Bike-powered microphones for this band that was playing at the Alemany Farmers Market. Only in SF!

My friend Eliza gave me these awesome little containers. They are about an inch and a half high and super frickin’ adorable.

Their sole purpose is to allow you to bring a little bit of soy sauce with you wherever you go, just in case. They come with a little tiny eye-dropper so you can fill them up with soy sauce. So far they have never leaked and they always make me smile when I pull them out at lunchtime! Something about those vacant, beady eyes and perky ears- they are really endearing little pals to have around.

Eliza got these for a couple bucks at one of my very favorite stores in the world, Daiso Japan. Daiso is kind of like a super cool Japanese Dollar Store, except most things cost two dollars instead of one. Daiso has a crazy cross-section of stuff, from garden supplies to kids’ toys to dishes to cards (many in hilarious Engrish) to fake flowers to, er, individual soy sauce holders. With ten bucks in hand, you can have a GREAT time in there.

There are 3 stores in the Seattle area and 6 in the Bay Area- here’s a list of all U.S. locations.

I bought this rice called Tiny Rice, because it’s tiny and adorable, and also because I like saying “Tiny Rice” all together like it’s one word. Tinyrice. Tinyrice. Tinyrice!

So what is Tiny Rice and why is it so tiny? It’s a small (some might say tiny) grain basmati rice imported from Bangladesh. It’s also called Kalijira rice (which incidentally is ALSO fun to say) or sometimes baby basmati. It says on the package it’s the Prince of Rice. (And here I was, not even realizing that rice could be royalty.) It’s cute, it’s delicious, and it’s way more fun than those big awkward rice grains you’re used to, as you can see in the photo below.

Tiny rice only takes about 10 minutes to cook, so that’s pretty cool. It has a great texture because it’s so small- sort of between a rice grain and a couscous grain. When you serve it to people they say things like “what kind of rice is this? I’ve never SEEN such tiny grains of rice!”

I bought it at BiRite Market, but if you need an online source I found it for sale online at at the Lotus Foods website. They Lotus link also has recipes using Kalijira, including a couple of rice pudding recipes which look super tasty. They sell tiny brown rice too, but I’ll be honest, the tiny brown rice grains look a little bigger than tiny. I haven’t tried it yet but that’s next on the list.

Tinyrice tinyrice tinyrice!

When I was but a youthful lass of 22, I worked at the fabulous Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego for about a year. If you’re ever in San Diego, I highly recommend stopping there for one of their scones (the best I’ve ever tasted, to be sure) or to dazzle your friends with one of their heart-stoppingly gorgeous cakes. I learned a lot there, but probably the most important thing I learned was that the way to a good bread pudding is simple: make creme brulee mixture and don’t use regular bread. This opens up a realm of delicious and easily adaptable flavor possibilities and combinations that are blissfully simple to make, as well as very forgiving.

For this occasion, I bought a soft loaf of Semifreddi’s cinnamon twist bread and made an orange zest-infused vanilla brulee mix, then dotted it all with dark chocolate chunks. It took about 5 minutes to put together and tasted like a million bucks. With a scoop of Bi-Rite Creamery’s salted caramel ice cream, it was almost transcendent.

Orange-Cinnamon Bread Pudding with Chocolate Chunks

serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• zest from 1/2 orange
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 T sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 loaf cinnamon bread (1-2 days stale is better than fresh but it will work either way)
• large handful semi-sweet or dark chocolate chunks (can use chocolate chips)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 250.
• Heat cream in saucepan until hot but not bubbling. Turn off heat and add zest. Set aside.
• If bread is a few days old and a bit stale and hard, just use it as is. If it’s fresh soft bread, toast in a 350 degree oven or toaster to dry out a bit before using. Cut bread into 1 inch cubes.
• Whisk yolks, sugar, and vanilla into cream until fully incorporated.
• In a loaf pan or half-size casserole pan, arrange half the bread in the bottom and pour half the cream mixture over. Sprinkle with half the chocolate. Repeat with remaining bread, cream, and chocolate. Press mixture down with the back of a large spoon or your hands, so it’s tightly packed in and all bread is moistened.
• Bake at 250 for about 20-30 minutes, until custard is set but wobbly. Serve warm with ice cream.

It occurred to me that I always take lots of photos of food and shops and streets and signs when I travel to faraway lands, but I rarely do so in my own town. San Francisco, after all, is a major tourist destination, and there are LOTS of interesting things to photo right here in my own backyard. The area around Bryant and 24th Streets, for example, is a slowly and funkily gentrifying old-school Mexican neighborhood that’s colorful in more ways than one, and it’s a prime spot for a mini photo journal.

The one, the only, the original- the garish Roosevelt Tamale Parlor sign is a long-standing beacon of this ‘hood. Cute and quaint, with great… wait for it… tamales.
Roosevelt Tamale Parlor: 2817 24th St. between Bryant and York.

Is there possibly a better name for anything than “Discolandia?” Hmm. I think NO. Love the color scheme and stark, slightly askew, sans-serif all caps action as well. No idea what it’s like inside, as woefully I’ve never actually BEEN inside.
Discolandia: 2964 24th St. between Florida and Alabama.

I have always loved the Taqueria Vallarta sign, for many reasons. For one thing, I find it so mysterious that they didn’t make one more segment on the sign so the bottom one didn’t have to share 2 letters. Also, the vertical orientation makes it completely unintuitive and tricky to read what it says. And need I mention it’s cool Mexican flag colors? Still, this case of branding gone majorly wrong hasn’t prevented them from sticking around for years and years. Probably because the tacos are good and they’re open for gorging even after the bars close. But that’s just a hunch.
Taqueria Vallarta: 3033 24th St. between Balmy and Treat.

