SFBG’s Diana Dunkelberger digs her fork into a deliciously local low-price menu every week …..
On this chic stretch of Polk Street, the ladies who lunch may prefer a smoked trout salad at La Boulange, but for those facing hard times there’s The Loving Cup, a newly opened, six-stool shop that offers, among other goodies, homemade rice pudding. Here, for just $2.75, you can buy a little cup of cool, creamy goodness. It’s true there’s something grandmotherly about food you can gum down without chewing. From what I hear, though, this tastes nothing like the jam-slathered rice pudding my grandma used to eat in old-time Vienna. With flavors like pistachio, Madagascar vanilla bean, cinnamon rum raisin, and chai, this is as cutting edge as pudding is going to get.
If rice-as-dessert isn’t your bag, this shop also offers first-class fro-yo, priced from $3.00 for a kid-size cup to $7.25 for a giraffe-size one. And for those who don’t suffer from primitive dental work or mislaid dentures, and have at long last graduated to solid foods, congratulations! You’ll probably want to celebrate by sampling their tender snickerdoodles ($1.25), organic blueberry breakfast bars ($2.50), and chocolate date bread pudding ($2.50), all made by Jessica Stokes, one of the Loving Cup baristas and a graduate of the California Culinary Academy to boot.