Dinner With Vida
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
El Norteno Taco Truck
One thing that I didn’t really make clear about Best and Fresh Market is that the people working there were working very hard. They may not really know what they are doing but they are serving a niche market of bargain hunters common to the neighborhood. I imagine that a lot of elderly people with a limited income are rummaging through the damaged fruit and coming up with the best of the worst—and picking up a carton of oatmeal and some soft rolls while they are at it. At least the place made an effort unlike the market Vic and I visited yesterday.
On the way to Vida’s soccer practice we passed by the Thursday night Off The Grid food truck conversion on Stanyan at Waller. For several weeks I had been promising that we could go get tacos for dinner but I never have any cash. After gathering Victor at preschool I was in search of a place where I could use my ATM card and get some more money. We stopped on Geary at 11th at a place that didn’t even seem to have a name. It just said Liquor Deli Grocery—two of which were over statements. They had a limited selection of “Liquor”. Some sad bottles of hard liquor were behind the shabby counter. Bottles of wine were spread a foot apart on the nearly empty shelves. I never will understand why people think spreading things out is the best way to display a limited amount of product. One compact and attractive display will always beat miles of shelves with practically nothing on them. They should just hang some curtains and pretend the rest of the store isn’t there.
As we walked in I asked what the minimum for the using a debit card was and whether I could get cash. The guy behind the counter said he didn’t work there but was just filling in and didn’t know the answer to either question but didn’t think he could give cash back. I was out of luck. There was an identity theft machine outside that said ATM but I didn’t feel like risking my unique set of personal identifiers to a possibly rogue cash dispenser. Looking around I was even more incredulous than usual about the amount of dust gathering on the few grocery items on the shelves—more foil than the entire neighborhood could go through in a year. The almost empty ice cream cooler had a few frozen pizzas and some Haagen Daz cups. Victor picked out a strawberry one. I picked up the ubiquitous Smart Food for Vida in case she was too hungry for words when I picked her up. There was a decent selection of beer and I chose a 22 oz. Alaskan IPA. I paid what I thought was way too much for our purchases and we walked outside where I promptly dropped and shattered my beer. I picked up the plastic bag now dripping and full of broken glass and turned around to see some pedestrians and an entire bus of Geary Street riders observing my bad fortune.
I was furious with myself. I tried to get over it as we made our way back to Rossi Park. Victor and I come to Rossi Park twice a week and inevitably one of those two days Victor needs to go to the bathroom just as we start having fun. The official park bathroom is locked at 5:30, before we even arrive and the pool is open so infrequently that I don’t think anybody ever swims there, let alone uses the bathroom. We have to get back in the car and drive back to work. In this case I still needed cash so it wasn’t all for naught. I walked in to one of the employees sitting down at the register and checking out his smart phone, which didn’t put me in any better of a mood. But we used the bathroom; I bought a replacement beer and got another five bucks cash to add to the ten I thought I had in my pocket. We had just enough time to play at the park before practice was over.
When we got to the food trucks I was excited to see so much variety, coffee, cupcakes, curry, Korean and Mexican food were among the choices. Vida knew what she wanted, carne asada taco with nothing else. She is a huge fan of El Tonayense, a taco truck we go to periodically on Folsom. We went up to El Norteno and ordered Vida two tacos and a quesadilla with beans for Victor. I consented to a couple of Mexican Cokes and the guy said it was $12 bucks. I looked in my pocket and found that that I only had two fives instead of the $15 dollars I though I had. He let me slide with just the $10 but then I started thinking that 12 bucks was a lot of money for two tiny tiny tacos and a just as tiny quesadilla. I guess they think they have a captive audience but if I had paid $12 for that amount of food I would have felt ripped off. My gratitude at his kindness was tempered slightly by the sense that I was overpaying in the first place. Because I didn’t have enough money to buy anything for myself I went back to my store to buy a couple of dry farm tomatoes and a red onion to add to the fresh cranberry beans I had cooked earlier. The kids were still hungry so I had to make them another quesadilla when we got home. I thoroughly enjoyed a bean salad and the ciabatta bread I bought on impulse at the store. We watched some Fireman Sam together and went to bed.
