San Francisco Day 2

San Francisco Day 2

Ferry Building Farmer's Market
This was my third trip to SF, fourth if you count the time my parents decided to go on a family road trip from Vancouver to Anaheim, but that was a different kind of food trip involving meals of pepperoni and cheese sticks from gas stations. This time I didn’t want to miss the Saturday CUESA Farmer’s Market at the Ferry Building that Louise Hasson from Bon Vivant raves about. It rained on Friday and Sunday, but Saturday the sun was out as we walked around the stalls of fresh vegetables, dried fruit and artisan products to the beat of a marching band playing nearby. Just like yesterday, I was a kid in a candy shop again.

Virtually all the food stalls offered samples so we walked around tasting trail mixes, granola and dried fruit. We ended up buying a mixture of dried pluots and ranier cherries from Bella Viva Orchards and cranberry orange granola and raspberry granola from Galaxy Granola. Pluots are a hybrid between plums and apricots and Bella Viva had some plum colored pluots and some apricot colored pluots. I like prunes but don’t really like apricots (due to another another long road trip with my parents involving apricot picking) so I liked the plum colored pluots for their plum flavor more than the apricot ones since they tasted more like apricots to me. Is this a psychological association or was the taste difference real?

Hungry for lunch we walked into the Ferry building where the permanent shops are located. There are specialty shops in here selling caviar, cheeses, mushrooms, and Japanese deli items to name a few. While sampling olive oil a young women scurried by carrying one of those paper plates divided into sections with each section carrying something that instantly grabbed my attention, one looked like a braised meat and another looked like a baked mushroom with a bright green herbed sauce? I knew what I wanted to eat so I it was just a matter of my feet leading me to it. The food ended up being from Mistral Rotisserie Provencal and they’re a highly recommended stop for their value if you get to the Ferry building. They’re just a small takeout counter with glistening organic rotisserie chickens in the background and an impressive selection of pre-cooked items. KC and I both ordered the specialty lunch, one main item with 2 sides. Mine was 2 duck legs in a delicious fennel orange sauce, snails with gnocchi and cauliflower au gratin. Not your standard deli fare. KC ordered the beef stew with roasted potatoes and wild rice pilaf. Not bad for $30 including drinks and tax. So, why is it that I can be happy about a meal that isn’t quite perfect, the duck was a little overdone, but the sauce superb, the gnocchi and snails lackluster, but the cauliflower delicious, if the meal was inexpensive; yet be disappointed with the same at an upscale restaurant? It’s interesting to note how the same food can produce completely different reactions depending on the mindset we have going into the meal and how ambiance contributes to that.

O'Reilly's Oyster and Beer Festival
After lunch we met up with friends at O’Reilly’s Oyster and Beer Festival at Fort Mason. It was a great excuse to be outside to enjoy some sunshine and enjoy live Celtic bands, but what kind of oyster and beer festival offers one kind of oyster and one kind of beer?

Charanga
After reading Gastronomie’s description of Peruvian food in SF, I had to go and try for myself. KC’s friends said they knew of a good place and kindly whisked us off to Charanga. Charanga is actually Caribbean-Cuban, but the food was so good I can't say I minded. 2 of us shared a half pitcher of very gulpable sangria. Appetizers we shared were champignones al jerez (mushrooms sautéed with shallots, garlic and sherry) and asparagus in a balsamic dressing. I loved the simplicity of the flavors and how everything was done just right, the asparagus cooked, but still firm to the bite. I ordered the picadillo Cubano estilo Elena (ground beef cooked with a sofrito, olives and raisins) accompanied by black beans and two pieces of delicious candied fried ripe plantains. Just writing about it makes me want to go back again.