A Day in San Francisco - from Chinatown to Pac Heights to Fisherman's Wharf

San Francisco, March 3, 2014

A street in SF Chinatown

One of my nieces, Lauren, has been studying abroad in Spain for a good part of her junior year. She returned to the US last month and recently came to visit her sister, me and my parents before she heads back to school. She stayed with my other niece in Berkeley during most of her visit but I took a day off from work and met her in San Francisco last week for some aunt-niece bonding time.

We had a whole day ahead of us so I asked Lauren what she wanted to do in the city. Her first response was "I want bao! And dim sum!" Yup, she's my niece all right. It's all about the food for both of us. In case you're not familiar with what a bao is, it's a filled Chinese bread roll like pork buns or cocktail buns. Dim sum I've waxed poetical about enough times that hopefully that's not a new term on my blog. And when you're in San Francisco, there's no better place to get dim sum and baos than in Chinatown.

I searched for "cocktail buns in San Francisco" and yelp obligingly spit out Garden Bakery. It's got a 4-star rating from 75 reviews but what really sold me on it was one review mentioning it was well patronized by elderly Chinese people. You can't ask for a better affirmation than that because they would know a good place to go for cocktail buns and pork buns, right? It's like the old adage that a sign of a good Chinese restaurant was if Chinese people ate there. This was no different.

1 baked pork bun, 2 cocktail buns

Lauren holding the baked pork bun

We met at the Powell St BART station and made the walk to Chinatown. Or I should say climb. When you google map places in San Francisco, everything looks deceptively close and walkable since SF is rather small in land mass compared to other major cities. What's a mile or two? Nothing if it happened to be flat terrain but in San Francisco, you can count on a good number of hills. Getting to Chinatown from downtown was an uphill trek and by the time Lauren and I got to Garden Bakery, we felt we'd earned those baos. The bakery is rather small and, sure enough, populated mostly by elderly Chinese folks. Score. The baked goods are in a glass display case but you have to know what to ask for as I know from past experience that just because you don't see it doesn't mean they don't have it. Sure enough, both the baked pork buns and the cocktail buns weren't in the glass display but behind the counter on baker's racks. I got a pork bun and two cocktail buns for later - all three for $1.80. Super cheap as out in the 'burbs, even at a cheap Asian bakery like Sheng Kee, I'd pay almost that much just for one. Gotta love Chinatown. My Chinese friends said I got the non-Chinese price as they would have likely been charged $1.20 for the 3. Whatevs, it was still cheap to me, lol.

Then we hit the second item on Lauren's must-eat list and found a sit down restaurant for dim sum - restaurant review to follow in a separate post.  As usual, after indulging ourselves with good food, we had to get on the move to burn off lunch. Also as usual, what motivates me to walk is if our next destination was another food place. In this case, it was Sift, a cupcake bakery I'd first heard about on Cupcake Wars. Review to follow in a separate post as well.

After Sift (and dim sum and egg custards and pork buns), we really needed a good long walk. But we were rapidly tiring of the hills, literally, metaphorically and figuratively so we decided not to do the hilly backtrack to Market Street but instead headed for the wharf since most of that seemed to be flat walking ground. We walked from Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow to the Presidio (some hills were sadly unavoidable), Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39, pausing by Ghirardelli Square, home of San Francisco chocolate (no, we didn't eat any). A brief pause to refresh ourselves with drinks then, walking along the pier, onward to the Ferry Building to poke around the little shops and past Embarcadero. On the walk along the wharf, we discovered Tcho Chocolate housed in a building on the pier. Separate post on Tcho to follow in the future.

Ferry Building

The day was overcast and muggy, unseasonably warm for San Francisco but we were lucky that it didn't start raining until we made our way from the Embarcadero to Westfield City Center at the Powell St BART station. All in all, we walked over 10 miles that day, including the uphills and downhills that forcibly reminded me of almost every single muscle in my legs. My fitbit even congratulated me for walking over 34,000 steps that day. Fortunately, both Lauren and I run for exercise so it never occurred to us we couldn't do it so we did. It also helped that I didn't realize just how far we had walked until I mapped our ambulatory wanderings the next day. Powered by dim sum and cupcakes, we can go anywhere.....

