Style

Tears, cheers, and bubbly for Obama … and Sheehan?

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By Molly Freedenberg

There’s no sign at Inner Mission Tavern that this is a Cindy Sheehan party, but it’s most certainly one for Obama. When Virginia was announced for the Democratic nominee, the bar erupted in cheers – a sound dwarfed only by the joyous explosion when CNN predicted him the winner of the 2008 presidential election several minutes later. The night’s two bartenders (also the owners), both in Obama T-shirts, popped bottles of champagne for those lucky enough to be seated at the bar in the packed-beyond-belief room. The cheers, congratulations, and happy hugs stopped for Senator McCain’s speech, which was met first with a combination of boos and cheers, and then with appreciation for his surprisingly gracious concession speech. “This is my favorite McCain speech,” said one party attendee. As everyone waited for President-elect Obama to appear on CNN, the bar had to ask for patrons to pass their empty glasses to the front, as they’d run out of everything. “Obama’s so awesome he sold the bar out of beer!” someone exclaimed. And then Obama took the (TV) stage. Everyone in the room listened attentively. Some shed tears. Some of the biggest responses were to Obama’s acknowledgement of the millenial generation’s refusal to accept their reputation for apathy, and Obama’s mention that this is also a victory for those who are gay. Then, just like the live audience in Chicago, bar patrons chanted “Yes We Can” along with Obama’s pulpit-style closig. With the speech over and the bar starting to empty, there’s still no mention of Sheehan (nor any results available). But somehow, I imagine no matter the results of local elections tonight, most of these people will go home happy.

No-brainer

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW The title of David Szlasa’s peculiar, compact, and appealing new work suggests one ready avenue of flight from a world gone mad, but in fact fantasies of escape take more than one form in My Hot Lobotomy, now up at CounterPULSE. And while escapism is exactly what the piece concerns itself with, the import is anything but apathetic or disengaged. A cheerfully quirky, Beckett-like duet wrapped in luxurious silences, snatches of recorded dialogue, short blasts of song and free-style dance, and a dreamy videoscape of environmental disintegration, My Hot Lobotomy is full of restive thought.

Like Szlasa’s installation-performance work on the atomic bomb, 2004’s GADGET, My Hot Lobotomy pokes at that psychic terrain joining the human capacity for denial with man-made catastrophe. In this case, the catastrophe is the rapid warming of the planet, which remains stubbornly just beyond the necessary concerted and rational response. But Lobotomy‘s approach is both more traditional and more oblique than the environmental strategy employed in GADGET, which had audiences wandering around a noisy club-like atmosphere enveloped by video projections and spotted with localized audio segments.

Quietly trained on the internal and external minutiae of its main character — a mute and semi-vegetative post-op named Joey (Erin Mei-Ling Stuart) — the play never feels crudely weighty or political, let alone like a piece of agitprop. Instead, it unfolds like a loopy, semi-looping trance, a restless and sardonic ditty, or a closet poem stashed away in Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Lobotomy‘s low-key faux naiveté bristling with caged energies and subversive instincts — much as Joey’s shiny turquoise sneaks, popping out from under a bland ensemble of sports coat and chinos, hints at dormant life beneath a numbed surface.

The play acts to slow us down almost immediately — almost as much as Joey, who does nothing for the first several minutes but stare back at us blankly from a chair in the center of the stage. This mirror effect, uncomfortably amusing, grows in significance when we learn that Joey — in shades of the Ramones — has given himself a homemade lobotomy. Well, you might ask, who hasn’t? Szlasa gives us plenty of space to ponder the question, gradually unfolding the method and motive behind Joey’s condition as we share in the meditative, vaguely bemused mood he projects.

It’s a knock at the door that disturbs this waking slumber. A guy (Spencer Evans) enters delivering a pizza, a slice of which Joey chews with silent satisfaction. The man then returns with a boombox and a cassette tape, careful to demonstrate to Joey how they go together. On the tape, Joey speaks to himself with prerecorded words of instruction, clarification, and encouragement. The delivery guy, we learn, has been paid in advance to bring all Joey will need in his new, streamlined life. Returning to the stage with a guitar, he also delivers something to the audience, at odd moments and even odd angles: a series of witty songs — variously contributed by Carrie Baum, Cody James Bentley, Sean Hayes, and Joshua Lowe — telling the story of Joey in terms that slyly critique what they describe.

The limited world Joey has structured for his new self — with its prerecorded, too certain insistence that everything is "gonna be really, really great" — eventually unravels among a clutter of pizza boxes and, more alarmingly, a series of fraught dreams, as the unstructured world outside, which appears as a video montage of global warming over a gentle cloudscape at the back of the stage, slips in with growing insistence. The increasing dissonance provokes another transformation in Joey, and another attempt to scurry for cover. It’s a rush of new life whose meaning may be ambiguous, but hardly empty-headed.

MY HOT LOBOTOMY

Through Nov. 2

Thurs.–Sat. and Nov. 2, 8 p.m., $25

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

1-800-838-3006

Bump(s) in the night

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

In the new animated horror film Fear(s) of the Dark, artistic director Etienne Robial convened some of the most influential graphic artists of the modern era and dared them to respond to a simple question: "What scares you?" Working under minimum guidelines of time limit and color (monochrome was required), the selected comic and graphic novel artisans — including cartoonist Charles Burns, The New Yorker illustrator Blutch, British designer Richard McGuire, and others — produced highly personal vignettes that were woven into a Sigmund Freud-meets-William Gaines omnibus. But as with 2006’s celebrity smorgasbord Paris, je t’aime, the ambitious conceit of Robial’s film exceeds the individual contributions, which often drift into misguided forms of pop-psychology and self-conscious pleonasm. Never more terrifying than The Interpretation of Dreams, and never more enlightening than Tales from the Crypt, Fear(s) of the Dark is nonetheless an interesting exercise in atmosphere.

Structured as a frame story of sorts, the film begins with a pack of four voracious hounds, tethered to a sadist, who set out across the countryside in search of blood. Positioned along the backdrop of this chase are four vignettes of horror that center on popular phobias. The opener, created by Charles Burns, follows a social outcast whose childhood fascination with entomology comes to haunt him as a young man. When maladjusted student Eric finally meets the girl of his dreams, Laura, the creepy twitch of insects from his bed threatens to wreck his chances. Burns’ beautiful comic-book drawing style, a black and white relative to Lichtenstein’s panochrome creations, perfectly captures the frenzy of young lovers destined for doom.

The second tale, by far the most underdeveloped and least satisfying, centers on a young Japanese girl possessed by an Edo samurai. Drawn in the fast-paced anime style, Marie Caillou and Romain Slocombe’s use of proleptic slippages — although common in the anime genre — are often more confusing than frightening and gives the sequence the overall sense of an abridged sketch. In contrast, Lorenzo Mattotti’s contribution is much more mysterious and subtle in tonality, using a less op-art form of shading and pencil strokes. His story focuses on a young boy whose town is terrorized by a nocturnal beast, a literal bête noire. When a school chum claims to know the monster’s location, he suddenly disappears and the boy joins a search party to slay whoever or whatever is responsible.

The fourth vignette, contributed by Richard McGuire, deserves special attention for its innovative use of silence and darkness to instill a particularly effective kind of horror. A man stranded in the middle of a blizzard forces himself into a darkened house for shelter and finds a mysterious presence waiting for him. Forgoing the loquacious first person device used in other chapters of the film, McGuire explores the muted setting of the house itself, which may or may not have its own sinister character. The genius of McGuire’s piece rests in its celebration of the virtual and inanimate through mere suggestion — the creaking of the stairwell, the slamming of a door, the momentary pall of a silhouette. Inspired by the likes of James Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932) and Roman Polanksi’s The Tenant (1976), McGuire seems keenly aware that the trope of the haunted house is as indebted to the semiotics of the domestic as it is to the novelty of the transmundane.

As the highlight of Fear(s) of the Dark, this final vignette actually challenges many of the oedipal motifs that imbue the bulk of the film. The recurring use of first person confessional lends the vignettes in question a trademark French patina of Godardian psychoanalysis à la King Lear without any real artistic consequence. In other words, Fear(s)‘s theoretical misstep lies in its linking phobia with strategies of therapy — declaration, repentance, and ultimately, resolution — the hallmarks of the "healthy" adult, not the fantasizing child. Its redeeming beauty only arises when the collection of haunted scenarios aims for the viewer’s callow spine rather than his existential brain.

Fear(s) of the Dark opens Fri/31 in Bay Area theaters.

The booness

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Happy Slutoween, librul terrorists. Now that the Castro Street celebration has been officially buried, there’ll be more terrific parties than tired Sarah Palin costumes haunting Halloween night. Below are 13 batshit surefires, all taking place Oct. 31, night of the living-undead pro-life governor of Alaska. Trick or trick!

ALL HALLOW’S EVE


Goth equals deathly perfect — insert exhausted "every day is Halloween" joke here — as 18-plus clubs Death Guild and Meat team up to paint it black with DJs Decay and Melting Girl and "techno opera singer" Diva Marisa.

9 p.m., $13. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. (415) 626-1409, www.dnalounge.com

BITTEN


A French bordello Halloween masquerade ball seems right up any horny black cat’s alley — especially with an acrobatic performance by the ever-sexy Vau de Vire Society and lofty tunes by DJ Ean Golden.

10 p.m., free with costume. Harlot, 46 Minna, SF. (415) 777-1077, www.harlotsf.com

BLOOD PACT


An 18-and-up, gayish underground "dark places" extravaganza with vampiric DJ vamps Honey Soundsystem, Rchrd Oh?!, and Lord Kook, and promoters Homochic and Tantra, plus a slashing guest spot by Los Angeles’ A Club Called Rhonda.

10 p.m., $15. SomArts, 934 Brannan, SF. (415) 552-2131, www.homochic.com

BLOW UP HALLOWEEN


Those gorgeous 18-plus electro hipsters will never settle for anything less than horrifyingly bangin’ style — with terrific, terrifying rap trio HOTTUB, and evil genius DJs Richie Panic and Jeffrey Paradise.

10 p.m., $15. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011, www.myspace.com/blow_up_415

CHARLIE HORSE HALLOWEEN THING


Two whole hours of the trashiest drag performances the nether regions of Polk Street have to offer? Sounds heart-stopping, but hostess Anna Conda will pump you back up with the cheapest drinks — and "outfits" — in town.

