Off-Menu Offal Loaded Soup at Zen Yai in the Tenderloin

Offal-lovers, are you listening? Boy, have I got a dish for you.

If you’re like me, you probably really enjoy eating freaking unusual dishes. This dish I’ve got is definitely going to interest you. In the The Tenderloin, only a block or two from the other outstanding Thai restaurants I’ve already written about like Lers Ros Thai and Sai Jai Thai, I’ve found another place worth venturing through this crackhead-infested neighborhood to. This place is called Zen Yai and they have an off-menu dish I had been meaning to try that drew me in for a visit one morning.

You’d probably never even know to order this dish unless you had the ability read Thai or enjoy scraping the internet for food finds as much as I do. I can’t read Thai, but I did get word of this crazy dish somewhere and knew I had to see what all the fuss was about. I can’t even remember where I first heard about the dish, but one hungover day I was in the mood for soup and wanted to try something particularly funky and interesting. To be honest, I didn’t really even know anything about what I was ordering myself except that it involved plenty of offal. I was ready for the gastronomic adventure.

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Fresh Out Of The Fryer at Bob’s Donuts in Lower Nob Hill

By reputation, Bob’s Donuts is known for making the very best doughnuts in San Francisco. That’s a huge reputation to live up to and I’m lucky enough (or unlucky enough depending on how you look at it) to live only one block from the place to be able to put it to the test. I already knew that late-night was the time to go because between 11 PM and 2 AM is when they make all of the doughnuts fresh for the next day’s batch. That’s also when all of us Polk Street drunkards are craving deep-fried doughnut sweetness.

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Unexpectedly Excellent Mom & Pop Sushi at Wayo in Lower Pac Heights

So, there I was. Back on my quest for great and reasonably priced sushi. This time, I didn’t want to go further than a five minute walk from my apartment, so I did a quick search of the radius and landed on a little spot tucked away on Van Ness called Wayo Sushi.

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Simple, Meaty Comforts at Sai Jai Thai in the Tenderloin

Holy crap this place is in a bad neighborhood. Sai Jai Thai is situated on a really terrible block right in the heart of the crackhead-riddled Tenderloin. But, I’ve done crazier things than venture into a sketchy neighborhood for a good meal, so that alone certainly wasn’t going to deter me from checking the place out.

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On the Hunt for XLB & Hand-Pulled Noodles at King of Noodles in the Inner Sunset

So, I’m back on my quest to find all of the comfort foods I used to rely on in NYC in the Bay Area. This journey’s mission: Soup Dumplings aka Xiao Long Bao and Hand-Pulled Noodles. I’d heard great things about the cheap, authentic, Bourdain-approved Chinese food at King of Noodles in the Inner Sunset so one hungover Sunday morning when that particular craving struck, I hoped in my car and headed over to check it out.

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Mike Winston’s Top 10 Best Cocktails of 2014

You guys know I eat a ton of food. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I’m also quite passionate about my cocktails. Some would even go so far as to call me a lush.

Well, this year provided no shortage of impressive and outstanding cocktails (and obviously food as I’ve already recapped). And since the end of the year is rolling around, it only seems fair to look back and remember the best of the best cocktails as well. I’ve even inclcuded a list of ingredients for each drink recipe so you can try to whip them up for yourself at home… if you’re particularly talented.

Warning: there are some really obscure ingredients in a lot of these, a lot of them are rather complicated to concoct. Also, I don’t have any of the proportions for the different parts… so good luck!
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Mike Winston’s Best Bites of 2014

What a year!! I did something like this last year too, but oh boy was 2014 a doozy. I started off living in NYC, then a started a new job that whisked me off the San Francisco and Silicon Valley for a few months before ultimately relocating to San Francisco permanently. And along the way, I squeezed in a couple of vacations too.

Sooooo, I did a LOT of epic eating this year. And truth be told, I found it particularly difficult to narrow down my list as concisely as last year’s, but I somehow managed. So, without further ado, I present the winners (and runner-ups) broken down by category. I tried to cluster similar dish types together, but really they are in no particular order. Let’s begin!

And if you wanna hear about the 2014’s Best Cocktails, read more here.
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Serious Sausage Sandwiches & Epic Meats at 4505 Butcher in the Mission

*Editor’s Note: I’m sad to report that this butcher shop is no longer open.

4505 Butcher Shop is a big deal in SF. Formerly an extremely popular farmers market stall, this brick-and-mortar shop functions primarily as a permanent place to purchase really high-quality meats for home use. But, beyond the gorgeous cuts of steak and other game meats sold, they also make a variety of awesome sausages and hot dogs in-house. In fact, I hear that’s really how they made their name and became so popular.

All of their hot dogs, sausages, and cuts of meat are made sustainably from animals raised locally in Northern California and come with a glowing reputation for being some of the very best butchery around. In fact, these days there are many bars and fine dining establishments that proudly serve 4505 bacon-studded hot dogs in a variety of fancy preparations.

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A Quiet, Classy, and Impressive Brunch at Maven in Lower Haight

One of my favorite weekend city pastimes is to just pick a direction, wander aimlessly (get it? Winston Wanders), and see where my feet take me. This is also one of the many ways I find new places to eat – I just walk unfamiliar streets and routes and see if I can stumble across something new and interesting.

On this particularly long wander, I started at home in Lower Nob Hill, headed down to Hayes Valley, then over across the Panhandle, through Haight-Ashbury, up Divisadero, across Alamo Square, and down to Lower Haight before I finally decided on a place to sit down for a quality brunch with my buddy, Corey.

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Aliment is the Nob Hill Neighborhood Joint You’ve Always Wanted

I think it’s about time I gave Aliment its much deserved due. Since that very first weekend away from New York in San Francisco over six months ago, Aliment has proven to be a reliable go-to restaurant when I’m in need of an excellent meal in the Union Square/Nob Hill area.

Before this visit, I had only been to Aliment for brunch, but I was so impressed by every single dish I ate on every single visit that when I was in need of a last minute Saturday night table for four in the ‘hood, I was confident that Aliment would be able to deliver. Somehow, despite how great this place has consistently proven itself to be, it continues to remain off the radar for most San Franciscans.

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