Yelp

"Is Magnolia Thunderpussy still there?"  My dad asked me that when I moved to the Haight a couple years ago.

"Yeah, totally," I answered, as if I actually knew what either of us was talking about.  Thunderpussy?  What??  I had seen the brewpub Magnolia on Haight and Masonic and thought he meant that.  Well, he did and he didn't.  This business (and moreso its location) has a neat little history--its website will clear up the confusion. (www.magnoliapub.com/pu...)

My friend and I were greeted by a friendly man with a nice mustache who said "Friends, are you ready for some great food and great beer?"  Yes.  Yes we were.  And what a nice man!  When he delivered the sad news that they were out of the beer I ordered, he had a solid recommendation: Blue Bell Bitter.  And it was AWESOME!!!  I love it when a pint of beer makes life worth living again!!!  The Big Cypress Brown and Proving Ground IPA are also excellent!

I had the Prather Ranch Burger...it was worth the $12 (well, $13 with cheese) I coughed up for it!  The fries were ample, and damn do I love getting little bits of fry debris with them--you know, the little broken ends of french fries that you don't eat until they are the last things on the plate?  Some places don't include them with their fries, but I love Magnolia's "warts and all" approach to this critical issue.

They get pretty busy during peak times, but I have yet to encounter an unbearable wait.  Last summer, I came here with a couple of friends after we did the AIDS Walk.  We were three cranky, tired gay men and we wanted food and beer IMMEDIATELY.  The place was packed and we got waitlisted...but what turned out to be a ten minute wait was not bad for a weekend lunch.  "Great food and great beer" is worth the wait!

They've also got an excellent philosophy about using locally grown/organic/sustainable food and ingredients.  I get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it!  I mean, really.  Thunderpussy or not, Magnolia and I are meant to be together.

I am white, cannot dance and rather clumsy. The Transfer on more than one occasion, a few random Thursday evenings, and one memorable Saturday put all those facts to rest. Or that is what I perceived?

Thanks to the affordable and toxic drinks served up here. Loud, dance oriented music. Everyone else dancing besides me the pasty wallflower. I was pressured into an attempt at shaking my body like I was channeling Beyonce and Prince all at once. While it was an ugly site. My enjoyment level was pegged. Crowd was a mixture of the rainbow. The straight and gay rainbow. You know the all pink one and the all brown one?

Line at the door can be a bit of a wait sometimes. Be prepared for a nominal cover some nights. And remember to double up on drink orders if you cannot dance sober!

Look I know I have been handing out the 5-Star reviews like condoms at a west coast liberal university's student health clinic, but it's not because I am bereft of highly discriminating taste.  Call it luck.  Call it a joie de vivre that has instilled in me a love for life and the simple beauty in the littlest things.

Or you can call it what it is - me deciding to spend my money on seeking out yummy vegan food and booze most nights and happening upon some new and as-yet undiscovered (by me) gems, the latest of which being The Usual Suspects.

I picked up three pizzas here for the band to make amends for sleeping through the previous practice.  I also decided to kill some time waiting for our drummer/my friend to get off work (we BART together) so I decided to grab a beer and some fries while I waited.

The decor is somewhere between old fifties diner and underground boho (yes I just used the word "boho," shut up) cafe (the latter maybe because the only window in the lowered back area looks out onto some kind of rock growth thingamajig.*)

They have beer and wine, all of which is organic and vegan.  I ordered a Fish Tail Ale and some fries.  The beer came promptly with a chilled glass and the fries followed soon.  HOOOOOOLLLLLLLLY crap these fries are good.  First off, in the Great French Fry Debate, I ALWAYS take the side of Bigger is Better, i.e., I want my potato-to-fried-bit ratio to tend more heavily toward the potato side.  This is why I prefer Frjtz to Absinthe, par example.  ANYWAY these French fries are freaking MASSIVE, like the mutant bastard cousin of steak fries - but in a good way.  BUT as if that weren't enough their house fries come as a mix of Russet potatoes and SWEET POTATOES.  Yes you heard me right.

Then on to the pizza.  Friend/drummer arrived as the pizza was ready and there was some weird thing where the waitress was told (presumably by the chef?) to show the pizzas to us before we left, so she lifted up the to-go lids of all three pizzas (one vegan cheese with potatoes, spinach and eggplant; one vegan cheese with pesto and mushrooms; and one non-vegan Quattro formaggi) and we kind of nodded, baffled but approving.