Vic’s Snack—Haagen Daz strawberry ice cream cup—Vida’s snack—Smart Food popcorn—Beer of the day Alaskan Amber IPA 22 oz.
Restaurant Total: 266
One thing that I didn’t really make clear about Best and Fresh Market is that the people working there were working very hard. They may not really know what they are doing but they are serving a niche market of bargain hunters common to the neighborhood. I imagine that a lot of elderly people with a limited income are rummaging through the damaged fruit and coming up with the best of the worst—and picking up a carton of oatmeal and some soft rolls while they are at it. At least the place made an effort unlike the market Vic and I visited yesterday.
On the way to Vida’s soccer practice we passed by the Thursday night Off The Grid food truck conversion on Stanyan at Waller. For several weeks I had been promising that we could go get tacos for dinner but I never have any cash. After gathering Victor at preschool I was in search of a place where I could use my ATM card and get some more money. We stopped on Geary at 11th at a place that didn’t even seem to have a name. It just said Liquor Deli Grocery—two of which were over statements. They had a limited selection of “Liquor”. Some sad bottles of hard liquor were behind the shabby counter. Bottles of wine were spread a foot apart on the nearly empty shelves. I never will understand why people think spreading things out is the best way to display a limited amount of product. One compact and attractive display will always beat miles of shelves with practically nothing on them. They should just hang some curtains and pretend the rest of the store isn’t there.
As we walked in I asked what the minimum for the using a debit card was and whether I could get cash. The guy behind the counter said he didn’t work there but was just filling in and didn’t know the answer to either question but didn’t think he could give cash back. I was out of luck. There was an identity theft machine outside that said ATM but I didn’t feel like risking my unique set of personal identifiers to a possibly rogue cash dispenser. Looking around I was even more incredulous than usual about the amount of dust gathering on the few grocery items on the shelves—more foil than the entire neighborhood could go through in a year. The almost empty ice cream cooler had a few frozen pizzas and some Haagen Daz cups. Victor picked out a strawberry one. I picked up the ubiquitous Smart Food for Vida in case she was too hungry for words when I picked her up. There was a decent selection of beer and I chose a 22 oz. Alaskan IPA. I paid what I thought was way too much for our purchases and we walked outside where I promptly dropped and shattered my beer. I picked up the plastic bag now dripping and full of broken glass and turned around to see some pedestrians and an entire bus of Geary Street riders observing my bad fortune.
I was furious with myself. I tried to get over it as we made our way back to Rossi Park. Victor and I come to Rossi Park twice a week and inevitably one of those two days Victor needs to go to the bathroom just as we start having fun. The official park bathroom is locked at 5:30, before we even arrive and the pool is open so infrequently that I don’t think anybody ever swims there, let alone uses the bathroom. We have to get back in the car and drive back to work. In this case I still needed cash so it wasn’t all for naught. I walked in to one of the employees sitting down at the register and checking out his smart phone, which didn’t put me in any better of a mood. But we used the bathroom; I bought a replacement beer and got another five bucks cash to add to the ten I thought I had in my pocket. We had just enough time to play at the park before practice was over.
When we got to the food trucks I was excited to see so much variety, coffee, cupcakes, curry, Korean and Mexican food were among the choices. Vida knew what she wanted, carne asada taco with nothing else. She is a huge fan of El Tonayense, a taco truck we go to periodically on Folsom. We went up to El Norteno and ordered Vida two tacos and a quesadilla with beans for Victor. I consented to a couple of Mexican Cokes and the guy said it was $12 bucks. I looked in my pocket and found that that I only had two fives instead of the $15 dollars I though I had. He let me slide with just the $10 but then I started thinking that 12 bucks was a lot of money for two tiny tiny tacos and a just as tiny quesadilla. I guess they think they have a captive audience but if I had paid $12 for that amount of food I would have felt ripped off. My gratitude at his kindness was tempered slightly by the sense that I was overpaying in the first place. Because I didn’t have enough money to buy anything for myself I went back to my store to buy a couple of dry farm tomatoes and a red onion to add to the fresh cranberry beans I had cooked earlier. The kids were still hungry so I had to make them another quesadilla when we got home. I thoroughly enjoyed a bean salad and the ciabatta bread I bought on impulse at the store. We watched some Fireman Sam together and went to bed.
