Search results
Film in the Fog: An American in Paris
An American In Paris
Warm day in the Mission District
A very warm day in the middle of a heat wave. I spend much of the day working on my book in a borrowed room, and at the end of the afternoon I go to the Atlas Cafe in the Mission District to have a cappucino and make a few notes.
As I circle to find a parking place, which is difficult in the Mission even on a Saturday afternoon, I notice an unmarked police car with a plainclothes driver keeping an eagle eye out for something. And a couple minutes later I see three cop cars come roaring up the street. They turn the corner by the cafe.
When I reach its front door I see the cops have detained two Latino teenagers dressed in the baggy, neutral uniform of the neighborhood: white t-shirts and black shorts. There are now five cop cars for these two kids, whom I had idly noticed walking quietly along a block away when I was looking for parking.
Inside the cafe, most of the tables are occupied with people studying or working on laptops. A young woman and young man are playing guitars — mostly ragtime and songs from the 1920s. They play a few choruses and then the woman sings one of those old songs in a clear tenor voice. (Their names, I found out when I looked at the CD they had for sale, are Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod, and here’s a YoutTube video of them performing at the Atlas earlier this year.)
The cops let the two kids go and the police cars drive away. Almost no one in the cafe noticed the roust taking place across the street.
After several songs, the woman’s place is taken by a young man, who plays instrumentals while the woman passes a hat. Then a couple in their thirties — the man in a straw fedora, a woman in a sundress — stand up and begin to dance the tango. The guitarists are still playing ragtime but the dancers are good enough to do the tango to ragtime anyway.
Comments are off for this postTravis Poh, Who/Where Are You?
With a shoulder that feels ripped apart courtesy of Chrome (that sounds very Valencia Corridor-esque), I’ve been looking for something to carry my items around SF in that won’t require Ibuprofin. That’s right: a backpack. No more shoulder bags; this time around, it’s an off-to-third grade two strap style. I noticed a heavy duty one from Freight Baggage at Freewheel, but the white would last about a week before I tried to leave for work with coffee before getting caught off guard by a stop sign.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time yesterday afternoon trying to track down Freight Baggage’s creator, Travis Poh. An online search for freightbaggage.com turned up one of those pages with a photo of a random lady and an offer to buy the URL. Uninterested in freight shipping quotes as well, I started asking strangers and messengers. “Oh yea,” one told me. “Travis. You can find him on Vallejo toward North Beach. By that cafe. Tell him Frank sent you.”
My fault for not getting enough information (or maybe the fact that it sounded a bit too much like a drug transaction). A Freight Baggage MySpace page says Mr. Poh is 100 years old–no big shock there. I was also told that he’s elusive and overworked. I could order one through a bike shop but it could take more than a month to arrive. Is it so wrong to want to end my search and find the maker in our seven-by-seven mile city?
All I want is a backpack, preferably in primary colors and within the range of my tax refund check. It doesn’t have to be big enough for me to fit in. You can stick that logo with a train car anywhere you want on it. But please, let’s end the search.
1 commentDogs Are People Too…
I washed my dog this morning, clipped his nails and got out the door to go see the vet for his regular check-up. Because I did not have any cash on me, I walked a little further to get coffee, to a place that takes cards.
I go in this place frequently enough. Though the “law” says dogs cannot go into food establishments, both of my closest coffee shops allow them. When I bring the pup in there, I carry him in my hoodie, just to be respectful of others.
Today, I go in and order a mocha and bagel to go. I have my dog on my shoulder.
I’m waiting for my food, when I get the feeling that someone is staring at me. I look around and my eyes land on one of the most foul specimens of human waste I’ve ever seen. Literally, this man is the human version of “Jabba the Hut”. He is a desending pile of tires of fat, rings of flesh telescoping towards the ground. He is shaped like a fleshy soft-serve, ice cream cone. His skin is yellow from jaundice and his eyes are bright red in the lids and whites, showing “Pink Eye” at the very least.
This foul man-pile yells at me from his stench-seat, “The dog goes outside”. I reply, “Are you the owner? I’m not leaving him outside.” I go back to waiting… “It’s the law” says flesh-sore-man, “Are you above the law? I’ll call the Board of Health.”
I grab my stuff to go and say to him loudly, so the whole cafe gets the message, “When you call the Board of Health, tell them you have a full-blown case of the infection known as “Pink Eye”, and that everything you have touched, including that stainless steel spoon someone else will later use, is infected.” I continue, “Tell them the money you gave the cashier, has now been handled by the same people handling the customer’s food. Tell them you have now exposed your infection to everyone in the cafe. Maybe you should think about THAT next time you worry about health codes…”
Do I need to take my 4th Anger Management class? YES.
Is it ridiculous that in San Francisco, an 8 pound, freshly-bathed dog is a health hazard, when in EVERY corner of this city, the average San Franciscan comes upon human fecal matter on every train, door handle, cafe, bathroom they use because this city is swarming with filthy, homeless crackheads?
YES, more than I need Anger Management, YES.
I pick my dog’s crap up, no matter where it lands. EVERY DAY when I walk to work, I dodge SEVERAL piles of human waste. The people who made those piles can go into any establishment they like. But I can’t bring my 8 pound, clean dog on my shoulder to get a coffee to go without having some ridiculous law spouted at me from Jabba the Jaundiced?
The LAW must GO!
18 commentsChanges Around Union Square: Some Good, Some Bad
[Click the image for a larger version. Photo by Jeremy Hatch.]
The picture above is of a moment in the sun in Union Square Tuesday afternoon, as seen from out in front of Macy’s.
One of my favorite cafes was located in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel at the corner of Sutter and Powell. I never learned its name, but it was a European-style cafe, good for a salad, sandwich, or pasta, with espresso, tea, or a glass of wine. When I was new in town I went there all the time. For no particular reason I stopped going earlier this year, and sometime between my last visit and yesterday afternoon, they replaced it with a Starbucks. Damn. You look away for a second, and there goes another one.
So I satisfied myself with Cafe Fresco at Hotel 480, which will probably be my future Union Square hangout. It definitely deserves better than this Yelp review. (But what do I know, I only had a Pellegrino Limonata.) Once I was inside, I realized that I’d actually been there before, years earlier. It was a cold rainy day, and I was playing hooky from high school in a town about a hundred miles to the south. (Gas was cheap back then.) I got a double espresso, and sat down next to two guys a little older than me; maybe they’d just graduated from college and had gotten jobs downtown. In their black raincoats and ties and fashionable glasses, they looked so damn sharp, and I have to admit I felt a little intimidated. It seemed that I could never live up to that level of effortless cool, and that possibly I’d never really “make it” in San Francisco. That was some fifteen years ago. By now those once-intimidatingly cool guys are probably thickening into sedate middle age, and I learned a long time ago that San Francisco is not all like Union Square. Thankfully. I can “make it” here; in fact, it seems likely that I couldn’t anywhere else.
On the positive side of change: the Disney Store at Powell and is going away for good. I really, really hated that store — and my hatred intensified whenever I had to wait on that corner for the light. This Yelp review pretty much sums it up, if you’ve never had the displeasure.
Comments are off for this postRapid Restaurant Revew: Zuni Café
I must admit that Zuni Café is an old stand-by for me. It is my go-to restaurant for late-ish dining, for entertaining out-of-town guests, for enjoying a meal with hard-to-impress friends, and it seems, for constructing sentences with lots of hyphenated phrases.
I’m hardly breaking new ground by reviewing Zuni, but more and more, I’ve run into people who’ve lived in San Francisco for at least a couple of years and have never eaten there. My advice: invite some out-of-town guests to visit and take them to Zuni.
Comments are off for this postJ-Pop Center Opening This Year in Japantown
I’ve been very curious to find out what was going to happen at 1746 Post since it’s been torn apart… and I’ve discovered quite some news!
Anime, Manga and overall Japanese culture fans will be ecstatic to hear that Viz Pictures (an offshoot of local Anime and Manga publisher Viz Media) is a partner in building a “J-Pop Center” in Japantown! The Center will include a theatre for showing releases from Viz Pictures, Anime and other Japanese features. Also expected are a branch of the already popular Kinokuniya Bookstore, a cafe and some Japanese clothing shops… a one-stop J-Pop shop!
The website for the Viz Cinema does not show a lot of information at the moment, but it does state that it is slated to open in Winter of this year.
2 commentsDoing Touristy Things: Afternoon in North Beach
This is a series, see: Coit Tower, St.Francis Elevators, Chinatown
Note: make sure to have a hangover and/or huge appetite before heading out.
Breakfast/brunch at Cafe Divine (Union & Stockton)- get seated at the sidewalk tables, and, with mimosa in hand, watch people in the park. I’d recommend the fruit bowl w/ granola or the poached eggs. Divine doesn’t have a huge menu but the ingredients are top notch. OR hit La Boulange (Columbus, Green) for a pastry and a bowl of cafe au lait. Describe how the park used to be the common for the neighborhood- the patch of ground where you could garden or keep livestock. Mention the falsehood that DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe at the church- actually just photographed in front of it.
continue reading & map!
Coconut Club
After dropping the kids off at school, I strapped on my crash helmet and pedaled through Golden Gate Park towards Trouble Coffee, which according to the map on the website is somewhere in the neighborhood of Judah and 46th Ave. I could tell you the exact address - and so could Trouble - but where would the fun be in that? In other words, if you’re curious, you’ll find it. Others have come before you, and didn’t fall off the side of the world. It’s right before you pass the serpents lurking in the waters beyond Ocean Beach. You know, across from 7-11.
Trouble is 225 sq feet of space, most of which is behind the counter. Very clever, in my opinion. The owner is named Julieta (Giulietta?), and she said it was about the size of a hotel room. Less is more, or as explained in her manifesto and the sign outside, “Make your own damn house!” Well, it looks like she’s done just that, and you’re invited. Except Tuesdays and Wednesday when it’s closed.
Besides espresso drinks and drip coffee dubbed “elbow grease”, she serves toast and whole coconut. Seriously. Every cafe should offer toast, and yet they don’t. So don’t be dumb. Order the toast. She gets the bread from Just For You Cafe. The toast was perfect, and came with cinnamon and sugar on top even though I didn’t ask any, nor did I complain, because I got the last piece of toast that day, which I think was some sort of omen in my favor.
Order a coconut. She gets them from trees. But don’t just drink the juice with the straw, use the spoon that was given to you. Don’t waste the good stuff even if you have to work for it. I’m not being bossy here, it’s just my advice.
Are you like Charlie Brown and say, “blech!” to the idea of coconut? Okay, fine. But be honest here, have you ever tried a whole coconut? I’ve had coconut in things like cookies and candy bars, but it was the first time I’d ever walked in to a place and said in a clear voice, “May I please have a coconut”… and I’m here to tell you today you won’t regret the experience.
1 commentGhirardelli Past & Future
I was pretty excited by Eater SF’s ongoing commentary about the bright new future of Ghirardelli Square. Needless to say, the purported wi-fi here wasn’t very strong at all. And I was standing right in front of the sign.
I walked around it with my Mom, who remembers it “back in the day,” which could either be the 50s when her girlfriend Martha lived on Nob Hill, and she would take the cable car here to visit my mom and listen to beatniks play the guitar- that was a vivid memory- but otherwise, she kept saying it was “pretty much the same.” So what does rejuvenation mean?
As a neighbor, I’ve only been here a handful of times. The shops don’t appeal, but then again, I noticed Lola of North Beach, the best stationer’s store I’ve ever been to, now has a branch in the Square. Also, found Waterfront Bakery, my new favorite European cafe (note: technically Cannery not Ghirardelli). If there’s any discernible reason for the Russian Hillers to come down and enjoy Ghirardelli Square, and not just for oversweet ice cream (they do have Swenson’s) a gourmet grocery is it. There’s Safeway and Trader Joe’s nearby, but nothing like Bi-Rite in the Mission or Whole Foods Deli. The spread of Danko-ism is something exciting, and I’ll be sure to report back here if anything else pops up that’s neat & noteworthy.
Comments are off for this post
