Highway Revolt, Mission Freeways, “The Circumferential”
StreetsblogSF has an excellent review of San Francisco freeways that might have been but thankfully never were. (We here at the BJTPD (Burrito Justice Transit Planning Division) covered the plans for a Mission Freeway a few months back.)
Through actual “reporting” and “research”, our friends at Streetsblog came up with many more maps and plans from the middle of last century. (We are suckers for maps, perhaps even “map ho’s” — put a old map in your blog and it stands an excellent chance of getting referenced here.)
Anyway, I found this strip of maps to be particularly excellent/sobering:
If you got BART or Muni with its own right of way along the path of any of those planned highways from the 40s and 50s, then we are talking some real transit. Imagine a train along the “Circumferential” / “Crosstown”? Oh man.
Revenge Is A Justice Best Served Cold
Or, um, something like that. All I know is this is a damn good drawing of a burrito by the fine folks at Telephone and Soup. Meet them Thursday night to get your own shitty kitty.
Mission / La Lengua Events — The Sequel
A few upcoming events of interest in the Mission and/or our favorite micro-hood, La Lengua.
Shitty Kitty Meetup II – Thu, June 11, 6:30 @ Shotwells
They bring the supplies. You bring yourself. You get art!
Caffeinated Comics – Karaoke Night – Sun, June 14th, 5-9PM Mission @ Valencia
You bring your stellar voice. They bring the microphones. You get entertainment!
Also, Caffeinated Comics is running a “Comics Covered” cover art redraw contest.
(The Fantastic Four / Obama remix that David showed me was particularly awesome.)
Also hearing rumors about drawing classes. Who knew a comic store would turn into the La Lengua Community Center? It’s a great space, so not a surprise.
http://caffcom.com/Events.html
Secession Art and Design – 3361 Mission (right across from Safeway)
So being a disorganized blogger, I completely forgot to mention Secession’s reception last Friday. DJs, Vinyl and Wine, Oh My… They seem to have a happy hour type event once a month, so stay tuned. And check out the store, cool local art and clothes:
“Our urban landscape has become the new nature. Secession Art & Design is aware of a changing movement inspired by life, urban living, graffiti, and printmaking. As we conserve, spend our money locally, and explore, we discover a subculture of artists and designers documenting our cities through a visual history, bringing the street into your style and home.”
Easy to miss, but right across from our beloved Safeway.
Why Did The Taco Truck Cross The Street?
I will treat the punchline as a rhetorical question as I am only coming up with horrible puns at the moment. (Surprising, I know…)
Mission Local reports that our favorite El Tonayense truck may have come to an agreement with the police on a new location — 20 to 40 feet up the road.
“The new location would put the truck across the street from Mission Cliffs, the place, Santana said, where most of his customers come from. He added that his new location “has more of a view” than another proposal that would move him near the PG&E building.”
Hopefully this indicates that a reasonable balance has been struck between protecting student health and delicious taco freedom. (Though I still want to try the burritos and tacos that are served in the John O’Connell High beanery.)
More details of the Tonayense negotiations over at MenuPagesSF.
Sunday Streets, Mission Edition
Great foot / bicycle / stroller traffic today for Sunday Streets San Francisco, Mission Edition.
Looking north on Valencia from 24th:
Looking east on 24th and Mission:
And we can dress real neat from our hats to our feet and surprise ’em with the victory cry:
Is this new, or am I oblivious?
Anyway, a great event, looked like stores were getting solid traffic. Looking forward to July 19th for the next Mission edition. My only complaint? Ended too early — 4pm instead of 2pm would be perfect.
More pictures over at Mission Local and Beer & Nosh.
(And a zoom of the horse riding skeletons on the car mural above.)
It’s the fifth horseman of the apocalypse! I love the skull on the tire. Click on the big picture above to get more awesome detail.)
SOMA Food Pulse
My favorite SOMA-Baby website, BuboBlog, has been doing a crack job covering food news in his neighborhood.
- live reports from the Chez Spencer french food truck, with graffiti referenes – “we were definitely excited about being able to buy escargot, frog legs and other French fare without leaving our graffiti-strewn alleyway”
- graffiti commentary and strategy — the graffiti box!
