Spring @ the Ferry Building

The weather is unpredictable as ever these days, what with rains well into April and May. Within the breadth of one day, you could see rain, fog and sun; or feel cold and hot. We walked out to the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market on a cold and gloomy morning one such day towards the end of April. En route is this pier which was quiet and foggy. We strained out eyes yet were unable to see Berkeley on the other side….

The sun burnt through the fog in the two or so hours we spent at the market and on our way back the same boardwalk was turned into a warm and cheery hangout. Only one of the many turnarounds this city sees in a day!

Farmers’ Markets abound with the bounty of cultivation these days. And there’s hardly a better place to see everything together that’s better than the market at the Ferry Building. Every Saturday morning, the Ferry Building Plaza becomes a weekly Farmers’ Market. This is easily the best (albeit the most expensive) Farmers’ Market around. We check it out once a month, not just for what’s the current produce but also for perennial favourites such as the Della Fattoria bakery, which has some of the best bread available anwhere..

…..and the rotisserie, which serves some of the best roasted chicken I’ve ever tasted, anointed with rosemary. We buy it and use it over the week to snack on or put in pasta.

That day there were new potatoes and English peas,which people were buying by the truckload, it seemed.

..not to mention an abundance of asparagus in the market.

There was this beautiful leafy vegetable I’ve never used and I couldn’t get close enough to the stall to find out what it was. Do tell me if you know. I’m on extremely cordial terms with spinach, maybe lettuce.With the rest of the leafy greens, I have a moderate acquaintance. Look at these rainbow-hued stalks!!

Fresh baby carrots were nonchalantly arrayed in cosy bunches. I bought some of these and they met an untimely but super tasty demise on a roasting tray with some olive oil and orange juice.

There were little baskets of kumquats, the little citrus fruits that I was recently and most happily introduced to, the only ones I know that you consume along with their thin rinds…

….and you also got to bid the last of the apples goodbye, sadly yet firmly affirming their flavour while somewhat woefully admitting their state.

Rain or shine, this market is extremely popular and there are always people about, taking in the produce, enjoying breakfast or people-watching.

While the vendors busy tending to customers or answering questions about their stock….

…local and talented performers entertain market goers. This was an especially melodic country music duo which was busy entertaining a baby and her grnadma.

But the Ferry Building isn’t just about the market outside, there is also a daily and exclusive market inside, having among many other vendors, Far West Funghi and Prather Ranch Organic Meats where I bought the ground lamb for this shepherd’s pie.

This interior place is such a foodie delight that to do it justice I have to cover it in another post. But before I’m done, I have to show you our rather quick shared lunch. The market vendors hand out samples on such a vast scale that there was no need for anything other than this small snack to carry us through our walk back home. We stopped at Delica rf-1, the onsite Japanese place that serves various yummy bites.

You pick either a bento box from the side or individual bits of what you’d like from the case and you can either enjoy it in the shop or outside.

We took our chicken and mushroom rice cakes, chicken dumplings and potato croquettes outside to enjoy the sparkling new day in the sunshine. Very tasty and just about enough to round off all the noshing we’d done in the past couple of hours. I highly recommend the croquettes and chicken dumplings in the finger lickin’ good barbecue sauce.

The flowers in the neighbouring flower shop were fresh in bloom in their minimal vases..

If you find yourself in the city on a Saturday morning, don’t miss Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. It absolutely delivers on its promise.

Insight on happiness

Construction is a necessary evil when you live in a building thats well into it’s fifties…our apartment building is being retrofitted with brand new waterproofing, shingles and just a general all around check up for its age. While I’m able to tune out peripheral external noises very easily when I’m at home, it becomes increasingly hard to do so when I’m trying to study at the same time. That Friday, the noise of the drill and the saw was loud enough to even drown out aimless thought, let alone focussed study so we decided a trip to the library was in order if study of any real value was to be achieved. That was before we got to library, settled down with our books and were rudely interrupted by the jack hammer in Civic Center. Not our day….

By this time I was irritated and also starting to get cranky. I get like that when I can’t do something I want to; also when I’m hungry. And with the sun moving higher in the skies, it was time for a meal, something we forgot clean about for that day because of our pseudo-war with construction equipment. Then we remembered that just a block from the Civic Center is a wonderful little restaurant called Ananda Fuara.

