Baghdad By The Bay

Since I’ve been talking about burritos it seems only fitting to continue on with Mexican food for another day and I thought what better to talk about than a sorely missed restaurant in Mission La Rondalla and their specialty dish, Birria de Chivo.

For those who don’t speak Spanish, Birria de Chivo is goat stew [sometimes complete with goat head]. Me being allergic to lamb I decided it would be fitting for me to give it a go one day. I had never eaten goat before so this would be a new experience. I didn’t realize how popular a dish this was until the day after when I was talking with some of my Mexican friends at work who laughed at me for just ordering it and not adding in, lean and clean.

When my bowl arrived it had an over powering smell of well, goat. The other Hispanics at the restaurant looked at me with a bit of surprise. I guess they didn’t expect a white person to ever order it. On my first bite I tasted a bit of the peppers and well, goat. Everything about this dish was goat. I felt like I was in a barnyard, but it had a very hearty rustic feel down to the bones in the stew. The part that caught me off guard was the fat and gristle in the stew. After eating about half the dish and having the rest boxed up to take home and after talking to my friend José the next day I learned what lean and clean meant. No bones, no fat, no gristle. I never thought while eating this where do they buy goat meat in San Francisco? I’ve been to many of the Mexican carnecerias in the city and I’ve never seen Chivo in the meat cases. Sometimes it’s better not to ask questions.

Sadly, La Rondalla went out of business sometime ago and for that I’m sad because it was the first place after a long night out partying that I had my first vegetarian burrito thanks to the girl I was dating at the time. I don’t know of any other places in the city that sell Birria de Chivo, but at least I know that if I find one an order it again I’ll remember to add lean and clean to the order. I was glad I stepped a little outside my comfort zone for a day.

After posting Friday’s article I received some feedback that leads me to believe there is a burrito war brewing. The so called California Burrito which is indigenous to San Diego does not represent the California burrito in an way. The California burrito that San Diego lays claim to started around 1995 actually originating in Las Vegas before moving to San Diego. It generally consists of meat, guacamole or avocado, sour cream and french fries [the original Vegas version used tater tots].

If you look back farther as I mentioned in my Friday article the original burrito made in California for public consumption started life in 1961 at El Faro, but that was made with corn tortillas. The actually Mission style burrito using a flour tortilla originated in 1969 at La Cumbre and is representative of the size of your forearm or bigger things that we know as burritos today.

Prior to all of this the burrito originally got its start in Tuscon, Arizona in the 20′s from a man who carried his food on a donkey [el burro] because they resembled the rolled sacks that donkey’s carried on their sides he called them burritos [little donkeys]. There wasn’t much to them except a tortilla and some meat. Nothing like we expect to find today. Making it’s way farther West the immigrant farm workers in the central valley would pack there lunches in a similar way adding a few other things to the meat such as salsa, beans, rice maybe an avocado slice that they picked and pocketed.

As the farm workers moved north they hit the San Francisco Bay Area where many of them settled in the Mission district and never lost their love for the food that gave them energy when they were out in the fields. This is where the San Francisco or Mission style burrito originated. I do remember back in my youth in the 70′s that if you wanted real Mexican food you had to go to Mission District. The prepackaged burritos you would find at a 7-11 had chopped up beef [usually beef heart] and some beans. This was more like what you might find in Mexico than here in the Mission District.

Now here is where the war part comes in. I always knew growing up that SF had a rivalry with LA. Apparently now that all the party animals have left LA for Vegas San Diego wants in on the game. In doing some research over the weekend I found that San Diego claims to have the best burritos giving it the right to the name California Style burrito. Apparently no one informed us or any of the foodie people who write for magazines about this. As it turns out the french fries in a burrito isn’t a uniform thing in San Diego as well. There are several places in San Diego that serve California Style burritos, but not all of them. Some San Diegans moved up to our territory and opened Taqueria Los Coyotes which serves the California Style burrito. I wrote an article on them previously. For some reason people in San Diego are appalled at the size of our burritos which is odd because theirs are about the same size as ours. They also don’t seem to like all the crap we put in our burritos. I guess they never thought of asking to hold the rice, etc.

I will still stand by my statement that a California Style burrito refers to those made in San Francisco that are attempted to be copied around the world. On my one trip to Mexico they even had a taqueria offering California Style burritos that were made in the same way they were made in San Francisco, no french fries. If you go to any taqueria in California and order a burrito it’s more like what you find in San Francisco where it started. Perhaps I should just let the whole California Style thing go by the wayside because if you’re into burritos you know that San Francisco has the best.

Sorry I’ve been out of it this week, but I threw my back out and have been for the most part, well on my back with a heating pad to try and not act like a 70 year old man when I walk.

