two magnificent loaves of Tartine country bread

If the line that’s constantly snaking out the door and around the block from Tartine is any indication, this wonderful bakery and café needs no real introduction. Located in the Mission District on the corner of Guerrero and 18th Streets on the same block as Delfina and a half block from Farina, Tartine is worth seeking out. You need to know the location for as far as I can tell, the shop has no sign facing the street at all. Perhaps they don’t really need one?

I couldn't find a sign for Tartine though you can always tell by the long line that you're there

there's always a huge line at Tartine

As much as we’re delighted to have Tartine country bread out, nothing beats getting a loaf, or two, or even three, fresh from their ovens (everything is baked right on site) and devouring some in the car as you’re driving madly home to eat more accompanied by your favorite glass of red wine! The line to get into Tartine is the only thing that prevents us from going there every single day for a fresh loaf.

thick slices of Tartine country bread

We’ve worked out an informal system with John for managing the line and enjoying the bread with some semi-regularity. If one of us happens by the bakery during the day, he might order a loaf picked up either later that evening or the next day. Then, we’ll call each other to coordinate who might be able to fetch it. Picking up is easier than ordering as you can cut the line right to the front.

Tartine bakes bread on Wednesdays through Sundays. It’s out of the oven at 5PM and ready to be picked up after that. The bread keeps well, so if you manage to resist eating the whole loaf the first night, you can have it again later. (John’s been known to get up in the middle of the night and sneak a few pieces more. I don’t know how he can stay so thin!)

The bread itself has a thick, chewy dark crust that hides a softer, stretchy, mildly sour interior that is truly amazing. Words fail me now and I cannot adequately describe the wonder of this bread. More than once I’ve ruined my dinner for eating too much of it. I’d never complain about just snacking on it alone. But I do like it with butter or cheese as well. I had some with a sundried tomato tapenade and olive oil cured artichoke hearts at John’s recently that was stunning. It goes pretty much with anything.

As I already mentioned before getting completely distracted, Tartine offers other things, too. So you can get pastry, cake, coffee, sandwiches, etc. All of these are also very good. In fact, we had their Passion Fruit Lime Bavarian Rectangle for our wedding reception at The Slanted Door in 2008. The cake is light and very passion-fruity and coconut-y. Really good!

crowded Tartine interior

Dining at Tartine takes a bit of energy and strategy. First there’s managing the line. Then there’s finding a table. The place is tiny so inevitably there’s hardly any seating free. I always feel like I’m at some super-trendy bakery in New York while there. I can’t think of anyplace else in San Francisco that’s as mobbed (or as good) as this. In New York you’d come across this kind of thing a bit more often.

Writing this has already made me crave some of the country bread. Aside from the “plain country” (that name seems so demeaning as a description of this culinary masterpiece!) they also make it with walnuts, sesame seeds and with olives. I didn’t know about the olive loaf! I’m going to have one of those very, very soon.

the Tartine Passion Fruit Lime Bavarian Rectangle was excellent at our wedding

Acme rustic walnut loaf

What can I say about Acme Bread? We simply love it! That’s it. We love it.

They’ve got a location in the San Francisco Ferry Building. We’ve also been to the one in Berkeley by Kermit Lynch Wine Merchants. On weekends, Hegui and I usually have morning coffee with a sweet baguette from Acme. Sometimes H will get the sweet loaf for a breakie surprise mid-week as he works quite near the Ferry Building. I frequently buy the olive loaf to go with Italian food, particularly for Roman style tomato pasta or drizzled with fava topping. And though we’re unlike most San Franciscians in that we generally dislike sour dough bread, those from Acme are delicious.

These breads remind me most of some from my childhood in the Seventies when my family lived in Geneva, Switzerland. Often my mother would buy large round boules from little boulangeries in the city. They had this thick chewy flaky crust with a soft, doughy chewy interior that I came to think of as one of my best memories of childhood. Acme isn’t quite that but it comes close.

Acme Bread Company

Fortunately, if you live in the Bay Area, you don’t have to suffer. Acme operates four stores and distributes their breads to numerous retailers including Whole Foods, Costco, Good Life and even restaurants like Fringale, and of course, Chez Panisse.

This is way better than a boring mass-produced loaf of white bread!

Didn’t Wylie E. Coyote shop at Acme for stuff with which to capture the Road Runner? Can this be where they got the name?!?