Lemon French Toast

Lemon French Toast - made March 1, 2014 from Created by Diane

Last up for Lemon Week is the lemon twist on traditional French toast. I'm not quite sure what I expected other than it would be like regular French toast with a little lemon flavor. Which is what I got. I might've gotten the same effect just squeezing lemon over French toast.

I think part of it was because I topped it with maple syrup rather than a lemon topping so lemon wasn't really a star, more like a supporting character. If you want to go all out on lemon, I would suggest making a lemon glaze (confectioners' sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice) or serving this with lemon curd, hold the butter and maple syrup. Also, make sure you fry this long enough so it isn't soggy or undercooked (ahem, guilty), especially if you cut your bread into thick slices. Mine browned too quickly on one side and I didn't let it cook long enough on the other side so it was soggier than it should've been.

Thus ends the wrap up of Lemon Week but I still have a big bowl of lemons to use so I will probably be sneaking in lemon recipes here and there in the coming weeks.

4 slices Texas toast (I used 4 thick slices of challah)
1 cup milk
2 eggs
¼ cup fresh lemon juice and zest from 1 of the lemons
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon lemon extract, optional
2 tablespoons butter
2-3 tablespoons powdered sugar

1. Mix, milk, lemon juice, vanilla and lemon emulsion along with eggs until well blended.
2. Dip each piece of bread into the batter and turn over so both sides absorb the mixture and it has time to soak in.
3. Heat skillet to medium, place 1 tablespoon butter in pan and place bread into pan and cook on each side until lightly crisp, then cover it for another minute or to until center of toast is cooked through.
4. Spread butter on top of each slice and dust with powdered sugar.

Lemon Chicken Pasta with Basil

Lemon Chicken Pasta with Basil - made February 23, 2014 from Lil' Luna

This was similar to my Lemon Pasta with Ham recipe except it has added richness (meaning fat) with the whipping cream, half and half and parmesan cheese. If it makes you feel any better, it also has some greenery in the form of basil which my lighter version hadn't. With the added ingredients, it wasn't as lemony as the other recipe but it was more rich so if you like creamy sauces, this is a good twist on an alfredo sauce albeit with a (slightly) lighter emphasis on the cream and more on the lemon. I ended up not needing to use the reserved pasta water but I also didn't use a whole pound of pasta.

4 grilled chicken breast sliced (I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs)
1 pound angel hair pasta
1/2 stick butter
3 whole lemons, zested
3/4 cups whipping cream
1/4 cup Half & Half
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
 salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped

1.  Cook pasta as directed on box. Reserve one cup water, set pasta aside. 
2. In same pot, melt butter over medium heat. Squeeze in juice of 3 lemons and whisk together. Add lemon zest.
3. Pour half & half and cream together and whisk until hot. Dump in cheese and whisk until melted. Add salt pepper to taste
4. Check consistency and add hot pasta water until you reach your desired thickness. Stir in half of your basil.
5. Pour pasta and sauce into a large bowl. Add chicken, sprinkle remaining basil on top. Serve warm.

Lemon Muffins

Lemon Muffins - made February 23, 2014 from Sugar Pies Food

Lemon Week marches on. This was like a cross between a muffin and a cupcake. It wasn't as heavy-dense as a muffin but not entirely cakey light like a cupcake. Or maybe that's just how I make muffins. The batter seemed a bit stretchy when I was scooping it out so I was afraid I had overmixed it (heavy hands) but the texture of the baked muffin wasn't tough. So I don't know if my muffins were just having an identity crisis or what.

The key thing when filling the cupcake cavities is to ensure the same amount of batter is used since you don't want too small of a muffin baking too much alongside a giant muffin in the next cavity not baking enough. I tried the ice cream scoop method of doling out the batter since that technically almost forces you to scoop the same amount of batter into each muffin cavity. Ha, not so. I used my largest ice cream scoop but even that didn't seem like it put in enough batter into each cavity so I ended up doing partial scoops to top them up. Which meant I eyeballed the amount of filling in each cavity anyway.

Taste-wise, it wasn't super lemony but I think that was also because the tartness of the lemon was muted by the butter-sugar topping. I did add some lemon zest to the granulated sugar topping and I liked having that added lemon flavor. I opted not to add yellow food coloring as I prefer the yellow color to come from the egg yolks and the lemons rather than anything artificial. Note I don't have similar scruples when it comes to red velvet but there ya go, I'm an enigma. Or just inconsistent.