My wife pointed out a show in the IFC called Young, Broke and Beautiful that is done by a guy I have met and been featured on his website — Broke Ass Stuart. I met him at the SF Weekly Webby Awards because he is generally in San Francisco, or New York, but now with his show he travels around a lot. Not too bad for being a broke ass. Today’s subject though was a minor part of his show in San Diego where he made that comment, a California Burrito has to have french fries. [cue record scratch]. No that is not correct. A San Diego, CA Burrito may need french fries, but not a California burrito and I am going to go into the history of burritos in California because they’ve gotten a claim to fame in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In Mexico a burrito is usually only beans and meat wrapped in a flour tortilla. It’s a simple hand held meal that’s easy to deal with. Not a balanced meal for the most part, but it’s a meal. When California transferred it’s ownership from Spain to the United States things changed a bit. California is a very agricultural state and we have lots of other things that the Mexican’s who now where American’s could add to the simple burrito. Cheese, Guacamole [probably from the tree in So Cal that was the birth of the Haas avocado], salsa, rice sometimes lettuce [which should never really be put in a burrito]. California being the green state greened up the burrito and that then was referred to in Mexico as the California burrito. Never was there any mention of putting french fries in a burrito. I did write an article about a place in SF that was making what they called the California burrito with french fries, but they got the idea from San Diego. El Burrito Express makes a BajaCal burrito with fries and we know that Baja California is down south so that would make sense since it’s closer to San Diego. Here in San Francisco you can even find the occasional peas, carrots or corn added into your burrito, but I shudder to think of that and just stick with the beans, meat, cheese guacamole and sour cream [I don't like rice in my burritos].

If I further need to make my point the California burrito was invented in San Francisco in 1961 at El Faro and was first referred to as the Mission Style burrito and then the California burrito. The San Diego with french fries was first documented in 1995. San Francisco started the size of your calf style burrito as most of them before you could get one hand around with some extra room. It almost became comical when you could get a super burrito in some places that was bigger around than a kid’s thigh. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that San Francisco also came up with the Super Burrito as well.

Apparently the San Francisco Bay Area seems to also have the least expensive burritos in the world. Someone who’s name I couldn’t find who writes for SFGate.com seeks out burritos around the world and found awful burritos in Scotland at $15 each [does the burrito come with Haggis?] To the $10 tasteless burritos in Australia. I’m happy to say that I can get a regular cheese burrito for under $4 [when I'm in a broke kind of way] or with meat for under $5. If you like burritos, you need to come to San Francisco to try the best. Hell, you can even get vegan burritos here.

Shout out to Phil at @ebxsf!

While sourdough bread is thought to have originated in Ancient Egypt, it’s claim to fame has become it’s association with San Francisco gold miners [the other 49er's]. I think I was probably around 12 or so before I tasted a French bread that wasn’t made with sourdough. My family used it for everything.

Their brand of choice was the now defunct Larabaru bakery’s brand. The company is so defunct that you won’t even find their name turning up results in Google. I remember the first night I had French bread that wasn’t sourdough. It was at the SF Zoo on a member’s night back when non-profits really gave back to their members if only but once a year. They offered everyone who came chili with a french roll and butter. When I bit into the roll it didn’t have the sour taste and something changed in me. I realized how much I hated sourdough bread.

Yes, I have to admit that while be a born and raised San Franciscan who is living in the same house I grew up in, I hate sourdough bread. There are people who used to come to the  city just for the sourdough bread. They even had stands at the airport where you could buy it to take home with you. When there was any major event between competing cities the Mayor of San Francisco would always send sourdough bread and crab to competing city’s Mayor [ahem, not organic hot dogs, please take note Mayor Ed Lee].

Now for the few of you who don’t know what sourdough bread is, it’s basically bread made from old dough. In particular the dough has offered itself as a home for the bacteria Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. Yes, it may have started with the Egyptians, but when someone found out what was making it sour it was named after San Francisco. Thanks, I think.

In order to continue to make sourdough bread you have to keep a little bit of the raw dough behind to make your next batch. This mother as they call it is the starter that every bakery has their own version of which dates back to opening of the bakery. I won’t go into all the chemistry of this because it will bore you to tears, but if you really interested you can check it out on Wikipedia.

I do still eat it every once in awhile though and it makes a particularly good combination with San Francisco’s clam chowder from Boudin Bakery. I might add that it is the only bakery I will purchase sourdough bread from. They started in San Francisco in 1849 and are still here. That something to say about a San Francisco company that old.

Well, it’s the Christmas season and many years ago while attending the Dickens Faire in San Francisco we walked out and found a guy selling roasted chestnuts. This of course brought back to my mind the old song line Chestnuts roasting on an open fire… so I had to try some to see what they were about. I think we paid about $2 for  a newspaper wrapped cone of them. I was lucky enough to be able to try them again because some friends of mine dropped by last night and handed me a bag of them  That they had gotten from Skyline Chestnuts that they wanted to share with us.

