The Hopp Stop

As Vanessa and I wind down our time in SF, we are trying to visit old favorites one more time. On Friday morning, I went by Tartine, the awesome bakery in the Mission, picked up some treats and met Vanessa near her office in the financial district. This allowed us to avoid the weekend crowds.

We had a gougere, this amazing puff pastry, that is very light. This was made with gruyere and pepper. See photos 1 and 3, below.

I had a frangipane tart with seasonal fruit on top. It was super tasty, but unfortunately V had to avoid it due to her food allergies. See photo 2.

V also got a currant scone, great as well.

I’ll miss Tartine. Shame I didn’t go more during my time in the city, although that is probably good news for my waistline.

By the end of last night, our group (Blake, Steve, Anne, Vanessa and me) had a collective case of the meat sweats. Why? Because we attended the latest Petting Zoo meat fest at the Bloodhound bar in SoMa. In short, it is a celebration of meat, with whole animals grilled, cooked and carved in the bar or the alley next to it. Steve and Ann had been to a couple prior iterations and gave it a big thumbs up, so Blake, Vanessa and I joined them yesterday evening. In short, the Petting Zoo was awesome, although I don’t think I can take that level of meat consumption more than every six weeks or so.

Last night’s event centered on a pig roast and the cooking and carving of a goat, with some lamb burgers and various charcuterie (awesome beerwurst, blood sausage, chorizo, etc.) thrown in. Blake, Steve and I arrived right when the doors opened at 6pm so as to procure a seat–all that meat eating wears you out. There were bowls full of chiccarones (fried pork rinds) set around the bar, while servers walked with platters of charcuterie, chorizo on sticks, and little sausage sliders with great buns and sauerkraut. Blake and I started off the evening with a highlighted cocktail, an Old Fashioned made with maple syrup and infused with bacon. Normally I don’t want to have anything with whiskey or bourbon, but this drink was great, and not too sweet. I liked it enough to get another one later on in the evening.

[All the photos are up on Flickr. Slideshow below, or click through to see them larger.]

By the time Vanessa and Anne arrived, they started bringing out additional meat products, including a lamb burger patty on a stick that Vanessa liked enough to eat–the first time I can remember her having lamb. The takeaway is that if it is really good meat, super fresh and prepared right there, it is good enough for Vanessa! The center of gravity then shifted to the back of the bar, where the meat men started carving animals, beginning with a goat and ending with a pig. We kept an eye on the side window to watch for servers with new meat platters walking around towards the front door, near our location, so that we could descend upon them and get the pick of the meats.

After a couple of hours of meat consumption, we were all oozing lipids and ready to head home and detox. The event wasn’t cheap, at $42/person, but I certainly got my money’s worth in meats, plus admission included a drink ticket, which I  used for that $9 Old Fashioned cocktail.

A note on the photos: despite the very fast prime lens on my Panasonic GF1 camera (max aperture of f 1.7) and large sensor size, the light was still too dim to allow for spontaneous shooting (“Please freeze for a minute so I can hold the shutter open long enough to get sufficient light”) without a flash, but I didn’t want to have the horrible flash look in the photos. So MacGyver Hopp in action! I wrapped a kleenex around the flash to diffuse the light, which worked like a champ. When Vanessa arrived, she gave me a barrette to clip the tissue on securely. Problem solved. I noticed a couple other folks using similar solutions last night.

Vanessa and I visited Pi Bar (new pizza/good beer place on Valencia) with a large group on its second night, which was also a Friday (October 2). As Chris posted over on his blog, we had a mixed experience that night. The wait was a bit long, some of the pizza was great, some wasn’t so great, etc. About what you would expect at a place working out the kinks, so you cut it some slack.

Last Friday (October 9), Vanessa and I popped in for a pie before we headed down to Carmel for the weekend. We ordered a salad to start and a small pepperoni pizza. The pizza was cooked about to perfect (although we initially feared it was a bit overdone) and the salad was great. About the only area for them to improve was a long wait for the pizza. But hey, they haven’t even been open a month, so they are definitely still in their grace period. Pauline’s and Gialina are still my faves in town, but we’ll keep checking Pi Bar out, especially given the close proximity to our apartment, and the tasty beers on tap.