Well the truth is, they DID look really good.  Like really, really good.  I honestly don't know how we made it from Montgomery BART station to Ashby BART station without devouring them, but we did and once we got to practice they didn't last long.  They're all on a really delicious cornmeal crust.  The boys seemed happy with their regular cheese pizza and even dove into mine.  The cashew cheese they use for the vegan pizza is legitimately delicious, I wish I knew what the brand was!  The eggplant-spinach-potato pizza was fantastic and the pesto pizza was good, but the pesto was a little on the bland side which was a little disappointing.  BUT THAT'S OKAY because I got full on vegan pizza that was really good and better yet I CAN STAY IN THE CITY FOR IT FOR ONCE (err except when I take it over to the East Bay for practice...)

The rest of the menu has sandwiches and some pasta/lasagna entrees.  All dishes are vegan unless otherwise indicated, which is a nice twist on the usual.  This will be a regular on my vegan food circuit, especially since they're open late-ish so, like, you know after an evening of watching women shake their boobies at me at the nearby Broadway strip joints I can fill the gaping hole in my soul (YES my SOUL) with some hearty vegan fare [drools.]**

*Microsoft Word does not consider "vegan" to be a real word, but "thingamajig" is.

**Drool from the vegan food.  Not the boobies***

***Okay, boobies are pretty cool.

UPDATE: I keep getting asked to change my review by people who are associated with what this restaurant *used* to be, but I don't think I should unless I've EXPERIENCED what it is now.  I can only speak to what I know.  I yam what I yam - don't yall think so???

That being said this whole debacle is a GODDAM SHAME.  That the restaurant has completely changed and there is all this weirdness around it.  :(  Can't these people take one for the team and realize that us vegans do not have NEARLY enough delicious places to eat?  Can't we all just get along?

Seriously.  In the name of my hungry tummy and my deprived taste-buds can't we seriously just get along?

Save the drama for your mama and keep it away from the yummy vegan food.

WOW... a sandwich shop making sandwiches by appointment only. A bit wild - and possibly a first I'm guessing.

We live down the street, and knew the hype going on about Ike's. Saved our try for a Friday night, thinking, piece of cake, who even eats sandwiches for dinner on a Friday night? You guessed it, 30 minute wait that took us right up to the closing time. This place is doing some serious biz.

Ike was a sweetie when I went to pick up the sandwiches and the food was seriously amazing. The chicken sandwich I tried had shredded chicken which helped soak up that rad dirty sauce nicely. Hubby tried the meatball which wasn't as fabulous, but he'd snuck over there a few weeks ago and had better luck the first time around.

My only negative comment is that Ike seems to have moved into a spot far too small for him... it's like a big success story with an unfortunate side effect of not being able to keep up with demand. I wish Ike all the best and hope he can figure out a way to make it happen for all of his hungry customers.

Thanks Ryoko's for being one block away from my work and being able to feed me even if it's midnight on a Tuesday night and I have been working since 9am and all I'm craving is a hot date and 4 orders of Agedashi Tofu.

Thanks Ryoko for feeding me some FREE delicious edamame while my hot date and I are patiently waiting to get served our even more delightful food. (By the way sorry for starting an edamame food fight with my hot date every time I'm there.. Those things are just so much fun to squeeze..I'll try to only hit my hot date's face next time, and not our neighbord's forehead..)

Thanks Ryoko's for having a carpet floor and dark color walls and playing some non cheesy music from the 80s, making me feel like I'm in an underground joint in the middle of Ginza every time I walk in, making my date even hotter.

Thanks Ryoko for hiring awesome staffs that greet me and my hot date as soon as I step in, making me feel like I'm special or something, with or without my hot date.

Thanks Ryoko!  YOU are hot.

Papa dont preach, Im in trouble deep
Papa dont preach, Ive been losing sleep
But I made up my mind, Im keeping my baby, oh
Im gonna keep my baby, mmm...

This will surely be my excuse for the girth that I'll certainly acquire after one too many trips within this cream puff emporium...from Japan, of all places..I really had no idea that Pate a Choux was a big deal or even an enjoyed item in Japan..hmm..you learn something new everyday!

They offer only a select number of wares, e.g. Cream filled pastries & Cheesecake on a stick!!...I think that the quality of their products is attributed to their intense focus on only a few items....whatever..these mother's are tasty!

I'd like a Birthday cake made from nothing more than double-double chocolates and vanilla filled, layered in four-tiers!

You know how it sometimes goes-  You have out-of-town guests to entertain.  You go to great lengths to consider what they want to do and what your city has to offer.  You consult Yelp and your friends and your friends from Yelp.  And all this over-analysis and obsession just ends up frying the critical decision-making centers of your brain and you end up eating at really bad, yet expensive restaurants.  Story of my week.

