A great neighborhood lunch place

Review of: Brick House Cafe

By: Avery Glasser

Rating: 3

Read review on Judy’s Book.

Sometimes it feels like everything opening in my neighborhood is trying to be a “destination spot”… Tres Agaves, Acme Chophouse, 21st Amendment, et cetera. That’s why the Brick House is a great place to have a half block from the apartment.

During baseball season, I can always find a table to have a beer before heading home – a precious commodity when the neighborhood bars and restaurants are filled to well over their capacity.

Lunches here are better than average: the Brick House Melt with turkey and bacon, or the BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger with just enough tang from the sauce to give it some character but not so much that it overpowers the meat… and the Eggs Benedict from the Saturday brunch menu are some of the best I have had in The City.

A point has to come off for a few small issues: If you go at lunch, and four people at the table order and pay separately, there is a chance that there will be a delta of up to 10 minutes between the first and last person being served, and on a few occasions, an order has simply been missed. Also, the beer selection, which is actually better than most in the area, is impacted by frequent outages on many of the taps. Finally, ordering any level of done-ness on the burgers seem to be ignored: rare, medium-rare, medium… it all comes out medium-well.

Still, even with these negatives, the food is still tasty, and when you’re in the mood for a big ass wagyu burger with exceptional fries, there’s not much better in the neighborhood for the price.

Lost its soul, but gained a lounge!

Review of: Slanted Door the

By: Avery Glasser

Rating: 4

Read review on Judy’s Book.

My wife and can’t say we’re regulars at The Slanted Door anymore, but back in the day when they were located at 16th and Valencia and we were living in the Lower Haight, we made sure that we popped in every month or so for excellent food, amazing chocolate cake and a well thought out selection of tea. That was back in the 1990s, and this is now 2006. It’s been a long time since we first experienced the shaken beef, served by dedicated staff that recognized familiar faces and treated you like you were practically one of the family. Over a decade since our first taste of the food, the restaurant has moved twice and undergone changes that in some ways are great, but overall leave me wishing that they were still a little known restaurant in the Mission.

Since we have moved back to town, we’ve been there once for dinner and a couple of times for drinks, most recently this evening. Though the new space is sleek with an expanded lounge area – it lacks the warmth and personal touches that could make it great. Even the staff seemed to shlub along through the crowd in ill fitting, slightly faded Slanted Door black t-shirts.

The DJ and cocktail selection are nice, but don’t really fit the vibe of the restaurant area. It tries to be hip and unique, but ends up being generic and a little cliche. Well prepared drinks are brought out at a painfully slow pace, making it difficult to enjoy yourself while trying to flag down a server and time your order to when you might finish your drink in order to avoid a lengthy in-between-drink gap. All of this, and you end up paying about ten dollars per cocktail when tax and tip are figured in.

If the service in the bar can’t be fixed, then it would be better just to abandon it, rather than tainting the overall experience. Call me crazy, but when I miss the food, I’ll head to Out The Door and have some takeout.

No grill, no frills

Review of: Blondie’s Bar and No Grill

By: Avery Glasser

Rating: 3

Read review on Judy’s Book.

I’ve only been to Blondie’s twice over the past 8 years, but they’re still putting out consistantly good, strong drinks. Tonight’s Junipero Gin Gimlet was well prepared, and getting a full 16 ounces of gimlet for under $10 was perfect.

The bar was a little crowded up front, but in the back by the pool tables there were lots of seats available.

It’s no frills, and no grill… just good, strong cocktails and beer.

A Place to Visit Again and Again

Review of: Range

By: Janet Glasser

Rating: 5

Read review on Judy’s Book.

Pretty much everything about Range pleases me: the cool design of the place, the candles everywhere, the hooks in the hallway and at the bar where you can hang your coat and bag, the bar, the cocktails, and especially the food. I’ve been here twice now and every dish I’ve tasted has been really creative, and expertly prepared (and fresh – where do they get lettuce that tastes that good this time of year?) We recently got seats at the bar early on a Thursday evening — between the friendly bartenders (who really know their stuff when it comes to cocktails), the food, and the conversation, we ended up staying much longer than we planned. The portions are just the right size in my opinion – large enough to enjoy, but not so big that you’re too stuffed for dessert (and the desserts are fabulous!)

Where the food is as amazing as the cocktails…

Review of: Range

By: Avery Glasser

Rating: 5

Read review on Judy’s Book.

Visit Date: 01/28/2006

For the last week, my wife and I have been entertaining friends from Belgium, trying to convince them that you can get good food in the states. For our last big meal, we decided to take them to Range.

For the first time in years, I was stunned by the quality of the food… and not just me, all four of us were just amazed by what came out of the kitchen. The hamachi and blood orange appetizer three of us had was just outstanding – sashimi grade hamachi cut in an appropriate way over cress, cucumber and avocado with a blood orange, oil and black pepper sauce. It was so good that we had to request more bread so we could dip it in the remaining juice. My wife, the only one to have a different starter, went with a poached pear that was so indescribably good, I can’t think of a way to describe it.

