May 2020 Rundown

Glad to see my favorite place in SF has lines!!

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Those are actually typical lines, it just seems longer these days due to social distancing and the fact that the line size doesn’t change for the duration of MK’s inventory during the busier stretch of operating hours. So the head of the line shortens after people are done purchasing, but some auntie or uncle joins in on the fun at the end of the line at the same time. It’s just so convenient to not have to cook anything extra…just rice and stir fry some vegetables, and you already have the main course. Or remix it however else you want.

But with the long weekend, cabin fever, the fact that MK took a long time to re-open (probably to figure out how to properly serve customers and themselves safely), it’s a “dragon” line/queue of tenacity.

Roasties cravings and Ming Kee addictions with fans from the neighborhood and those in the known are no laughing matter. The only prescription for this fever, is more roasties :pig:.

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Langer’s #54 :heart_eyes::heart_eyes::heart_eyes:

The bread was crusty AF, perfection! I ate this 2 blocks away and it was as good as eating in the restaurant.


Just a friendly reminder, cuz with all these newish take outs, sometimes a classic is a classic for a reason. Also grabbed a corned beef on toasted kaiser roll with mustard, excellent as well.

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Orsa & Winston opened back up for lunch today. Quarter pounder sando with cheese, potato chips and coconut vegan tapioca. All so good.

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What is the bread on the sandwich? Looks delicious (and that it’s held up well).

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That’s some beautiful food

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Brioche!

And yeah I work a short walk from Orsa so was able to eat pretty quick.

Even still one sandwich sat for ~20 minutes and held up well

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MasterHA - Marinated raw crab, abalone, and shrimp

It’s been years since I had it at Soban, but for $10 more you get three times the amount of crab here. Could do with some more roe, but maybe it’s not the season. So much delicious crab meat.

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Beautiful, but there is a spicy version I have read about and never seen here. I would try and make it, but blue crabs are an east coast thing. Not sure how Dungeness (a superior crab) would adapt, and having had food poisoning from bad crabs (back east) I have no desire to experiment.
At any rate that looks great!

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Yup, there is a spicy version that you might find in certain restaurants offered as banchan. Or they might have it on the menu (like BCD Soon Tofu House, see below but not my photo):

This is generally cheaper than the soy sauce marinated crabs, because I think you can use the spice to disguise the lower quality of the crab. At Breakers BBQ (not a noteworthy place), they had a buffet with all you can eat spicy raw marinated crab and people took so much of it they eventually had a server put it on your plate to make you feel guilty haha (I heard they eventually upped the price of the buffet).

I’ve never heard of Koreans using dungeness or other types of crab though. Like you, I suspect it would be a mistake.

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Gaenali Bon Ga in Garden Grove has spicy gejang as a banchan on the weekends. I can’t say I eaten everywhere in Ktown, but I hardly see spicy gejang offered as a banchan

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Park’s BBQ has it on rotation, but they’d only refill it once or twice.

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Pretty good stuff. I guess I have bad taste. :poop: :poop: :poop:

By the way, 15 lb bags of Tamaki Gold Koshihikari is on sale at Marukai/Tokyo Central for $21.98.

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Gardena location?

I was at the Little Tokyo location but sale everywhere!

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I think that’s been the price of Tamaki Gold at Tokyo Central for like 2 months straight. Still a very good rice.

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Looks good. Do you dip it in soy sauce or just eat it straight?

No soy sauce needed nor provided. It was already plenty flavorful with the kanpyo and chopped shiitake.

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Out of all the supermarket sushi I’ve had I think Tokyo Central is the best. A hair better than Mitsuwa. Don’t judge. Not every FTC is balling and eating at Mori, Raku and Shunji every night. Haha.

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With our baby due in mid-June and mom-to-be’s birthday in May, we scheduled a takeout from Melisse/Citrin for mom’s bday. Then the baby showed up a few weeks early (she and mom are doing great!), so the Melisse meal turned into a two day one-at-a-time affair. We started with the rolls and the beurre de baratte. I think I remember the rolls at Melisse being absolutely incredible and these were merely good, but the butter was incredible. We then immediately had the lobster bolognese because we were worried it might not hold up that well, and it was wonderful (if shoveled in at a perhaps faster rate than we might normally do). Just slightly better than hospital food :slight_smile:

We then bravely also had the filet + braised beef in pasta and duck. The reheating instructions were easy and had things to a good temperature. The filet was perfectly cooked (must be sous vide?) and I loved the sides (mushroom + farro, leeks + potatoes, mashed potatoes). Duck was also really good though from a texture standpoint I think the beef did better with reheating. We also finished like a quarter of each before quickly dashing off to nap.

The next day, we had the tomato soup with strawberry and burrata, and lazily heated things up in the microwave and it was still a great lunch (can 10:45 am be lunch?). We also finished the dinner. Later in the day (I think, it could very well have been the next day), we had the dessert, which I thought was perfect though mom, who has an absurd sweet tooth, didn’t like it as much as the many cakes she had been gifted so let me finish both :slight_smile:

I also ordered one of their drinks, which I have surreptitiously finished over the last week or so (tasty and very well priced, FWIW).

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