Outerlands is everything I love in a neighborhood restaurant. The main menu is straightforward -- fresh wholesome food that nourishes and comforts soups, sandwiches and stews.
The heirloom tomato soup was well balanced with a strong tomato flavor and spicy tap at the end. A side of grilled cheese was made with thickly cut pieces of crusty bread, crunchy and perfect for dipping into the soup. We also loved the spicy and soothing ginger cider.
The food is comforting and matches the beautiful interior of reclaimed wood. Enjoying a meal at Outerlands feels like taking relaxing trip to a cabin in Big Sur sipping cider and eating hot soup in front of a fireplace. It is that warm atmosphere and friendly service that makes me wish I lived around the corner.
Outerlands photos
Judah at 45th Ave
Soup o.k., won tons very large and porky, noodles were overcooked. I prefer the soup at Just Won Ton and their won tons are better balanced between shrimp and pork.
Noriega and 32nd
I was excited when I happened to be in the neighborhood of Larkin Express Deli with an hour to spare. Upon perusing the menu of Burmese fare, I settled on trying the Mohinga which has been discussed several times on the local food boards. Mohinga is a fish soup with a curry base and rice noodles. This one was topped with some crisped lentils that made a cracker on top of the soup. The soup was thickened with minced fish meat, not chunks as I had been expecting. It had a strong slightly salty curry flavor with a nice acidic kick of lime at the end -- add the crunchiness of the lentil cracker and I was happy. The only drawback was the large portion of rice noodles which were overcooked and soggy. I've always had a strong aversion to overcooked noodles or pasta. The noodles overwhelmed the soup so much that I had to take half of them out of the bowl which left about a half cup of soup. To his credit and my surprise, the friendly server noticed and brought an extra bowl of soup without noodles. I would order this again without the noodles. I appreciated that the establishment seemed to care a lot about whether I enjoyed the food. I will definitely return and would order this again without the noodles. Though there are several other Burmese items I'll sample next time.
Larkin near Turk
A satisfying lunch of Yuke Jang at Shin Toe Bul Yi. Yuke Jang is beef brisket in a spicy soup with egg and green onions. STBY's has great soups and stews, so I thought I'd give their Yuke Jang a try. The soup was excellent spicy with a deep beef broth base. The egg and bit of clear noodles were good, though I felt they went a little over the top with the green onions. The beef itself was the right cut, though a little stringier than I like. Still it beats the last time I ordered Yuke Jang (at a Korean bbq restaurant) and got soup with some random pieces of beef in it. The service here is very homey. They always serve mackerel and ha mul pa jun (pancake) with the pan chan which is not always given freely at other places.
Just Won Ton is a noodle soup shop located across from some accountants' offices, on Vincente Street in the Outer Sunset. Hot Beef Wonton Noodle Soup and their fried tofu stuffed with pork are the two items I consistently order. It's a Cantonese diner style food with some homestyle rice plates and a neighborhood crowd. The wontons are the best thing they have, with a thin wrapper, a good ratio of shrimp to pork and a nice little pop when you bite into them. The hot beef is actually not that spicy but adds a little hot oil flavor to the broth.
The fried tofu is nothing special, but it's a nice conduit for soy sauce and the hot pickled condiments. Each fried tofu triangle is has a small slit in the middle where they stuff some ground pork to add a bit more to it. This might actually be more successful if the tofu pieces were a bit smaller. The large tofu pieces drown out any porky taste, but still I like their general thinking on the dish.
Vincente at 23rd
**Update: This restaurant is now closed**
I've passed New Cheung Hing too many times to count. Somehow their hanging ducks have never enticed me to taste something from their counter of prepared foods. The few times that I have walked into the restaurant, the prepared foods seemed like they had been in the steaming trays for a long time. It just didn't appear as fresh as the food found at similar places on Clement. On a night when I was craving some vegetables, I decided to give the sit down part of the restaurant a try. The menu had a lot of decent sounding items and I quickly zoomed in on the Rock Cod Fillet with Tender Greens. When I asked what the greens were they told me it was bok choy. O.k. that's typical for a Cantonese restaurant, but I was craving something else. After asking if they had anything else, she said no, but then I suggested Kong Xin Tsai (water spinach) one of my favorite greens and she said they could do that. I was a little hesitant because I wondered whether the produce would be fresh. Turned out great. Some nice fillets sauteed in a light garlic sauce with a heaping mound of vegetables, the sauce was light and allowed the fish and the greens to shine. It tasted great and looked so good that the table next to me asked for theirs to be cooked the same way.
To whet my appetite, I started with the Crab with Fish Maw Soup, one of my favorite soups. Their version had a decent amount of fish maw and real crab. Though they might have gone a little overboard with the thickening agent, I would definitely order this again.
The menu shows some very inexpensive family dinners ranging from four to ten folks, which might be worth trying. The place is not bad, the food much better than I expected and the service efficient. I probably wouldn't get anything from their already made counter except for the duck or roasted meats, but wouldn't mind coming back to sample a few more of their freshly cooked items.
Irving and 20th
The pupusas at Balompie's come in several varieties, unable to remember which ones I liked best I ordered the revueltas, a mix of chicharrones (fried pork) and cheese; and the nopales (cactus) and cheese. Both were tasty, but the nopales was very aromatic worked nicely with the cheese and was all around more flavorful. The curtido (pickled cabbage slaw) accompanying the pupusas was crisp and fresh and had the right amount of spicy kick. The whole dish was much better than Panchita's which was my last pupusa stop, but probably on par with those at that place in the outer Mission next to the church.
To accompany the pupusas and soothe my neverending cold, I sampled the mondongo. After having mondongo at Popul Vuh, I was curious to see if there was a difference between the Salvadorean and Yucatecan styles. The mondongo at Balompie had cabbage, yucca, carrots, corn, tripe and tendon. It had more tendon and less tripe and the vegetables made it more aromatic than the PV version. Despite the addition of the vegetables, I preferred the more meaty tasting broth at PV. In any case, I'd definitely order this again at either place.
18th and Capp
This place has been renamed POC CHUC and serves the same excellent panuchos, beans and tortillas as before.
When you've got a cold, nothing hits the spot like soup. The spicier and saltier the better, because all subtle flavors are lost to your cold. Perhaps that is why I thoroughly enjoyed the Mondongo at Popol Vuh. A beefy broth with a roasted tomato base flavor surrounding pieces of tender tripe. The soup gets its flavor from the large bones which look like cross sections of a shank bone, but were lined with a fatty looking protein. As I bit into the slightly chewy gelatinous layer, the server told me that it was the 'knuckle' of the cow. Um, cows don't have hands -- so then this must be cow's feet? In any case, the consistency and taste was almost exactly like pig's feet which explains the rich flavor of the soup. With the addition of half a habanero, some cilantro and onions, I regained the ability to breathe through my nose. Who needs sudafed when you have chilis?
Previous Post on Popol Vuh
16th at South Van Ness
Beefy broth, well done brisket, tripe is the best combo. The broth is less salty than the branch in SSF and much better than PPQ's. The raw beef plate was just o.k. grade of beef not good enough and served too cold. 19th/Irving.
Wonderful Foods: Cherry coke bottles and the sour cherry (red). The blue coke bottles are sweeter and raspberry flavored.