For the main dishes, I went with a disassembled cassoulet: roasted duck, house made garlic sausage, white beans and pearl onions… the richness of flavor was amazing, but more amazing was the fact that the rich flavor wasn’t coupled with the fatty richness usually found in this dish. My friend had a fantastic steak, and my wife and his fiancee went with the goat cheese pasta – quite the best ravioli preparation I’ve had since I was in Tuscany. A16 and Incanto should aspire to make a pasta dish so satisfying.

We all finished with dessert: My wife had the chocolate and pine nut brownie-like dessert with cardamom ice cream. The Belgians had a hazelnut torte with irish coffee ice cream, which was also excellent. However, it was my oatmeal souffle with caramelized bananas that took the proverbial cake: light, eggy and a perfect sponge balanced with the sauteed fruit.

All of this, plus four of the better cocktails I have had in San Francisco only came to $120 per couple including tax and tip… not that much more than a night of sushi (yeah, we eat alot of fish when we go out).

The only fault was the pacing of the meal: the appetizers barely left the table before the entree was served, but the other courses came out with just the right pause.

For anyone looking for an exceptional, affordable meal, you can’t do much better.”

Sanctuary!

Review of: Rye

By: Avery Glasser

Rating: 5

Read review on Judy’s Book.

This could possibly be the hardest five stars a bar has ever earned, because man-oh-man, was this just not my normal cup of tea.

After dinner at Canteen, we decided to head over to Rye because, well, it’s named Rye. Let me explain. If you’re from the East Coast, especially the New York/New England/Pennsylvania area, you probably have some ancestral memory lodged deep in your mind about the virtues of rye whiskey. For those of us from the Northeast, Rye is our historical tipple of choice. Unfortunately, as a result of many years of marketing from the bourbon and vodka vendors, this perfect grain distillate had faded out of vogue.

But there is hope – in the late 1990s, Anchor Distillery launched a single malt rye whiskey – and since then a number of great rye whiskeys have come back onto the scene. So with this in mind, when I heard about Rye, I decided to make a trip out there.

The bar is beautiful, more East Coast than West – Scandinavian designed with wood accents everywhere. Down to every detail, the place screams “The Bubble Is Back! Long Live The Internet Bubble!”

But just on the promise that they may have rye, we went in.

The crowd was, well, horrible. Yuppie trash that decided to go out slumming in the Tendernob. Screeching bleached blonds and boisterous jock assholes vying for attention and hoping to get laid.

But they had rye, and we could get two seats at the corner of the bar near the door in case we needed to make a quick getaway.

It was at that point that I recalled what I thought about Paris: a beautiful city, if you could just get rid of the damned Parisians. Same thing goes for Rye.

Our bartender, Jennifer, was the saving grace of the night. In between churning out 7&7s, Rum and (Diet) Cokes, 7 and Waters, Gin and Tonics, Stoli Vanillas and Ginger Ale and other drinks better suited for frat parties than a sophisticated bar like this, she served up some of the most amazing Manhattans (Jim Beam Rye, Noilly Prat Sweet (Red) Vermouth, Peychoud Bitters and a single sour cherry) – possibly the best I have ever had. She admitted that she had a soft spot for that cocktail, and she treated it with the respect that it deserved.

We went in planning on having one, or at the most two drinks total, as we didn’t hit the ATM before heading in (yes, they are cash only for now). By the time we left, we had each had four – because I don’t think either we or the bartenders wanted the night to end.

As we left, we mentioned to Jennifer that she was the saving grace for the bar because she made the crowd there “tolerable”.

So, here is the breakdown:

The bar – The atmosphere, architecture and sense of style is great, and the inclusion of both an outside cage (where we saw a blond chickie climbing up and comically (to us) trying to sexily writhe for her man) for smokers and a pool table warrants a definite 5 out of 5. Hopefully next time we’ll see someone smack into the wall-length mirror thinking there is another bar on the other side of the wall.

The bartenders – Everyone we had there was amazing, not only making great Manhattans, but muddling a pair of perfect Basil Gimlets (vodka) and a house drink called a Gold Rye Fizz – a rye drink with mandarin oranges, rye, bitters and a splash of cream as a substitute for the missing Advocaat/Eierlikor/Egg Liquor. Jennifer gets extra points for gracefully dropping a whole lemon in a martini glass full of Absolut Citron – the perfect “lemon drop” in my book. 5 out of 5

The selection – 5 out of 5 – this is a hard one. The beer was well selected, but I still winced when seeing someone order a can of Tecate (the crowd was mostly drinking Stella, but a good number of Chimays came out of the fridge). A number of good whiskeys were available with the well rye being Jim Beam Rye (yellow bottle). Some bimbettes wanted Crown Royal, which they were out of, or didn’t carry… which thoroughly distressed them but amused us.

The crowd – 1 out of 5, and if I could give lower scores, I would. Loud, annoying, drunk and the sort of people that makes me reconsider ever going back there, even though I loved the place. Once this crowd finds the “next greatest thing” I am sure it will be a much more tolerable group of folks frequenting the bar.