10 p.m., free. The Cinch, 1723 Polk, SF. (415) 776-4162, www.myspace.com/charliehorsecinch

COOKIE’S HAUNTED HALLOWEEN


Ecstatically kooky drag princess Cookie Dough hosts a night of haunted whores, with ghoulish electro-goth duo Ejector live, DJ MC2, alarming numbers by Landa Lakes, Glitterella, and more.

8 p.m., $8. Octavia Lounge, 1772 Market, SF. (415) 863-3516, www.cookievision.com

HALLOWEEN: A PARTY


This one’ll be pure crazyboots, as Heklina of Trannyshack literally rises from the dead to join Midnight Mass’ Peaches Christ in hosting a dark diva drag extravaganza, with bloody insanity from Kiddie, Fauxnique, Renttecca, Raya Light …

9 p.m., $20. Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, SF. (415) 703-8965, www.peacheschrist.com

HAUNTED TEMPLE


Unholy deeds will abound in cavernous club Temple’s sacred spaces, with insane décor on two levels, howlin’ DJs Paul Hemming, IQ!, and Jaswho?, plus a $500 costume contest.

10 p.m., $20. 540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com

MONSTER HALLOWEEN


Ghoul’s night lip-sync battle-a-thon! DJ Scottish Andy and glamazon hostess Juanita More exhaust the hipsteratti queens and friends on the mic at the manly Truck bar for exotic "prizes" (i.e., drunk sex).

9 p.m., $5. Truck, 1900 Folsom, SF. (415) 252-0306, www.juanitamore.com

NIGHT OF THE LIVING BASS


Burner faves Opel get with Evil Breaks for an endless night of sheer funky drum ‘n’ bass madness, with a little techno freak-out on the side. With DJs Meat Katie, the Rogue Element, and Kid Blue.

10 p.m., $20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. (415) 626-7001, www.mighty119.com

RE:CREATION


A hip-hop, old-school electro, and freak beats spectacular, as ArtNowSF and Euphoric Conceptions present a platter’s worth of head trip performers like Mochipet, the New Deal, Pleasure Maker, and Sleepyhead. 9 p.m., $20. Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF. (415) 531-6953, www.clubsix1.com

STILETTO: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE


No San Francisco club is sharper fashionista-wise than theme-driven Stiletto. Gasp as too-cool zombies arise from the depths of loveliness with DJs Mario Muse, Eric Sharp, and runway madness from Flock, plus photo booth!

10pm, $8, AsiaSF, 201 Ninth St., (415) 255-4752, www.myspace.com/stilettosf

Z-TRIP


The inexhaustible mix-master must have some sort of magic potion in his vinyl cauldron, because the mash-up and intel hip-hop kids still flock to his politically oriented, mind-blowing shows after several centuries. Scary!

9 p.m., $22.50. Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF. (415) 348-0900, www.blasthaus.com

Flaming in the Castro

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› paulr@sfbg.com

At Brandy Ho’s newish outpost in the Castro District, the fuchsia-colored paper place settings are embossed with the image of a chili pepper. For spice freaks, this is the equivalent of the famous blinking boob in North Beach — the neighborhood that is the home of the original Brandy Ho’s, which turns 30 next year. Let us meditate on the complex irony of all this.

People in the vicinity of their 30th birthdays often find themselves with procreation on the brain, so perhaps it isn’t so surprising that restaurants sometimes develop a similar fever. It probably isn’t too shocking, either, that Brandy Ho’s should have chosen to spawn in the heart of the Castro, a heavily foot-trafficked neighborhood with something less than a cornucopia of Chinese restaurants. For years I was a quiet fan of China Court, a block away at the corner of Castro and 19th streets, but that place folded and became something else a few years ago, leaving the field pretty lightly uncontested. It might be more shocking that Brandy Ho’s offspring bears so little physical resemblance to its parent.

Brandy Ho’s in the Castro isn’t just a Chinese restaurant: it’s a good Chinese restaurant, and it’s a Hunan Chinese restaurant. It’s also rather sensationally good-looking: a rosewood-lined cave — or mining tunnel, or (since this is the Castro) sauna — fronted with enormous, ground-to-ceiling panes of plate glass, which makes it easy to observe those who are observing you as they drift by. You are either inside or outside the human aquarium, and it doesn’t matter which. The Castro is a kingdom of darting eyes. If you struggle with chopsticks, you might draw a crowd of gawkers here. Brandy Ho’s chopsticks are plastic, and that’s not the best news for beginners and the inept. Wood has more grip and is much more forgiving.

Why does Hunan matter? Because Hunan food is spicy food, and while I have high regard for steamed Cantonese or Hakka delicacies for their fineness and subtleties, I prefer some fire on the plate. I love Szechuan food, but there isn’t a lot of it to be found in San Francisco. Hunan is just about as appealing and, perhaps, just a wee bit more refined, at least as it’s turned out by the kitchen at Brandy Ho’s.

And — to invert an old saw — where there is fire, there must be smoke. At Brandy Ho’s, the smoke comes not from tea leaves but from hardwood, and it results in a set of dishes that are exceptionally flavorful and quite unlike any other Chinese food I’ve eaten. Our server cautioned us that there were those who found the smokiness of smoked duck Hunanese ($12.95) "too strong," but the meat, when it finally floated in as a set of osso buco-like pieces on a carpet of carrot coins and bamboo shoot tabs, was reminiscent of Canadian bacon or some other kind of pork that had been roasted over a campfire. The smoke was smooth, hearty, and gently dominant in the manner of a good dark beer. Modest inconveniences: remnants of bone and dried skin. There was some chili heat too, but it deferred to the smoke.

Many of the dishes aren’t spicy at all. Steamed dumplings ($5.50) turned out to be potstickers, a half-dozen of them chubby as well-fed goldfish and filled with a tasty but well-behaved mince of pork, ginger, garlic, and scallion. Hot and sour soup ($3.50) was hot mostly in the hot-weather sense, but mostly it was bitter. The roster of ingredients seemed unremarkable — eggs, bean curd, bamboo shoots, and carrots — but had some unannounced greens been stirred into the mix, sharpening the soup’s edge?

And mo si vegetables ($8.95) — mu shu is the more familiar English spelling — rely mainly on garlic and ginger, not hot peppers, for their effect. Nonetheless, their effect is quietly potent, abetted by the hoisin sauce you swab on your pancakes before filling them with the actual stir-fry, whose main players are shredded napa cabbage and tree-ear mushrooms, bound together with egg. As much as I’ve loved mu shu pork over the years, I found this porkless version of the dish to be quite as convincing as its fleshier siblings and did not miss the meat.

Seinfeld‘s George liked his chicken spicy — and in the third person — and he would have liked Brandy Ho’s gon-pou chicken Hunan ($8.95), a fabulous mélange of boneless chicken cubes, onion slivers, chunks of red bell pepper, garlic, water chestnuts, and — most fabulous of all — wok-fried peanuts. There was plenty of chili-pepper heat in here somewhere. We mentioned to our server that we wanted the food to be spicy but didn’t want to burst into flames, and he’d nodded sagely, as if he heard this sort of thing every day and took it as a precise instruction. We ended up tingling yet unflaming, so the message must have gotten through somehow.

What was more remarkable was the dish’s uncanny resemblance to that old Szechuan favorite, kung pao chicken. What could distinguish the two, besides the spelling? The wok-frying of the peanuts? Is that some expression of Hunanese character, or just a flourish from this particular kitchen? Hunan and Szechuan provinces do adjoin each other, so maybe neighborliness accounts for some of the apparent cross-pollination.

Considering the quality and noteworthiness of the food and the restrained high style of the setting, Brandy Ho’s is notably inexpensive. Although portions are generous, many of the dishes cost less than $10, and even the pricier ones struggle to reach into the low teens. If you’re tired of fretting about the stock-market burn-off but aren’t yet ready for the depths of Carl’s Jr. or microwaveable burritos, Brandy Ho’s could very well be the place.

BRANDY HO’S

Continuous service: Sun.-Thurs., 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 11:30 a.m.–midnight

4068 18th St., SF

(415) 252-8000

www.brandyhos.com

Full bar

AE/DC/DS/MC/V

Moderate noise

Wheelchair accessible

Prop 8: Through the big gay window

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If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it …

So. All my gay friends, even the “radical” ones, it appears, are getting married — before Nov. 4, when Prop 8 just might pass, and the window may close for good on same-sex marriage. AG Jerry Brown has indicated that the marriages performed before then would still be considered valid, as the Chron reported. Hey, Matier & Ross, I’m expecting your penis-lily-embossed announcement any minute.

I’ve received no less than 12 frantic invites to hastily assembled same-sex weddings (although one couple took the time to register at Barney’s — Vera Wang crystalware, pshaw!). Is this the real case for how Prop 8 actually destroysl marriage — forcing people, shotgun-style, into perhaps-unthought-through unions? I jest, maybe. But the trend appears also a bit, er, defeatist in my book. Although of course I wish the happy couples, and their makeshift receptions at the Powerhouse, all the best!

Still, despite all the blackmail, violence, foaming at the mouth, Blackwater connections and rampant Mormonism, we can still beat this thing. Please give to or volunteer for No on 8 today — before I have to shoulder the costs of another seafoam and salmon crinoline-encrusted bridesmaid dress! No one makes me wear crinoline in October ….

Ritual de lo non-habitual

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW Since rituals necessitate a community of believers, presenting one for an audience in a theater runs the risk of becoming a mere item of cultural consumption. Yet, on Oct. 16, master drummer-vocalist-dancer Dohee Lee went beyond expectations. Her oddly named Flux succeeded best in its most ritualistic elements — the moments when it called up soul-wrenching memory, pain, and reconciliation.

The title refers to the ever-changing aspects of all creation. That’s a cliché and doesn’t tell us much about the nature of this, at times, powerful work of dance theater created by the Korean-born Lee and a slew of excellent collaborators. Foremost among them are the musicians of Asian Improv Arts: Francis Wong; Tatsu Aoki, who also created one of Flux‘s films; Jason Lewis; and Jonathan Chen. They are master performers. And as a result of their efforts — along with Lee’s — Flux‘s seamless unity of dance and music made for an exceedingly rare experience. The only other dancer besides Lee was the very capable Sherwood Chen. Relegated for the most part to subsidiary roles, he was, however, underused.

Using the I-Ching as a shaping device and philosophical tool, Lee divided the evocative Flux into nine sections, helpfully explained in the program insert. The work started on a dreamy note and moved through historical sequences to the climactic dramatization focusing on the memory of Lee’s grandmother. The piece wound down to a peaceful, even joyously embracing close with the traditional passing of the Banyayoungsun, the ship that connects the living with ancestors.