I do occasionally shop for wine online mostly from K and L in San Francisco. They have a marvelous web site! I also browse the sites for San Francisco’s The Wine Club and The Wine House and have even ordered some hard-to-find wines on the latter site, especially when they offer it for less than K and L. (The Wine House has a case discount. I’ve never heard of this at the other places.) And of course I use Stryker Sonoma’s, Adelaida’s and Tensley’s sites as I’m members of their wine clubs. But these are all “real places” that happen to offer online sales.

wine.com retail outlet

Recently we ordered a case of chateauneuf du pape from B21 online. We think that they’re based in Seattle or perhaps somewhere in Florida. But whether or not they have a real brick-and-mortar store, well, who knows? To me, wine.com also seemed like one of those mystery places found only on the internet and in your mailbox. Well, believe it or not, they have a storefront on 4th Street in Berkeley!

Probably we’re the only ones surprised by that. We stumbled across the place on our way to find Viks Chaat Corner, a famous Indian restaurant and shop in the same neighborhood. The wine.com shop sort of looks like a generic warehouse type place. We’d have completely passed it by if not for the signs declaring “wine.com retail outlet now open.” The wine sales room wasn’t that large though it was just off what appeared to be a massive warehouse.

browsing through wine.com retail outlet

To us the place had a new-car-with-plaster-and-paint smell that screamed “just opened!” But the two clerks there laughed at the idea. It’s been open in that location for two years already and was in another part of town even before that. At any rate, the place looked very new with high ceilings, racks of wine, some wine paraphernalia, wine storage chests and cookbooks for sale. In the back they also displayed several paintings by Susi Watson with free postcards of her work. I imagine that wine.com rotates various artists into their store similar to how you might see at certain restaurants or coffee shops.

Though they have an interesting selection of wine, it’s not organized in a way that promotes rapid shopping. Instead of being sorted by production region (e.g. French, Italian, Californian, etc.) they’re arranged in categories like “earthy spicy reds,” “light fruity reds,” “big bold reds,” “90 points under $20 reds,” “90 points under $20 whites,” “off the beaten path” and so on. It’s more like a wine list at a trendy restaurant than how I imagine a wine shop would be set up.

how can you find anything with wine sorted into groups like this?

The display did make us pay more close attention to the wines and I probably did look at more of them than I might in a more conventional arrangement. We ended up buying a few bottles of “90 points under $20 reds” and some on extra sale at that same price point. Most of the bottles come with these little paper tags with the name of the wine and the wine.com item number printed on it. There’s space on the reverse where you can write in the “drink date,” “occasion,” “food pairing, “ notes and indicate whether or not you’d order it again. It’s a smart marketing idea.

welcome to Viks Chaat Corner

We went to Viks Chaat Corner at the suggestion of one of Hegui’s Indian colleague from work. Suhas couldn’t stop raving about it! It’s in Berkeley on the corner of Channing Way and Fourth Street, only a few blocks from wine.com’s retail outlet.

Viks is a combination Indian retail store and “fast food” Indian restaurant. According to their site, it started out primarily as a retail store in 1989 with a small “chaat corner” within the shop selling “street food.” Apparently the food was a real hit to the point that the place grew into this marvelous, large restaurant with a smaller store attached. “Chaat” apparently means “to lick” and refers to the finger-licking-goodness of the food. After our experience there, we couldn’t agree more with the name!

The shop offered a lot of the traditional Indian-food-store kinds of products: various dried spices, a large variety of basmati rice all in huge sacks, canned products, preserved spicy limes and mangoes, and some frozen pre-made dishes. They had a case of refrigerated fresh vegetables and herbs. We saw fresh fenugreek leaves, bitter melon, eggplant and some of the usual onions, garlic, cilantro, etc. In another refrigerated case they had a few kinds of paneer cheese and pre-mixed, uncooked batter for making dosas (a type of savory bread similar in shape to a crepe or large pancake) at home.