This gem of a restaurant is run by the Sri Chinmoy mission. It serves vegan and vegetarian food that draws interpretations from various world cuisines. With items on the menu like ‘Neat Loaf’ they also display their tongue-in-cheek sense of humour. The food is light and healthy and as close to eating healthy without eating in your own home as you can get. Certainly you don’t feel overly full, there is just a feeling of satiation and satisfaction that comes over you when you eat a meal here. They have a vast menu consisting of an assortment of entree combinations, wraps, sandwiches, quesadillas, falafel and the like with a plethora of sides to go with them. While they do serve eggs for brunch (which I haven’t had the opportunity to try), I don’t believe I’ve seen it on their regular menu. Any reference to meat is to the fake or soy kind, which I normally hate just by itself, so I’m not likely to order the turkey wrap here.

I hadn’t been here in over a year but ordered the Neat Loaf meal without glancing at the menu, since I’ve always loved it. This looks like a slice of meat loaf but is actually made with a combination of rice lentils and soy and comes comes with a combination of salad or dal. I chose the dal which they make with red lentils. The entree comes accompanied with a side of mashed potatoes with a luscious and light mushroom gravy, way better than the real deal I think and certainly healthier! Amey had the samosa dinner, which consisted of samosas accompanied by rice, chutney, raita and naan, thus converting samosas, which are served as a snack in India, into a meal. We washed the meal down with generous portions of plain lassi, a drink made from buttermilk, which is served here with a touch of rose-water; and a mango one for Amey.

The restaurant has been around for a while and is popular with locals and tourists. Loosely translated the name means a fountain of happiness. The waitresses walk around in beautiful crisp cotton saris and the atmosphere inside is very serene, something that soothed my frazzled nerves after a noise-ridden morning. We spotted Cliff Curtis, the actor who played Paieka’s father in the movie Whale Rider, having his lunch there too. Apparently the restaurant isn’t just popular with locals!

The meal put me in good mood and arguably brought with it good luck, since on my return to the library I saw the workmen and the equipment packing up to move on. What more can you ask from a good meal??

Jonesing for Indian

After two years spent almost entirely in College Station, Texas, it was safe to say that I was thoroughly disillusioned with what was served in the name of Indian food in the United States, to the point where I only sought it in homes. While there had been shining successes by few, notably by my brother-in-law and my good buddy Pratik, to determinedly find me good Indian food in the nation’s capital and New Jersey respectively, those brief interludes did little to shake my despondency since my trips to the East coast were few and far in between. Little did I know that I’d end up living in San Francisco, a superlative Mecca of cuisine. Somewhere in between the super-fancy restaurant found here and the “hole-in-the-wall” phenomenon that is also abundant is the kind of restaurant that promises nothing and in doing so, reconfigures what you’ve come to expect. Such was my feeling about the restaurant Chutney in San Francisco. There is nothing to distinguish it on the outside from any other restaurant in its vicinity but the Pakistani-Indian food it claims to deliver, it does so in aces. The food here is what most Indians would recognize as North Indian, a notable difference being the presence of beef, something you are highly unlikely to find in an Indian restaurant back home of this kind. I took one bite of the garlic naan and paneer tikka masala and was instantly transported in time and space. I had found heaven in the middle of one of the gritty neighbourhoods in the city.

As the one of the few Indians at my workplace who live in the city, I have been  asked several times what a good Indian restaurant to eat at is. My recommendation for this one has always been met with approval. Chutney boasts a fairly extensive menu and serves tons of things indelibly aligned with Indian food such as tikka masalas, biryanis and koftas. My favourite here is the tikka masala, chicken or paneer and their unbeatable garlic naan. Their preparation of baingan bharta (roasted eggplant) is very different from the way I, and several Indian friends, know it to be made, but is nevertheless very tasty. The palak paneer (or saag paneer as it is called there) is good enough to make you want to eat here every day. For some reason though, the ubiquitous aaloo gobi can be a bit temperamental and can sometimes come out with a double dose of chilli. Why this is the only dish they’ve been known to mess up, I don’t know, but you’ve been warned. On a good day, it tastes great. If it is your first time here, don’t forget to try the biryani. It’s not like the hyderabadi biryani Indians are used to but still a very good variation of it. It certainly isn’t cooked like I know, coming together much quicker than its supposed to, like a glorified pulao. Still it works and is very good. We know them well enough now to order the biryani with potatoes (because to me, a biryani HAS to have potatoes). Tried either way, it’s a great eat, with any meat of your choice. While I can speak authoritatively only of chicken, different friends have tried different meats and fish and have all been pleased with their orders. They have a host of specials that change every day, notable among which are the Chicken Kofta and the Chicken Kheema.