It naturally follows that the only decent meal we had was at a place that our guests (Boyfriend's brother and niece) picked out- Cafe de la Presse.  They didn't even agonize over the decision or cross-reference Yelp with Zagat!  They just made up their minds, walked in, and told the hostess she must have lost their reservations.  

In gratitude for the totally okay lunch we had there, I'm going to stop talking about myself and start talking about the food.

Cocktail de Crevettes (prawn and avocado cocktail with grapefruit and tomato confit) $13.50 - This was a hit with Niece, who loves prawns with avocado and is very picky.

Assiette de Charcuterie (paté, duck rillette, garlic sausage, salami, ham, cornichons, and onion marmalade) $15- This came with a lot of paté and rillette.  The rillette was on the bland side.  The salami was great.

Tarte Flambée Provençale (tomatoes, basil, black olives, with cheese on flatbread) $9- The waiter recommended this.  It tasted like the perfect Puttanesca sauce and was delicious.

Boeuf Bourguignon with Macaroni Gratin $19- This was by-the-books beef Bourguignon.  The mac was the good stuff, made with just elbow pasta, real cheese, and milk.

Mousse au Chocolat $8- I think there may have been lemon zest or essence or something in there cutting the richness of the chocolate.  This was awesome.

Thank you, Cafe de la Presse.  You saved San Francisco's foodie rep in the eyes of a couple of tourists from Queens.  I owe you one.  If you ever spill some mousse and need someone to lick it up- call me.

A fellow Yelper recently scoffed at me in a talk thread when I recommended this place to someone. He called it "the McDonald's of Indian/Pakistani food".

I prefer to think of it as "the Chili's of Indian/Pakistani food".

No, the sauces aren't as complex as they are at other, better establishments. For example, when I had the chicken tikka masala at Shalimar, I was shocked at how amazing and different it tasted. Naan-n-Curry's is more like Campbell's Tomato Soup on PCP. But my feeling is that there are different types of restaurants for different moods and occasions. Just like there might be times when you would spring for a Niman Ranch freshly-ground, hand-formed burger for $18, but other times you just want to run into Burger King for their 99-cent special.

Today I took advantage of being right there to drop off a rental car. I swear I could smell the place all the way from the bowels of the building as I waited for the elevator.

This time, instead of ordering my usual chicken tikka masala, chana masala or chicken or lamb curry, I decided to hit the buffet. Takeout buffet is charged by the pound so it's not the best way to go cost-wise, but I'm glad I did it because it exposed me to some of their other dishes that I might not have ordered otherwise due to my tendency to get into food ruts.

The yellow lentil dish was okay, but I wouldn't order it as an entree the way I would chana masala. I enjoyed the cauliflower with potato, although for the life of me I couldn't find a potato chunk in there anywhere. Even though the cauliflower was bordering on mushy, it had a great flavor and I would definitely order it again.

The winner of the day is something I now can't seem to find on their menu. I'm pretty sure it was lamb kofta, but all I can find on the menu is a chicken version. The meatballs were tender, juicy and perfectly spiced and the sauce had a slight tang that I just loved.

It was good enough to jolt me out of my food rut!

What happens when you unleash the Yelp chowhounds across the city in search of the best eats? Well, apparently it results in undeniable bargain bites like Petite Deli. This place is featured on the home page for a reason!

I've been twice (both on gorgeous sunny days) and had the same sandwhich - a pastrami on a roll with provlone and everything on it. I cannot begin to tell you how awesome those sandwhiches are! The rolls had the right amount of crunchiness and chewiness, the deli meat was savory and moist, and the sauce she put in there had a hint of hot mustard in there too - perfect!

It is a bit out of the way - on the far end of Columbus toward Fisherman's Wharf. But if it was in a more crowded area, you'd never be able to get your sandwhich. They named this place with good reason; it's tiny inside, with room for three tables and two outside tables. So you might be in a for a wait.

Regardless of the size, the other thing that made this place memorable was the owner. She was so incredibly kind on both occasions and essentially works the place by herself. Even with that workload she's always smiling and making sandwhiches to die for.

So the word is out and I wouldn't have known about this place if it wasn't for Yelp. Sometimes you just can't argue with the Yelp consensus...

My two biggest problems with Indian restaurants are:
1) My wife can usual make better food
2)Restaurant food is greasy

Neither is true at Roti (don't tell my wife).   Well, it's not so much that they are better cooks than my wife, it's just that Roti does things a little different.   Restaurant quality food should be better than standard home-cooked food.  It is supposedly cooked by real chefs who cook food for a living.   This is the case at Roti where the execution is nearly flawless, the visible oil is minimal and the food is fresh and unique.   Very Good!!!!