Vic’s Snack—Haagen Daz strawberry ice cream cup—Vida’s snack—Smart Food popcorn—Beer of the day Alaskan Amber IPA 22 oz.
Restaurant Total: 266
Friday, October 01, 2010
Takara All Season Sushi
Soccer has proven to be the biggest parenting test I have had so far. When I happily encouraged Vida to play starting when she was three years old I never anticipated all that could come up around it. She wasn’t thrilled with it at first but a little crying and resistance in the tot soccer class didn’t really dampen my enthusiasm. A lot of times teams form from these early classes and take the kids up the ranks for several years. I didn’t know any kids with a team so in 1st grade signed her up with the JCC. She was so excited for the first practice with her team, the Blues, but had come down with the flu so we had to leave. When we returned she was just slightly less excited. There was so much she didn’t understand, the concept of practice for one. She loved the games but kept saying she didn’t have to go to practice because she already knew how to play soccer. The games were difficult to watch. She wasn’t the only one standing on the field twirling her hair but it didn’t inspire confidence in her future soccer possibilities.
I thought some of the kids on the Blues were mean and I didn’t like the snooty parents so we moved on to the Hurricanes with much nicer kids and parents from The Friends School. This was a great team and the coaches really connected with the kids. For some reason things started to click for Vida and she took off on the field becoming an amazing striker. She was suddenly thrilled with soccer when she realized she could score. The next year with coach Leah things didn’t start off well. We had the wrong location for the first game and the second game she was getting over the flu. She wasn’t seeing much playing time and was disappointed. I thought the coach didn’t have any confidence in her and being the over protective mom I let her know about it. Finally, during one great game Vida took off with the ball and scored in the last few seconds. The season had turned around and I could relax. The next season was the best yet for Vida as far as scoring goes but she still didn’t play as much as I thought she should. I didn’t know enough about soccer and because Vida was scoring a lot I thought that was all she needed to do. Her technique was to stand around and wait for the ball to come to her, turn and score.
Last winter during Futsal she was recruited for a new upper house team, the Lions. I was tortured trying whether to decide to take her off the Hurricanes in the recreational league and go to a more competitive league. The coach saw something in her but she proceeded to spend the rest of the indoor season making me question his judgment. She had a couple of good games where she was able to score but mostly wasn’t doing what he wanted and spending a lot of time on the sidelines. The spring was more of the same. She scored and did quite well a few of the games but she started taking a back seat to some of the other players.
This could be a classic situation of a parent reliving their lives through their kids except I really just wanted her outside getting exercise and have some fun. But now things are not so much fun. Vida just isn’t engaged and she is letting her teammates and opponents run circles around her. She has lost her way and no matter how many ways I try and talk about it—stern, sympathetic, rational, she resists any conversation. Last night she finally mentioned that she used to play hard and try to score and now she felt out of it but didn’t know why. We both ended up in tears trying to figure out how to talk and not talk about it at the same time. I guess this is going to be adolescence in a nutshell and I’m in training.
During Vida’s soccer practice on Tuesdays Victor has been going with B for a midweek play date. Vida and I are then free to go have dinner after practice. A few weeks ago we decided to try the new sushi place down the street from us, Takara, the former location of the beleaguered Mat Tante Sumi. They had a 15% off special that I was excited about taking advantage of. When we walked in we were unnaturally thrilled to see big T.V. screens turned to the baseball game. We could each see a different one from our seat, not to say that they really distracted us much from talking and having dinner. True to form Vida insisted on the same menu she always has when we go for sushi—avocado rolls, shrimp tempura and continuing her searching for the holy grail of hamachi kama. It never quite measures up to Ebisu standards because the sauces are always different and usually not as tasty. I tried to branch out a bit and ordered deep fried spicy tuna rolled in a shiso leaf. I also ordered a shrimp tempura roll. The waitress was helpful to the point of being overly ingratiating. She kept trying to point out other rolls that I might like and when I declined she kept hoping that I would try them “next visit”. It had been freezing at soccer so we drank lots of tea.