Deann Borshay Liem’s excellent appropriations of historic Korean films included sepia-colored portraits of ordinary men and women in addition to haunting sequences of refugees, corpses, and iconic symbols. Combined with Aoki’s more abstract images — water, fire, wind, a ravine — which set the context for the individual sections, Flux captured the experiences of a specific people while placing them in a universal context of human experience. Less effectively, the program notes to the "Fire=Trade" sequence seemed a little naïve in the way it commemorated only the unequal trade treaties "between the US and Korea from 1850 to the present." It’s not as if Asian nations and European powers were entirely innocent when it came to Korea’s woes.

As a performer, Lee is a wonder of versatility and strength. In "Water," she commenced the refugee’s journey by stepping gingerly into the sea, her feet floating and blindly attempting to find firmer ground — her only guide a fan-shaped wooden rattle. In "Thunder," she played a battery of Korean drums with an increasingly furious intensity as we stared at those all-too-familiar images of terrorized faces and rows of bodies, victims of war. In the somewhat prolonged finale, a bouncy, almost jazz-like freedom propelled Lee into a rollicking celebration of hope.

Lee’s duets and the choreography for Chen, in contrast, looked uncertain. They spoke of what may be inexperience choreographing for other dancers. Yet as a soloist, Lee is outstanding. The "Mountain" section was an astounding tour de force that started on a rather low-key interchange between a child and her grandmother, then swelled into something approaching the demonic. The program notes explained that the old woman was recalling her experience during the Korean War, and that the style evokes Korean opera.

The moment was as dramatically powerful as anything in Puccini — and those vocalists don’t dance. Though performed in Korean and therefore verbally unintelligible to many in the audience, the trajectory of this tale of pain and fury was crystal clear. Bent over and dragging a drum behind her, Lee gradually straightened and then whipped herself into shamanistic ecstasy. In the end, standing on her drum, she returned to her guise as a fragile human being. It was the closest thing to a ritual that you are likely to see onstage. *

Budgin’

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Why so glum, Chun? Well, for starters, the economy is sucking about as hard as an insecure groupie attacking her/his fave-rave rocker head-case, and the stock market is making me more nauseated than the time I mixed deep-fried Twinkies and the Giant Dipper roller-coaster ride at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Oh, sure, we’re all gonna die giggling with sheer, unrepentant delight when the Barack Star pulls it off come Nov. 4. But in the very lean meantime, we gotta scrimp ‘n’ scrape to find the joy.

So why not mix good times and sound — arf! — financial advice from those adventurers in fabulously gritty lo-fi sonics and rock ‘n’ roll derring-do at Budget Rock Seven music fest?

Yes, I may be high. Ask rockers — oft dismissed as guitar-collecting, ramen-chawing spendthrifts lacking in fiscal acumen — for budget suggestions? Don’t you know that the sweaty, loud ‘n’ danceable rawk gathering has little or nada to do with tightened (white, skinny) belts during tough times — having plucked its name from a Mummies long-player, not its accountants? Sho’ ’nuff, impecunious stuff. Nevertheless, if a truly depressing nu-depression-style bottoming-out occurs — B-Rock or no — it can’t hurt to look to grassroots rabble-rousers for tangibles on living it up on little scrill.

"I have nothing to offer but bad tips," Darin Raffaelli — ex-Supercharger member and now in Budget Rock bands the Baci Galoopis and supa-group Mersey Wifebeaters — apologizes in a recent e-mail. "Go to the taco truck and don’t be afraid to get face meat if they run out of the standard meats. Don’t be a deadbeat weefie and carry your own load. Doesn’t matter how big your carriage is — just fill it to the tarp with whatever you can and the goodhearted folk will make sure you get by. Don’t get tattoos, and take care of your feet.

"Hope that helps."

It’s like pouring loose change, slugs, and paper clips into those supermarket counters: every little bit helps. Brian Girgus, who drums for rising Mantles-spinoff proj Personal and the Pizzas, has more low-dough advice: "Sneak a flask of whiskey in. Drink during Happy Hour. Make your pizzas at home. Roll out the dough really thin to make the pizza seem bigger. Buy used vinyl at the thrift stores."

"Budget? I’m not an expert on that. I’m up to my ears," opines festival co-founder and co-organizer Chris Owen by phone. He’s got more important things on his mind, like convincing Budget Rock performer Roy Head — renowned as "the white James Brown" for his crazy-agile dance moves, and his 1965 hit, "Treat Her Right" — to record "Just Head" by the Nervous Eaters and "Teenage Head" by the Flamin’ Groovies for his Hook or Crook Records. The dynamic Head — who Owen says is still amazing (The 67-year-old "is like Iggy Pop in the way he puts himself out there") — just might play those tunes live, if we’re lucky, when he performs here for the first time since the ’60s.

Owen says there was an attempt to move Budget Rock back to San Francisco — where it first laid down a beachhead at Thee Parkside — but, as we laugh, "the city wasn’t having it!" With assists from Bobbyteen Tina Lucchesi, Guardian staffer Dulcinea Gonzalez, and others, Owen threw the bash together again at the Stork Club. "Sometimes it’s worth it to just have a blowout in a smaller place," he explains. "At a smaller place, they’re happy to have you. I can’t imagine anyone drinking more than the people who go to these things!"

Budget planning? I got my BR grandma-panties in a bunch to catch In the Red combo the Lamps, Bare Wires, Nodzzz, Thee Makeout Party, the Pets, Hunx and his Punx, Ray Loney and the Phantom Movers, Sir Lord Von Raven, Hypsterz, Christmas Island, and Russell Quan’s 50th Birthday Party. As for Owen, he’s especially psyched about Human Eye (a Clone Defects variant that rarely plays Bayside), Haunted George, Seattle band Head (I see a theme emerging), and Personal and the Pizzas ("A MySpace band that suddenly became a real band — basically they wrote two of the catchiest songs I’ve ever heard"), as well as the Top Dog-sponsored hot-dog-eating contest and the pancake breakfast aided and abetted by ex-Parkside honcho Sean O’Connor’s Batter Blaster invention.

"When I first announced the lineup people were, like, ‘Who the fuck are these bands?’" Owens says of the eclectic nature of this year’s festival. "There are a whole lot more bands that are more difficult — more influenced by New Zealand pop music and not necessary garage rock and punk."

But seriously, back to budgets? "I would say, don’t take any advice I’d give you — that’s the best advice," Owen says. "But with this thing: $5 beer and cheap food, 34 bands in four days. That’s pretty good. If you’re trying to maximize your dollar, that’s less than a dollar a band." *

BUDGET ROCK SEVEN

Preview with Lover! and Nobunny

Wed/22, 5:30–8 p.m., free

Eagle Tavern

398 12th St., SF

Festival runs Thurs/23-Sun/26, various times, $10–<\d>$30

Stork Club

2330 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.myspace.com/budgetrock

SIDEBAR

HEAD OUT

THE USAISAMONSTER

Maybe after Barack Obama wins, the Load combo can change its name to THE USAISINRECOVERY. Fri/24, 9:30 p.m., $8. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk St., SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

BRIDGE SCHOOL BENEFIT

Whoa, Nellie: Band of Horses is the latest add to the benefit helmed by Neil Young and family. Sat/25, 5p.m., and Sun/26, 2 p.m., $39.50–$150. Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View. www.livenation.com

AGAINST ME!

Do the Florida punks have a persecution complex? Mon/27, 8 p.m., $22.50. Grand Ballroom, Regency Center, Van Ness and Sutter, SF. www.goldenvoice.com *

Full disclosure

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> a&eletters@sfbg.com

"If you wouldn’t tell Stalin, don’t tell anyone." This billboard message casts us back to the New Mexico desert, where a mushroom cloud’s worth of paranoia ushered in the modern era of government secrecy. Harvard professors Peter Galison and Robb Moss base their guide to this dark world on interviews with former "secureaucrats" and watchdog lawyers, journalists and scholars. But even without a voice-over, Secrecy‘s editorial threads are clear. There is the B-roll of the pilot carrying that test atomic bomb, for example, fading to black for a muffled explosion before fading back in to a Google Earth image of Manhattan, stained with the debris of the 9/11 attacks. One clandestine mission gives way to another, and a new veil of secrecy spreads with the smoke.

Even as Secrecy‘s former operatives acknowledge the massive intelligence failures leading to 9/11, they’re ready to make the case for the increased need for government subterfuge in the War on Terror: what secrecy begets, only secrecy will solve, and every time the gloves come off, the blinders will go on. Against this tide of Cold War nostalgists, the doubters hardly need sound conspiratorial with 60 years of government abuses at their fingertips. Indeed, the legal precedent for the State Secrets Privilege itself hinges on a bogus case involving a mysterious B-29 accident — 50 years later, it was finally proven that the executive branch went to the Supreme Court not to protect military secrets, but to facilitate a cover-up of Air Force negligence.

Washington Post writer Barton Gellman rightly wonders whether anyone exclusively dedicated to maintaining secrecy is in a good position to judge what they’re defending. The Bush administration, of course, sacrificed this benefit of the doubt years ago. The State Secrets Privilege cannot be invoked as a cover for criminality, but with an executive branch that reserves the right to define the terms of criminality and confidentiality away from the prying eyes of Congress and the judiciary, there’s not much of a chance for checks, let alone balances. As Navy officer and Guantánamo lawyer Charles Swift puts it, "If I can execute you and don’t have to tell anyone why, what’s left?"

The NSA/CIA reps’ telescopic counterargument — that leaks disrupt the gathering of intelligence — hardly justifies these Constitutional affronts, but Galison and Moss still give the press too much of a free ride in Secrecy. Shit slides both ways in this Foucaultian tug of knowledge and power. Those Ari Fleischer press conference replays are only the tip of the iceberg of a culture of credulity and outright fabrication.

There are deeper problems still with Secrecy, starting with the lack of interviews with Pynchonian Web crawlers at the vanguard of the information liberation movement. The filmmakers refer to the paradoxical expansion of access and restriction with a few snippets of local maverick artist-muckraker Trevor Paglen’s work and a Google Earth shot of Guantánamo Bay, blacked out just like the sensitive documents of old, but one wants more on the subject. Perhaps more to the point, Moss and Galison do not always come up with satisfying solutions to the problem of how to visually represent a subject that is, by definition, obscure. The filler animations, X-Files-style soundtrack and surrealist cutaways to flurries of redacted documents in Secrecy are cold leftovers of the Errol Morris school of documentary.