The shop’s pretty large but is dwarfed in comparison to the bustling restaurant. To order, you must stand in a long but fast moving line and pay in advance. Then you try to find an empty table, as you wait for your dishes to be prepared. Everything seemed to be made right on the spot from the freshest of ingredients. The place was completely mobbed when we were there on a Saturday in the mid-afternoon. Many of the customers appeared to be of Indian descent, perhaps suggesting that this was a popular and authentic Indian establishment. We needed little external reassurances after having our meal. It was simply divine!

some canned goods from Viks Chaat Corner

wide selection of basmati rice at Viks

Chaat Corner foods: Sev Puri, Pani Puri and Samosa Cholle

We ordered a few items from the “Chaat Menu:” Sev Puri, Pani Puri and Samosa Cholle. In addition, we tried the vegetable dosa on the weekend special menu. The dishes took about fifteen minutes to come out and were served on no-frills compostable paper plates with compostable sporks.

biodegradable sporks

Sev Puri came with little round “papdis,” which were sort of cracker-like things, topped by a potato onion topping, various chutneys and “sev” which looked like fried shredded wheat. Pani Puri were puffed crisp bite-sized “cracker balls” accompanied by a potato garbanzo mixture with a tamarind chutney and a spicy mint water. The menu recommends that you crack open the pani and fill it with the rest. It was really good. The samosa came with two pieces and accompanied by some sauces. The dosa arrived last. It reminded us of the ones from Udupi Palace or Dosa in San Francisco. It was a huge savory pancake stuffed with a spicy vegetable mixture with some chutneys and sauces on the side. The food was spicy, sweet, tart, with a variety of exciting textures as well: crunchy, soft, moist and dry. Exciting! The whole meal cost only about $20 and really hit the spot.

vegetable filled dosa

skylight at Viks Chaat Corner

The facility itself is beautiful. There are high ceilings with attractive hanging lamps. The walls are all painted in rich colors in a simple and pleasing design. It was very clean with neat modern looking restrooms. It has an open kitchen behind a long counter. We enjoyed watching the staff prepare some of the dishes while we waited for ours. Parking was plentiful. We’d definitely go back and probably will soon.

the corner of Viks Chaat Corner

Hegui has been looking for a place to get inexpensive, high quality Brazilian palmito or heart of palm. I recommended a Google search and that’s how we “discovered” Señor Pedro International. Daly City is just to the south of San Francisco though I’m embarrassed to say that I hardly ever go there. The store was really easy to find and had ample parking.

Señor Pedro International, Daly City

it's like a party in here

some Brazilian preserved vegetables at Señor Pedro International

The shop itself shares the same block with a laundromat and what appeared to be an extremely popular Filipino American restaurant. There was a huge line spilling onto the sidewalk waiting for lunch.

Señor Pedro International is a hole-in-the-wall style shop. Outside there’s a large Brazilian flag as well as the state flag of Goiás. The place has a small counter where they offer prepared food, sort of like a deli. The store is packed literally from floor to ceiling with a weird variety of mostly Mexican, Brazilian and American products. I was thrilled to see cases of Brahma for sale, though the price was outrageous. There were dozens of flip-flops strung up like holiday decorations. We recognized lots of Brazilian soap and hair care products as well as various kitchen implements. They even had pressure cookers like our old one.

flip-flops and easter chocolates hang from the ceilings at Señor Pedro International

what could be more Brazilian than guaraná?

We did find numerous Brazilian food products including palmito, various kinds of corn flours and products, jars of guava jam and preserved fruit as well as chocolates and desserts. We got fooled by the guava as once we brought it home, we realized that it had expired in 2005, so buyer beware!

The clerk who rang us up spoke to Hegui in Portuguese. I guess, despite the shop’s Spanish sounding name, I have to believe that it’s really Brazilian. I’d go back though we’ll read the labels better next time.

the state flag of Goiás

shrine at Richmond New May Wah

Richmond New May Wah Supermarket is our favorite place for produce and Asian, particularly Chinese ingredients, in the Richmond District, and possibly in all of San Francisco. It offers much of the same things as at the Sunset Super but the produce is generally better and I think that it has a nicer atmosphere. The store in the Sunset is always so crowded and stuffed to the gills with things that it can be a little claustrophobic. New May Wah has wider aisles; it’s filled more for human proportions, rather than extra-tall basketball players; and it even has a shrine in the back. We don’t go as often as to the Sunset merely because it’s farther away from our neighborhood and there’s nothing in that area like 22 and Irving Market that we’ve yet found.

lots of interesting preserved foods at Richmond New May Wah

power drinks

That said, New May Wah is worth a visit. They carry a large selection of almost everything that you’ll need to prepare many Chinese, other Asian and even Western style dishes. We often get rice, both fresh and dried noodles, sake, various preserved or jarred condiments and sauces, soy sauce, frozen steamed vegetarian dumplings and pot stickers, fish, shellfish and fruit and vegetables. They have a lot of imported beer from Asia, energy drinks, pre-made dishes and even meat.

