San Francisco Food Chronicle: Day 1

It was an extremely unique first day in San Francisco, highlighted by the bomb squad, a trip to the Golden-Gate Bridge, and a minor fiasco in our hotel room. However, this is of course a Chronicle about food, so I should limit myself to this confine.

 

Breakfast:

 

In all reality, it was non-existent and irrelevant to this blog because it did not take place in San Francisco and I only ate one bite, however I think it is an interesting story. In the Indianapolis airport in the morning I consumed one bite of a Starbucks plain bagel given to me by a classmate. It was horrifyingly bad. I attached a picture:

 

Lunch:

 

For lunch we were allowed to go off in small groups to find local cuisine in order to fulfill our basic necessities as humans, consumption of fuel. Unfortunately as we found out, the Wipe Out Bar and Grill located on pier 39 was no more then this. This god-awful tourist destination was an incredibly bad decision on our part. The food was mediocre at best, complimented by annoying southern California surfer music. This place was flawed in many ways, mainly being that their preferred cooking tool was a deep fryer. However their deep frying skills lacked zest and motivation and made my fried calamari deeply unsatisfying. The proof that this was simply a third-rate mediocre restaurant was that there were no tentacles in my calamari; instead it was all a compilation of the circular ringlets that left an unwelcome aftertaste in my mouth for hours to come. The lone bright point of the restaurant was its French fries, which were nothing special, however they truly proved how hard it would have to be to make a French fry bad. This restaurant was horrid and in my opinion as well as the valued opinion of my peers a location to avoid at all costs unless the entire world is hit by an atomic bomb except this pier.

 

 

Dinner:

 

This evening we decided to venture into Japan town in an attempt to find good quality sushi often impossible to find in Indiana. We were unbelievably successful at the small, but authentic Osakaya restaurant. Initially I was skeptical by this menu because many of the sushi rolls contained ingredients I would consider abnormal to eat. For instance, Elise Carter had a roll containing salmon eggs in it, which I promptly declared to be food for a bear and not a human. However, I found a roll I found completely unique from any other I have experienced in Indiana. This roll combined my love of spicy foods with my willingness to attempt to extend my horizon of sushi rolls. It was called the Super Dynamite Roll. It contained spicy tuna and a special spicy sauce around the outside that reminded me of buffalo wing sauce. Now, normally I do not enjoy tuna rolls because they are to mushy for my mouth to handle, however this was countered with the obligatory seaweed surrounding and another special ingredient I had never seen until this odd restaurant. They put tempura crust on the outside of the seaweed. This has two distinct advantages. Firstly, it adds the necessary crunch along with the avocado necessary in a sushi roll to overcome the mush that is raw fish. Secondly, it muffled the taste of the seaweed, which, to an amateur palate like my own, is not the most enjoyable of tastes. This new technique along with the intense spice of the sushi roll made it simply the best roll of my life. If the restaurant excels as it did in my meal tonight in other portions of its menu, it is sure to be a hit for any Japanese food-lover.

Standings So Far:

1. Osakaya

2. Starbucks in Indiana

3. Wipe Out Bar and Grill