If I’m being hard on Moss and Galison, it’s only because so much of the raw interview material is compelling on its own. The information-crusaders, in particular, are natural documentary heroes. Their quest for transparency dovetails perfectly with the moral imperative and epistemological pleasure of the best documentaries. See Secrecy for them — make it a double-feature with Burn After Reading, and you’ve got a swell kiss-off to the worst intelligence money can buy. *

SECRECY

Oct 24–30, check Web site for times, $11

Opera Plaza, Van Ness at Golden Gate, SF

www.sffs.org

Little Delhi

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› paulr@sfbg.com

Manhattan joke: a part of Murray Hill, along Lexington Avenue in the ’20s, is known as Curry Hill because of its profusion of Indian and Pakistani restaurants. Even if you hadn’t heard the joke, you would probably recognize the neighborhood’s scent: no cuisine I’m aware of has a stronger or clearer olfactory signature. (Backyard barbecuing might deserve an honorable mention.)

We have our own Curry Hill, but it’s on Nob Hill, which pretty well mutes the word play, if not the scent. A major curry locus can be found on Jones Street south of Geary Boulevard, where the perfumed air is reminiscent of a spice market. But there is another node not far away, although perhaps — to vitiate the pun utterly — not on Nob Hill at all. I speak of the corner of Mason and Eddy streets, just a few steps from Union Square, the theater district, and the glamorous Westfield San Francisco Centre, and even fewer steps from the Tenderloin. If you’ve ever wondered what economic stratification, third world-style, might look like in a big American city, a brief reconnoiter of this largely flat area would give you a pretty good idea.

As for the corner itself: the air is redolent of curry, and for some of us, that means seduction. On one side of the street stands Punjab, wonderfully fragrant but with no table service, while on the other we find Little Delhi, an Indian restaurant that’s as comfortable as a pair of well-worn shoes, with table service.

As someone who bears witness to a great many restaurants that seem to have entered the world fully-formed under the godlike guidance of some designer, I warm to a place whose interior isn’t designed so much as accreted. Little Delhi has a well-lived-in look; its creamy walls are hung with portraits, tapestries, a map, and a flat-panel screen showing sports. The crowd is equally ad hoc: we noticed several tables full of what appeared to be (non-English-speaking) tourists, several more of possible neighborhood dwellers, including students (CCSF and Academy of Art College have campuses nearby), and a generous smattering of people who could have been of south Asian descent. This last convergence suggests, to me, a degree of authenticity. If people who grow up eating a cuisine later turn up in a restaurant serving the cuisine, there’s a reasonable chance the restaurant is turning out creditable versions of the food.

And Little Delhi is doing that — at moderate prices. Most of the menu consists of dishes that cost less than $10, and portions are generous. There are plenty of familiar faces in the crowd, including a notably good saag paneer ($7.99) — spiced spinach with cubes of white cheese — whose mild seasoning let through more spinach flavor than is usual. We were vaguely reminded of the creamed spinach that is a fixture of many a holiday repast in our part of the world.

A preparation I hadn’t seen before was badami chicken ($9.99), boneless chunks of tandoori-roasted meat in a curry (and yogurt-thickened?) sauce laced with slivers of pistachio and cashew nuts. It was a near, and crunchy, relation to that lovable stalwart, chicken tikka masala, but what most impressed me was a smokiness in the meat that managed to be heard through the assertive saucing.

Quite similar was lamb tikka masala ($9.99), cubes of tandoori-roasted lamb in another sensuous sauce, this one a bit redder, sweeter, and more tomatoey than its badami cousin, due perhaps to the presence of ketchup. (Ketchup — English ketchup in particular — plays a central role in the evolution of tikka masala.) Lamb’s gaminess stands up to strong saucing, though I caught no hint of smoke here as I had with the chicken.

As is typical at south Asian restaurants, the list of meatless possibilities is extensive, and this is good news for vegetarians, even us flexos. We were particularly impressed with chana masala ($6.99), a classic dish of chickpeas, enlivened here with slices of tomato and whole cardamom pods. These softened some from being braised and, when chewed on, gave off their refreshing woody flavor, with its hints of cinnamon and ginger. Cardamom is rich in a substance called cineole, a natural antiseptic that can fight bad breath. FYI.

From the oven: perfectly good naan ($1.50), cut into triangles for ease of use in sopping up all those irresistible sauces. For whole wheat aficionados, there’s roti (also $1.50) — virtually the same thing, except made from whole grain. Also useful for sauce-soppers is rice pillau ($2), a sizable dish of basmati rice. "Pillau" looks suspiciously like "pilaf," which would mean rice cooked in some kind of stock. This rice appeared to have been cooked in plain water, which didn’t do much for its color — it looked like a gritty heap of corn snow — but did show its wonderful nutty flavor to clearest effect.

Basmati is so tasty, in fact, that demand for it has been surging in India and throughout the Middle East. According to a story published in July in The Wall Street Journal, its price has risen between 100 and 200 percent in the past two years. So let’s count ourselves lucky to be able to enjoy this modest luxury for so little — a treat that won’t break the bank, not that there are all that many banks left to be broken. May the Fed be with you. *

LITTLE DELHI

Daily, 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m.

83 Eddy, SF

(415) 398-3173

Beer and wine

AE/DC/DS/MC/V

Moderately noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Anniversary Issue: First, do no harm

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> sarah@sfbg.com

Mayor Gavin Newsom announced last week that San Francisco is "on pace" to build a historic number of homes in a five-year period.

"Despite the housing crisis facing the nation, San Francisco is bucking the trends and creating a record number of homes," Newsom said. "Once again, San Francisco is leading the way."

But where?

Newsom notes that his housing-development plans will triple what San Francisco produced in the ’90s, and double the past decade’s housing production. He claims that he has increased the city’s production of affordable housing for low- and very-low-income households to the highest levels ever.

But he doesn’t point out that most people who work in San Francisco won’t be able to afford the 54,000 housing units coming down the planning pipeline.

The truth is that, under Newsom’s current plans, San Francisco is on pace to expand its role as Silicon Valley’s bedroom community, further displace its lower- and middle-income workers, and thereby increase the city’s carbon footprint. All in the supposed name of combating global warming.

So, what can we do to create a truly sustainable land-use plan for San Francisco?

•<\!s> Vote Yes on Prop. B

In an Oct. 16 San Francisco Chronicle article, Newsom tried to criticize the Board of Supervisors for not redirecting more money to affordable housing, and for placing an affordable housing set-aside on the ballot.

"There’s nothing stopping the Board of Supervisors from redirecting money for more affordable housing," Newsom claimed. "Why didn’t they redirect money to affordable housing this year if they care so much about it?"

Ah, but they did. Newsom refused to spend the $33 million that a veto-proof majority of the Board appropriated for affordable housing last year. Which is why eight supervisors placed Prop. B, an annual budget allocation for the next 15 years, on the Nov. 2008 ballot.

•<\!s> Radically redirect sprawl

The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association’s executive director, Gabriel Metcalf, notes that existing Northern California cities —San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose — already have street, sewer, and transit grids, and mixed-use development in place.

"So we don’t have to allow one more inch of suburban sprawl. We could channel 100 percent of regional growth into cities. Instead, we hold workshops and ask ‘How much growth can we accommodate?‘ The answer is none, because no one likes to change."

Metcalf said he believes people should be able to work where they want, provided that it’s reachable by public transit.

"What’s wrong with taking BART to Oakland and Berkeley, or Caltrain to San Jose?" Metcalf said.

•<\!s> Don’t do dumbass growth

Housing activist and Prop. B supporter Calvin Welch rails at what he describes as "the perversion of smart growth in local planning circles."

The essence of smart growth is that you cut down the distance between where people work and live, Welch explains.

"But that makes the assumption that the price of the housing you build along transit corridors is affordable to the workforce that you want to get onto public transit," Welch adds. "If it’s not, it’s unlikely they’ll get out of their cars. Worse, if you produce housing that is only affordable to the community that works in Silicon Valley, you create a big problem in reverse, a regional transit shortage. Because you are building housing for folks who work in a place that is not connected to San Francisco by public transit."

Welch says the city also needs to invest more in transit infrastructure.

Pointing to Market-Octavia and the Eastern Neighborhoods, Welch notes that while the City Planning Department is calling for increased density there, Muni is proposing service cuts.

"This is beyond bizarre," Welch said. "It will result in dramatic increases in density in areas that are poorly served by transit. That’s the dumbest kind of growth."

Welch says sustainable land use has local employment opportunities at its heart.

Noting that 70 percent of residents worked in San Francisco 20 years ago, Welch says that only a little over 50 percent of local jobs are held by San Franciscans today.

"Most local jobs are held by people who live outside San Francisco, and most San Franciscans have to go elsewhere to find work. It’s environmentally catastrophic."

•<\!s> Protect endangered communities

Earlier this year, members of a mayoral task force reported that San Francisco is losing its black population faster than any other large US city. That decline will continue, the task force warned, unless immediate steps are taken.

Ironically, the task force’s findings weren’t made public until after voters green-lighted Lennar’s plan to develop 10,000 (predominantly luxury) units in Bayview-Hunters Point, one of the last African American communities in town.

San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Fred Blackwell has since recommended expanding his agency’s certificate of preference program to give people displaced by redevelopment access to all of the city’s affordable housing programs, an idea that the Board of Supervisors gave its initial nod to in early October. But that’s just a Band-Aid.

And community leader and Nation of Islam Minister Christopher Muhammad has suggested creating "endangered community zones" — places where residents are protected from displacement — in Bayview-Hunters Point and the Western Addition.

"It’s revolutionary, but doable," Muhammad said at the out-migration task force hearing.

•<\!s> Don’t build car-oriented developments

BART director and Livable City executive Tom Radulovich predicts a silver lining in the current economic crisis: "The city will probably lose Lennar."

He’s talking about two million square feet of office space and 6,000 square feet of retail space that Lennar Corp., the financially troubled developer, is proposing in Southeast San Francisco.

"We should not be building an automobile-oriented office park in the Bayview," Radulovich said. "Well-meaning folks in the Planning Department are saying we need walkable cities, but Michael Cohen in the Mayor’s Office is planning an Orange County-style sprawl that will undo any good we do elsewhere. This is the Jekyll and Hyde of city planning."

•<\!s> Buy housing

Ted Gullicksen at the San Francisco Tenants Union says that since land in San Francisco only increases in value, the city should buy up apartment buildings and turn them into co-ops and land-trust housing.

"The city should try to get as much housing off-market as possible, grab it now, while it’s coming up for sale, especially foreclosed properties," Gullicksen said. "That’s way quicker than trying to build, which takes years. And by retaining ownership, the city also retains control over what happens to the land."

