Hospital food BATTLE! Turkey burger vs Veggie burger!

This tasty battle took place at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco. I was a little surprised to see a decent looking cafeteria with a grill, deli, and salad bar. The grill is open from 11am until 7:30pm Monday through Thursday and has a modified schedule Friday through Sunday that I can't remember. They have daily specials like any cafeteria but I was drawn to the grill.

It seems that every time I eat a sandwich I seem to be starving like no other. Above is the turkey burger which everyone around me was ordering and the cook had multiple patties on the grill. It smelled so good and I wanted to see what the whole fuss was about. I felt a little skeptical about the fries as I enjoy mine crispy and smaller cut or large wedges fried to perfection. I figured I would skip on the fries when a woman in scrubs encouraged me to get the fries. What the hell? I was hungry! I sat down and sliced the burger in half and popped open my can on coke. I normally avoid soda but I can't drink anything else but if I am having a burger. It's the American way!

I have to admit I was disappointed in the turkey burger. It was dry, as turkey often is, and I couldn't eat it with ketchup. I should have put more mustard and mayo on my burger but even then I don't know if it would have saved it. I usually avoid turkey just because eating it without stuffing feels blasphemous and brings back memories of painful Thanksgiving dinners I wish I could forget. The fries, too, were too soft for my liking. I sadly have to admit that I forced myself to eat this. I would not eat this turkey burger again!

Now this veggie burger was a delight! What I like about veggie burgers is that they can be very filling if the patty is made right. This one definitely is! I put on a generous amount of mayo and mustard on top to make sure it didn't get dry like the turkey burger and when I sliced my burger a little squeezed out on the side. It was very filling and satisfying and hit the spot (as I seem to say often) and is on the cheaper side at $3.25 before taxes. I didn't miss the fries (though I have yet to have the curly fries) and was really happy with what I ordered.

Now, I don't know why you would eat at a hospital over any other places in the neighborhood but there is plenty of good people watching to be had. There are the doctors, nurses, construction workers, security, patients, family, and friends of patients, too. I can also see as how this would be a total bummer place to eat since I have seen a couple people just sit around and stare at their food sadly. The fluorescent lighting isn't exactly mood lighting, either. If you're in the area, though, and don't feel like venturing to the Fillmore, Japantown, or the Inner Richmond or anywhere else in the area it's worth a shot just to say you have done it. It's located on the first floor to the right.

Also, how do you eat your burger? I learned to cut my burger in half by my friend Ciaron who learned this during a visit to Texas. I eat my burgers this way now and put a generous amount of ketchup on the side to dip the burger half into. It makes for a lot less messiness and it's good for the times when you're eyes are bigger than your stomach and you need to take the rest to go.

So, how do you eat a burger?

sunny vibrations in time for the sunny weekend

In the case some of you find yourself at Dolores Park I might have to recommend the Sunny Vibrations food truck.

I stopped by last weekend and got the vegan sausage with peppers. I know it looks pretty basic, especially considering all the gourmondo options surrounding the park, and it is... Sliced wheat bread, peppers, onions, marinara and Tofurky sausage was the total sum of this sandwich... but the idea behind this truck is pretty rad. Everything is cooked fresh and the energy supplying the whole operation is the solar panels on the roof of the truck.
Also, a great perk, while waiting for your food there is a hand-held massager - which my park-going cohorts took full advantage of. I can't think of any other place I've been to that offers massages while you wait!

homemade vegan cheesesteak!

Here's a vegan cheesesteak sandwich I made!

A cross section:

bread
(veg.)mayo
homemade vegan cheese*
carmelized onion
grilled bell pepper
trader joes meatless beef strips
a little bbq sauce
bread

Ah, so good.  It would have been better on a roll, but the SOMA trader joes didn't have any. 


*I'm pretty down on gross fake cheeses, but a couple months ago I made a macaroni and cheese recipe from Vegansaurus and it turned out really well, so I did a similar thing here: earth balance melted in a pan, a little water, lots of nutritional yeast, tamari, tumeric, smoked paprika, garlic powder and salt and then some corn starch whisked in to thicken it.  This would be a little weird on a cold sandwich, but for melty vegan cheese uses, it's way better than packaged soy/rice cheeses.

vegan curtis r.i.p.

here's a picture of the vegan curtis i got at ike's on thursday.  it kind of looks like a murder scene photo, i think.

i guess breadxbread has taken an editorial stance critical of ike's, but this sandwich was very tasty, if very very messy.

