Food and Drink

The New St. Mary’s Pub: Was Scary, Now Awesome

/ Todd_Lappin / 12 Comments

St. Mary's Pub

St. Mary's Pub

St. Mary's Pub

St. Mary's Pub

As a Northsloper, I confess I don’t get down to the south side of Bernal as often as I’d like. Fortunately, Bernalwood readers have that covered.

Reader Sandy Cardoza writes to sing praises about the new and improved St. Mary’s Pub, on the corner of Mission and Crescent:

Though I’ve lived on College Hill for nine years, I’d only been into St. Mary’s Pub twice before its recent change in ownership.  The first time shouldn’t really count because I chickened-out before sitting down to order a drink by myself.  Instead, I ended up only asking to change a couple of dollar bills for quarters, since I was in the middle of doing laundry at the laundromat across the way.  The bartender was kind enough to give me change and I realized that I recognized her from Nap’s.  Months before at Nap’s, she had made me a margarita using only limes, sugar, tequila, a splash of water, and ice.

I wanted to order another margarita from her, but the indoor cigarette smoke and the rowdy 49er fans didn’t feel very inviting.

A few years later, my partner convinced me to give the place another try.  I went in hoping to see the same bartender as before, but I was out of luck.  It could have been the same customers at the bar, though: 49ers gear, missing teeth, chain smoking.  We ordered cans of Budweiser and went to the back room to play pool.  Walking through to the backroom, I noticed how the floors were warped in some places.

Fast-forward five years: Some friends mentioned that St. Mary’s Pub is under new ownership, and one of our favorite bartenders is now working there.  Finally, something cool in this part of Bernalwood!  The new owners have given the place quite a facelift, too. The floors are no longer warped. Plus, they raised the ceiling, which makes the ambiance more airy.  You’ll still find the old regulars there — but now they light up outside and watch trippy esoteric Japanese Sci-Fi rather than football games on the bar TVs.

Drink prices are still very reasonable and they offer some real Happy Hour bargains. Stop in and make yourself comfortable because St. Mary’s may soon to become your new favorite watering hole.  Don’t forget to ask your bartender what’s on special.

PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics

Cocktail Confidential: The Backstory Behind the Royal Cuckoo

/ Todd_Lappin

The Royal Cuckoo

EaterSF tells the creation tale of The Royal Cuckoo — the much-welcomed new cocktail bar at the intersection of Mission and Valencia — and its founder, Paul Miller:

Miller was stretched after the purchase, so to fill the bar he essentially moved his entire apartment into it—furniture, pictures, trinkets, most all of it. Then, with the help of long-time pal Brian—whom Miller worked with over the years at Bruno’s, Foreign Cinema, and Chez Spencer—he gutted it, painted it a deep maroon, and added wooden wall sidings to antiquate the aura. To accent the darker colors, he added 1960’s-era lamps, alternating them with blue, green, and yellow bulbs, and he pushed the mood further with stain glass candleholders and flowered vases about the place. Taking it in for the first time, you might get the feeling you’re at a heady saloon in a mountain town, or in what you’d imagine to be a 1950’s jazz club in New York, ‘round 52nd street. Comparisons make for wasted words though, because Royal Cuckoo isn’t really modeled after anything. It’s just a collection of things that Miller and his friends like—old leather armchairs, salvaged church pews converted to benches and booths, nature paintings in old frames, antlers, vinyl. It’s the red carpet leading you to Cuckoo’s heart and soul—music and cocktails.

Along the way we also learn that The Royal Cuckoo is named after a bar in Long Beach where Miller’s grandfather loved to tie one on, that most of the records on the turntable pre-date the Carter Administration, and that there’s a Hammond organ hidden behind the bar. The EaterSF piece is a good read.

PHOTOS: giggie larue and Telstar Logistics

Piroshkis Are the New Empanadas at 331 Cortland

/ Todd_Lappin / 11 Comments

First, the bad news: El Porteno Empanadas is moving on from its cozy nest inside the gourmet grotto at 331 Cortland. Now, the good news: El Porteno will be replaced by another fine purveyor of savory stuffed pastry, brought to us from Russia with love.

Bernalwood pal Erin Archuleta from ICHI Sushi introduces the new lineup at 331 Cortland:

Anda Piroshki will take over our ICHI Lucky Cat Deli’s former space, and Big Dipper Baby Food will move into the former Wholesome Bakery kiosk. Paulie’s Pickling and Bernal Cutlery are both expanding into the former El Porteño space. I know that Anda’s been working with La Cocina.

So what’s on the menu for Anda Piroshki? Owner Anna Tvelova — that’s her up above — emailed Bernalwood with the details (TIP: The following is much more fun if you read it with a Russian accent):

My name is Anna and I make piroshki. Thank you very much for your interest to my business. I would love to share the biggest news: I am planning my Grand Opening at 331 Cortland on May 25th.

