1 post tagged “san francisco”

"You should see it," said the Asian-American guy with scruffy beard and windbreaker, on his cell phone to the missing three-quarters of his party. "It's a sea of hipsters in a dive Chinese restaurant." That serves well enough as a set description of Mission Street Food, currently in residence Thursday nights at Lung Shan (2234 Mission, near 18th). It's also a decent precis of the customers: hipsters protesting that they aren't. ("I'm not being ironic!" one of the women at my table kept insisting. Post-irony...that's so 2001. I mean it.)

 

Well, the good news is that the food isn't worried about being ironic or un-; it's well made but fun and fuss-free. Mission Street Food began life in October in a taco truck on Mission Street, where Bar Tartine line cook Anthony Myint served up PB&Js (pork belly and jicama sandwiches). After three Thursdays outdoors, he and his crew decided to move it inside. There have been just four nights at Lung Shan so far, but the concept seems to be on a roll.

 

I went to night #3 with guest chef Tia Harrison, executive chef of Sociale. The theme of the evening was "The Dirty South Cleans Up Pretty Good," and the menu was exactly that, southern food with an Asian twist. The PB&Js transformed to PBQs (a play on BBQ, I guess), Kurobuta Berkshire pork belly with potato salad, picked red cabbage, and a quince-onion sauce on flatbread ($6.50). One of the diners at the communal table where I was seated said that the PBQs were served fast, and indeed they did come out PDQ, hot, savory, slightly sweet, and of course full of fatty pork goodness. Perhaps it was the setting, but the thin, flaky flatbread reminded me of nothing so much as a green onion pancake, though overall the dish brought to mind David Chang's steamed pork belly buns with hoisin and cucumber at Momofuku Ssam Bar in New York. Which makes sense: Chang's a Korean-American who grew up in Virginia, and his menus mash up Asian and southern flavors. Chang's pork-belly buns are better--the PBQs were tasty but had one too many things going on; they'd be better with the potato salad on the side. (Apologies for the crappy photos, btw; I didn't want to blow my fellow diners' eye sockets with the flash. You can see better photos at Beer and Nosh.)

 

Next came the smoked duck beignet with sheep's milk cheese and cherry-shallot compote ($10), the dish whose listing on the Web site made me drag my carcass to the Mission. I mean, a donut stuffed with duck? You gotta try that. Actually, it was more like a fried wonton, and just as well, because the wrapper was thicker and didn't get soggy in the sauce as a true beignet would have. This, too, combined savory and sweet, with more of the latter than the PBQ, the cherries adding a lovely tart note to the smoked duck. It was rich enough that one was plenty. Probably.

 

I finished with the butter-fried cornbread with buttermilk panna cotta and a leaf of candied sage. Simple, down-home, no fuss, not too sweet, the kind of dessert you might expect from a non-pastry chef. My panna cotta wasn't properly gelled up, but I didn't mind--it tasted fine and, with the honey drizzled over the cornbread, rather reminded me of Greek yogurt. Besides, at $5 it was cheaper and yummier than many of the desserts I've had at established SF restaurants.

 

Other menu items included gulf prawns with grits, BBQ lamb shank (which my tablemates moaned over), creole catfish stew, dirty rice, and mustard greens. Though the menu was short, that's not a bad array considering, as the Web site tells guest chefs, that the restaurant has just four burners, two deep fryers, two woks, and an oven the size of a hotel pan. The ideal way to experience Mission Street Food, I think, would be to collect a few friends and order the whole menu, then get seconds on your favorites.

 

In keeping with the "dirty south" theme, the servers wore wifebeaters and trucker caps or do rags (conveniently, also a hipster uniform circa five years ago), and the beverages included 40s of Miller or Olde English for $5 (also available by the glass for a buck), as well as sweet tea spiked with soju (Korean grain liquor) for $2, surely the best cocktail bargain in the city. I had the sweet tea, but most tables seemed delighted by the 40 option. (Tablemate: "I'm contemplating another 40. [pause] That's what got me in trouble in Kansas City." Do tell.) Aside from the 40s, entertainment was provided by hiphop from someone's iPod.

 

Mission Street Food runs on Thursday nights from 6 p.m. to midnight, cash only. It doesn't take reservations, but the tables moved pretty quickly when I was there--I arrived around 7, had a seat within 15 minutes, and was out by 8. Check out the latest news, guest chefs, and menus at MSF's blog.