Richmond New May Wah has a wide selection of tofu and fresh produce

the market offers both live and fresh or fresh frozen fish

some ingredients like these dried octupus seem exotic to me

I can get all of the ingredients for vegetarian Szechuan eggplant, spicy long beans, tofu and snap peas or even soba noodles with grilled tuna there, making menu planning a snap. It’s just a block away from Kamei House Wares and Restaurant Supply on Clement Street at 8th Avenue. You can stock up on your kitchen utensils and Japanese dishes then get everything that you need at New May Wah to prepare a spectacular feast.

more attractive produce

Richmond New May Wah has a wide selection of vegetarian and pescatarian steamed buns

varied sake selection at Richmond New May Wah

Richmond New May Wah Supermarket

stylish Berkeley Bowl West

Sunday was a spectacularly sunny afternoon in the San Francisco Bay Area making it a perfect day to spread our wings and explore Berkeley. If you don’t know that lovely city by the Bay, it’s probably most famous as the home of the University of California, the first and premier “UC school.” The city has a fine tradition of food cosmopolitanism as well. Chez Panisse, the famous Alice Waters restaurant can be found nestled near the University. Kermit Lynch Wine Merchants calls Berkeley home. There’s the Cheese Board, famous for years as a merchant of fine cheeses, and of course, there’s Berkeley Bowl.

Per their web site, the original BB was founded in 1977 as a small neighborhood market. Well, the place grew. They moved to a new location, a renovated Safeway store, in 1999, and now they’ve a new store at 920 Heinz at 8th Street in Berkeley. It’s a quick ride from San Francisco over the Bay Bridge to the Ashby Avenue exit.

she's not the only one fascinated with this case

high ceilings and wide aisles make Berkeley Bowl West seem much less crowded than other supermarkets

The store is huge and beautifully designed with a contemporary look in wood, steel, glass and concrete. There’s a stand-alone café across from the supermarket. And unlike places nearby our home or the other BB, there’s ample parking.

think Organic, Inc.

I really liked the look of this place

BB West is a kind of upscale supermarket sort of along the lines of Whole Foods. They’ve a wide selection of organic and other kinds of produce, for which they are rightly famous. The place has an active bakery and offers prepared foods made right on the spot. There is a large bulk food section where Hegui went a little wild buying rare and obscure kinds of dry beans. They offer a wide assortment of fish. I saw more than six types of salmon alone. The dry goods are extensive and interesting. Where other stores may have one or two kinds of sun dried tomatoes or red wine vinegars, there were literally dozens on display. I like soy milk. BB West had four brands to choose from with several kinds of each label. For a supermarket, their wine selection was exciting, too.

Berkeley Bowl West is a dream for soy milk fans

Of course, such a broad array of options comes at a premium. But it’s fun to go occasionally and splurge a little.

I’ve been to Berkeley Bowl on Oregon Street, but think that I prefer BB West. It’s easier to get into and out of, the aisles are less mobbed, and the lines seem to move faster. We’ll be back!

Berkeley Bowl West has a large selection of bulk foods

so many kinds of salmon at Berkeley Bowl West

even the stairs look amazing at Berkeley Bowl West

the Berkeley Bowl West cafe is stunning, too

charming Japanese bowls for sale at Kamei

Kamei house wares & restaurant supply

a wide selection of pots and pans

colorful pictures at Kamei

We don’t venture to the Richmond that often as it’s easier for us to go to the Sunset District to 22 and Irving Market or the Sunset Super. Nevertheless, Kamei is definitely worth the occasional visit. There we’ve purchased lovely Japanese bowls, sake sets to give as gifts, practical kitchen implements and cheap plastic containers for food storage; a set of twenty white dinner plates for serving large parties, cheap flatware for the same and lots of other things.

cute and affordable glasses for after dinner drinks

I love the look of these dishes but what do you use them for?

lucky bamboo

scoops and whisks

Kamei really has a wide range of stuff: from lucky bamboo, Chinese nicknacks, live orchids, plastic models of sushi, chopsticks, rice cookers and steamers, clay pots for Thai style soups and on and on and on. It’s stacked floor to ceiling with exciting and unusual items. The place seems magical in its magnificent variety.

blooming orchids for Chinese New Year

it's fun to shop Kamei

vases, plant stands and nicknacks

Parking is a bother on Clement but Kamei is worth it.

electronic rice cookers

Kamei has an extensive selection of Japanese dishes and iron teapots

Sunset Super storefront: try saying that five times fast!