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?

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.

(( insert obnoxious Seitan joke here ))

Jay's Cheesesteak, 3285 21st St, San Francisco

Consider my first post on breadxbread an ode, rather than a review. Oh, sweet seitan cheeseless steak. How tenderly you break apart between my teeth and shimmy into my tummy, dripping sweet barbecue sauce and the salty juices of wheat gluten onto ... Okay, enough.

There is something inappropriately satisfying about biting into a thick, seitan cheeseless steak when you adhere to a mostly vegan diet. I am yet to figure out how Jay's manages to give their seitan such a full and meaty flavor. I stuck with my regular Mushroom Seitan Steak with no cheese and slathered on some tangy barbecue sauce and extra peppercinis. The shredded lettuce lends texture and freshness to the hot mess of seitan and grilled mushrooms, while the pickles and peppercinies liven its flavor with a briney zing. Though initially not very hungry, I couldn't help but shove down the whole thing, savoring each juicy little bite. Dressed with a Wyder's Pear Cider, the September sun, and the chaos of Dolores Park, this sandwhich helped transform my Friday afternoon into a day worth blogging about.

As a vegan who loves the taste of meat, this sandwhich fills all my subdued carnivorous desires. It may not photograph well but it goes down quick and easy.

*Note: If you are vegan, make sure to request no mayo or cheese. I'd also recommend checking in to see if the BBQ sauce is actually vegan.

fried plantain sandwich

This was a really good sandwich. Fried plantains, sitting on a homemade spread made of black beans and roasted poblano and yellow gypsy peppers, topped with vegan crema with fake bacon bits. Warm, rich, creamy.

pasta salad sandwich

pasta salad sandwich

I've been thinking about making this sandwich for a couple weeks, and this Sunday I did it. Macaroni pasta with cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, and "bac-un" bits, tossed with italian dressing, on a bun with fake cheese and real barbecue sauce. I figured keeping this sandwich structurally intact would be the main obstacle, so I got a big rounded Semifreddi's roll and hollowed out one side so the bread would hold everything in, like a salad hat.

Sweet and starchy.

sandwich over-stimulation pt 2

Veggie chiken patty with potato salad

alexander's brite spot, west sunset & glendale, los angeles

Chicken breast on focaccia


veggie chicken patty with fixins

chix patty sandwiches

JoJoJoJo and I had a BBQ a few weeks back, with some non-meat-eating friends. We brought some Morningstar Farms Chix patties, I think just the standard kind, and grilled them. We also had bought a tin of sliced jalapeño peppers for a pizza we were making later, and I tried dicing up some of the peppers and mixing them into a bowl of pickle relish. On the first sandwich, this was not entirely successful. The flavor of the jalapeño didn't really come through, although the sandwich, which was a pretty straightforward composition, was good. The white sauce you can see is ranch dressing, which came in a little 50 cent package. After the first sandwich (and possibly a few beers) I decided to try making a weirder sandwich on the second go-round. This time I added several slices of jalapeños in addition to the mixed relish, a lot of cheese, and a pretty generous helping of ranch. I was pretty happy with it, although my standards may have been chemically lowered at that point, and later on I ended up with some heartburn. That's the price you pay for innovation, I guess!

I write this with an empty stomach

bender's, 19th & south van ness, san francisco

Yet another tasty serving from Benders
This cheese steak is, in fact, not steak at all! For those like me
who can not bring themselves to eat red-meat,
a seitan philly full of gooey mmmMmm cheese
grilled red peps & onions - a perfect veggie pairing for any sandwich in my book -
a soft roll of some sort of wonderful fluffy bread
and a tangy/sweet/salty/succulent sloppy sauce that pleased all regions of my tongue...

This sandwich was like going on an expedition into an uncharted land of my mouth
where the herbivorous natives have been patiently waiting out the savage ingestion of strictly turkey and chicken sandwiches, as of late...and with this seitan substitute, their culture (prospering by my bottom left molars) will finally thrive in this booming sandwich economy.

The Chikche'weinerger

Imagine back to college
it's nearly the end of finals
you haven't gone grocery shopping in weeks...
you open the fridge and find the same old boring conventional food.
what to do.
variety is much needed to make up for the mundane essay writing.
sigh. what to do.
you got chik'n patties, onion flavor hamburger buns, cheddar cheese
but still, more is needed to make this dinner something exciting.
wait, remember those turkey dogs in the back of the fridge? and the lack of hot dog buns?
you DID keep those weiners for a good reason...

to make a Chikche'weinerger!

fake chicken patty, cheddar cheese, dijon mustard, pickle chips, red onion, turkey dog (which is essential), and an onion hamburger bun - this sucker is a flavor bombardment with slippery cheese that just wont quit. I suggest EVERYONE start putting hot dogs on their hamburgers. It's time these two meat mediums combine forces and attack our insides with deliciousness. Mmm hmm.