Now I haven’t had a chance to roast these yet, but I have to say after looking at these nuts before they’re in the sellable form they’re pretty ugly. They look a bit like a hairy scrotum to be honest and to understand the reason why people would want to pop one of these in their mouth is kind of like my old question about broccoli, why would anyone be interested in eating something that smells like ass when it’s being cooked? Well chestnuts are different. After being roasted they have the consistency of a baked potato, but with a nutty and buttery flavor that rather interesting and no to shocking in taste. They don’t taste like ass one bit, but can actually be rather enjoyable.

I never had learned how to roast them as my family never got into them so I did some research and found that the trick is to first split them in a X shaped pattern prior to roasting them. Then pop them in an oven at about 425° for about 20 minutes turning them halfway. If you want them to have a more moist texture you should cut the X then soak them in water. Salted or not. I’m thinking salted water soak is the way I’ll go for these.

Christmas is one of those holidays that I don’t associate with Jesus being nailed to a pine tree. I just like the tree with the ornaments and lights and the warmth of your home in the winter cold that is hitting San Francisco this year. This time of the year is a time to celebrate the fact that we’ve made it through another year and hoping for ourselves and our friends that next year will be even better. If sticking a few hot salty nuts in my mouth helps bring this about, well then so be it.

Well, I was trying to be witty with the title, but sometimes I don’t quite hit it. This is about dealing with the leftover turkey after Thanksgiving. I did something this year that was always my mother’s job — ripping all the remaining meat off the carcass. This was always a job done by hand and it can get pretty ugly. My wife left the room because she did not want to witness me defiling the carcass.

There was grease all over me from the turkey fat if you saw me from behind there was meat flying off to one side and bones off to the other. It was a real mess getting the meat off the bones, but I did it in a timely fashion. We couldn’t store the carcass whole as it was too big for our refrigerator and well, bird carcass isn’t very visually pleasing to my wife. In the end I ended up with several pounds of meat so what did I do next? Well I waited a few days because other things came up, but yesterday I through the now finely shredded meat into a pot with a lovely mixture of celery, onions and carrots, i.e. the classic mire poix. To this I added three tablespoons of a spice mix called Pride of Prague which is a really good spice blend from Urban Accents. I let this all boil slowly for about an hour after adding some chicken stock and added some peas and corn in the last half hour. Now that I think about it, bacon should have been there somewhere.

In the end it tasted great and the soup/stew weighed in at a little over 10 pounds. Now my mom never really liked to eat dark meat when she could see it, just like I as a kid never liked to eat vegetables unless they were in a soup. She used to buy only a turkey breast for thanksgiving because she felt since she only like white meat that would waste the least amount of meat. That’s true, but it also cost her over $20. We decided to go cheap this year and got an 11 lb turkey for $5, yes, you read that right. Safeway was selling 8-12 lb turkeys for $5. If you purchased $25 in groceries.

We figured we could find something to do with the rest of the meat and when dark meat is finely chopped and boiled in chicken stock with some vegetables it’s pretty unrecognizable. So what did I learn from this? For under $10 we were able to get over a weeks worth of food. Top that one.

OK, OK, I know this is supposed to be about life in and around San Francisco and Dollar Tree is a national chain, but there’s also a Dollar Tree in Colma, home of the dead people where we sometimes shop because, well, everything is a dollar. About a month ago I saw a $1 3.5oz rib-eye steak and bought one. It took be a while letting it sit in its frozen state, but last night I actually threw it on the grill and here’s what I found out about it.

First, it’s salty. It’s what foodies would call wet aged since it’s packed in a hermetically sealed plastic with a meat tenderizer mix of salt, ficin [meat tenderizer derived from figs] and bromelin [meat tenderizer derived from papaya that's different than papin which also comes from papaya]. It was actually very tender after the five minutes it sat on the grill and only had a small area of gristly fat that had to be cut out.

3.5 oz is about the amount of protein that a person should have with each meal according to the medical community even though they also suggest 2 grams per kg of body weight so at 28.35 gms per oz I was a little under my daily intake per day. On first taste there was an obviously processed taste to it. I thought of what an army issued MRE steak would taste like. I’ve never had one, but this would probably come close to it. It was tender, very tender and compared to the top round steak I cooked with it, I actually like it better.

If you’re a person short on money, but love your meat I’d recommend you try it. It’s not anywhere near steak house quality and definitely not something you’d expect from the House of Prime Rib, but for people on a budget for a buck you could do a lot worse. Due to the high sodium content I’d suggest you have a baked potato with it or a salad with avocado so that you get more potassium to flush the excess sodium out. I think we’ll be picking up a few more of those steaks next time we travel down to the land of the dead just because they’re cheap and we can’t at the moment afford Snake River Kobe-styled beef. The $1 rib-eye’s don’t look pretty, but when you toss them on a grill for a couple minutes they’re pretty tasty.