a Painkiller, and of course I wanted to try one after all that Pusser’s drama that Paystyle wrote about. I never knew you could choose the amount of rum in a drink, kinda like an order of fries at McDonald’s or something. Small, medium or large? Two ounces, four, or six? I was driving, and we had a few more stops to go, so I opted for the small. This was one of my favorite drinks of the night. The froth was so satisfying–us bar folks try so hard to achieve this level of froth via shaking, but come on! Once in a while: Viva La Blender.

Paystyle: The one area where I was impressed was the menu at Smuggler’s Cove. Although the menu at PK is much more prolific (frankly I’ve never seen such a lengthy cocktail menu), Smuggler’s menu is a lesson in history, especially Tiki history and the history of rum in general. It’s an enjoyable thing to read, especially for the cocktail nerds.

Menu at Smuggler’s Cove.

+++

15 ROMOLO
15 Romolo Place // North Beach

Paystyle: I had been hearing lots of good things about this place which may have set my expectations too high. I liked the saloon feel, which is an overall perfect aesthetic for SF bars, but there wasn’t the attention to detail I had expected. Ultimately none of this matters if  the drinks taste great, and I can find appeal in the dive aesthetic. However the two drinks I ordered were imbalanced in different ways. One a bit too warm, because the bartender added a forgotten element after the fact, into the cocktail glass, and the other was just too sweet.

However I’m wise enough to know that others, like myself, can have an off night, and would delight in the opportunity to give it another shot.

Kayoko: I honestly can’t even remember what we ordered–not because I was drunk, but more cause it was unmemorable. This makes me sad, cause 15 Romolo used to be really great, even just a year ago! But the quality of the drinks diminish each time I go, and the bartenders are all so unapproachable (Gentlemen: LOOK UP!). I’m pretty sure I had the Sazerac, and Pay had the Wilson’s Smash (dark rum, pineapple, mint, lime) at some point. My Sazy was too sweet, probably cause as Pay said, it wasn’t chilled well enough. I’m working on my sweetness restraint right now, with any sweeteners (gum, simple, etc). Or maybe I’m just working on my restraint in general.

PRACTICE RESTRAINT!

+++

RICKHOUSE
246 Kearny Street // Financial District

Paystyle: I’d have to search very hard to find something negative about this place, so why waste the effort? The place is fantastic. One of my favorites of the trip. So much so that I returned with my brother the next evening, and considered going the night after that.

Did it help that my friend Russell Davis works there? Sure, but high marks would have been doled out regardless, since he wasn’t the one to make our drinks–which, by the way, were fantastic. I simply had a whiskey Buck made with strawberry infused bourbon, which was delicious. I forgot what K ordered and I didn’t care cuz mine was so good.

Juliet + Romeo (L); Kentucky Buck (R).

Kayoko: I had the Juliet + Romeo, and it was my other favorite drink of the night. As the name suggests, it’s a romantic drink, with mint and rose, but so refreshing with cucumber and lime. Hmmm, so more like if Juliet got together with a hottie surfer?

Like Paystyle at Smuggler’s Cove, I love the menu at Rickhouse. It’s like the Cocktail Bible, it’s so friggin huge. What a delight for any cocktail geek to go through.

Paystyle: But it wasn’t just the drinks at Rickhouse. The decor was dope, the atmospheric was dark yet inviting, and the size was quite admirable. It perfectly achieved the saloon aesthetic. The overall operation was smart, and reminded me of my favorite bar in New York, Employees Only.

+++

NEW SUN HONG KONG
606 Broadway (at Grant Ave) // Chinatown

Kayoko: No epic cocktail crawl would be complete without a 2am stop for some greasyass Chinese food. After Rickhouse, Pay and I walked around looking for a spot that would actually be open. God fucking forbid there be any late-late night dining in SF, anywhere. We were about to give up, but then we turned a corner, and there stood our beacon of (bad fluorescent) light: New Sun Hong Kong.

There are a few things I miss about NYC (alright, alright, MANY), and late nights at Great NY Noodle Town is one of them. This isn’t quite the same, but at 2am in SF, I’ll take it. Pay and I dueled it out about which is a better food city, over prawns, fried rice and mushu pork. What a great night!

Overall, it was awesome to see Paystyle, and take him around my new town. He went to Cal, so he’s no stranger to the Bay Area, but it’s easy to get jaded once you’ve lived in NYC for so long. I have a list of other bars (Alembic at the top) I want to take him to, and I hope he and Vanessa come back soon so we can continue our SF Cocktail Crawl.

Paystyle: In general I’d add that the prices in the Bay Area are a lot more welcoming than in NY. $10 vs. $13 average in NY.

Kayoko: Ultimately, it’s a good thing that the bars close earlier here in Cali. That saved us from a few more rounds of cocktails and a deadly hangover.