San Francisco Part II: Tapas and Russians

Hi. Bob here with the second and last installment of our San Francisco adventure. As Alison mentioned in her last post, we had purchased funny hats and I decided to wear my Russian Sea Captain hat with dark shades all day... even in the darkest of bars. Looking back I realize it wasn't that cool to do, especially since I was taking pictures of myself at every stop. But, I guess I knew in my heart that there would be a purpose for these pictures and that they would come to some use.

The following pictures will be guest captioned by Vladimr Vlasko, Russian Sea Man.

This park has many people. Much light, yes? Must navigate quiet place.

Yes, we find nice place. Drink now.

Vladimir find women. They will board ship. We adventure the ocean.

The women, they leave to another bar. Vladimir follow.

It now time for eat. We have food like Spaniards. Cured Ham.

The potato of the sea. The clams.

Plate of many wonders. Vladimir not afraid of the unknown.

Vladimir not know what is. Take it away!

Shrimps, they mouse of sea. Small and taste ocean rodents. Yes?

In Russia there many potato. I do not know this sauce. Is insult, this sauce.

Vladimir finish food. Women finish food. We eat like many parade. Dish on table empty.

We go more bar. I like bar here.

This woman Vlad choose. I take her with for set sail. She conquer many bar. Good woman.

Vladimir no like bar at port. Home going no good.

Picaro Cafe

3120 16th St
San Francisco, CA 94103-3328
(415) 431-4089

San Francisco Part I: Monk's Kettle

It is funny that this is part one, because we didn't visit The Monk's Kettle until Sunday - the last full day of our trip. I guess the first two days failed to be documented because we were too busy enjoying the drink component of our food and drink blog AND singing mash-up karaoke with drag queens. Hey, what do you expect - it's San Francisco, where the only thing that isn't tolerated is intolerance. So, don't judge!

Anyways, on Sunday we had a lunch date with a friend and she suggested The Monk's Kettle. I didn't know it was called The Monk's Kettle until an hour before we arrived. Good thing Jackie called to confirm, or Bob and I would have been sitting in the non-existent Monkeys Wrench. If you haven't guessed already Jackie and I made these plans on Sat. - during the drink component of said food and drink blog.

It was 75 and sunny and Bob and I strolled toward the restaurant in the Mission District. As we got closer and saw more and more cool, city folk passing us by we started feeling inferior. Luckily, we spotted a hat shop and we stopped in to take a gander and citify our look. I walked out with a brown and orange bicycle cap and Bob walked out with a Russian Sea Captain's hat. I don't know if this made us cooler, but Bob insisted it did. You can see for yourself since Bob insisted on wearing the hat, with sunglasses, for every stop - even when we were in a dark bar.

Against all odds we arrived at The Monk's Kettle, met Jackie and sat down for an amazing meal of elevated bar faire and specialty beers.

Monk's isn't a large place, but the food is large as well as the selection of beer. One of their best features is that the good people at Monk's hold your hand through the beer selection process. They pair everything on the food menu with a few selections off the beer menu. How easy!

Bob decided that he would go with something with a little bit of flare - to compliment the flare that is a Russian Sea Captain's hat:

House-ground ‘Premium Gold Natural’ Lamb Burger with lettuce, organic tomatoes, fresh red onions and a cucumber mint tzatziki sauce on a Metropolis sesame bun.

To which the menu suggested one of the following types of beer:

ESB, Belgian Strong Pale or a Weizenbock

So he decided to go with a Weizenstock called 'Aventinus'.

Easy, right?

I, on the other hand decided not to screw around with their stupid pairing decisions. I just went with what I know: poultry.

I had a chicken sandwich and a glass of Old Speckled Hen.

Restaurant Quality Flame

So, where have we been you ask?

Well, we've still been eating well and having our adventures here at the Tasty Morsel, but we've been a little too busy to write about it on this here 'net. I know we're bad 'bloggers' but when you don't have time, you don't have time.

At least we have a good excuse. We were moving... Alison and I just got a place together. A place with an awesome vintage Wedgewood stove. One that has a 'restaurant-quality flame' as we were told when we were touring the place. It was love at first sight (of the stove that is) and the next morning our 1-yr lease was cooking. We couldn't have been happier thinking that all our meals for the next year we're going to be restaurant quality with that restaurant quality flame.

I think we were most enamored by the griddle, but we quickly found out that cleaning the thing was going to be a pain in the butt. And we also learned pretty quickly that all our meals were not going to be zagat rated - that restaurant quality flame really heats up fast and seconds later we had blackened pancakes for our inaugeural griddle meal. Al really payed the price in the sink with the sponge for my culinary mishap . Oh, the joys of having a live-in girlfriend.

We look forward to using our Wedgewood to it's full extent while cooking and taking pictures to share with you all. We still have to tweak with the thing a bit, but we'll be in good shape shortly. Oh, and we visited San Francisco last weekend, so stories on that to come soon.

In the meantime, enjoy the view from our front window: