Dinner With Vida
Burgermeister
Trying new hamburger joints isn’t quite as risky as it used to be. So many places use Niman Ranch meat that I’ve come to expect it. Given the choice between Barney’s on 24th Street and Burger Joint I would choose the latter since I feel more confident that I won’t be eating meat that could have been sent either to Barney’s or McDonalds. It’s not that a Barney’s hamburger isn’t delicious--particularly when accompanied by their onion rings—but as the success of Niman Ranch shows, making choices about where your food comes from can make difference. I feel better about giving Vida meat from animals treated humanely and not treated with hormones or antibiotics. She has never experienced McDonalds and, as long as I can help it, never will.
When I noticed that Burgermeister had opened a location on Church Street near Market and used Niman Ranch meat I couldn’t wait to try it. I had heard great things about their Cole Valley location but couldn’t bring myself to try and find parking there. It looked like parking was going to be an issue near Church Street as well. As we repeatedly circled the restaurant Vida kept yelling, “I can’t walk, I can’t walk”. I got lucky and after we parked only had to listen to Vida yell “I can’t walk” for about a block.
When I was growing up in Seattle one of our favorite hamburger restaurants was Burgermaster. Is Burgermaster/Burgermeister simply a pun on “Burghermaster”? The “mayor” of burgers? O.K. whatever
Burgermeister is just as slick and organized as Burger Joint but the environment is a bit warmer—or maybe it’s just that you can buy beer there. They also had a serve yourself soda machine which occupied us for a few minutes while waiting impatiently for our dinner. Vida has caught on to the fact that if you don’t put ice in your drink you get more to drink—mostly because your mother won’t want to sip on lukewarm soda. I tried to fight it but the “no ice no ice no ice” chant was getting me down.
I probably should be worrying less about the hamburger, since Vida rarely wants one, and more about the hotdogs. Of course nobody really wants to think about hotdogs very much since it would make eating them impossible. The hot dogs at Burgermeister are split and grilled and I was a bit concerned that Vida would reject it. She was too hungry to care and after dousing it in enough ketchup to cover the dog and her lap she dug in. I had my usual bacon cheeseburger. The service was much friendlier than Burger Joint and the food comparable if not better. Vida ate some hot dog and wanted the rest “to go”. We packed up and had almost walked out the door when she asked for her hotdog. She ate the rest as I wrestled her down Church Street and to the car.
Restaurant Total: 97
Big Mouth Burgers La Corneta World Sausage
My acupuncturist recently told me that I should eat more red meat. My pulse is lackluster and she is convinced that a vegetarian diet can’t provide what we need to keep vital energies flowing in our bodies. I question the rationale—I just like the relaxing qualities of acupuncture—but embrace the practice. Permission granted I immediately took Vida to Big Mouth Burgers for some health food. They aren’t kidding there, the burgers are huge—comparable to Joe’s Cable Car—the bacon and cheese didn’t hurt either. The fries are adequate but nothing to write home about. They have a children’s menu and Vida broke out of her hot dog routine and ordered a burger as well. I think she likes the idea of getting a burger but she never eats them. The atmosphere at Big Mouth doesn’t contribute to the experience much. It has the air of an almost successful restaurant—and the less than steady stream of other customers seemed to confirm its marginality.
Two nights ago when I was picking Vida up from school we ran into G’s parents M and R along with J’s mother C. M and R invited us all out to M’s favorite haunt, Dylan’s on Folsom and 19th, for a pre-weekend beer. Many years ago when I was drinking at Mad Dog in the Fog I was shocked at how many people, mostly Irish, had their children with them. You could smoke in bars then and although I was disapproving of exposing children to the smoke I liked the idea of children hanging out with their parents and friends instead of being hidden away with a babysitter. Practically speaking who can afford a babysitter anyway. It was a dream come true to sit Dylan’s and have a beer while Vida and G ran around singing “It’s a hard knock life” and doing some of the Mexican folk dances they have been learning at school. The bartender was a character. Every time one of the children screamed she would get fake stern and threaten not to give them any more salt and vinegar potato chips or “pink water” if they didn’t keep it down.
After Dylan’s we were invited to go to dinner at La Corneta on Mission Street. Still slightly inebriated I stared blankly at the menu posted on the wall before ordering a combo plate of chicken, carne asada, and shrimp. I was high on chaos—we ran into some other acquaintances with their daughter—and I was frantically trying to order and have a conversation at the same time. Although M remarked that my order would allow enough for lunch the next day I didn’t have any problem polishing it off. Vida helped out with the chicken but then after patiently chewing the beef for a while spit it back out onto her plate. She ate her rice and beans and then stood by waiting for G to do her part before they could eat churros. My food was delicious but I felt foiled by the plastic fork. They cooked whole pieces of the meat to order rather than piling chopped up burrito filling onto the rice and beans. It was delicious but difficult to cut.
As we left the restaurant Vida and G took off as fast as they could down Mission Street. Some of my most dreaded moments as a parent involve this kind of random flight, especially when Vida goes around a corner. It usually only happens when she is too hyped up and exhausted to remember that this makes me crazy. I chased and corralled them until G’s parents could claim her. I hate to build fear into Vida’s cozy world but she has to know that I am really afraid of someone snatching her.
When I got home that night I resolved to lay off the beer for a while—you would think I had been drinking a sixer every night—but sometimes even small amounts of alcohol make me feel like a boozer.