•<\!s> Work with nonprofit developers

Gullicksen said that the city should work with small nonprofits, and not big master developers, to create interesting, diverse neighborhoods.

Local architect David Baker says nonprofits are more likely to build affordable housing than private developers, even when the city mandates that a certain percentage of new housing must be sold below market rate.

"Thanks to the market crash, very little market rate housing is going to be built in the next five years, which means almost no inclusionary," Baker explains. "During a housing boom, you can jack up that percentage rate to 15 percent, or 20 percent, but then the boom crashes, and nothing gets built."

Gullicksen says the good news is that planners are beginning to think about how to create walkable, vibrant, and safe cities.

"They are thinking about pedestrian-oriented entrances and transparent storefronts, about hiding parking and leaving no blank walls on ground floors. Corner stores, which are prohibited in most neighborhoods, are a great amenity.

"San Francisco needs to figure out where it can put housing without destroying existing neighborhoods, or encroaching on lands appropriate for jobs."

•<\!s> Design whole neighborhoods

Jim Meko, chair of the SoMa Leadership Council, was part of a community planning task force for the Western SoMa neighborhood. He told us that one of the most important things his group did was think about development and preservation in a holistic way.

"WSOMA’s idea is to plan a whole neighborhood, rather than simply re-zoning an area, which is how the Eastern Neighborhoods plan started," Meko said. "Re-zoning translates into figuring out how many units you can build and how many jobs you will lose. That’s a failed approach. It’s not smart growth. If you displace jobs, the economic vitality goes elsewhere, and people have to leave their neighborhood to find parks, recreational facilities and schools."

Meko noted that "housing has become an international investment. It’s why people from all around the world are snapping up condos along the eastern waterfront. But they are not building a neighborhood."

San Francisco, Meko said, "has the worst record of any US city when it comes to setting aside space for jobs in the service and light industrial sector. But those are exactly the kinds of jobs we need. The Financial District needs people to clean their buildings, and I need people to repair my printing press. But I don’t like having to pay them $165 an hour travel time."

•<\!s> Practice low-impact development

Baker recommends that the city stop allowing air-conditioned offices.

"We’ve got great weather, we need to retrofit buildings with openable windows," he said. "We should stop analyzing the environmental impact of our buildings based on national tables. This stops us from making more pedestrian friendly streets. And people should have to pay a carbon fee to build a parking space."

A citywide green building ordinance goes into effect Nov. 3 and new storm water provisions follow in January, according to the SFPUC’s Rosey Jencks.

This greening impetus comes in response to San Francisco’s uniquely inconvenient truth: surrounded by rising seas on three sides, the city has a combined sewer system. That means that the more we green our city, the more we slow down the rate at which runoff mixes with sewage, the more we reduce the risk of floods and overflows, and the more we reduce the rate at which we’ll have to pump SoMa, as rising seas threaten to inundate our sewage system.

The SFPUC also appears committed to replacing ten seismically challenged and stinky digesters at its southeast plant.

•<\!s> Strictly control the type of new housing

Marc Salomon, who served with Meko on the task force, told us he thinks the city needs to create a "boom-proof" development plan, "a Prop. M for housing." That’s a reference to the landmark 1986 measure that strictly limited new commercial office development and forced developers to compete for permits by offering amenities to the city.

The city’s General Plan currently mandates that roughly two-thirds of all new housing be affordable — but the city’s nowhere near that goal. And building a city where the vast majority of the population is rich is almost the definition of unsustainability.

"Too much construction is not sustainable at any one time, nor is too much uniform development," Salomon said. "If we see too many banks, coffee shops or dot-com offices coming in, we need hearings. We need to adopt tools now, so can stop and get things under control next time one of these waves hits. And since infrastructure and city services are in the economic hole, we need to make sure that new development pays for itself." *

‘Eh!’ Istituto Italiano di Cultura toasts a Tuscan ball game

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la piazza intorno alla palla per sito cambiato.jpg

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Envision tennis without racquets – as the French name of the sport, jeu de paume or “game of the palm,” implies. Then take away the nets, like the tennis term “the line” suggests; Hold the five-centimeter ball in the palm of your hand and before serving always yell, “Eh!” And you’ve got Palla Eh!, a traditional Tuscan ball game played pick-up style in the piazzas of six hilltop towns.

These very small villages of about 1,000 residents have kept Palla Eh! alive and vibrant as a swift, spontaneous sport that brings the entire community together. The game originated in the 16th century and spread throughout the region, evolving over the years, but with roots that clearly demonstrate that Tennis and Palla Eh! share a common ancestor. The sport was formalized as it spread to Holland, South Eastern Spain, and Piemonte, Italy, but the rules within these Tuscan villages remain malleable, varying from town to town.

The game’s small, handmade balls are constructed from recycled materials such as couch covers and yarn, and are thrown or struck – rather then caught – with either a bare or gloved hand by facing teams. Games are played in the piazza of a village, a central feature in Italian towns, and the boundaries are marked with painted lines, but there is no net, and players can move freely between sides.

Street Threads: What the heck are you wearing?

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Guardian street photog Ariel Soto takes in San Francisco style.

Kisha Crystal Gianna Eddy and Divisadero.jpg
Kisha, Crystal, and Gianna, Eddy and Divisadero

After my last few fashion seeking jaunts through the city, the styles seems to be moving towards fall, with boots galore and then a mix of almost all black and white, or totally color crazy. Luckily for us city dwellers, the sun is still shining here in San Francisco and we don’t have to completely cover up to fight the elements, or our toes for that matter, as many were still sporting cute open toed sandals. My favorite fashionista this round? Olive in her adorable purple pants. Whose style do you lust over?

Anee Castro and 18th.jpg
Anee, Castro and 18th Street

Carol Fillmore and Sacramento.jpg
Carol, Fillmore and Sacramento

Corey Pierce and Post.jpg
Corey, Pierce and Post

Jamie Sacramento and Fillmore.jpg
Jamie, Sacramento and Fillmore

James McAllister and Divisadero.jpg
James, McAllister and Divisadero

Mayumi Buchanan and Sutter.jpg
Mayumi, Buchanan and Sutter

Fashionable Francophiles: Meet Please Dress Up!

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By Justin Juul

pleasedressup4a.jpg

Please Dress Up! is a clothing company run by Grant Doolittle and Judy Berbarian, two artists who live in near the Panhandle. If you’ve noticed all the girls rocking stripy shirts and pencil pants in the last few months, it’s because of them.

SFBG: So what’s your deal?
Judy Berbarian: My name’s Judy Berbarian and this is Grant Doolittle and we make up the label Please Dress Up! We’re custom clothiers/fashion designers.

SFBG: What’s the general idea behind Please Dress Up!?
Doolittle: Well, it’s just as the name states, really. We want people to dress up and we want to create unique pieces that are timeless in both style and in construction so they can do it. The name Please Dress Up! came to us after realizing what direction we wanted to take our clothing. It’s clear and direct and people get the message right away, I think.

SFBG: Do you fit in with any fashion trends, like a specific school of fashion or whatever?
Berbarian: Our work is rooted in the tradition of French couture: custom made-to-measure garments all available in different fine fabrics. We don’t pay much attention to trends, but we do admire other designers. Some of our favorites are Balenciaga, Viktor and Rolf, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, and John Galliano.

pleasedressup1.jpg

SFBG: What about local designers? Are you part of an indie fashion movement or something?

Berbarian: We’re pretty separate from any scene, but we do admire some local designers. Al from Al’s Attire in North Beach is our favorite. He’s a true craftsman and his work is just amazing. We’d love to have a shop just like his once we get a little more settled. As far as us fitting in to the design scene here, it’s been kinda hard. San Francisco used to be a Mecca for designer and high-quality clothing, but the industry has sort of disappeared and so have most of the resources for designers like us. All we have is each other to push our creativity further. On the flipside though, the indie designer scene here is special because it’s so raw. Also, people here really want to support locally made crafts. That’s why all the indie festivals have been doing so well lately.

pleasedressup2.jpg

SFBG: So how did you guys get into the fashion thing? Did you go to fashion or design school or anything?

Doolittle: Nope. No school for me.
Berbarian: Me neither. I’ve been sewing since I was 14 though. I always wanted to do this, but my Aunt discouraged me. It’s was kind of weird because she always made all my clothes, yet she wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or something. But I just wanted to be like her and make clothes. I was doing it on my own for a while and then Grant came along. We’ve been friends for seven years now, and we’ve been living together for like a year.

Garrison killer

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ISBN REAL On Aug. 15, 1914, seven people were murdered at Taliesin, the famed Prairie-Style Wisconsin house that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for himself and his out-of-wedlock companion, Mamah Cheney. The victims of the gruesome occurrence were Cheney, her two children from a previous relationship, and four men in Wright’s employ.

The Taliesin murders have been recounted many times by Wright scholars, but William R. Drennan’s Death in a Prairie House (University of Wisconsin Press, 232 pages, $35.95 hardcover, $16.95 paperback) centralizes the event, placing it compellingly within the context of Wright and Cheney’s complex relationship with the conservative locals. Drennan also adjusts many of the accepted details of what happened that day.

One detail that hasn’t changed in his telling is that the butler — perhaps to the embarrassment of the zealously unconventional Wright — did it. His name was Julian Carlton, a recent hire at Taliesin and one of the legions of people who probably would never have made history had they been born after the psychopharmacological revolution.

Drennan’s realignments are convincing enough. But still, when he argues that "the traditional reconstruction of the crime … insists on a quite different chronology than the one argued here" (namely that Carlton set the employees on fire only after having hatcheted the family in a separate wing), I can’t help but note that the constants — "fire" and "hatcheted" — seem disproportionately more germane.

Academic histories of minor events are funny that way. The anxiety over detail can often seem outsized to the event’s wider significance. Without hope of sending a ripple through the historical record, what purpose does a reordering of facts serve, in this particular case, beyond satisfying a morbid strain of OCD?

Yeah, I suppose history should be sorted out as faithfully as possible. Truth and all that. It’s just that the horror of the Taliesin murders — "her head belching blood," "hatchet crusted with gore," "he carried the box containing his children onto the train," etc. — renders the fussiness of the housecleaning almost comical.

The absurdity is slightly mitigated by the rubbernecking ingenuousness confided here and there through Drennan’s tone. That must sound awfully backhanded, but I wouldn’t begrudge anyone an interest in the gory details. After all, I didn’t pick up the book because the iffy chronology of the bloody holocaust was an itch I needed scratched. It just seems like Drennan could be more forthright about the real appeal of his subject matter, which I daresay is not its hastily argued effect on Wright’s creative output.

