The Big A at Smart Alec's

Smart Alec's is a burger place on Telegraph in Berkeltown (or Berkeley, for you college kids).  We stopped in on President's Day after going to Urban Ore (that place is nuts!). I got the big A combo and was pretty excited about it.

I wanted to like this burger!  I remembered it being good from when I ate here long ago with fellow breadxbread contributor Jon P.  I also appreciate that the veggie burger is "the big A" while the more common meat fare is relegated to secondary "big B."  Also I like it when places make their own veggie patties (like my last review) rather than serving up lame boca burgers or whatnot.

But sorry, I didn't like it very much.  Their veggie patty tastes a lot like bread.  It's very flat and grainy.  So when you put it between buns, it doesn't taste much like a burger, it tastes like a BREAD SANDWICH.  Instead of breadxbread, breadbreadbread.  Maybe if I loaded it with more ketchup and mustard (and maybe barbecue sauce?  horseradish? chocolate?)  this would have had more flavor.

Their fries were great though.  According to the fascinating paper with which they line their food trays, the fries are baked rather than fried (they should call them bakes) and have 1/1,000,000,000 the fat of regular fast food fries.  But they don't taste bland and dry, they taste greasy and delicious, like fries should.  So either they're lying or they've figured out a magic fry trick.

Their gimmick is that if you bring in a test or paper with an A on it you get free fries with your order.  But scantrons don't count!  Anyone know why?

kitchenette millionaire

 kitchenette, illinois & 20th, san francisco

So Els already reviewed Kitchenette once before, but this was my first trip.  Tucked away in a loading dock behind a warehouse on Illinois, Kitchenette is a pretty cutty little food shop.  In fact, it's only open for lunch on weekdays.  AND they change their menu every few days, so if there's something in particular you want, you better make it a point to get there.  Ultra-limited gourmet sandwiches tucked away in a corner of San Francisco?  You can imagine how much I was already sold on the concept alone.  Fortunately, Kitchenette isn't just a cool idea; the food is exceptional.  This sandwich was the "Kitchenette Millionaire", an Indian-style chicken sandwich, and while the name maybe wasn't a great idea, everything else about this was.  The salty, savory fried chicken tasted fantastic with sweet "garam masala" honey, spicy peppers and cabbage slaw, and creamy lemon-aoli.  The bread roll was light and spongy, but strong enough to hold it all together.  I could have eaten three or four of these, but sadly I had only one.  Oh, and the apple-rosemary soda Kitchenette makes is awesome!!  It tastes like gummi bears.  In a good way.

roast beef and apple

  

Roast beef with apple, red onion, spinach and dijon mustard!!  UH, ROAST BEEF AND APPLE!!!  Why did no one think of this before?  Or did they?  Does this sandwich have a name?  It was super, super good.  I can't even describe what a weird and awesome flavor the combination of roast beef and apple has.  This sandwich RULED. BTW- I surprised Els for lunch this day, and this sandwich is what she had packed. Like, just a casual, everyday kinda lunch. I think she is kinda crazy.

mission burger?

Ran into this cute lil' guy a couple of weeks ago just chillin' on Valencia.  I thought I had stumbled upon a SANDWICH MYSTERY, but it turns out he's a cookie you can get at Spork.  Of course, you'd have to eat at Spork if you wanted to do that so....

Wasabi Burger at the Plant

(photo from user l.c. on yelp)
the plant, steiner & chestnut, san francisco

The Plant is a cafe in the Marina district, on Steiner near Chestnut. They also have newer locations on Pier 3 on the Embarcadero and in the financial district. It used to be called Lettus, now it's called The Plant. I'm not sure which name is goofier. Anyway it's not a bad place to eat if you're stuck in the Marina. Lots of vegetarian/vegan stuff. It's not cheap, but it's not bad for the neighborhood. Actually, the Marina's got (surprisingly) a couple good cheapish spots - I'm thinking of Let's be Frank and What's Up Dog (so goofy these names!), both of which make great veggie dogs. But you have to wade through a sea of strollers to get to them.

But anyway, THE PLANT. I had the wasabi burger, which is a veggie burger with wasabi raspberry aioli, sauerkraut, and the usual burger addons. I really liked the aioli. Raspberry and wasabi sounded like a weird combination to me, but it works pretty well. Spicy, sweet, well-rounded. They make their own veggie burgers and they are pretty unique. Made from (according to the menu) lentils, mushrooms, beets, cashews, and bulgur wheat, the patties have the color of undercooked meat (because of the beets). They look like something you should not put in your mouth. But they taste real good.

Also, the Marina is funny. My "dining companion" (that's what they say on Check Please Bay Area) Katie pointed out that every single other person at the restaurant was wearing yoga pants. OK, that's an exaggeration, but there were a lot of them. And I noticed some people had yoga pants that had like bedazzling and shit.

This place loses points (like Amici's around the corner, who makes a great fake cheese pizza) for adding on a percentage to each check to offset the money they have to pay toward the Healthy San Francisco program (which makes health insurance available to their employees). I understand if they have to raise their prices a little bit, but putting it on the receipt makes it seem to me like they are trying to make a whiny point about how much it sucks that they have to pay toward their employees' health care. And I don't like it.  But the food?  Pretty good.

ikes vending machines?

scoop! over on the ikes place website, you can take a poll and get a buyonegetonefree sandwich coupon! if you'd like to thank me for this information, i like a vegan strawberry girl with no sprouts.

buuuuuuut also it looks like they've got some crazy business plans!!!





ikes sandwich vending machines? please! there's also a question about whether or not you would sign up for a sandwich subscription service!!

