Just saw this – Spork on Valencia and Hill is now open for brunch.
Mission Eggs are potentially epic:
Slow roasted carnitas + broken eggs + avocado + corn tortillas + spicy green cabbage + queso fresco = oh my.
Especially when eaten on their nice little patio:
Report please!
MSF: Oh Pork Buns, How I Love Thee
Banana Eel Flatbread also epic.
Exit Janitzi, Enter Milk
Eater SF notes a new liquor license on the haunted Janitzi/Senses space on Valencia between 22nd and 23rd:
Moininazeri is the same name as on an Appeals Board hearing back in 2003 – A M N market?? Don’t really remember it, but found this:
AMN market was just strange: half video rental place, half corner store, with a little bit of used record store thrown in. We sometimes went there to buy Fast Passes, and S. went there to buy Choward’s violet and lemon candies; neither of these items were available at the other corner stores. I felt that I should like AMN (one of our neighborhood friends was a fan) but nonetheless, I never quite understood the AMN vibe, and the AMN staff seemed a little edgy–not ebullient like the Thanasi’s guys.
So — Milk < Janitzi < Senses < Watercress < A M N?
The pressing question is what they will serve at “Milk”? Is it a generic name like “Toast”?
Or is it descriptive, indicating foods made with the help of cows? Cheese? Ice cream? Butter? Milkshakes? White Russians? Whatever it is, I hope they figure out something that will last.
An interesting observation by the Rye Bread Politics, author of the above AMN description:
The depressed atmosphere of poorer American neighborhoods manifests itself not only in the absence of a variety of storefront businesses, but also in the unfriendly and paranoid personas of the people who own those businesses which remain. These neighborhoods are then defined by the presence of people who hang out on a corner doing nothing, or selling illegal products to people from outside the neighborhood, instead of by the friendly give-and-take of the commerce of relative equals.
If your neighborhood has no businesses you really like, you probably won’t like your neighborhood. When a place in your neighborhood earns your loyalty, it becomes a part of your heart’s geography. These loyalties change and intensify based on small, intangible factors.
May we have more places that encourage chillaxin like the Nice Lady Store.
Bulbdial Clock – You, Me and 3 LED
OK, I want one of these:
Why the Internet is good:
Conceived by David Friedman of Ironic Sans last year.
Made by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories this year.
I want a video though (get on that, Internet, OK?)
The above shot is also a nice demo of color science:
Interesting part: this photo demonstrate here that…
R+G+B = white.
White – Red = Cyan
White – Green = Magenta
White – Blue = Yellow
(via oskay’s flickr page)
Caffeinated Comics Grand Opening Party – Thu April 16
La Lengua’s favorite comic and coffee shop, Caffeinated Comics, is having their grand opening celebration this Thursday night (not Wednesday). Corner of Valencia and Mission. 7PM!
Imagine this space filled with DJ Weasel! Wine! Coffee! Food! And of course free WiFi!
SF to San Jose in < 30 mins
OK, I am a sucker for infographcharts (thank you, Edward Tufte), and I think this is epic:
From Infrastructuralist, via the California High Speed Rail blog.
Ahhh, California High Speed Rail Authority, get me to San Jose in under 30 minutes. (Frankly, I hope for a 20 minute express.) And to do 220 mph along I-5 to and from LA? Oh, imagine the timelapse opportunities! (Never mind a bar car.)
(Caltrain = baby bullet, my ass. At no point should I be able to *drive* faster than the top speed of a “bullet” train.)
Another question — why in the hell is there not a faster train to Sacramento from Oakland? Good god, Amtrak is slow from Richmond to Martinez. I want to get to Sacramento in 45 minutes tops. Especially at 5pm so I laugh at the suckers in their cars going 4 mph.
Come Fly With Me – Timelapse at 30,000 Feet
Best part of Las Vegas is, well, flying there.
SFO-LAS, 9 April, about 11:30 AM.
Snow covered range just east of Bishop, CA, near the CA-NV state line. Not sure of the name of the range — Intermountain West? If so, White Mountain Peak seems the tallest of the bunch.
6 x 8-way QuadCamera shots stitched together using GIFfun. 3-5 seconds between shot.
(Oh, and Apple is now refusing to let the developer upgrade QuadCamera. Thanks for nothing, Apple iPhone app approval people. I use this every day. What is your issue with cool photographic apps?)