I guess I want the new assertions of Drennan’s Death in a Prairie House to have been presented differently, maybe as historical fiction or more overtly narrative nonfiction. Certainly there are plenty of sentences scattered about that suggest a man wanting to break free of his academic cocoon and become a fancy-writing butterfly. It’s incongruous in this forensics report of a book to write, "She urged the horse past patches of oxeye daisies and finally she neared the house, her young mind filled with horror and her childhood innocence falling away from her on all sides." But that sentence would make a crackerjack opening for a novel.

Hand it to him

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

A male friend recently told me that he finds it very frustrating when women try to please him in ways other than intercourse. According to him, during hand jobs and blow jobs, men are just thinking, "Get on with it!" He claims to have spoken to lots of other guys about this who agreed with him.

Is this really true? Are there men who feel like this, or is he winding me up? (I suspect that the sample of people he asked wasn’t representative — but it’s been on my mind anyway.) Maybe the skills of his sexual partners haven’t been up to scratch? Or maybe it’s just his problem?

Love,

Whose Prob?

Dear Prob:

His problem. My onetime boyfriend (we got married, and now I don’t get to have a boyfriend anymore) used to use the phrase "That’s not an MP, that’s a YP," though he never used it on me, and that’s a good thing, because it’s really obnoxious. Nevertheless, if this guy were your boyfriend, this would be a YP, too, so let’s be glad he’s just a friend and it’s an HP all the way.

No, I don’t think it’s particularly true, although the category "men" is rather large, and there are individuals and subgroups who do feel that way. Very young men, for instance, will usually have been waiting for years to "get on with it," and they tend to think of intercourse as "the real thing" or "sex" and feel like everything else is, I guess, the fake thing. The sad part is that this conviction often leads to fairly disappointing sex, especially, but not exclusively, for the girls involved, when teenagers trade in the usually gratifying heavy petting and manual and oral for the strictly genital.

Men who know a bit more about what they really like do tend to have a slightly wider repertoire, depending on and responsive to who(m), what, when, where, and why. Sometimes a man just needs a blow job. Sometimes everything is just too wet and soft to get the job done (although men are, admittedly, generally partial to the wet and soft), and only a hand will do the job. Sometimes the visual element (from above while partner kneels, from behind in doggy style) is the important part, with friction and tempo taking the backseat, as it were. In other words, as in all things sexual, it depends. Your friend, by assuming that all men are just like him, is lacking in imagination, and again I say good for you for not having to be his girlfriend.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I’ve been going out with a great man for a year now, and the sex is finally beginning to flourish in kinky and sensual ways. I can orgasm relatively quickly from a variety of methods. The problem is, recently he can’t come from oral or vaginal intercourse. We try different positions, but the only way he can reach orgasm is from his own hand. What is going on here? How can I get him to come with me?

Love,

Woman waiting

Dear WW:

I suggest that you don’t wait as much as file your preference under "fond hopes" and not make too big a deal out of this, since sexual response is not the sort of system that responds well to stress. I’d also caution you not to take it personally, if that’s possible, since assuming you are not doing anything differently, this appears to be an HP and nothing you can affect much one way or the other. I do wonder if perhaps he has started taking an antidepressant or a beta blocker, both common medications with nearly universal sexual side effects, at least at first. If so, give it a while, and if things don’t improve, he can go back to the doctor for a meds adjustment and a general checkup, since there are a lot of conditions, including diabetes, that could be causing this.

If not that or that or that other thing, the usual culprits are aging (possible; you didn’t say), anxiety, and, of course, boredom. Lots of people would rather hear that their partner has a dangerous, progressive disease than that he’s bored, but don’t freak out. If you’re just getting into the fun, kinky part together, it’s unlikely that he’s bored already. He may be worried about something, or fixating on something even kinkier that he’s afraid to ask for but that you might feel like offering if only you knew what it was. And he might simply be aging out of the sorts of stimulation that did it for him before and need rougher handling, which you can certainly provide. Watch what he’s doing with the successful handiwork — where is he stroking, how hard and how fast? Once you know what’s working, you can try re-creating the sensations in a way that gets and keeps you involved. Nobody said you can’t use your hand (or his) during a blow job, right? Or during what the guy in the first letter would insist all men like better anyway?

Love,

Andrea

Got a salacious subject you want Andrea to discuss? Ask her a question!

Chan Chan can cook

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› paulr@sfbg.com

One is tempted to say that Chan Chan Café Cubano is authentically Cuban, but one has no idea, really. These days it is easier for Americans to visit Albania than Cuba, which, after nearly 50 years, remains sequestered behind the rusty remains of the iron curtain. Maybe Barack, if he manages to fend off the dazzling Republicans — he a grizzled ex-maverick with recurrent skin cancer, she a sporty gunner-down of wolves from helicopters (Tail Gunner Sarah?) — will rethink the wisdom of our Cuba policy. First, of course, he’ll have to put Wall Street’s Humpty Dumpty back together again while finding some path out of two ruinous wars. The book of Genesis informs us that God created the earth in six days, "and he rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had done," but the president who succeeds the present crew won’t have it so easy.

The endless and preposterous isolation of Cuba reveals itself in many ways, among them a paucity of Cuban restaurants. We have a few, and we’ve had a few fail, among the latter the homey Los Flamingos (in Duboce Triangle) and the grander Habana (at the edge of Russian Hill). At the moment we have Laurel’s (in Hayes Valley) and Café Lo Cubano (in — oh, irony — Laurel Heights). And of course Chan Chan, which is nearly as isolated as Cuba itself.

The restaurant (opened in August by Ana Herrera and Michel Alvarez) occupies a snug space, very nearly at the head of 18th Street, that previously housed another restaurant but whose most historic occupant was Fran Gage’s Patisserie Française, a boutique bakery that helped set the table for today’s wealth of boutique bakeries. The patisserie was destroyed by fire in 1995, and the building seemed to sit there as a charred hulk for many months, perhaps years.

Signs of the fire are long gone. When I first stepped into Chan Chan, I discreetly looked for them and sniffed for them, but all I noticed were handsomely distressed wood frames around the doors and windows and the smell of flowers. Maybe my companion was wearing too much (flowery) cologne. The restaurant is small, with seating at about a half dozen tables for maybe 20 people. One wall looks like a gigantic finger painting, and there is a semi-exhibition kitchen where Alvarez, the young, rakish chef, works his magic.

And magic he does work. Chan Chan might look like a café, with a menu whose dishes are all demurely described — and modestly priced — as tapas, but the food is sophisticated and often sublime. Even the dipping sauces that accompany the warm bread are carefully conceived and executed; among these are a garlic-and-honey vinaigrette flecked with herbs and a smoothly savory tapenade of sun-dried tomato. (The restaurant’s menu describes the cooking style as "fusion," hence some of these cross-cultural borrowings.)

The salads and other vegetable-intensive dishes are of a lushness that might appeal to Cézanne. The tibia salad ($10.50), for instance, a variation on spinach salad, is a springtime meadow of deep green, tender leaves tossed with pine nuts, raisins, and chunks of seared apple, all of it bound together by a voluptuous, sweet-tart dressing. Similarly verdant is the aguacate relleno ($12.50), a beautifully ripe avocado split, peeled, filled with sautéed shrimp and scallops, and nestled in garden greens. Eating this dish is a little bit like stumbling on an avocado-shaped treasure chest in the woods and opening it to find a fortune of edible gold.

Given the historical importance of pork in both Spain and her New World colonies, it is slightly surprising that Chan Chan turns out such a wondrous lamb shank ($15). (The eating of pork has long served to distinguish Christians from Jews and Muslims, two groups well represented in medieval Spain, while pigs — carriers of brucellosis, among other diseases — were brought to the New World as a reliable and prolific food source by the conquistadores, as Charles C. Mann discusses in his incomparable book 1491. Lamb, meanwhile, has long been associated with the hot, dry climate of the Mediterranean and not so much with the muggy tropics.) The shank is braised in beer until the meat is tender, though not mushy, and it’s plenty big enough for two, especially if you have a plate of Spanish rice and black beans ($6.50) on the side. You should, if only for authenticity’s sake, although we did find both rice and legumes to be underseasoned — the only dish of which this could be said.

Flan for dessert teeters on the brink of cliché. In this sense it’s the Latin American answer to tiramisu. But Chan Chan actually has a good one ($6); it has something of the texture of bread pudding and the flavor of dulce de leche, and because it’s served as a square cut from a pan, like lasagna, its housemade provenance is apparent.

Chan Chan feels more isolated than it is. It sits in a tiny commercial strip (next to a busy hair salon) in a quiet residential quarter well uphill from the heart-of-the-Castro hubbub. But Muni’s 33-line trolleys glide by periodically, and Market Street is just steps away. And — I almost never get to write this — parking is easy! There are often spaces on 18th Street, and even more on Market. Free! In the Age of the Bailout, you can’t beat that.

CHAN CHAN CAFÉ CUBANO

Dinner: Tues.–Sat., 6–11 p.m.

Breakfast/lunch: Tues.–Sat., 9 a.m.–2 p.m.; Sun., 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

4690 18th St., SF

(866) 691-9975

www.chanchancafecubano.com

Beer and wine

AE/DS/MC/V

Pleasant noise level

Wheelchair accessible

The Infinite Operation Iraqi Freedom

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REVIEW It has been seven years since W. launched Operation Iraqi Freedom, and in that time enough documentaries about the war have been made to warrant a Wikipedia page on the subgenre. From its explosive opening sequence, in which an Iraqi village endures a surprise attack from insurgents, Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss’ documentary Full Battle Rattle could be placed alongside Gunner Palace (2004) or The Ground Truth (2006) as another vérité-style portrait of daily life "on the ground." It’s when the smoke clears and an ice cream truck pulls up that we realize something’s amiss. This isn’t Iraq, but Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, and what we’ve just seen is part of a three-week long, intensive simulation meant to prepare US soldiers for conditions overseas.

Gerber and Moss follow one unit, led by the even-handed Col. McLaughlin, through the entirety of a training session as they attempt to win the hearts and cooperation of the fractious village of Medina Wasl. The villagers are actual Iraqi refugees, who despite their Shia, Sunni, and Christian backgrounds, have formed a genuine communal bond. As the deputy mayor, who used to be a Baghdad playboy in the ’70s, says: "I can’t even tell my wife, but after three years this feels more like home." The insurgents, on the other hand, are played by fellow American soldiers, and contribute to some of the most surreal moments in the film when they speak of taking out McLaughlin’s unit with unrestrained glee. The topsy-turvy world of Fort Irwin is further underscored by a commanding officer’s seemingly-contradictory comment that he hopes "the soldiers get lost in the reality of the simulation." Indeed, Gerber and Moss happen upon some unexpectedly candid moments amid all the play-acting: the tears shed at a mock funeral service for "fallen" comrades are real. Unfortunately, reality truly hits when the soldiers have to board an Iraq-bound plane at the end of the training. For some it will be a return trip. In the strange feedback loop between Iraq and the Iraq of Fort Irwin, Full Battle Rattle captures the seeming endlessness of the war.