1/2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sour cream
2 large eggs
zest of 1 large lemon, finely grated
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
1 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
2-4 drops yellow food coloring, optional (I didn't use any)
1/4 cup sugar, for topping
1 tablespoon butter, melted, for topping

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line muffin tin with liners or lightly grease.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix together lemon juice and lemon extract in measuring cup.
3. In bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, sugar and sour cream until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition until incorporated. Add lemon zest and yellow food coloring, if using, and mix.
4. Alternate flour and lemon juice mixtures in thirds, beginning and ending with flour. Mix just until combined.
5. Spoon batter into muffin tins, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes until tops are lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean.
6. Allow to cool in muffin tin on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from tin and allow to cool until just warm.
7. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter and brush on top of each muffin. Place 1/4 cup granulated sugar in a small bowl and roll each muffin top in sugar.

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake - made February 23, 2014 from Frankly Entertaining

The name of the game when trying to use up lemons in a recipe is to find the ones that call for more than a couple of tablespoons. A minimum 1/4 cup is preferable although in reality, that only uses 2-3 lemons from the dozens I've plucked from my mom's and my lemon trees. But still, every lemon recipe helps eat into my stockpile.

Buttermilk pairs well with lemon and luckily, I had some fresh buttermilk from a previous recipe that I wanted to use up. I like making sheet cakes because they're easy to throw together, cut and serve. This was a good cake but I didn't bake it long enough. If you don't bake a lemon baked good the right amount of time, the flavor is more bitter than it should be. The middle of this also had a wet texture whereas the corners and edges had the right cakey texture. The properly baked parts were good; the middle portions made my picky taste buds rebel.

2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature
3 tablespoons grated zest and 1/4 cup juice from 3 lemons
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk, room temperature

Glaze
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons buttermilk

1. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9 x 13 baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Combine buttermilk, lemon juice and vanilla in a liquid measuring cup.
3. With electric mixer on medium speed, beat granulated sugar and lemon zest until moist and fragrant, about 1 minute. Transfer 1/4 cup sugar mixture to small bowl, cover and reserve. Add butter to remaining sugar mixture and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in eggs and yolk, one at a time, until incorporated. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with 2 additions of buttermilk mixture, and mix until smooth, about 30 seconds.
4. Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Bake until cake is golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 25 to 35 minutes. Transfer cake to wire rack and let cool 10 minutes.
5. For the glaze: whisk confectioners' sugar, lemon juice, and buttermilk until smooth. Gently spread glaze over warm cake and sprinkle evenly with reserved sugar mixture. Cool completely, at least 2 hours. Serve.

Restaurant Review: Faz

Faz - team lunch on February 24, 2014

The person on my team whose going away party I had baked the Orange Fluff Cake and Salted Caramel Toffee Coconut Macaroons for was leaving so I took my team out for his goodbye lunch. His restaurant of choice was Faz, somewhere we've gone as a team before but I've never written up.

This particular location for Faz is connected as part of the Sheraton and probably gets a lot of business traffic. Which is appropos since it's a good place for a business lunch. It bills itself as a Mediterranean restaurant and it does genuinely have hummus, kebabs, tabouleh and the like but when you add in pizzas, hamburgers and chicken sandwiches, you can pretty much guess it's been Americanized.

Still, they do good kebabs here and the "bread basket" is pita bread so they try. I normally get the kebabs and they come up pretty tender and nicely flavored. They're not as good as Dish Dash but still tasty. It's also convenient that you can make reservations on Open Table and they're not as crowded as other places in the area for lunch. The service is also fairly prompt whenever I've gone. This is definitely a place you can take a number of people to as Faz can accommodate large parties with both indoor and outdoor seating, depending on the weather and your preference. They tend to be busier for dinner than lunch when I've been at both times of the day.

Rolled Chicken and Beef Kebabs

We each got some version of kebabs so I only took a picture of mine to let my long-suffering team be able to eat their meal without me snapping pictures of their entree before they can take a bite. Besides, they all looked alike anyway, ha.