After Irving and 22nd Market, the Sunset Super is our favorite food store in that neighborhood of the City. Only about three and a half blocks from the first, on Irving between 25th and 26th Avenues, it’s very convenient to go to both when you’re visiting the Sunset District. That’s what we usually do, at any rate.

Sunset Super is very large compared to other shops in this area. It really looks like a “regular” supermarket, if there is such a thing anymore. They have carts on wheels, conventional cash registers, aisles with overhead signs describing what to find there, etc. Beyond that, this market is completely atypical.

Primarily focused on Asian products, especially Chinese and Southeast Asian, it’s always very crowded with customers and products to the point that the stacks of things almost reach the high ceilings. The aisles are narrow, too, which adds to the excitement: will I bump into that baby carriage or elderly group of shoppers, again, with my overloaded carry basket or can I manage to avoid the collision after all?

products floor to ceiling at Sunset Super

colorful canned goods at Sunset Super

live shellfish for sale

They have a produce section and sell lots of live fish and shellfish as well as various meats. Since we go to the other market for vegetables, we focus on the dry goods at Sunset Super. This is a great place for soy products of all kinds; Asian noodles; rice; various prepared sauces like chili and garlic, spicy black bean and others; as well as those hard-to-find things like tamarind paste for instance. They have an extensive selection of tofu in various textures from multiple producers all at very low prices. We like some of their tinned sardines and other canned fish. There are some Western foods, too, as well as a large selection of sake, Chinese wines, some made from rice and some from grapes, as well as a number of Cognacs.

lots of Asian sauces to choose from

pre made fish balls at Sunset Super

Shopping at Sunset Super is a sensuous experience. There are unusual spices wafting through the air. The crowds are stimulating. The products are displayed to excess in such crowded and colorful ways that it’s memorable. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen them offer samples, like you find at Whole Foods, but at these very reasonable prices you can simply buy the thing and try it out at home on your own. As corny as it sounds, this place truly has the perfect name because it really is “super” in the Sunset.

Sunset Super carries many kinds of soy sauce

exotic Chinese wines at Sunset Super

Alemany Farmers' Market

We’ve finally made it to the Alemany Farmers’ Market and for the life of me I cannot figure out why we waited for so long. Perhaps we’ve been lazy, as we’re quite familiar with the UN Plaza and Ferry Plaza farmers’ markets? Or maybe it’s the confusing location of the Alemany market? It’s hard to find, nestled between highway 101 and Interstate 280. Plus the name is confusing. It’s on 100 Alemany Blvd. but you don’t actually enter from Alemany. And we’re silly about dates. This market is only open on Saturdays. In the past, we’ve thought of going at the last minute but always on Sundays, which doesn’t ever work.

The market has a long history according to the San Francisco government web site. It was opened in the 1940’s on Market and Duboce Streets but was eventually moved to the present location through a lot of political wrangling between the “will of the people,” the Board of Supervisors and “the opponents, masquerading under the apron strings of the officials at the Retail Grocers Association” until the current location and design of the market was developed. That sounds like a lot of exciting drama!

pumpkins

There were many yummy things on display at fairly cheap prices. Many of the market stalls offer organic produce and I saw numerous signs testifying that a lot of the marketers are CCOF or California Certified Organic Farmers. We’ve seen some of these folks at the UN Plaza market on Sundays, so I guess that we’re not totally out of the loop! The place is crowded with a lot of trendy Bernal Heights and Mission types, which makes people watching fun. Unfortunately, they allow cars to drive inside the market area. I was so distracted by the sights, smells, sounds and tastes that I worried that I might get run over! There are marvelous murals painted simply everywhere! That was one of the many distractions almost leading to my premature demise. It was a lot of fun shopping here.

heavy vehicular traffic at Alemany Farmers' Market

We bought two kinds of beets, various greens, some white guava, Persian limes (which I despise because to me they smell like cleaning products but Hegui loves), the ingredients for homemade kimchi and staples like garlic.

many vendors are CCOF California Certified Organic Farmers

they've got the beets at Alemany!

cool mural at Alemany

Aside from the fresh produce, there are a series of tents selling prepared products for lunch and some things like hummus, breads and olive oil that you can take home. I can’t wait to go back here. If you haven’t been already, you have to immediately, on a Saturday!

you look so hot!