FULL BATTLE RATTLE Fri/17, 7:30 p.m., $12.50. Premiere Theatre, Letterman Digital Arts Center, Presidio, SF. www.sffs.org

Will Ivy makes us itch for more

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will ivy 008.jpg

By Jen Snyder

Man, San Francisco, you are a very musically incestuous city.

On Friday, Oct. 10, I traveled to Chinatown’s Li Po Lounge for a show. I really appreciate any reason that sends me to Chinatown, be it a mission as a tour guide for house guests or a dire need for new China Flats, but this was a particularly promising trip. Li Po Lounge is a totally legitimate dive bar, plus it has one of those excellent creepy basement show rooms that you usually only can find in Oakland. The sound isn’t super-great, but the lighting (there basically is no “lighting”) and the mood is perfect. To top it off, Will Ivy of Bridez was performing his solo material.

I knew it was going to be good: I’d already listened to a few of Will Ivy’s lo-fi tracks on MySpace and totally dug them, particularly the song “Scrap Plastic,” but my hunch was based slightly more on the fact that most good bands have members with excellent side projects. I’ve always been a fan of songwriters and the diary-style lyrics and the mood that’s created when you’re writing things alone in your room.

A double dutch affair: SFC hops and skips into our hearts

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By Justin Juul

DDGirls2a.jpg

Jill Herrera (Switchblade), Valerie Hurysz (Death Valley), and Erin Dougherty (Venom Miss) of SFC Double Dutch can do The Ludicrous, The Donkey Kong, and The Turducken all without breaking a sweat. Never heard of these tricks before? Don’t worry, after a six-week course at SFC, your vocabulary will be full of weird slang and you’ll be pushin’ more rope than an exhausted porn star. The Guardian caught up with The SFC Girls recently to find out what happens when journalists stop staring at their computers and start gettin’ down.

SFBG: So what’s your deal?

Switchblade: We are Switchblade, Death Valley, and Venom Miss, Otherwise known as SFC Double Dutch. We jump rope, perform, and teach classes in the Bay Area.

SFBG: How did you get into the Double Dutch thing? I mean, is there a scene? Do you battle other Double Dutch crews and stuff? Or did you sort of just pick the jump rope thing randomly?

Switchblade: We met in the summer of 2002 and we wanted something physical to do with our friends. We just sort of landed on this, really. As far as a scene goes, there’s not really a battle scene like you find in break dancing. The Double Dutch community is really organized and clean and it’s not what you imagine when you think of old New York street-style stuff.

SFBG: But that’s kind of what you guys are all about, right, the street stuff? Are you the first people take that sort of old-school New York aesthetic and apply it to your group?

Feast: Mapu tofu ramen

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

As cross-cultural Asian culinary collisions go, mapo tofu ramen is right up — or down — there with peanut butter–filled mochi, crab rangoon, and sweet and spicy teriyaki potato chips. Not for purity-obsessed traditionalist foodies, cholesterol watchers, or just plain unimaginative eaters, this delightful bastardization will float many a boat of the clean-plate brigade — if only they can find it. Mapo tofu ramen isn’t sukiyaki, chicken teriyaki, shrimp tempura, or tekka maki — it’s far from being a Japanese menu staple. But until wasabi noodles emerge to wipe spice lovers’ sinuses clean, the few places that do serve this pepper-bedecked dish will be guaranteed pilgrimages from heat-seizers who appreciate that pleasure ‘n’ pain combo of sneeze-inducing chilies and comfort-giving brothy benevolence.

Just a noseful of ramen swirling in soup sends me back to the jillions of noodle stands riddling train station platforms all over Japan. Their presence paralleled the ironclad reliability of the country’s public transportation system. While you waited for your JR car, you plonked your yen in a quaint automat machine and pushed a button indicating your bowl of choice, be it udon or ramen, curry or karage. The machine issued you a ticket, which you forked over to the white-kerchiefed lady behind the teensy, tablet-shaped counter. Out came your bowl, in a few Shinkansen-speedy minutes. As the wet, bone-deep chill of a Japanese winter whipped across the raised platform outside, past the shivering salarymen and shuddering office ladies, you inhaled the noodles, using the chopsticks as a slender shovel, and noisily slurped the bonito-laced soup — the greater the gusto and the more audible the consumption, the greater the appreciation. Stops at the noodle stand became a warmth-endowing ritual disguised as a quick, tasty snack.

So how did Japanese ramen — itself a much-loved, long-ago import from China — come to be paired with numbingly spicy, sinus-clearing mapo tofu? The dish brilliantly pits nutritious tofu — so revered that "eating bean curd" can mean "taking advantage of or flirting with a person" in Chinese, according to Chinese Regional Cooking — with ground pork, or occasionally beef, and mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorn. I’ve found some of the finest examples of mapo tofu outside of Sichuan — ones that are a far cry from the brown-sauced, veggie-bedecked form it sometimes assumes stateside — in Japan, where heat-delivering comestibles like kimchi have also found favor. The premade mix you’ll find in most Japanese groceries is a decent approximation of the dish named, as legend has it, after a pock-mocked Sichuanese woman whose tofu swimming in meat sauce was worth traveling great distances to sample.

But who decided to first couple Sichuan-style spice with Japanese ramen? Online searches show mapo tofu ramen popping up on menus occasionally in Hawaii, Texas, and southern California. But my first brush with nose-clearing, sweat-beading heat came at Genki (Healthy) Ramen (3944 Geary, SF. 415-630-2948, genki-ramen-sf.eat24hour.com) in the Richmond District, under streamlined, vaguely disco-like decor. Curtains of reflective spangles and modish thread-strung lamps hang above flat-screen TVs showing button-cute J-pop nymphets serenading CGI kittens. Right now it might be the only spot in Bay Area to get a bowl of the genuine article — in both the mapo tofu and ramen departments.

The bowl arrives with a side of daikon pickles, sweet enough to cut the heat. A delicate isle of red, white, and brown mapo tofu lies perched amid flecks of green onion atop an al dente mound of slithery ramen noodles. Concentric circles of chili-hued sauce, oil, and soup expand out from the small mound of tofu specked with small yet not negligible nubs of pork, like a fatty, psychedelia-savory fever dream. The sauce is ever so slightly sweet and oyster sauce–ish, and soup delivers a distinct, radiating kick of space. Later the waitress tells me the cooks simmer pork and garlic all day to make the tonkatsu broth. Spice-snorting bliss — a marriage of the bland, serviceable refinement of tofu and the oily goodness of pork. This is every vegan’s nightmare, though unlike bacon-wrapped tofu, one gone deliciously right.

I venture out in search of more, on the rumor that Suzu Noodle House (1825 Post, SF. 415-346-5083) in Japantown and Katana-ya (430 Geary, SF. 415-771-1280) near Union Square serve spicy tofu ramen that compares. But no such luck. Suzu aims to please with a fine broth and toothsome noodles, but the spice level lacks the red-faced power of Genki. And Katana-ya’s spicy tofu ramen is more of a kimchi tofu ramen, sporting bits of pickled cabbage. It can be considered the soupy counterpart to its kimchi fried rice.

And so it’s back to Genki we go: if some Sichuan chili fans are right, getting healthy should always involve such a delicious sweat.

>>More Feast: The Guardian Guide to Bay Area Dining and Drinking

Feast: 6 Seoul foods

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Even among foodies, Korean cuisine does not get its due — and that’s even more the case in San Francisco. As I searched for ways to get my kimchi on, I can’t tell you how many people told me to look elsewhere. Some even said I had to go all the way down to Los Angeles if I wanted the good stuff. Well, naysayers, behold: these six eateries will help you put a little Seoul in your disbelieving bellies.

BROTHER’S


The Richmond is like the mecca of Korean food in this city, and Brothers is one of its better known eateries. Unlike some of the other Korean restaurants in SF, Brothers offers a no-frills environment. It’s a bit like a diner seen through a Korean lens. Though the kalbi (barbecue short ribs) is quite popular, I would recommend the fried beef dumplings. If you dip them into the accompanying sauce (a combination of soy sauce, vinegar, and scallions), you won’t go wrong.

4128 Geary, SF. (415) 387-7991

NAMU


Not far from Brothers geographically, Namu is on the other side of the universe in terms of vibe. Its minimalist decor and predilection for playing Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass provides a little bit of hipness — and dare I say, sexiness — to an otherwise sleepy and seemingly sexless block on Balboa. Namu is billed as an Asian fusion place, but don’t let that stop you. The bibimbap (a Korean stew made of veggies, rice, and egg served in a clay pot) is tasty and the ingredients are wonderfully fresh. (Local and organically grown veggies are used when possible.) And if that didn’t sell you, try one of the desserts — the bean paste/chocolate cupcake gives new meaning to the word goodness.

439 Balboa, SF. (415) 386-8332

KOREA HOUSE


If you want a more traditional Korean eating experience, complete with a variety of delicious banchan (the side dishes that traditionally accompany every Korean meal), then Korea House is a good place to start. Located in the heart of Japantown — for some reason, a number of nicer Korean restaurants are located there — Korea House has an old-school formality to it. It’s the type of place where plush carpets encourage hushed voices, which is too bad because the bulgogi (barbecue beef) is so good that it’ll make you want to holler. Please don’t.

1640 Post, SF. (415) 563-1388

JOHN’S SNACK AND DELI


Until about three years ago, if you were slogging away in the Financial District, you were out of luck when it came to Korean food. But then John came to the rescue. For less than ten bucks, he and his mom — who works right next to him at the counter — provide you Starbucks-loving folk with some pretty fine Korean fare. The menu is limited, but each dish comes with rice, a salad topped with a snappy ginger dressing, and a side of kimchi. And for those of you who just want to snack, there’s kimbap (Korean-style vegetarian sushi roll) for around $3. You go, John!