I make Russian homestyle piroshki what are usually baked (they can be panfried sometimes). Yeah, we traditionally do not deep-fry them at home, I guess those are more local commercialized version of it.

So Anda Piroshki are baked and my everyday bestsellers are:

Beef, Rice & Cheese
Cheesy Potato & Onions
Creamy Mushrooms & Rice
Apple, Cranberries & Almonds.

Also I will make seasonal piroshki, will see what is up on farmers’ markets. Will have couple vegan options. Planning to make Piroshki Light too (made with whole wheat flour and super healthy and nutritious fillings).

Super excited to have my own place and have opportunity to shape piroshki in front of my customers and serve them freshly baked from the oven.

Seeing as how I have been known to venture out to the avenues in The Richmond just to buy piroshkis from the Russian delis along Geary Boulevard, this comes as exciting news. See you on the 25th, Anna, and Добро пожаловать to Bernal Heights.

PHOTO: Anna Tvelova by Anda Piroshki

Yum! Celebrate the One Year Anniversary of 331 Cortland

/ Todd_Lappin / 2 Comments

331 Cortland
True confession: It took me a while to clue in to what’s going on at the 331 Cortland food market. It’s basically six gourmet kiosks congregated under one roof, but there’s more to the concept than just fancy food; 331 Cortland also acts as a kind of incubator for budding food entrepreneurs who want to get a start in the business with lower risk and relatively lower cost. They build their businesses, and we get to taste the R&D. Very cool.

331 Cortland is marking its First Anniversary this week, and you can join the celebration during an open house party on Friday evening, April 22, from 6 to 9 pm. There will also be a series of classes and presentations on Saturday the 23rd, beginning at 12 noon. Check out the complete schedule.

Meanwhile, Tablehopper brings a tasty status report on the 331 Cortland Class of 2011:

The one-year mark comes with some changes too as both El Porteño Empanadas and ICHI Sushi are ready to move on from the small business incubator site. El Porteño will focus on expanding their market presence at the Ferry Building and in Whole Foods Markets, while ICHI is busy with their new sushi bar.

Within the space, Paulie’s Pickling and Bernal Cutlery will be expanding their kiosks. Bernal Cutlery plans to offer a larger inventory of knives, and Paulie’s Pickling will increase their sandwich offerings (they’ve already grown from 4 to 12 sandwiches, including “Bernalogna” and beef brisket) and will add new items, like cookies from Debbie Does Dinner and rugelach from Black Jet Bakery. By the way, you can also nab Paulie’s pickles at Whole Foods Market on Haight, Home Restaurant, Smoke BBQ, Lilah Belle’s, The Liberty Café, and a couple local bars (The Dogpatch Saloon, Marlena’s, Stray Bar, and Wild Side West).

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

Coming Soon(er): Construction Begins at Precita Park Cafe

/ Todd_Lappin / 5 Comments

Precita Park Plywood Cafe

As Bernalwood reported earlier, it looks like the renovation of the storefront that will soon become the Precita Park Cafe has finally started at the corner of Precita and Alabama. The plywood is up, construction has started, and we assume all sorts of magic is happening inside.

On a related note, I ran into the always-affable Charlie from Charlie’s Cafe (on the Folsom side of Precita Park) last night while I was taking the photo above. We got to talking about how the Precita Park Cafe might fare, and if it will make Precita Park itself a more sexy and glamorous destination. Time will tell, of course, but I certainly hope that a rising tide will lift all boats.

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

Good News for Sushi Lovers in Bernal Heights

/ Todd_Lappin / 2 Comments

Blue Saba

7×7 Magazine has answered a question I’ve been wondering about: In light of the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, should we be concerned about where our sushi comes from?

Happily, if you get your sushi at Ichi Sushi on Mission, you probably don’t need to worry:

When the Fukushima nuclear crisis — now ranked at level 7 —  banned certain Japanese exports, we all wondered what effect the disaster would have on something San Franciscans love to eat: sushi. Henry Icinose of San Francisco’s ABS Seafood Inc., the fish supplier to ICHI Sushi in Bernal Heights, tells 7×7 that most of the fish his company purchases comes from the Fukuoka area of Japan, far south of Fukushima, below Tokyo and Sendai. “To put it into perspective,” he tells us, “the distance from Sendai to Fukuoka is roughly the equivalent of Seattle to San Francisco.” Ichinose also says that the radiation levels in fish are checked every 6 hours in Japan, and that the FDA is closely monitoring imports from Japan, including seafood from areas other than of the Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma prefectures.

