Food

Magnolia's just got a new chef, and wow, was I happy to bite into a sliced up morsel of tender, juicy porkchop on a bed of spinach with bits of bacon! At $15, this dish was a bargain.

Unfortunately, I was a bit more hungry than I thought, so I ordered a plate of french fries which were fried to a crisp and golden perfection.

Hours:
Mon-Thu
12PM to 12AM

Fri
12PM to 1AM

Sat
10AM to 1AM

Sun
10AM to 12AM

(Sat/Sun: Brunch Menu til 2:30 PM; kitchen open nightly 'til midnight (11:30 Sun)

Magnolia Pub & Brewery
1398 Haight Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
415.864.PINT

Dear Readers,

What is the best happy hour in San Francisco?

Yours Truly,
Jim Barcelona aka Barce

PS Please post your answers, and I'll check these places out.
PPS Happy New Year!

Henry's Hunan on 674 Sacramento Street at Kearney serves the best Kung Pao Chicken I've had in the city.

It's hot, tangy, and savory. I love the bamboo shoots and bits of black bean, and the chicken is oh so tender.

My holiday wish:
For you my readers, all the best.

Mistral doesn't mess around when it comes to lunch. For $11.34 you can get generous slices of pork roast, and two sides, as well as a drink of your choice - in my case a root beer. Today I had the white bean provencale and macaroni & cheese. The food was fantastic and burst with lots of savory goodness. The pork was tender, easy to cut with a plastic knife and went well with mustard. The Mac'n Cheese had lots of cheesy goodness. The white bean provencale had beans cooked to perfection and a succulent and savory tomatoe sauce.

Mistral's in the Ferry Building. Go early to beat the noon crowd. For more info check out City Search's Website

At Taylor's Refresher in the Ferry Building at the start of Market Street, you can order a rare, ahi tuna burger. This big one is slathered with wasabi-ginger mayo, and has chopped pieces of greens thrown on top of it. I ordered the ahi tuna burger, fries, and a medium coke, which came out to the tune of $18.23.



Way too pricy, if you ask me. But it's so delicious. It's worth trying at least once. You know, like going to Mecca.

Taylor's Refresher
At the Ferry Building

Before Spinoza's Coat, my weekly philosophy reading group, I thought I'd give the new burrito place, Tango 20, on Fulton between Masonic and Central, a try.

I ordered a chicken Mission Burrito, which was $6.75, but without the guacomole, sourcream and cheese San Franciscans have come to love in their burritos. Way too expensive if you ask me!

The guy making my burrito messed up the 1st time. The burrito split open while he was rolling it up, and then he placed the filling that had plopped out into another tortilla. I got even less food than I had to start because all the filing didn't go into my new tortilla.

Okay, burrito wrapping is a skill that I can overlook in a new place. What I can't overlook was the dried, over-cooked rice. The chicken was seasoned very well. Overall this was my worst burrito experience ever... well except for the burrito I had in Austria.

Food places deserve a 2nd chance. I noticed that Tango 20 serves breakfast burritos. "Maybe that's what they're really good at," I thought to myself. I tried the chorizo breakfast burrito with sour cream and guacomole, which with a watermelon drink came to $9.75. The burrito wasn't made right. They didn't put the sour cream and guacamole in. The burrito was too small. I could have had another one; it was that small! But it did taste delicious.

Continue to go to the other better and cheaper burrito places in the City. You can skip this place and feel that you haven't missed a thing.

If you're ever jonesin' for a delicious, cheap bento box, I highly recommend Sawaii Sushi. The bento box comes in two varieties: salmon and chicken. You get more chicken than salmon, which is understandable since both boxes are the same price.



The bento box comes with:

• Chopstick friendly, steamy, sticky white rice


• A small salad with shredded letuce and a sweet and sour sesame dressing


• Your choice of chicken (more meat) or salmon (less meat)


• A bowl of hot miso soup with bits of tofu and savory seaweed


• Six pieces from a California Roll with Shoga and Wasabi

All that for just $6.95 (USD)!

Sawaii Sushi
226 Kearney Street between Sutter and Bush
Open 6 Days a Week. Closed Sunday
Monday through Saturday from 1030 am to 400 pm

From a block away, I could spot the flag hung proudly off the side of Ritual Coffee Roasters.



I walked into the coffee shop and was struck by how huge the place was. There were tables all along the right side for about 40 feet and leather couches here and there. The stuffed animals hanging on the right side wall were a bit disturbing in a Bride of Chucky sort of way. They're part of an art exhibit that won't be there for long.

The coffee was prepared by first heating up my cup with hot water for half a minute. Next, the hot water was tossed, and replaced with dark, black coffee with steam rising up with the aroma I've come to love in the morning. The coffee had lots of flavor ranging from nutty to fruity.

I found a couch to sit on and read up on Gadamer's Truth and Method. One gem of a quote was:

"Only by forgetting does the mind have the possibility of total renewal." (p. 14)

I'm starting to forget about a lot of cofee shops in the Mission, and Ritual Coffee Roasters has renewed my faith in business owners keen on pleasing customers who want a clean, well lighted place to drink a cup of joe.

Ritual Coffee is on 1026 Valencia Street between 21st and 22nd Street.
The hours are ample:
7am to 11pm on Weekdays.
8am to 10pm on Saturday.
8am to 8pm on Sunday.

One way to check out if your food at an eating establishment is safe is to check out the Food Violations website for San Francisco. Just type in the name of the place and see if anything comes up. It seems to be updated weekly.