Yesterday Vida had the day off from school and I volunteered to take G as well so her parents could work. If I ever think about entering childcare as a profession it just takes a day with more than one kid to make me shiver at the possibility. We had a great day—they played well together with little arguing or crying and no violence except for the friendly headlock I found G in periodically when things got a little rough. I did have to listen to a lot of “Sara, Vida, blah blah blah and she won’t blah blah blah” and “Mom, G blah blah blahed first” etc. but usually the conflicts just required a raised eye brow or two to be resolved.
We went to visit A at Peet’s coffee and have hot chocolate. They immediately tripped into what I call the “birthday party syndrome” when enough sugar causes kids to act like they had a few two many cocktails and are on the hunt for a lampshade. Luckily they didn’t break anything as they attempted to play hide and seek around the merchandising fixtures. I tried to get them to eat bagels for lunch but it was too late to counteract the effect of the chocolate. We then went to Moscone Park so they could burn it off. Making cookies later in the afternoon didn’t add much nutritionally to the day but they had a good time.
In the late afternoon I made a valiant effort to start a soup that Vida and I could have for dinner thinking that G would be picked up soon. As it turned out I had to bring her to C at Dolores Park and the dinner hour was quickly passed us by. Vida was about to crash out from exhaustion and I was determined to feed her something besides sugar. I had a new sausage place in mind, World Sausage, which had taken up residence at the former Café Cuvee. I had dinner at Café Cuvee once and ordered a stuffed acorn squash that was barely cooked, so its eventual demise wasn’t a surprise to me. Vida brought her slippers to wear in the car and then wouldn’t take them off to go to the restaurant so I carried her the couple of blocks to the restaurant. World Sausage is very much like Rosemunde Sausage Grill on Haight. They have trays of sausage unattractively displayed in a glass case along with sodas and a couple varieties of side salads in plastic containers.
The décor is simple and bright and the service extremely friendly. Vida took to the place like a hot dog to a bun. She sat sipping an organic soda and waited for her all beef sausage to arrive. I drank a beer with my resolution lost to fabulousness of the moment and gobbled down my Polish sausage wishing they had French fries instead of potato chips. Vida ate her sausage once it cooled standing up and wandering about in her slippers. She came back for a sip of soda commenting, “there’s lots of room here” before taking off again. She hung out by the sausage case and carefully screened the customers as they approached the counter to order. One guy in a UPS jacket had the right idea as far as I was concerned ordering two sausages at a time. Another guy ordered half of a 1.25 pickle. Vida didn’t want to leave even after she finished off the bag of chips. That half of a pickle was bothering me so I offered to buy it but “Risa” gave it to us on the house and Vida ate it while we wandered back to the car. It’s not the green vegetable I think Vida really needed but it would have to do. World Sausage was such a friendly place that I wished we could make it our neighborhood haunt but we have other places to go and people to meet.
Restaurant Total: 106
Royal Thai Na'an and Curry Papalote Ramblas
Over the past couple of months I have been spending quite a bit of time eating dinner without Vida and not writing a word about it. Revisiting dinner out as an adult without Vida is satisfying for simple and obvious reasons. I’m not embarrassed by her antics, indigestion isn’t a constant threat and I can appreciate nice places with trendy, architectural food like Tangerine on 16th and Sanchez without worrying whether its kid friendly. I can eat at Na’an and Curry where there are no dishes that aren’t somewhat spicy and have a conversation not constantly interrupted by the refrain of “I want to go home now”. This was our experience at the burrito place Papalote, on Valencia and 24th where as soon as the guacamole was gone Vida wanted to scurry out the door.
Not that it’s easy to leave Vida at home. The other evening while enjoying a relaxing Brazilian drink with cane liquor and lime along with snacks at the tapas restaurant Ramblas on Valencia I obsessively checked my watch for the babysitting bewitching hour. I miss her even when I’m eating at places that would be entirely inappropriate to bring her. Mediocre meals without Vida just aren’t the same. Eating at the non-descript Thai restaurant Royal Thai on Clement a few weeks ago I found myself thinking that I wouldn’t mind the mediocre food as much if Vida were next to me sipping on a soda.
My adventuresome spirit has been tried lately. Worn out, frazzled and forty. I don’t feel my age that often but I have more recently. I’ve been finding myself wanting to eat at comfortable stand-bys and not risk a bad meal or desperate cash-only situations. But it was at one of these favorite restaurants, Suppenkuche, where I felt re-kindled to the possibilities of Dinner with Vida.
My mother was visiting and since she was watching Vida while I was at work, napping was not high on their list of priorities. We had a craving for Suppenkuche’s beer, potato pancakes and delicious braised or fried meat and a frantic almost four year old wasn’t going to stop us. The first step was getting her into something besides shorts. After a struggle we got her to wear a pair of lime green flower Capri pants that are so small that they could be shorts if you squinted. Since she compromised on the pants, we gave in on the underwear—there wasn’t going to be any. Things went fairly well at the restaurant because Vida fell asleep and stayed asleep long enough for us to enjoy some beer and appetizers. She woke just in time for the Weiner schnitzel. She ate and behaved herself fairly well until towards the end when, impatient for us to finish, she stood up and mooned the restaurant. She pulled her pants, sans underwear, down and did a little wiggle before I could wrestle her down. It was completely mortifying and hilarious at the same time—if I wasn’t worried about what the restaurant full of people thought of my parenting skills I would have been laughing hysterically.
I had been starting to feel bogged down by blogging and this spontaneous act re-invigorated my documentary urge. I was reminded of the fact that Dinner with Vida reflects at heart my desire to give to Vida a record of her childhood in all its glory.
Restaurant Total: 131