PHOTO: Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, by Telstar Logistics

Coming to Cortland: Organic Baby Food for Savvy Short People

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

Cortland Avenue offers delicious, gourmet food for omnivores, herbivores, and even canines. But until now, there’s been no place that caters to high-powered babies who need hearty, healthy food to go. You know the type: The kind of kid who will one day roll down the window of his/her Rolls-Royce at a traffic light to politely borrow your Grey Poupon.

Luckily, those discriminating kids won’t have to suffer much longer. If all goes according to plan, Big Dipper Baby Food will open at the artisanal food marketplace at 331 Cortland in late May. From the press release:

Local Mom Claire Hoyt knows how hard it can be to put a freshly made organic meal on the table every night for a small child — she’s been doing so for her son Forrest for the past 18 months.  For hard working parents who want nothing but the best for their precious young ones, Big Dipper Baby Food is poised to serve fresh, organic, and delicious baby food from the Bernal Heights community in a convenient and affordable manner.

Making the transition from her career as an art director with a corporate food and house wares company, Hoyt is pursuing her lifelong dream of being a business owner. Her mother was a chef and always had her own successful restaurants and food businesses. When Hoyt became pregnant, she knew that in the next few years she would be making adjustments in her life to accomplish similar goals. When she came upon the community at 331 Cortland, she and the vendors (Paulie’s Pickling, Bernal Cutlery, Spice Hound) knew it was a perfect match for the neighborhood’s incubator space.

“I’m most excited to get started at 331 Cortland. Big Dipper has been a business plan I’ve had for over a year and having my own business is a lifelong dream,” said Hoyt.

The Bernal Heights community filled with young families is a perfect fit for a quick and healthy stop where Hoyt’s bulk creations of simple purees for infants’ first foods will be available. Purees will include items like Baked Fuji Apples with Sweet Potato, and Roasted Pears and Pineapple.

For babies graduating to the more textured and complex foods, Roasted Parsnips and Apple Mash with Cardamom; Braised Butternut Squash; and Brown Rice Pudding with Mango and Coconut Milk; are sample seasonal offerings.

There will also be selections for toddlers featuring simple classics like Chicken Potpie with some “hidden” super foods. For instance the “cream” sauce in the potpie is a yummy cauliflower and leek puree, and the biscuit topping is made with sweet potato. By sneaking in those extra vegetable servings in a way in which kids crave, parents are also happy.

PHOTO: Quinn, Krisna, and Tommy

How to Help the Owners of the Lotus Garden Restaurant?

/ Todd_Lappin / 27 Comments

Kathy Tang, the owner of the Lotus Garden Vietnamese restaurant on Mission Street that was shuttered after last week’s three-alarm fire, posted this desperate SOS on the Facebook page for the benefit concert that was help to help the victims of the blaze:

My name is Kathy Tang, the owner of Lotus Garden Vietnamese Restaurant. The great amount of fire burned my restaurant and will take a few months for them to just rebuild the whole building. oh my god how can my family and i survive. My restaurant is my and my husband’s only income.

My insurance will not pay for any lost income because our business slow we dont make any profit (which makes sense because of the recent recession), they only paid for the damage of the restaurant. Please help us out we will really appreciate all your help. My email address is kathytang268@yahoo.com and my phone number is 415-216-9608 Please help my husband, my two little boys, and I out. We will not have any income until the restaurant is open again which isn’t for months and months.

My own semi-serious suggestion would be to create a pop-up version of Lotus Garden inside an existing (and underutilized) local restaurant. Like, say, Caffe Cozzolino? Mission Chinese Food showed that it can be done, and in the case of the Cozzolino space, I suspect a large number of Bernal Northsiders would be happy to patronize Caffe Lotus Garden.

Any other ideas on how the community might help?

PHOTO: Burrito Justice

Science Experiment: My Dinner at Caffe Cozzolino

/ Todd_Lappin / 67 Comments

Restaurant of Mystery

The news that the mysterious old Old Clam House has been transformed into the mysterious new Old Clam House prompted a discussion in the comments about another timeless (and mysterious) Bernal Heights restaurant: Caffe Cozzolino on Folsom Street, at the southwest corner of Precita Park.

Caffe Cozzolino is a spacioius Italian restaurant blessed with an unbelievably ideal location, but the place is never, ever crowded. In fact, it usually looks empty. And since it is always empty and suffers from horrific word-of-mouth, one part of the mystery is this: How does Caffe Cozzolino stay in business?

I live around the corner from Cozzolino. I’ve walked by it hundreds of times. But I’ve never dared to eat there. Someday, however, someone might swoop in to purchase Caffe Cozzolino and transform the space into the dining hotspot that the location so wants to become. In the name of science and inquiry, I felt obliged to sample the current cuisine, so that I might have a first-hand opinion to express if that scenario ever comes to pass.