hungarian sausage at rosamunde (the OG location)

rosamunde, haight & fillmore, san francisco

Recently my turnaround time from "sandwich consumed -> sandwich reviewed" has been pretty slow.  There are sandwiches I wanna write about that I ate months ago!!  But, for reasons I will elaborate on later, I gotta tell you about this lil' dog I picked up at Rosamunde in Lower Haight last night.  First off, to the transient woman who wandered in (reeking of piss) and scared away the yuppie couple, thereby freeing up their seats for my friends and I- thanks!  Good looking out.  Given that this is the original Rosamunde locale (and not the new fancy-pants Mission joint (review forthcoming)), elbow room was scarce.  This was doubly true last night, since BEER WEEK is in full effect and big things were going down next door at Toronado, the sister bar to Rosamunde.  In fact, that event was what brought my companions and I out to Rosamunde in the first place.  I decided to go with the Hungarian sausage, a smoked pork sausage I hadn't tried before.  I figured I wanted something kinda straight-forward, so I could get a taste for Rosamunde's toppings and condiments.  See, then NEXT TIME I get a (crazy-ass) sausage, I can be prepared.  Gotta plan ahead.  I wasn't disappointed with my selection; the Hungarian was indeed well spiced and smokey, nothing too wild, just a plain tasty sausage.  It's not quite as dense and salty as the Beer sausage, which, come to think of it, would have been a much more appropriate choice.  Ah well.  I picked sauerkraut and spicy peppers as my toppings, the two of which teamed up for an excellent vinegary bite.  Then, too, spicy brown mustard and ketchup.  Like I said, nothing fancy.  But!  This was nevertheless a great sausage.  I scarfed this down quickly and immediately wished I had ordered two sausages instead of one (the lamb did sound pretty tasty...).  However (and this brings us to the purpose of my timely entry), I was glad I left room in my stomach, because next door at Toronado the brewery of the night was Russian River and hot-DANG was it a good time.  I got to try all sorts of mind-blowing beers with crazy wild yeasts and bacterias and flavors like WHOA.  So yeah- this isn't a beer blog- but by all means, if you enjoy a tasty adult beverage, consider going to the beer week website and catching one of the events this week.  You might even get lucky and find a tasty sandwich nearby.  And oh yeah, if you dig beer, I highly recommend checking out Beer and Nosh, probably my favorite SF food blog.

holy cross-promotion!!

Hey!  I know that pic!

TCB Courier Delivers Rhea’s Deli For Free, Gives You Fewer Reasons To Leave Home
Aww I love when Mission Mission links to our lil' corner of the WWW.  I feel so internet-famous.  And hey, it's good news this time (unlike last time)!  Free delivery for orders from Rhea's over $10??  Dude, two sandwiches and you are GOLDEN.  And probably also FULL.  I suggest you hop over to Mission Mission for the details.

twin peaks sandwiches

 

JERRY

Brother Ben, this is the best damn sandwich I ever ate, it's a baguette, with brie and butter, I had four of these damn things every day I was there. You gotta try this. (hands a sandwich to BEN) Here, go ahead, eat it, go ahead, go ahead.

Very interested, BENJAMIN takes the sandwich and draws his nose over it to smell it deeply.

BENJAMIN

Oh, yeah.

BENJAMIN really likes the smell of the sandwich. Grabbing the long ends of the sandwich, he takes a large bite out of it. With his mouth full he hums in ecstasy. JERRY unwraps himself one and sits nearby at the fireplace. JERRY'S mouth is soon full from a bite of his sandwich and is laughing at BEN'S reaction.

BENJAMIN

(with his mouth full) Uhm, this is incredible, Jerr.

(text taken from here)

Hmm, butter and brie?  That sounds PRETTY good but I dunno if I trust it to be the BEST DAMN sandwich.  I think Special Agent Dale Cooper should keep an eye on this Jerry fellow.  His taste in sandwiches is suspect.  And whats up with the way Benjamin chomps into that sandwich?  Very unorthodox.... and suspicious.

PS NO SPOILERS PLZ I'M ONLY ON EPISODE 4 DON'T TELL ME IF A SANDWICH KILLED LAURA PALMER

selleck! waterfall! sandwich!!!

selleckwaterfallsandwich.tumblr (from boing boing)

FASCINATING

PS - why does bxb not have a THEME SONG??

hey there sexy bird

oralia's, 3rd & 22nd, san francisco

Yes, I did call this sandwich sexy.


Oralia's is this fairly recent deli around my place of work in the Dog Patch. I don't go too often because I have to admit I didn't really enjoy the first sandwich I got there. But, I think it was Monday, there were slim pickens in my kitchen and I created this bare bones sandwich that I was not excited to eat when lunch rolled around. And for reasons that I don't need to get into, I chose to try Oralia's again.

I walked in with low blood sugar, looked at the menu and grimaced. I thought to myself, "well hells bells... I guess I'll go with turkey, it's hard to fudge a turkey sandwich." Sos, I ordered roasted turkey on rye with cheddar and all the fixens minus the pickles - we've been over this before, but I'll repeat, I don't like pickles. My bill came to be $8.20 and like the menu I had previously been looking at, I again grimaced and thought, "awfully steep for a plain ol' turkey sandwich..."

But then, oh but then, a big hunk of plump juicy roasted turkey was pulled from a big ol' warmer and thick slices of meat were cut off for my sandwich.

I got back to my desk, sat down, unwrapped my sandwich from the confines of it's parchment paper and took a big bite. I had never tasted such freshness in what I normally considered a safe basic. And the meat! Oh the meat... I have never had such moist turkey, it seemed like it had been soaking in a bath of real broth - not canned or boxed, but fresh.

After my sandwich seduction, I will never second guess Oralia's when my brown bag lunch seems unexciting.