I'll Take It To Go
Almost an entire year has gone by with out a single Dinner with Vida post. We really are living La Vida Loca so that’s not really hard to be believed. Restaurants I noted that we went to I barely remember visiting. There is a common theme among them though---they are all take out places. Victor is not yet restaurant friendly. We made a special project out of getting delicious take out sushi from Yum Yum Fish out in the avenues after Hebrew school one evening. We pigged out at the Bi-Rite deli one evening on sandwiches and tri-tip. I remember an emergency burger run to Johnny’s Burgers on Irving Street and an emergency dim sum/chicken wing run to Sun Maxim Bakery. Things haven’t changed much except most of the time the food doesn’t even make it home—eating in the car on the way to soccer practice or tennis lessons is our new specialty. Vida’s new favorite is Askew Grill in Laurel Village. She loves the mashed potatoes. I had a couple of five dollar gift cards for a new-ish fancy take out place, Beautiful, that we have used to buy Cornish game hens and roast chicken but the place is not a keeper due to its inferior mashed potatoes. In between the endless burritos at the usual spots we tried the Indian “burrito” place Kasa on 18th street. It seems to be thriving in the spot where La Castro and El Castillito did not. I thought it was darn good but it’s a definite no go for the kiddies. I’ve got to get them to like Indian food . . .
Below is what I wrote so so long ago . . . I remarked that Vida was almost 8 and Victor almost 1 and now they are so 9 and 2.
I have a list of restaurants that we visited but that I haven’t yet written about. While pondering the list I couldn’t for the life of me remember when we had gone to Pizza Hut. I decided to ask Vida. She reminded me that it had to do with a gift card we had gotten from Rara. Some time last year or maybe even the year before Rara needed a ride out to her dad’s house to feed his cat while he was on vacation. Her dad and his wife live out in the wind belt off of Monterey—not a fun area to make your way to by foot or public transportation so I helped her out that week whenever I could. Her dad often left her money in exchange for feeding the cat and she wasn’t always comfortable taking the money just for doing him the favor. He started to leave more tangible gifts instead, including the Pizza Hut gift card. We both got a good laugh when we saw the card since it wasn’t a place she would go to in a million years. I wouldn’t typically go there either but 50 bucks in pizza wasn’t only something to laugh at. I wanted the card, badly, but she felt she should at least offer it to her girlfriend who was also doing a bit of schlepping for the cats. Every once in a while I would ask her about the card and we would laugh and I would say, ha ha, if you aren’t going to use it I would. It was up on her fridge for months and months until one day I mentioned it and she said the card had somehow disappeared. The joke wasn’t even old to me months later when she finally found it and gave it to me as a gift. I was determined to search out one of the banes of suburban existence in cosmopolitan San Francisco and eat a lot of pizza some day.
One weekend we made plans to go to the beach with one of Vida’s school friends. I had a feeling the girls would want to continue the play date into the dinner hour and since they had made us dinner a couple of times I wanted to reciprocate. I mentioned the gift card and they were perfectly happy to indulge in some junky pizza with us. I did some research and found there was a Pizza Hut in a mall fairly near their Park Merced apartment. We got there to find that it wasn’t actually a restaurant but a take out only kind of pizza place. The 50 bucks was going to go even further if sit down service wasn’t an option. We ordered two large pizzas with an array of toppings and still had money left over. We looked in vain for some kind of salad or any healthy vegetable option—and ended up with some wings instead. Who decided that wings go with pizza I wondered as I perused the many wing flavors they offered—when we got to their house P felt compelled to make some broccoli. We thoroughly enjoyed our pizza and the play date. Vida and M finished the evening by serenading us with some songs and dance routines from High School Musical.
A few months ago I wrote, “It’s hard to believe that Vida is turning 8 and Victor is turning 1 in a couple of weeks. . .” Flash forward 3 months and I haven’t written a thing since. I can’t even remember what I was going to say. (Not surprising since my brain is pretty much mush anyway.) But in the months before then when Victor was still tiny and manageable we went out for dinner a couple of times with B and R. It was like we were still celebrating the amazing fact of two fantastic children. We first went to Maverick. Driving by Maverick (the former location of Peruvian Limon which has since moved to Valencia Street) it just looked like a restaurant I would like—small cozy with lots of dark wood. Not knowing anything about it I suggested it to B who was looking for a restaurant to go to for his birthday last year. I guess I have good instincts since he had an amazing time. It is owned by the brother of a player on the Boston Red Sox--- an extra attraction for B. Vida of course didn’t really want to go out for dinner that night so we enticed her with the fact that they featured steak. When we got there and realized that there was no steak on the menu we were very nervous that the meal would be a bust. They gave us tiny little cups of cold tomato soup perking Vida right up as she downed all of them. I ordered short ribs—the closest thing to steak on the menu. Vida conceded that it was delicious but it wasn’t a rib-eye . . .so she did a lot of wandering the restaurant. Victor amused himself with a small orange plastic crab in his little high chair—the first time let him sit by himself.
Several weeks later we went to Farina on 18th Street across from the Women’s Building. The amazing transformation from Anna’s Cookies to this fabulously designed Italian restaurant was part of my daily drive for many months. It was a beautiful evening and we took turns walking outside with Vida. The food was very good but not terribly memorable if you compare it to a place like Delfina. As I looked on the menu I didn’t see any farina and I mentioned it aloud—the fact of it has remained interesting to Vida. When we drive by she often mentions it. I remember some delicious foccacia with proscuitto, a tasty order of burrato and a good but not terribly creative salad. We ordered Vida a steak of her own to make up for Maverick. It came with some challenging blue cheese concoction on the menu but they were nice about making it plain with just salt and pepper. Some potatoes ordered off another part of the menu rounded out the order. We had a fresh pasta dish but I don’t remember too much about it. I guess the food wasn’t that memorable. On one of our walks Vida and I went upstairs to the bathroom and found a roof top garden. That was definitely the highlight for Vida. I would go back but not if I was paying.
Victor hasn’t been as cooperative in restaurants as he was when he was tiny. Since he learned to walk he has no patience for sitting in a high chair no matter what kind of food we give him. We have learned the hard way that if you don’t walk him around he lets out with a high pitched screech that is guaranteed to clear a restaurant—but not before everyone gives me that “you are the worst mother in the world” look. I don’t know why there isn’t more sympathy out there in the world for screaming babies—it’s as if as soon as your own child can talk you forget that they knew how to scream.
So take-out has been the option of choice recently. Earlier in the summer we got together with Vida’s friend P and her mom B. We went over to their house so the kids could play and B and I could drink wine quickly. Their favorite take out pizza was from Pizza Orgasmica. I think the name of the place is creepy especially since their tag line is “we never fake it”.
And that's it, I'm more or less caught up and now maybe I won't have to fake it either. I think Victor can almost be taken out again so hopefully I will actually have some restaurants to write about for real.
Restaurant Total: 256