A positive piece of gentrification- some young hipster folks saved and resurrected this decades-old icon. They brought back all the best bits (like glass jars of candy on the counter and thick homemade shakes) and updated the worst bits (like greasy blah diner food) so you can get all the nostalgia PLUS all of the tastiness. The cheddar, scallion, bacon pancakes are my favorite!
St. Francis Fountain: 2801 24th St. between Bryant and York.

This is a closeup of a taco shop sign. It totally creeps me out. Check out how the big pig is happy to be being roasted, while the little pig on the right appears to be roasting and possibly spearing his own child pig in another pot. What kinda sicko painted this thing and how did they think it would inspire me to eat carnitas?
Crazy pig painting: I don’t remember where exactly this sign is, but I think it’s roughly opposite Discolandia.

“Burbujas” (boor-BOO-huss) is inherently a funny word (meaning “bubbles) but I’ve always thought it was made additionally funny by the addition of “Mr.” Not Señor Burbujas, not Mr. Bubbles… Mr. Burbujas. The bra and underwear jauntily painted on the window and the Florida Street murals in the background add to the scene.
Mr. Burbujas: SE corner of 24th and Florida.

Soda-themed skateboard decks in the window of Mission Skateboards, a new gritty-cool skate shop.
Mission Skateboards: 3045 24th St. between Balmy and Treat. (The sign is just a circle with an M on it.)

I don’t know if it’s the trash cans, the tagging, the metal cage, the stark stenciled letters, or what… but I think “Fountain of Life Church” is stretching it just a tad…
Iglesia Fuente de Vida: next to Discolandia

I love the word “Mexica-tessen” and the funky Brady Bunch font on the lit up sign. Somehow the font plus the palm tree always make it seem like it should be in LA. You can get killer tamales, fresh masa and homemade tortillas.
La Palma: 2884 24th St. between Florida and Bryant.

Newcomer Sugarlump is a sweet cafe with a lovely back patio and a sexy 70s fireplace. You might think Tina Fey glasses and shiny Mac laptops are required for entry, but they’ll sell you an organic fair trade cup of coffee even if you’re sans specs or carrying a (gasp!) Dell.
Sugarlump: 2862 24th St. between Bryant and Florida.

I like that you can buy a bra AND send a fax in the same place.
Manuel’s Store: Incongruously right next to Sugarlump.

If you want fancier underpants hit up Candy Kitchen which sells absolutely no candy, just fancy, pretty, pricey lingerie.
Candy Kitchen: 2807 24th St. between Bryant and York.

I’m not talking about dates like going out to the movies here, I’m talking about DATES! Like, the fruit.

This is a really simple way to make a tasty treat. It’s not really ice cream (ergo the quotes), it just sort of tastes like ice cream with almost no work. I like to use Barhi (sometimes spelled Barhee) dates because they are oh-so-creamy and lend themselves perfectly to this technique. I get them from the date vendor at the Alemany Farmers’ Market in San Francisco. He has a bunch of different kinds of dates that are fantastic and cheap and he will let you taste them all! If you’re not in the Bay Area, you can order Barhi dates online from Oasis Date Gardens pretty cheaply.

To make “ice cream” dates, all you have to do is lay the dates out on a sheet of foil or parchment, not touching one another. Freeze until solid-ish (they may not get totally frozen solid because of the high sugar content.) Once frozen, remove to a ziploc bag and store in the freezer. Whenever you need a burst sweet creamy goodness, grab one out of the freezer!

You could also use these in smoothies or shakes… in that case, pit them before freezing. Happy dating!

I have been several times to Fish in Sausalito and it is always fantastic food. Of course, it is also helllllla expensive. It can be pretty slow in the service department, it’s cash only, and did I mention that it’s hella expensive? As my friend Whitney tweeted just the other day: “only in the Bay Area would you order at a counter and sit at a picnic table and your entree was $22.” The funny thing is, she didn’t mention the name of the restaurant, but I could guess from that description.

The positives: The food tastes great, and the place has a nice view. All of the fish is sustainably caught and organically grown which probably explains the expensiveness to some extent. But it’s kind of an idiosyncratic little spot because the food is delicious and expensive and fancy but the place is super casual- example 1, you order at a counter and then find your own table; example 2, the drinks are served in jam jars.

The best thing I’ve had were the barbecued oysters. I’m not even an oyster lover so I was totally being a martyr by agreeing to order them the first time- or so I thought. I could have eaten about 100 of them. The cocktail sauce was warm and tangy and the oysters were fresh and salty and divine.

One thing we had that was a good value was the ceviche. It was a really big portion and had huge chunks of fish in it and tasted superb.

Other random fun facts. You can get beer by the pint or QUART. I have never seen that before! Saves you the trouble of going back in the slow-ass line. There is also a fish market there where you can buy, uh, fish. Like raw fish. Which is expensive too. Did I mention it’s expensive?

It’s not in the fancy part of Sausalito that you usually go to. It’s on a weird dock thing farther south. So basically if you’re driving on the main drag and you continue south, you turn right on Harbor Drive and then it’s on your right in a parking lot. Weird! But you can’t beat the view from these outside picnic tables, especially at sunset.

So to sum up, in the pros column we have “super delicious seafood” and “great view” and in the cons we have “really expensive for how casual it is” and “spotty service that is sometimes crazy slow.” If you’re like me and find yourself driving between the North Bay and SF a fair amount, I’d say it’s definitely worth a sunset dinner stop some Sunday night when you’re headed back into the city! After a trip to the ATM, of course.

Here’s a link to their site.