When we got home Vida switched on the T.V. to discover that Glee was on at 8 on Tuesday nights. She has been obsessively watching the first and some of the second season on DVD or the computer. She watches the episodes over and over is particularly enamored of the talented slightly villainous Rachel and her ode to Barbara Streisand persona and Sue, the character played by Jane Lynch . But there really isn’t anything she doesn’t like about it. After the travails of soccer it is a tonic to see her so excited about something.
Now that we know that Glee is on my efforts to go to dinner with Vida have been relegated to the chorus. Suddenly we are in a hurry to get home by eight when practice doesn’t end until seven. The week after going to Takara she was in a panic so I thought we would just go back to Takara and get a quick bite. Well, the folks at Takara had decided in the interim that Tuesdays would be a good day to take off. We were about to head home with no dinner when I remembered All Season Sushi down on Castro Street. There is no reason in hell that I would have chosen to go to what I think of as a sad sack Sushi place which takes a back seat to its more popular Chinese fast food cousin that shares its space. I have never seen anybody in this restaurant. When we walked in the smell of the Chinese food was almost overwhelming. I was certain I wouldn’t have any taste buds left when I actually got my food. Although there was, as I suspected, nobody else in the place there was an entire wall of pictures of customers. Maybe they took a picture each time they got a customer in order to make it look like they had lots of fans. But then again, the place has been there for years, so maybe they do have a following.
The guys who worked in the restaurant were very happy to see us, apparently, and very friendly. We were pleased to see complimentary miso soup arrive at our table. I was actually a little scared to eat anything there but I braved it and ordered a shrimp tempura roll. Vida ordered all of her usual items. We listened to the fairly loud dance music and happily ate our surprisingly decent food. Our server came over and gave Vida a Shirley Temple in a champagne glass which strangely had “Guadalupe 25th Anniversary” written on it. It made her night. We quickly chowed down and made it home in time to see Kurt belt John Mellencamp’s Pink House’s. But nothing compared to his rendition of “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy. Vida was very surprised that I knew the words. Parts of the famous anthem to motherhood never rang so true for me.
Mama's talkin' loud.
Mama's doin' fine.
Mama's gettin' hot.
Mama's goin' stong.
Mama's movin' on.
Mama's all alone.
Mama doesn't care.
Mama's lettin' loose.
Mama's got the stuff.
Mama's lettin' go.
Mama?
Mama's got the stuff.
Mama's gotta move.
Mama's gotta go.
Mama? Mama?
Mama's gotta let go.
I have years and years before the rest of the song comes true, as I am sure it will, when Vida hits her stride and finds the thing she truly loves.
Here she is, boys!
Here she is, world!
Here's Vida!
Restaurant Total: 275
I thought some of the kids on the Blues were mean and I didn’t like the snooty parents so we moved on to the Hurricanes with much nicer kids and parents from The Friends School. This was a great team and the coaches really connected with the kids. For some reason things started to click for Vida and she took off on the field becoming an amazing striker. She was suddenly thrilled with soccer when she realized she could score. The next year with coach Leah things didn’t start off well. We had the wrong location for the first game and the second game she was getting over the flu. She wasn’t seeing much playing time and was disappointed. I thought the coach didn’t have any confidence in her and being the over protective mom I let her know about it. Finally, during one great game Vida took off with the ball and scored in the last few seconds. The season had turned around and I could relax. The next season was the best yet for Vida as far as scoring goes but she still didn’t play as much as I thought she should. I didn’t know enough about soccer and because Vida was scoring a lot I thought that was all she needed to do. Her technique was to stand around and wait for the ball to come to her, turn and score.
Last winter during Futsal she was recruited for a new upper house team, the Lions. I was tortured trying whether to decide to take her off the Hurricanes in the recreational league and go to a more competitive league. The coach saw something in her but she proceeded to spend the rest of the indoor season making me question his judgment. She had a couple of good games where she was able to score but mostly wasn’t doing what he wanted and spending a lot of time on the sidelines. The spring was more of the same. She scored and did quite well a few of the games but she started taking a back seat to some of the other players.