- rightful suspicion of new restaurant/bar activity at Julie’s Supper Club – “The bartender directed [the police] to the owner when asked about a liquor license. The bartender then fled from the club. The owner grabbed cash off the bar area and fled to the bathroom. One officer followed her and saw her stuff cash into her shoe. About $500 from the owner’s sock and about $900 more was seized, along with DJ equipment and turntables.”
Nick also notes the arrival of Heaven’s Dog, new upscale chinese restaurant by Charles Phan of Slanted door fame – “pretty good” (and no dogs). He then shares rumors of Mr. Phan’s potential entry into the food truck market (via the Wall Street Journal — kind of scary that the WSJ is covering “street food”…)
One fan of Mr. Odermatt’s truck is chef Charles Phan, of San Francisco’s Slated Door fame, who likes the truck’s “really yummy” porchetta sandwich of roasted pork loin rolled into pork belly and sliced onto a French roll. He says the truck’s open design reminds him of street food in his home country, Vietnam. Mr. Phan says he is also in the early phases of planning his own lunch truck business, which would also allow consumers to observe the food.
“Observe the food” – what, like a food zoo? All I care about is observing the food entering my mouth.
Left Coast Smoke = BBQ Sandwiches + Bars
New To The Bay, a Mission residing Kansas City native bent on bicycle justice, gives her review of Left Coast Smoke, a Mission bar-hopping BBQ sandwich troupe:
I was sitting inside Shotwell’s, my regularly mentioned favorite bar, when one of the bartenders, Dean, mentioned that he was thinking about starting a food cart. Barbecue, he says. Pulled pork sandwiches to start, with slaw and a couple of different sauces.
I became entirely too excited. Way, way too excited. The barbecue options – good, solid sandwiches with pulled, well-smoked meat, drenched in sauce – are few and far between in my neck of the woods. There are a couple of restaurants on Mission that call themselves barbecue, and I certainly mean no offense to their establishments, but they haven’t been what I was looking for. I wanted barbecue, and Dean was offering me my chance….
I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. A sandwich with a generous portion of meat, your choice of sauce and a side of slaw will run you $6. You can track them on twitter at @leftcoastsmoke. Good guys, good food. And my answer to beer+barbecue in the Mission.
Kogi BBQ Taco Truck — The Video
Not that we have any shortage of mobile food around these parts, but a local Kogi BBQ Taco Truck (“probably the most famous Korean BBQ twittering taco truck on the planet”) would be pretty awesome. Clip from Current TV infoMania:
I have got to get down there and try it one of these days. Oh, California bullet train, if only you already existed…
Current TV’s infoMania did a piece on them, click on the image below to watch the (mildly obnoxious) Ben Hoffman interview the hardest working twittering korean bbq taco truck on this sphere we call earth.
I suggest Current TV send over a couple of Kogi tacos to Kim Jong Il as trade for those Current TV reporters under arrest in North Korea. California mobile food technology — perhaps our strongest international bargaining chip.
McDonald’s, El Corazon of El Corazon
WHO: Armand Emamdjomeh, Mission Local Reporter
WHERE: The McDonald’s on 24th and Mission
WHEN: 5:36 AM to 11 PM.
Armand sits in the Mission McDonald’s all day — literally 17 hours — and makes a few discoveries (and deserves some sort of award).
With Animal Frenemies Like These…
The noble folks at Telephone and Soup (aka Shitty Kitty) had animal art mashup for kids at Paxton Gate this Saturday. My personal favorite, the ElSnake:
Just like the Suriya Thai elephant, it seems pissed — and it doesn’t even have a gun. (Man, this would sure look good on that freshly painted door…)
And I am pretty sure I saw a roctopat driving a Ford F-150 in a strip mall parking lot when I was stuck in the suburbs of Denver this weekend:
(Or was it an octobit? I always get those rodent-Cephalopod hybrids confused, especially after a couple of margaritas at altitude.)
OK, news flash — if I ever see this, I am running like hell, ESPECIALLY if it is doing my laundry.
Burrito Justice 