Thus with an open mind and a spirit of adventure, I took my 3.5 year-old daughter on a date to Caffe Cozzolino. My simple hope was that the restaurant would serve up solid Italian-American cuisine. That means Italian food that’s less Mario Batali and more Tony Soprano. (I grew up in New Jersey, so I think I have a fair palette for that kind of grub.) Joe’s of Westlake does this well. Pasta Pomodoro franchised a totally acceptable version of it. Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack elevated it to a form of street art.

But Caffe Cozzolino doesn’t come close to pulling it off. I kept it simple by ordering spaghetti and meatballs. Spaghetti and meatballs! A staple! Here’s how it looked:

Spaghetti Cozzolino

Lovely parsley. So how did it taste? Frankly, rather ungood. I’m convinced the sauce came from a can — and a very cheap can. I’ve had better spaghetti and meatballs at truck stops, sad to say.

My daughter ordered a pizza from the kid’s menu:

Pizza Cozzolino

It was okay. No real complaints. But no inspiration either.

Put simply, the food at Caffe Cozzolino is unlikely to generate many wails of Proustian nostalgia if the restaurant were to close. That part of the mystery is now resolved. But the mystery of how Caffe Cozzolino remains in business endures.

How Will New Ownership Change the Old Clam House?

/ Todd_Lappin / 32 Comments

20100128 The Old Clam HouseAs if to prove that even the most timeless institutions don’t stay the same forever, change has come to the Old Clam House. The venerable eatery along Bernalwood’s eastern frontier has been in business since the days when Bayshore Boulevard was just a grubby plank road, and today it claims to be San Francisco’s oldest restaurant in continuous operation in the same location. But now it has new owners, a new menu, and new decor.

Tablehopper has the details:

The Old Clam House has been bought by the group behind The Stinking Rose (who also own Calzone’s, Bobo’s, The Franciscan, and the upcoming Salito’s/old Margaritaville in Sausalito). The restaurant has been around since 1861, and when it became available, Jerry Dal Bozzo was interested in picking it up—the group’s director of marketing, Brandy Marts, reminded me he has an interest in historical properties: Dal Bozzo was the one to reopen the Cliff House in 1973. They are currently updating the space room by room, refreshing the paint, chairs, and other touches. They are also working to reopen the patio, which will be glassed-in.

I had a chance to catch up with chef Andrea Froncillo, who walked me through the menu changes. He’s taking a lot of the fried dishes off, and modernizing some of the preparations (for example, he’s simplifying the cioppino, with reportedly good feedback from some regulars). He also changed the clams from cherrystones to Manilas due to some availability issues, and added prime rib to the menu. You’ll also see more salads and some lighter lunch options for folks who work in the neighborhood. You can peek at the new menu here.

I confess that despite years of saying, “I should try that place someday,” I’ve never eaten at the Old Clam House. Over on Yelp, some of the old-timers are complaining about the new changes, but, really, I should try that place someday. Have you?

Lastly, if you want to taste a genuine slice of neighborhood history in the safety and comfort of your own home, try making this 1915 Old Clam House recipe for Clam Chowder. The recipe includes bacon, so it must be delicious.

Photo: Tom Spaulding

New CSA Farm Box in North Bernal Seeks Subscribers

/ Todd_Lappin / 11 Comments

Reader Caroline has set up a CSA pickup point at her home on the North Slope, and she’s hoping to find more subscribers. She tells Bernalwood:

Terra Firma Farm treks down to the city each week to deliver us urban dwellers delicious fresh veggies from their farm in Winters. There are pickup spots throughout the city — including our brand-new spot in north Bernal, on Winfield between Coso & Esmerelda. We need a few more folks to pick up from the new spot to keep it running!  If you’re an existing subscriber and would like to change your pickup, just go to Terra Firma Farm, sign in, and change your pickup spot to “Bernal – Winfield”. Or, sign up as a new subscriber. For more info, see the website or email Caroline.

Photos: Courtesy of Caroline

7×7 Lists the 10 Best Eats Under $10 in Bernal Heights

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

Emmy's Spaghetti Shack

7×7 food blogger Antonia Richmond is both a connoisseur of good cuisine AND a Bernalwood resident. That makes her emimently qualified to write 7×7’s click-worthy guide to the “10 Best Dishes in Bernal for Under $10.”

I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but rest assured that fans of El Zocalo, Taqueria Cancun, Locavore, Sandbox Bakery, Avedano’s, El Porteno, Paulie’s Pickling, Moonlight Cafe, Good Frickin’ Chicken, and Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack will not be disappointed.

Photo: Spaghetti marinara from Emmy’s, by ericsballoons