When I first learned of Chutney a good five years ago, it had little décor to speak of and an ancient, creaky exhaust system. The tandoor had created great grey smoky facades and eating in here always required a good, brisk airing after to get the acrid smell out of your hair and water for your eyes. Your clothes sadly couldn’t just do with an airing and had to be washed immediately. All this never stopped me from eating here. After a brisk fire broke out three or so years ago, rebuilding required a shiny new exhaust grill over the tandoor and some nice new paint and accessories. This makes it much easier to eat in.

garlic naan, paneer tikka masala & chicken kabab

This is, in my opinion, one of the best Pakistani-Indian restaurants in the city for the food and the price. Pakistani Indian food is subtle-ly different from Indian food. Something about the mixture of spices. Yet it is close enough to work when the craving hits you, no matter who you are. Vegetarians may take issue with all the kababs hanging up to be smoked, in which case you can happily take advantage of its take-away service (or delivery if you live close by). It is in the Tenderloin and it’s open late so I’ve been known to go there at all hours. But as the night advances the number of colourful characters you could meet there will grow as well. (A flaming pink-haired and utterly plastered Irish soccer fan once poked Amey in the ribs and asked him why he was so tall, then promptly turned and walked into a wall.) To me, that’s all part of the fun of living in the city. Also, an establishment claiming to serve Pakistani-Indian food will almost always be cheaper than one serving Indian food. I’m not sure why this is.

You can find Chutney on Jones Street between Geary and O’Farrell.

Going out

Friendly as I am with food in general, restaurants and I have almost always been on terms of an especial camaraderie. So many memories are created when you feast on foods in fine eating establishments in good company. My past is littered with events that allow sentences to begin with “Remember when K threw artichokes at Prof. H in Cheddars……?”  (no really, he did! That is the correct course of action when the professor in question throws you out of class for….but I digress.) Then there is the added comfort and convenience of someone else waiting on you and having to clear the table and do the dishes.  But wait; don’t go away thinking I’m some kind of eatery style snob. Some of the finest eating establishments I know provide you with the food, a paper napkin, a curt nod and expect you to make the best of it. I am intimately familiar with this type too and will happily adjust, if the food in question tastes first-rate and the napkin is clean. (Mama raised very germ-conscious children!) I don’t ask for much from a potential food provider.

Touching briefly on a pet peeve of mine, here in the US, things are different from India when it comes to the actual restaurant space. Good (read expensive) restaurants in India are magnificent in their opulence. Scale, proportion, sound control and material are used with liberal abandon to make you feel like the money you are spending is worth it. And it does achieve its objective often. That is not necessarily the case with expensive restaurants here, especially in cities. You can end up spending a fortune in a tiny little joint where there isn’t enough room on the table for your food, the salt shaker and the customary single flower vase; and the noise levels require you to play the lets-see-whose-louder-game with the table next to you. These are restaurants, mind you, not clubs. You expect it from one but get horrible headaches and rising blood pressure when you find it in another. The higher the price tag on such an experience, the more robbed you feel. While restaurants here have introduced me to several different worlds, culinarily speaking, the designer in me wonders what they were thinking. I’m sure there’s a strata of uber-expensive restaurants that might offer me this, but those would probably be as inaccessible to most people, as they are to me.

Regardless, there are a host of wonderful restaurants out, no matter what country you are in. And that’s a good thing when you can’t be bothered to cook. In future posts, I will share some of the ones I’ve been to.

Also….raising my glass  to the seasonal teeth-rattling we had today. This earthquake was exceptionally perky in the city. Escaped near-loss of finger nail when set-square came crashing down on hand. Stats say magnitude 4.3, bit north of Morgan Hill. Nothing to get your noodles in a knot about.