We’ve already established that the Mission is not one of my favorite areas of town. It’s grungy, the smell of urine is everywhere, people sit on the sidewalks selling all kinds of miscellaneous crap, many of the stores sell used crap, everything looks old and falling apart, there’s no parking and that’s just for starters. Even so, I thought maybe it was the place to work on my photography assignment for today. That assignment consisted of concentrating on my photographic obsession, lines and shapes. I’ve already taken many photos of obvious lines at both the Embarcadero and at Opera Plaza. I wanted to see if there was something more in the Mission. When I take pictures, I TAKE PICTURES!!! I had my Samsung Galaxy S4 camera phone, my iPad Mini, my Canon Elph point-and-shoot and my Canon Rebel T3i! My pictorial journey began with murals down various alleys, led to the Women’s Building, then simply wandered up and down streets.
When my hunger kicked in, I was planning on grabbing a couple of slices at Nizario’s Pizza. Alas, they were closed! Maybe they only open in the evening; I’m not enough of a Mission regular to know. Instead, I happened upon Mau, a rather modern, slightly up-scale Vietnamese restaurant. Not only did they have the usual spring rolls, imperial rolls, beef pho and Vietnamese coffee, they also had banh xeo, bun bo and bun cha. My choices ended up being the Hue rolls ($8), the Hu Tieu noodles in broth ($9) and a bottle of Dang Butterscotch Root Beer ($3). The food was amazing and so was the drink. The Hue rolls were grilled lemongrass pork, shiso, and mint in a steamed rice roll topped with fried shallots and with a scallion oil for dipping. The two rolls were cut into 6 pieces. Although they were slightly sticky, they were a bit hard to grasp with chopsticks due to their size. The pork, though very tasty, wasn’t cut small enough for me, making it difficult to take delicate bites without stuffing 3/4 of a piece into your mouth at once. I ate a few with chopsticks, then gave up and used my hands. I’d made it through 4 pieces when the Hu Tieu was served. This was a soup consisting of vermicelli noodles, xa-xiu pork, chicken, shrimp and ground pork in a garlic chicken broth ($9). To be honest, though, I only noticed one huge shrimp. The broth seemed to taste saltier the more I ate, but not overly so. I didn’t finish that soup, either. I made it halfway through, then asked them to wrap up my final two pieces of the Hue rolls, as well as the remaining soup. My chopstick skills were much better with the noodles and soup than the rolls, though! There’s still hope!
Dia de Los Muertos Grate
Bicycle Basket and Wheels
Plate, Napkin and Chopsticks
Dang Butterscotch Root Beer
Hue Rolls
Hu Thieu (slightly out of focus)