T is for Toffee
I have been valiantly defending these 3 remaining Anthony’s cookies from my co-workers — they polished off the other 15 but are looking for more.
Mars-lander style photography on the toffee to make up for Allan’s lack of picture.
NASA fly-by:
(cookies & creme top, toffee middle, chocolate chip bottom)
Scientific timelapse of cookie vivisection here. (Technically challenging — I only had 3 seconds between bites.)
No Street Food For You. Or You. Or you or you or yoo-oh.
Behold, a map of the Mission. But what could the red circles represent? Outbreak of a horrible disease? Soviet Air Force bomber targets? Girafa sightings?
Alas, no. The red circles show a 1500′ radius around public junior high and high schools — the land where food trucks are forbidden. Click to zoom. (Hoping for an interactive map soon — am I missing something, or is it obscenely difficult to draw circles in Google Earth?)
UPDATE: Board of sups food truck ban does not apply to elementary schools. (That explains the ice cream trucks.)
UPDATED UPDATE: Reader emamd points out that the 1500′ limit is around the school property line, not the entrance, so you’d get a map something like the even wider doughnuts above vs circles around the entrance.
UPDATE++: The old St. James (25th & Florida), now the California School Age Families Education (Cal-SAFE) county high school is in question – that’s the blue circle.
For those late to this party, our Board of Supervisors passed a law banning food trucks from within 1500 feet of a school as part of the SFUSD “Wellness” policy. However, there is no distinction made between predatory trucks that target children and ‘gourmet’ trucks that cater to consenting adults.
This law is draconian and needs to be changed. 1500′ means no food truck can legally operate in Dolores Park. And for some perspective, pot clubs only have to be 500 to 1000 feet away from a school.
I have little sympathy for the school board nutritionistas’ argument that responsible taco trucks like El Tonayense set children into some sort of downward food spiral — especially when they don’t eat at the truck but instead go to the restaurants next to the school. The point is not that I have to go an extra two blocks to get a taco from El Tonayense, it’s that food trucks have been banned in half the damn city. This law, no matter how well intentioned, goes too far.
For the record, I do not condone food trucks gathering around school entrances selling kids chips and soda. I think we can all agree that this is bad. But to dive into hyperbole and paint *all* food trucks with that same brush is intellectually dishonest. Oh great legal minds of the city, how do we get the Sups to pass a more reasonable law? 500 feet and show ID during the school day? Express your vote over at Mission Loc@l (middle right of the page).
This SF Weekly article asks why we don’t have more food trucks in this of all cities. This law is certainly part of the problem. In New York they practically throw street food at you as you walk by, and in LA there are revolutionary food delivery mechanisms such as a korean taco truck that twitters its location each night. (Take that, line!) Imagine singapore noodle carts, oh, would that not be lovely?
Instead we have guerilla food trucks, or legal trucks cordoned into food ghettos. (That being said, the future site of Valencia Street Park is in a safe zone. We welcome you, foodie truck entrepreneurs!)
C is for Cookie. *My* cookie. (Get away. Seriously.)
Got a dozen cookies from Anthony’s on Valencia (between 25th and 26th) on their second day. I hearby proclaim Anthony’s cookies the best in La Lengua, and perhaps in the Mission. Anthony is cool, and so is his assistant. They are in the soft-opening stage, so don’t be surprised by the focus on cookies vs stuff on the walls, etc. Cash only right now.
The cookies in their lovely white box barely made it out of the store — here are the 6.8 survivors. Before this picture was taken, there was an upper layer of half a dozen chocolate chip cookies, so you can guess they were rather tasty. The toffee was epic, and as far as the cookies and cream, well I must say I will be ordering more of those next time around.
We here at the S.C.R.I. (Scientific Cookie Research Institute) conducted a photographic analysis to determine the defensive capabilities of Anthony’s cookies. (NB: We had set aside an archetypal chocolate chip cookie in the name of science, but upon the initiation of our experiment this evening we discovered to our horror that a research assistant (Burrito Justicia) had consumed this protected specimen earlier in the day. Fortunately we had a backup toffee cookie. Basic scientific research protocols are being reviewed by staff members at the institute.)
Sadly, stop-motion photography determined that Anthony’s cookies have no survival skills whatsoever and are easily consumed by a typical human within seconds:
High-speed 16-bit photography reveals the completely passive nature of the cookie while under attack.
The Institute encourages further scientific research by the public on this topic in the cookies’ native habitat on Valencia.
Burrito Justice 