seeing as how going out to dinner usually ends up with me crying myself to sleep after i check my bank account, this blog is hereby amended from being filled with shitty reviews of restaurants to shitty reviews of restaurants and shitty home made food.  on the bright side, it will also now include lots of pretty pretty pictures as i no longer have an excuse to forget my camera.  HOORAY!

 

unless u want to take me out to dinner.  in which case, i will post that shit up with the quickness.  and also, i will put out.

 

no.  really. 

to sum it up:

 

eh.

 

good niuromien in the states is my bigfoot, in that it is damn near impossible to find and is meaty as fuck.  so, in a quest to find a place that was comparable to the almighty Tao Yen Street Niu Ro Mien place in taipei, the hateriffic jeff and i went on a weeklong binge to try as many places as possible within our vicinity as humanly possible.  which, as it turns out, wasn't actually that many places because you can only eat so much msg before your blood pressure tells you to go fuck yourself, but, goddamit, we put forth a semi-superhero effort on our behalf.

 

first night was @ wuling karaoke in el cerrito in san pablo, where, apparently, people eat while eating nrm.  the venue itself didn't look very promising (once again, KARA-fuckin-OKE), and was actually dead empty when we showed up.  but we were there for the nrm, not the view, so i'll move on to that.

 

at first glance, the nrm did not look promising.  it had a bit of a sanitary look to it, which, if you are a fan of the dirtier-equals-more-tastier school of thought in asian cuisine (which actually does make some sense when you think about it, cuz the place is still open, it means the place had to compensate somehow for the dirtiness, you picky bastards), means that it wasn't going to be particularly mindblowing.  the broth was much too clear, lacking the chunky meat bits that should be floating around here and there, and there wasn't the glowy red spicy goodness that i was used to.  the noodles are regular flour noodles that you can buy at ur local ranch 99, the meat was a bit tough, the tendon was similar to tendon flavored rubber, and the soup tasted like msg and oil, and not much else.  on the bright side, it did come with mustard greens.

 

if i had to summarize the nrm @ wuling up in one word, it would be this:

 

s'aight.

 

overall, it had a bit of an instant-ramen-esque feel to it, and the msg and oil just made us feeling more thirsty and greasy than anything else.  all in all, not really worth going back to again.

i. fucking. love. meat.  like. nobody's. business. meat.

and, IMHO, when it comes to meat, nobody in SF even comes close to bobo's bone-in filet.  its as if one day butter and meat got together, and the result was their dirty, dirty lovechild:  buttermeat.   i've been to harris, HOPR, ruth's chris, mina's strip steak, BOA (mm... seared foie gras), and a good number of other reputable steakhouses.  and, like i said, none have even come close.  until now.

in comes A5 (former Frisson location).  or 5A5.  cuz, really, i have no fucking clue what their planning on calling it yet cuz i've seen both names in numerous locations.  and they're in a soft-open phase at the moment, so their shit is all out of wack (including their meager 2 page wine selection).  but, i will give them this:  regardless of their administrative issues, motherfuckers can cook a mean steak. granted, there were only two of us, so we were only able to order the following two steaks:

- 16 oz porterhouse, dry aged 5-6 weeks, prime.  i love me some good dry aging.  bobo's bone-in filet is dry aged a min of 4 weeks, and up to six, so this is on par.   the strip side of the porterhouse was a bit lacking in flavor.  good, mind u, but nowhere near my beloved bone-in.   the filet side of the porterhouse, however, was, shall we say, bustanuttalicious.  i'm reluctant to say that i was as good as bobo's due to the close to 5 glasses of wine ingested by this point, but its about as close to it as i've had.

- 7 oz american wagyu, new york strip, prime.  not as fatty as the filet, but definitely more flavorful.  not sure what the aging on this is.  good, but at $10 more than the porterhouse and weighing in at half the meaty goodness, probably not worth it.  but the bernaise it comes with is fucktastic.

other things to get:

- hamachi shooters weren't bad, but were a bit salty.  could go lighter on the ponzu

- alina.  as ur server.  alina is frickin awesome.  i <3 alina

- free sauternes.  courtesy of alina.  after repeated comments about how awesome of a server she was.  because, goddamit, we were borderline drunk.  i <3 alina.