We did opt for different desserts though. Two of us got the coffee mud pie: chocolate and coffee ice cream in a chocolate cookie crust topped with chocolate sauce and sprinklings of chopped pistachios. I enjoyed it and it's hard to go wrong with mud pie.

Tiramisu

The tiramisu was okay - I'm not a big tiramisu fan unless I'm in the mood and it's made with just the right amount of espresso soaking into fresh homemade ladyfingers. Which I don't think this was. Then again, I was also too occupied with my mud pie to take more than a perfunctory taste.

Someone got the cookie sampler which was meant for "2-4 people". It was a good number of bite-sized cookies. I tried one and I can't say I was impressed. The plate looked pretty but the cookie I tried just wasn't to my taste preference. The cookie itself was soft and the filling was some type of sweet substance, possibly honey or some kind of jam, neither of which I liked. So I'd stick to the mud pie for future dessert orders.

Overall, Faz is a good place to go for a business lunch or dinner, especially if you're already around the area since there's not much else out there except the Sheraton and a bunch of office buildings. The menu is varied enough to cater to different tastes and the setting is appropriate for work colleagues and/or casual acquaintances.

Glazed Lemon Pancakes for Shrove Tuesday

Lemon Pancakes - made March 2, 2014 from Disgustingly Good

It's Shrove Tuesday and this marks the day before Lent, a day and a season observed by many Christian denominations. More importantly as a foodie, it's also known as Pancake Day.  For Lemon Week and Shrove Tuesday, what better combination to denote the day than Lemon Pancakes? I love pancakes and have never had lemon ones but this met my "have to use up my lemons" criteria of using at least 1/4 cup of lemon juice plus zest. Can't waste good zest.

I figured the lemon juice and zest in the pancakes would make this lemony enough but I didn't want the pancakes to compete in flavor with butter or syrup as the traditional pancake toppings. Instead, I made a simple lemon glaze: powdered sugar, lemon zest and just enough freshly squeezed lemon juice to make the glaze the consistency I wanted, slightly thinner than a frosting but thicker than a runny glaze. Since you pour the glaze over warm pancakes, it'll melt a bit so don't be afraid of making it too thick. These weren't the fluffiest pancakes I've ever made but I did like the lemon spin on traditional pancakes. The lemon glaze complements them perfectly to keep up with the lemon theme.

Shrove Tuesday also marks Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. Laissez les bon temps roulez!

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup sour cream
1/3 cup milk
zest of two lemons
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Lemon Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
zest from 1 lemon
enough lemon juice for the desired consistency (2-3 tablespoons)

1. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 
2. In another bowl, mix together the rest of the ingredients. Pour wet mixture into dry and stir quickly. The batter will be thick and bubbly.
3. Use 1/4 cup batter for each pancake and pour onto hot skillet. Cook until golden brown on the bottom then flip. Serve warm with butter and/or maple syrup or lemon glaze (mix 1 cup powdered sugar and enough lemon juice to get the desired consistency).

Lemon Pasta with Ham

Lemon Pasta - made February 17, 2014

My mom's lemon tree is busily churning out more lemons than either she or I can possibly handle. My own lemon tree is getting overloaded but next to my mom's, mine looks anemic. This is a picture of my mom's tree after I harvested two bags of lemons from it. They've been left on the tree so long because we can't keep up that they're turning from yellow to orange. So this is going to be Lemon Week on my blog as I search out more ways to use them than the standard lemon bars.

I knew from past experience that I like lemon in pasta and risotto so I decided to throw together some kind of lemon pasta. A search of a variety of recipes offered some basic commonalities in most recipes: lemon juice, lemon zest, broth, milk and sometimes cheese. I didn't want a heavy sauce and preferred a more pure lemon flavor so I opted to make it without cheese. You can also safely assume I didn't have cheese in my fridge at the time as well.

This was easy to throw together, another key criteria when I cook. The sauce is very thin which is why I recommend angel hair pasta so you don't end up with big noodles and very little sauce. You can use chicken instead of ham but I liked the sweetness of the ham to complement the lemony sauce. I also liked to sprinkle lemon zest over each serving for added lemon flavor. This isn't Cordon Bleu but I liked it for its simplicity and flavor.