ACTUAL SIZE SANDWICH

i ate this fake meat on my floor
with a bowl of canned soup.
None of that
in any way
felt odd,
although
the bread was slightly dry...

so, then, just mustard, fmeat, and dairy-cured-cheese
on some sour dough wheat

seitan pepper cheesesteak

jay's cheesesteak, 21st & valencia, san francisco

after all of those crazy meat sandwiches I ate, I felt like I needed to eat something not quite as heavy. fortunately for me, you can substitute seitan for beef in any of the cheesesteaks from Jay's, and I honestly think that it doesn't really affect the taste of the cheesesteak all that much. in part, this is because the seitan has a pretty good flavor, and a good texture too. but it is also in part because the "steak" isn't really the centerpiece of cheesesteaks at Jay's. as you can see from the pics above, the average cheesesteak at Jay's features mustard and mayonnaise (actually, a very sweet and tasty mayonnaise), as well as shredded lettuce and other ingredients that make this closer to a sub sandwich than an actual cheesesteak. but that was fine with me, because in reality I wanted something like a sub sandwich.

first guest reviews!!!!

vegan phil'er up kc bbq

veggie napoleon complex

ike's place, 16th & sanchez, san francisco

first off, let me thank mark and katie roquet for contributing breadxbread's very first guest reviews! thank you both for the contributions. and curse you for thinking to take a shot of the sandwich with the SF skyline in the background, before I thought of it. you bastards. let's get to the reviews!

Vegan Phil'er Up's KC BBQ

I'm not usually big on fake meat vegan sandwiches. There are so many things you can grill or roast or fry or slice and stack that usually taste better between two slices of bread. Also, there is something sad and disingenuous about a bunch of tofu, wheat gluten and chemicals masquerading around as meat and cheese.

On the other hand, you know, all things in moderation. Don't be so uptight. Sometimes you want something that tastes like meat, except for whatever reason you don't eat meat. Fair enough. And you want this meat-like product slathered in barbecue sauce and also, hey, throw on some fake cheese (you don't eat cheese either, see). Is there something wrong with that? No, there is not. When you want these things, go to Ike's. Actually call them first because it takes maybe an hour for them to prepare these things for you. They will reward your patience with a lollipop.

Ike's does the fake meat thing right, because the phony meat and cheese are not the point of this sandwich. Nonetheless, they are both really good. The fake turkey is sliced thin, which gives it a nice texture. I expected a fake cheddar cheese but it is more like fake ricotta or mozzarella and is nicely subtle. Neither the cheese nor meat is starchy and heavy (like some of the fake meat at Love N Haight is) or tastes too much like chemicals and soy (like a lot of retail brands do). Both have great texture, but not a lot of flavor, which is actually ideal for a vegan sandwich, at least when you're going to pour a delicious sauce all over it.

The two heavyweights of this sandwich, awkwardly called the "Vegan Phil'er Up's KC BBQ" (no sandwich should need two apostrophes) are the bread and the barbecue sauce. The just-baked french bread is warm and soft and flavorful. It smells great. I could easily eat it on its own. The sauce is a straightforward, classic barbecue sauce - tangy and sweet, a little more on the sweet side, but with enough flavor you can eat a lot of it. And there is a whole lot of it. Bread and sauce together are delicious. Throw in fake meat and fake cheese and some veggies and it is really really great.

This place also has a great drink selection, including cel-ray and banana soda!

guest review by Mark Roquet

Veggie Napoleon Complex

Mark and I called in orders, scootered around the mission enjoying a break in the rain, picked up the sandwiches about an hour later and took ‘em to Dolores Park.

I ordered the veggie napoleon complex on baked-to-order sourdough. It’s got vegan turkey, honey poppy seed French sauce, avocado, and havarti. I’m not sure what kind of fake meat they use but it’s good, not too soy-ish. The highlight by far is the sauce, it’s fantastic and there’s tons of it. I think that the half sandwich that I saved for later got even better because the sauce soaked through the sourdough making it this delicious crusty sauce sponge.

They also give you lollipops.

guest review by Katie Roquet