40 Battery, SF. (415) 434-4634

COCOBANG


OK, so you’re thinking, yeah, Korean sounds good, but I want a hangout, too. Well, brothers and sisters, I hear you — and the answer is Cocobang. With Korean music videos projected on the back wall, Cocobang is a great place to get both your Korean food and liquor needs satisfied. There are two-liter bottles of Korean beer at the ready, and soju (think vodka) chasers to be had. And because the official closing time is 2 a.m., it’s a good place to end your night. As for the food, the fire chicken came highly recommended, but being more a lover of the cow, I opted for kalbi, which had a marinade nothing short of awesome — it was like Memphis meets Seoul, it was as though … I’ll just say it: the guys at Cocobang are truly bringing the world closer together, one barbecue at a time.

550 Taylor, SF. (415) 292-5144

SEOUL ON WHEELS


Last, and certainly not least, there’s Seoul on Wheels. True to its name, this food truck combines two of my favorite things: the streets and the meats. Julia Yoon (the owner and mastermind) doesn’t stay in any one place too long, but you can find her route on her Web site. Once you do find her, though, you won’t be disappointed. For six bucks — by far the cheapest Korean on my list — you get a meat dish with rice and japchae (a vegetable and noodle dish). You can opt for the kimchi fried rice, one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. The food is made fresh to order — when not driving, Julia and her assistant are cooking up the goods, which makes Seoul on Wheels truly a movable feast worth finding.

Locations vary throughout SF. www.seoulonwheels.com


>>More Feast: The Guardian Guide to Bay Area Dining and Drinking

Feast: 5 Jewish joints

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It’s easy to assume that the Jews of San Francisco have been culinarily deprived. Unlike New York and Los Angeles, San Francisco doesn’t have an abundance of delis serving tongue-on-rye sandwiches or boiled bagels. But after tasting bowl after bowl of matzo ball soup at establishments across the Bay Area, I can assure Jews and Judeophiles alike that we aren’t that bad off. Whether you crave a delicious and moist knish or that dessert of racial integration, the black-and-white cookie, you’ll find what you’re looking for at one of these go-to Jew food locales.

MOISHE’S PIPPIC


As soon as you enter this Chicago-themed deli, you become a part of the Moishe’s Pippic family. Which means you’ll be privy to matzo ball soup almost like Bubbe used to make. Moishe’s variety, perhaps the best in the city, features seasoned dumplings floating in a perfectly salted broth with huge chunks of carrots. Also worth noting are sandwiches piled so high with whatever meat you want — including rare roast beef or, on Fridays, warm brisket with horseradish — that they might as well scream, "Eat! Eat! You’re too thin!" They offer kosher hot dogs and sausages, too, but sadly, few desserts.

425-A Hayes, SF. (415) 431-2440

HOUSE OF BAGELS


The quaint Geary Street eatery goes beyond lox on an onion bagel. Some of the flavors seem downright sacrilegious — chocolate? Corn? Whole wheat? — but all are delicious with regular or specialty cream-cheese spreads like honey or strawberry. Aside from bagels, the House offers a selection of deli sandwiches and various knishes wrapped in warm doughy crust. Best of all are the free mini challahs and dessert samples on the counter, ready for noshing while you wait. The black-and-whites are the perfect cakey confection; and Jewish favorites like kugel, latkes, and hammentaschen round out the menu. But skip the matzo ball soup — the matzoh balls fall apart and are as soupy as the unappetizing broth.

5030 Geary, SF. (415) 752–6000, www.houseofbagels.com

MILLER’S EAST COAST WEST DELICATESSEN


Bleu cheese and bacon on a burger? Oy! Miller’s may not be the most kosher of delicatessens, but the meat-stacked sandwiches do a good job of adhering to the Jew-food tradition. Also, unlike the café Jack Nicholson visited in the Seven Easy Pieces, Miller’s is flexible with its offerings: do you want cream cheese and lox on a slice of toasted challah? It may not be on the menu, but you can surely get this lovely combination. It’s my usual — that, plus a cup of the matzo ball soup, which has a good consistency and lots of veggies (though the broth could use some salt and a bay leaf). Get a big bowl of soup with a half-chicken and make a meal out of it, or turn it into a feast by adding latkes accompanied by an applesauce that’s like pie filling.

1725 Polk, SF. (415) 563- 3542, www.millersdelisf.com

MAX’S OPERA CAFÉ


This place seems a bit confused about what kind of restaurant it is, with deli-style items, diner decor, and a laminated menu that gives off a Denny’s vibe. But once inside, all that matters is the matzo ball soup, chock-full of vegetables, noodles, and generous cuts of lean chicken. Supplement it with traditional delights like corned beef, pastrami, or brisket with one of five mustard options, or try modern sandwiches like turkey with roasted pear and Brie. Another hearty option is the chicken potpie. Just beware: the servings are large and in charge.

601 Van Ness, SF. (415) 771-7300, www.maxsworld.com

TEL AVIV KOSHER MARKET


This is the place to be if you’re in need of some tasty kosher treats. They stock all of the essentials and beyond — whether it be matzo meal, Passover desserts, challah, meats of all kinds, gefilte fish, turkey meatballs, wine, Israeli candy, or Bazooka bubble gum. The Jew-food fun never ends. They also have a pre-made section hosting a scrumptious medley of carrots, eggplant, challah dogs, knishes, hummus, tahini, and falafel that you can enjoy on-site at one of their two tables. The challah is downright addictive and made locally. And delights imported from the Holy Land are just as good — and fun, like the dessert-in-a-box mix for chocolate balls dipped in sprinkles. (Follow the directions on the back, if you can read Hebrew.)

2495 Irving, SF, (415) 661-7588

>>More Feast: The Guardian Guide to Bay Area Dining and Drinking

Feast: 5 halal heavens

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The Muslim world has just wrapped up another Ramadan, the sacred month of fasting and reflection during which it’s said the Qu’ran was delivered to the Prophet Muhammed. What better time to explore some of the delicious Islamic-influenced restaurants of the Bay that feature halal food — literally, "permitted" by Islamic law? Let’s get deliciously permissive!

Adherence to halal traditions is most manifest in certain types and slaughter of meat. Exact proscriptions vary, but here’s the main gist: no pork, donkey meat, or carnivorous animals except for seafood and fish; blood must be completely drained before butchering; and all animals must be conscious when killed by a "person of the book" — Muslim, Christian, or Jew — while Allah’s name is intoned. Halal fans, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, swear by the tenderness and flavor of such meats — although that may have to do as much with cooking preparation as killing style. There’s a wealth of restaurants here that serve some heavenly halal dishes, and since Islam covers a good chunk of the globe, there’s a bounty of different cuisines to try. Most, but not all, halal spots will hang their certification in the window, and if you’d like to do the cooking yourself, halal meats are available at butcher shops such as Salama Halal Meat (604 Geary, SF. 415-474-0359), the goat-a-licious Alhambra Meat Company (3111 24th St., SF. 415-525-4499), or stunning variety store Queen of Sheba (1100 Sutter, SF. 415-567-4322). One halal holdback: alcohol is not usually served at these restaurants, so call ahead if you want some chardonnay with your tibsi. (Marke B.)

BANG SAN THAI


A surprise to me: there are oodles of Islamic enclaves in Thailand, a mainly Buddhist nation. Bang San is a beyond-cute little kitchen-counterlike eatery in the Tenderloin which serves only halal meats in its spicy Thai favorites — especially good are the ginger beef pad king sod rice plate and the sweet red kang dang pumpkin curry kicked up with some jalapeño vinegar condiment. Bonus: satay to die for. The best part here, however, is the service — even though Bang San’s operators had been fasting all day for Ramadan, they were out-of-control friendly and welcoming.

505 Jones, SF. (415) 440-2610, www.bangsanthai.com

TAJINE


Hunky Beau and I took our Swiss friend to this beloved Moroccan spot’s new digs on Polk Street (the street for halal restos) because, really, the Swiss know from Moroccan food. The verdict? Authentically fab. Tajines are Africa’s version of Asian clay-pot dishes, stewlike in texture and cooked to piping-hot goodness. The tajine of white beans with merquez sausage was a hearty delight, with smoky undertones steaming up through the done-just-right legumes, which on different menus tend to smother any and all other flavors. Also an instant hit was the tajine guanemy — peel-off-the-bone lamb with artichoke hearts and peas, which delivered a spicy kick to match its neon green color.

1338 Polk, SF. (415) 440-1718, www.tajinerestaurant.com

DE AFGHANAN KABOB HOUSE


Intent on grabbing a bite to eat before the dragzilla Trannyshack Kiss-Off party up the street, I had the great fortune to order at this wee Nob Hill joint just as the first out Olympic gold medalist, Matthew Mitcham, was making his historic winning dive on the big screen. Kismet? The food more than matched my exuberance: I can’t imagine diving into a bigger Afghan taste bud celebration than that which resulted from my first forkful of quabili pallow (buttery chunks of lamb baked with carrots, raisins, and basmati brown rice) and mantu (steamed dumplings bursting with savory seasoned beef, topped with a cloud-light split-pea yogurt sauce). One specialty you shouldn’t miss: the bolani kadoo pumpkin turnover. Fall’s perfect snack? Yes.

1303 Polk, SF. 415-345-9947, www.deafghanan.net

OLD MANDARIN ISLAMIC


It’s pretty much an open secret that the popular but not too popular Old Mandarin is one of the most unique chow spots in the city. Um, Islamic Chinese food? Let’s go! It’s easy to go ape wild for the tiny, lively Outer Sunset resto’s specialties: hot pot, with a soup base, various spices and sauces, and a plateful of "animal parts" to cook yourself, and warm pot — hot pot’s already-fully-assembled sibling. But for me the à la carte lamb dishes are the true stars, including super-spicy Mongolian lamb and delectably tangy cumin lamb. The unbeatable lamb dumplings (a.k.a. pot stickers) benefit from a night in the refrigerator, so get some to go.

3132 Vicente, SF. (415) 564-3481

HAYES AND KEBAB


This Hayes Valley newbie offers some sturdy Mediterranean favorites in a relaxed atmosphere, and is a lovely no-brainer for a not-too-dressy pre- or post-symphony bite. I’m a sucker for the chicken gyro served as a salad, with melt-in-your-mouth shredded chicken topping a robust mix of greens and veggies, dressed in a simple lemon-oil combo. The kebab plates are killer, too, with skewered lamb or beef delivered with a colorful side combo of rice and bulgar pilafs. "Alexander’s favorite" is another yummer: Thin-sliced marinated lamb and beef with bread cubes in fresh tomato sauce and yogurt. I don’t know who Alexander is, but I like him.

406 Hayes, SF. (415) 861-2977, www.hayeskebab.com

>>More Feast: The Guardian Guide to Bay Area Dining and Drinking

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