You did great on sampling a cross section of the city! Is that top pic on the Ninfas visit the queso flameado? That’s a different concept for that dish, which is typically melted cheese with meat or veggies in it and eaten wrapped in a tortilla. That pic looks like fried farmer’s cheese. Not that that’s in any way a bad thing, it looks terrific. Just wondering if that’s what it was called.
3 Likes
Aha, right you are! Looking back at the menu, we indeed ordered the Queso Asado, made from Panela Cheese (they have flameado on the menu, which we thought was a fun name, and I mislabeled it above). Nice and salty with a soft texture. It wasn’t as squeaky as paneer or halloumi, or as melty as saganaki (kasseri?) can be. Tasted like sugar may have helped those grill marks.
2 Likes
It is called Mexican Farmer’s cheese and is quite common, I like the saltiness.
3 Likes
Riel, whose chef is Canadian of Ukrainian heritage, has an eclectic menu that works well.
Borscht was a love letter to beets. He captured some of the lighter flavors of beets, sweet isn’t the right word but I don’t know what is, and the beef broth boosted the dish but did not compete with the beet flavors. Nice amount of horseradish.
Bannock, a soda bread, with cultured butter and an intense shallot jam. Salty and savory, and so good I felt guilty not offering some to my neighbor at the bar, who then enjoyed the rest with me.
I’m usually not a fan of potato cheddar pierogies, but I got them because they were out of the fancy caviar ones. They boil the frozen pierogies and finish them on the flat top. Excellent. The skins have some browning but remain tender— the server confirmed that there’s mashed potatoes in the dough (I’ve not seen that in Polish pierogies, which I’m used to, but a Ukrainian friend makes it that way from a recipe from Savella Stechishin’s cookbook
“Traditional Ukrainian Cookery”)
Big shrimp, well spiced. Didn’t have that metallic(iodine?) taste I’ve found typical of Gulf shrimp. XO sauce was less saucy than is typical in the SFBA, but elevated the shrimp. Tasted like a citrus sauce in the Sweet potato noodles, whatever it was it paired well with the shrimp.
Kolache Shoppe Ha, the dough is a dead ringer for some Cantonese baked pork buns, and sweeter, a smidge closer to Hawaiian rolls than West Virginia pepperoni rolls. Jalepen and eggs had a generous amount of pickled jalapeño. The sausage and cheese had air inside, but the cheese locked the tasty sausage in place.
Truth BBQ Yay, not a big line!
Brisket had custardy fat, which lathered the rest of the meat with salt and juices. So good. The generous amount of pickled onions and cucumbers balanced out the richness (I asked for a fatty cut)
Great ribs and sausage, which had a smokier flavor than the brisket, but still not so much it overpowered the meat taste. Turkey breast, which I’ve never seen in Nortern California bbq places was smokey too, but i wasn’t a fan of it’s tumescent overbrined soux-vide-like texture.
Phoenicias Between breakfasts and lunches, I had four meals here and a good number of sweets.
Thanks again for all your suggestions (both here and on other threads)!
2 Likes
OMG, great pics! You really had a lot of food experiences! Do you mean to say you’ve never seen mashed potatoes in Polish pierogis? My extremely Polish MIL makes primarily potato/cheese and kraut/mushroom pierogis. And yes, boiled and then fried in butter is the best way!
I guess I need to get to Riel, it looks terrific.
1 Like
Thanks!
I meant that the dough contains flour, mashed potatoes, etc., gets rolled out, and then filled with mashed potatoes and cheese. I saw a YouTube video of this type of dough at one point, and it looked way easier to roll out than the recipe my Polish neighbor taught me, which uses lots of butter in the dough, Frozen ones tend to use vegetable oil, and I’ve seen recipes that use sour cream too.
Mmmm… Kraut and mushroom are my favorites, but I also like Polish farmers cheese, the cottage cheese like stuff.
Yeah, Riel was great. It was one of those situations where you ask the server for recommendations, and wind up ordering a bunch of things they didn’t say anyway. I’d love to return and try more of the chefy kinds of things.
1 Like
Oh, that IS different. They look amazing.
Can you go into more detail on the line at Truth: what day/time did you go, how long was the wait from start to ordering?
Arriving a few minutes before opening on the Tuesday, it was 30 minutes from arrival in the queue to eating, including time to get a slice of carrot cake, utensils, etc. When I left near noon, no one was waiting outside the door.
3 Likes