- if ur a super baller, u can get their A5 grade (hence their name) wagyu from japan.  weighing in at a whopping $17 PER OUNCE.   and, being a baller on a budget, i will have to wait another day to try it.

bix should consider changing that "b" to a "d", because goddamnit, our server was a dick and a half.  took 30 fucking minutes just to place our orders.   we eventually had to wave down another waiter and tell him to go get our own waiter (who we nicknamed "beefcake", because, well... he looked beefy.  and somewhat cakey.  both of which are frickin delicious.  our server, however, was not.).

 

that said, the rest of the food was flippin awesome.

 

to start, we had truffle fries and lamb sliders, both of which were (and please keep in mind that bottle that you see below was already half empty at this point), for lack of a better word, nutbustalicious.  and then came the cruelty.  the delicious, tasty cruelty.  cruelty with a side of quince chutney and.... what appeared to be toasted wonder bread.  which, by the way, when covered with a thin layer of foie gras, is fucking DELICIOUS.  not the best foie gras i've ever had, but its up there.

 

(on a side note, if you think i am a horrible horrible person for enjoying foie gras, and you are not either:  a) a vegan, nor b) a vegetarian, please kindly go play a game of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself.  you're an animal hating asshole just as much as i am.  the cows that you eat in your burger got depressed and killed itself so you could eat it, yino.  embrace your inner caveman!)

 

the pork chop was amazing, as usual.  it came with some stuff.  and some other stuff.  chicken hash was good, but not amazing.

 

i feel like i should point out that, at this point, both mabel and i were halfway to shitfaced-ville.  not only did we polish off that bottle of wine, but we also had a pre-meal cocktail or two (btw, cocktails here are also pretty damn good, which a few select hard-to-find liquors).  however, from previous experiences, bix has not let me down yet.  at least not in the food department.  beefcake/dickface, however, certainly did.

if i had to sum up spqr in one word, it would be this:

s'aight.

its not really bad, but its not really good.  its just kinda there, in the middle.  its like a semi-cold coors light on a semi-warm day when you're not really thirsty, but hey, fuckit, the beer pong table is out so.... why the hell not.

we started off with a few of the appetizers.  the first of which was a salumi plate that came with a bunch of crap on it, the winner of which was  the prociutto.  not because it was particularly fantastic, but simply because prociutto is goddamn delicious.  the ricotta appetizer wasn't bad, but cheese spread on a piece of bread will only get you so far.

but then you came along, fried brussel sprouts.  when i had my first taste of you and your delicious lemony capery goodness, all my troubles fell away.  the light was shining a little bit brighter, the music played a little bit sweeter.  i couldn't help but ignore ryan and hemalee as they asked me how it was because, goddamit, it was taking all of my effort just to keep my eyes from rolling into the back of my head.   but, the thing with brussel sprouts is, u get sick of them bitches real fast.  so, 3 or 4 sprouts later, we sent them bitches packing with the waitress.  fucking brussel sprouts.

the entrees were, once again, run of the mill.  we got a couple pasta items that were a bit like upgraded versions of their macaroni grill counterparts (not to say that it was bad, cuz i actually like macaroni grill).  the meat lasagna was pretty good.  definitely above average, but nothing amazing.  the standout was probably the bay scallop / cauliflower entree.  or at least half of it.  the scallops were good; the cauliflower not.   the problem was that the scallops were small, and the califlower was left pretty much whole, which made each individual stalk look like a fucking tree next to the poor little scallops.  and trees are not delicious because i am not a beaver.

the dessert was good, but not amazing.  the rice pudding was the better of the two, but loses points for looking like a nice, delicious puddle of yack. complete with steamy warmness and festively colorful chunks of holy-shit-what-the-fuck-is-that. 

all in all, it was good, but probably not coming back again without good reason.

(side note:  SPQR = senatus populus que romanus = senate and people of rome.  get cho mothafuckin learn on!)