This could be a classic situation of a parent reliving their lives through their kids except I really just wanted her outside getting exercise and have some fun. But now things are not so much fun. Vida just isn’t engaged and she is letting her teammates and opponents run circles around her. She has lost her way and no matter how many ways I try and talk about it—stern, sympathetic, rational, she resists any conversation. Last night she finally mentioned that she used to play hard and try to score and now she felt out of it but didn’t know why. We both ended up in tears trying to figure out how to talk and not talk about it at the same time. I guess this is going to be adolescence in a nutshell and I’m in training.
During Vida’s soccer practice on Tuesdays Victor has been going with B for a midweek play date. Vida and I are then free to go have dinner after practice. A few weeks ago we decided to try the new sushi place down the street from us, Takara, the former location of the beleaguered Mat Tante Sumi. They had a 15% off special that I was excited about taking advantage of. When we walked in we were unnaturally thrilled to see big T.V. screens turned to the baseball game. We could each see a different one from our seat, not to say that they really distracted us much from talking and having dinner. True to form Vida insisted on the same menu she always has when we go for sushi—avocado rolls, shrimp tempura and continuing her searching for the holy grail of hamachi kama. It never quite measures up to Ebisu standards because the sauces are always different and usually not as tasty. I tried to branch out a bit and ordered deep fried spicy tuna rolled in a shiso leaf. I also ordered a shrimp tempura roll. The waitress was helpful to the point of being overly ingratiating. She kept trying to point out other rolls that I might like and when I declined she kept hoping that I would try them “next visit”. It had been freezing at soccer so we drank lots of tea.
When we got home Vida switched on the T.V. to discover that Glee was on at 8 on Tuesday nights. She has been obsessively watching the first and some of the second season on DVD or the computer. She watches the episodes over and over is particularly enamored of the talented slightly villainous Rachel and her ode to Barbara Streisand persona and Sue, the character played by Jane Lynch . But there really isn’t anything she doesn’t like about it. After the travails of soccer it is a tonic to see her so excited about something.
Now that we know that Glee is on my efforts to go to dinner with Vida have been relegated to the chorus. Suddenly we are in a hurry to get home by eight when practice doesn’t end until seven. The week after going to Takara she was in a panic so I thought we would just go back to Takara and get a quick bite. Well, the folks at Takara had decided in the interim that Tuesdays would be a good day to take off. We were about to head home with no dinner when I remembered All Season Sushi down on Castro Street. There is no reason in hell that I would have chosen to go to what I think of as a sad sack Sushi place which takes a back seat to its more popular Chinese fast food cousin that shares its space. I have never seen anybody in this restaurant. When we walked in the smell of the Chinese food was almost overwhelming. I was certain I wouldn’t have any taste buds left when I actually got my food. Although there was, as I suspected, nobody else in the place there was an entire wall of pictures of customers. Maybe they took a picture each time they got a customer in order to make it look like they had lots of fans. But then again, the place has been there for years, so maybe they do have a following.
The guys who worked in the restaurant were very happy to see us, apparently, and very friendly. We were pleased to see complimentary miso soup arrive at our table. I was actually a little scared to eat anything there but I braved it and ordered a shrimp tempura roll. Vida ordered all of her usual items. We listened to the fairly loud dance music and happily ate our surprisingly decent food. Our server came over and gave Vida a Shirley Temple in a champagne glass which strangely had “Guadalupe 25th Anniversary” written on it. It made her night. We quickly chowed down and made it home in time to see Kurt belt John Mellencamp’s Pink House’s. But nothing compared to his rendition of “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy. Vida was very surprised that I knew the words. Parts of the famous anthem to motherhood never rang so true for me.
Mama's talkin' loud.
Mama's doin' fine.
Mama's gettin' hot.
Mama's goin' stong.
Mama's movin' on.
Mama's all alone.
Mama doesn't care.
Mama's lettin' loose.
Mama's got the stuff.
Mama's lettin' go.
Mama?
Mama's got the stuff.
Mama's gotta move.
Mama's gotta go.
Mama? Mama?
Mama's gotta let go.
I have years and years before the rest of the song comes true, as I am sure it will, when Vida hits her stride and finds the thing she truly loves.
Here she is, boys!
Here she is, world!
Here's Vida!
Restaurant Total: 275
