The Dosa Brothers' Kitcheree

The Dosa Brothers

Happy 3rd day of VeganMoFo2017. I have lowered the bar for the rest of the month: I will publish some words every day. I think that I have far exceeded my own expectations today, as there are also two photographs. I'm sure I'll receive a notice in the mail from VeganMoFo Corporate about violating the theme clause of our agreement. Look forward to more recipes from America's Test Kitchen's "Vegan For Everybody" shortly thereafter.

I was thrilled to see the Dosa Brothers set up their cart a couple years ago on the corner of Market and Montgomery in San Francisco. I love dosas. These guys are vegetarian and they dish out tons of dosa every day. I've consumed about a quarter ton myself since they showed up. They're pretty good, especially for $9. (I would prefer NY Dosas, but he's 3,000 miles away.) That may seem like a lot of money to people who live in reasonable places, but in this town you can't even cast a shadow for less than $3.

The Brothers added "kitcheree" to their menu a few months ago but I never tried it until today. Here's a recipe I just found that approximates the dish. The scoop of crumbly white stuff in this photo is their coconut chutney.

It had the texture of wet stuffing, and the flavors were mild. The temperature was a little low, so I popped it in the microwave at work for a minute. That really opened up the flavors, but it benefited greatly from a generous pour of sriracha sauce.. This... stew(?) is going to be especially good on the grayer Bay Area days coming down the pike. 

The Plant Cafe's Beety Burger

For lunch today I got a Plant Burger to go from The Plant Cafe at 101 California. The Plant Cafe has three locations in San Francisco, but for as long as I can remember Google has not acknowledged this one. Try for yourself: go to maps.google.com and search for "plant cafe san francisco." You'll get the other two locations only. This is very frustrating, because I stopped remembering numbers, names, and places several years ago when I got my first iPhone. A rare alignment of luck and miracle helped me find it today, and the reward was significant; The Plant Burger is delicious. It's hearty in flavor, but light in matter. You could probably eat two and still be able to walk back to work fully upright. There's a bunch of other vegan stuff on their menu but I didn't really pay much attention; this is the go-to to go item. (Oh, and don't worry--that undocumented dollop of white stuff is Veganaise.)

The Little Chihuahua

Photo stolen from haighteration.com

VeganMoFo founder Isa Moskowitz once told me that she preferred the taste of burritos from some joint in my 'hood named "The Little Chihuahua," over those from world-famous Papalote.  I was skeptical.  I couldn't believe that this respected and prolific cookbook author had such poor taste in burritos.  Papalote smacked-down that insolent Bobby Flay, for chrissakes.  Their roasted tomato salsa is so popular that it has its own Web site! How could some poorly-named hole-in-the-wall compete with perfection? I concluded that it wasn't fair of me to judge Isa so harshly, especially when I had never stepped foot inside The Little Chihuahua myself*. So tonight I went to check it out.

I skipped burrito photography class.

I was immediately surprised by the large number of happily chattering customers stuffed into the tiny restaurant.  The interior was warm and welcoming on a gray, drizzling San Francisco night.  I ordered a regular chile verde tofu burrito with black beans and guacamole on a tomato-chile tortilla, to go.  I then spent 10 minutes bobbing and weaving my way around the salsa bar until they called my name.  I remained skeptical that this burrito was going to be anything special, right up until I got it home and stuffed it into my mouth.  Holy shit.  It was good.  The tortilla was toasted.  There was delicious pickled cabbage inside.  The tofu was tangy. The beans were flavorful. Two bites, three bites... It was really good.  But was it better than Papalote? I can't believe I'm saying it, but... maybe. I'll have to do some more research to be certain.  For now, I'm relived that Isa does indeed have excellent taste in burritos.

* I had eaten several burritos from the previous taqueria at 292 Divisadero St., and they were all poor to mediocre.  Does anyone know what it was called?