If you're ever in Rome and want where you eat and where you hang out for an evening to be very close, then I highly recommend Cafe della Scala (Via Della Scala 4) and the pizzeria right next to it. Hanging out at Cafe Della Scala is a joy. The tables outside tend to attract really gregarious types, and don't be surprised if a couple of folks ask you if the table is free to sit next to you.

At the pizzeria next door, they make fresh gnocchi which is part of a house specialty called "Gnochetti La Scaletta." It has clams and mussels in a light tomatoe sauce and sea broth.

Boxed Foods Company on 245 Kearney between Sutter Street and Bush Street serves the best sandwich and salad combo around. Today I had the Chicken Panini that comes with salad with huge, thin slices of Parmesan that melt in your mouth.



The Chicken Panini oozed out carmelized shallots and fine chevre. Also, the basil and sundried tomatoes launched this lunch into 7th heaven. All of this was packaged in nice plastic containers, and with the cola drinks they serve here that come with Green Tea and Kane Sugar, this place wins for the best lunch under $10.

Another great dish is the grilled portabello sandwich for you vegetarians out there.

Today I had lunch at Los Socios, a Cal-Mex food joint. Don't go here for the burritos, although if wok-sauteed and savory eggplant in a veggie burrito is your pick, don't let me stop you. Instead go here for the plate specials. The #1 with rice, beans, and your choice of beef, chicken or pork comes with a sauce that is spicy and to die for, especially at $7.50.

Today's lunch question: Whom does technology help?

The Grove on Fillmore has a really delicious Lasagna Bolognese, and the latte I had with it, creamy and foamy, made for a pensive hour thinking about the production of society.

According to Marx, the ancient world aimed at producing human being. Wheras the modern world aims at production for the sake of wealth.

I looked at the activity of computer science, today, and asked, "What sort of human being does it produce? What sort of wealth?"


The Grove Fillmore
2016 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 474-1419

I dusted off my Greek lexicon and grammar books, and started to translate the Phaedrus. Not too far from the beginning, Socrates refers to himself as a "tou twn logwn erastou." (228c2) This roughly translates to "an erotic lover of words." The word for word in Greek can be "logos." It can also be "epos," too. In the Apology, Socrates often says, "ouk alethes epos epein." (Not a word did they speak truly.) Logos in Greek implies account or argument.

I was translating some of the Phaedrus at the Blue Front Cafe on Haight Street. This place has really good gyros and schwerma platters. I had the lighter of fare of just an Orangina this time because I was going to meet Dave, Sharon and Jess at Ploy II for some delicious Thai Cuisine.

Anyway, people would walk by with their shopping bags more full and heavy than usual because it's the holiday buying season. I would see couples, groups of people, individuals pass by, and asked myself, "What is erotic about words?" What is erotic about an account?

There's no denying that words strewn together in the right way can be very erotic, but Socrates is claiming that he is a lover of words in general. For him, there is something erotic about every logos. What is that erotic something?

There's a little cafe on California and Sansome in downtown San Francisco that makes really good desserts for afternoon coffee breaks. It's called Cafe Madeleine and it's on 300 California Street by Sansome. A math friend introduced me to the place, and I know when she's in downtown because she parks her dark green bicycle with a brown basket on it right in front.

Anyway, the night before, I stopped reading the Gorgias up until the point where Socrates talks about the afterlife. The feeling that I get is after all that talking and argument, Socrates' interlocutors (Gorgias, Pollas and Callicles), aren't at all convinced. They were forced into agreeing with Socrates, and didn't really expect such a rhetorical beating from a sculptor. Socrates' cash cow job was sculpting.

The dialogue starts off so simply. Socrates just wants to know what Gorgias does, and how what he does benefits the city. "What do you do?" is a question that I always here at parties, and many people resent the question, whereas others glory in their answer. I'm neither of these. With pride and a smile, I'll say, I'm a programmer.

Gorgias was smart. He's a famous sophist, and within getting beat on two or three points, he quickly withdraws and cuts his losses. Pollas butts into the conversation and loses the argument because "he was ashamed to say what he thought." (482e) Callicles gives a summary of the argument so far, and intends to best Socrates by exposing a distinction apparently abused by Socrates: the morality of nature and the morality of human beings, i.e. convention. (482e - 483a).

If you've steeped yourself in the Iliad, the tragedies, and the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, I totally recommend reading the Gorgias next, especially the following part:

Socrates: Pericles was in charge of human beings?
Callicles: Yes.
Socrates: Well then, if Pericles looked after them as a good statesmen should, ought not his charges to have become more virtuous and less vicious under his influence? That is what we agreed just now.
Callicles: Certainly.
Socrates: And according to Homer the virtuous are gentle. What do you say? Ins't this so?
Callicles: Yes.
Socrates: And yet Pericles made his charges fiercer than when he took them on, and, what is more fiercer towards himself, which is the last thing he would have wished.
Callicles: Do you want me to agree?
Socrates: If what I am saying seem true to you.
Callicles: Very well, let it be so.
Socrates: Now, if they were fiercer, they were more vicious and less good.
Callicles: Granted.
Socrates: Then by this reason Pericles was not a good statesman.
Callicles: That is what you say.

(516b - 516d)

I fully felt the shock of dialectics after having read Pericles' Funeral Oration and the Melian dialogue first, and then the Gorgias.

At Madeleine Cafe, all I had left to read was the part about the afterlife. I think that ending was tacked on because the interlocutors were forced to admit things that they couldn't believe. A cup of tiramisu with an espresso bean on top and cocoa powder, a double espresso, and a bottle of seltzer water ran me $7.38. It was a bit stiff, but well worth it because the tiramisu was delicious.