1/2 pound angel hair pasta, boiled al dente in salted water
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup chicken broth
zest from 2 lemons
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 lb ham, cut into chunks

1. Boil pasta to al dente in salted water.
2. Brown garlic in olive oil. Add chicken broth, zest, lemon juice, and milk. Bring to a boil then add ham and angel hair pasta. Toss to coat lightly with sauce (sauce will be thin).

Restaurant Review: Joy Luck Palace (dim sum)

Joy Luck Palace - lunch on February 19, 2014

I had never heard of Joy Luck Palace until I read that it was one of the top 5 places to go to for dim sum in the Bay Area. That's a pretty grandiose claim considering the plethora of dim sum places all over a geographic area heavily populated by Asians. A claim that can't go unresearched by yours truly, especially since as soon as I heard it, I started craving dim sum. And since birds of a feather flock together, it wasn't hard for me to rustle up a couple of friends to go test it out for lunch one day.

Surprisingly, Joy Luck only has 3 stars on yelp which seems to be a bit at odds with that Top 5 claim. Did the writer of the original report go on a particularly good day at Joy Luck Palace or were they being overly generous, more so than the 549 reviewers to date on yelp? I consulted with a couple of Chinese friends who are dim sum aficianados and they dismissed the yelp ratings as "that's always for the service, not the food".

Okay, that made me feel better. Sort of. When we arrived, I was surprised to find it wasn't that crowded. We got there during lunch time and usually dim sum places are packed by then. The inside of Joy Luck was pretty spacious, not quite as big as Asian Pearl but still a good size. Plenty of tables, plenty of room for the dim sum carts.

Not that they needed it as it turned out there was some merit to those yelp reviews. I don't expect 4-star service at dim sum places. You sit there, the carts roll on by, you flag the ones you want, they place it on your table, stamp your card and move on. It usually works pretty smoothly. And at first it did. The steam cart came by and we got steamed dumplings and chicken in sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves. So far so good.

Sticky Rice Chicken wrapped in banana leaves

Sticky Rice Chicken

Then another steam cart came along and we got more steamed dumplings including my standbys of har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings) and siu mai (steamed pork dumplings).

Har Gow

Siu Mai

I was looking for the fried cart though, one that would have the fried shrimp balls, baked pork buns, maybe the imitation crab claw and the pork flaky pastry thingies (I never know what they're called but I know it when I see it). My friend Jenny was looking for the shrimp or beef wrapped in flat rice noodles.

But the carts stopped coming and we were left hanging. There were a couple of carts roaming the restaurant but they looked like the exact same carts we'd already availed ourselves of and offered nothing we hadn't already eaten or passed on. Where was the fried stuff?? I started to wonder if they were just faking us out and whether there really was only 1 dim sum cart and they just swapped out who manned it to make it look like there was more than 1 on patrol.

Shrimp wrapped in rice noodles

But we knew the dim sum we were looking for existed because the tables next to us had them. Finally, I picked up the menu on the table and wondered if we had to order it rather than wait for a cart to make an appearance. So that's what we did, once we managed to flag down the right person to take our order. And that took some doing too. There's a confusing hierarchy regarding the personnel at dim sum places. The most formally dressed ones are usually the ones who total up your bill. Similarly dressed but not quite as natty looking can either be the ones you order from or they fill your water glasses. Never try to order from the person pushing the dim sum cart. If what you're looking for isn't on their cart, they get distressed that they can't give you what you want (especially if you don't know how to ask for it in Chinese because you don't know what it's called and "pork flaky pastry thingie" doesn't translate well) and they look around for one of the nattily-dressed people to pass on to the almost-as-nattily-dressed people to take your order.

Baked Pork Bun

But we finally made it through the hierarchy to get to the correct person and our order came out fairly quickly once we finally managed to put it in. Although the deep fried shrimp balls took awhile and I almost thought they'd forgotten it.

Sesame Balls

The dim sum itself was pretty good although I have to say it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps I'm jaded or just fortunate that there are a lot of good dim sum places where I live so something would have to be pretty stupendous to stand out from the crowd. This was good but I can't say it was so fantastically awesome that I can't wait to go back and get indifferent service again. Now I understand the yelp reviews: good dim sum, okay service.

Fried Shrimp Balls