The EZ T-Cup

Type: Object (Tea Cup)
Rating: 2/5
Not something I’d use again for its designed purpose.

I love tea. I’m not saying I’m inexperienced in drinking tea, because hey, chances are, we’ve all probably had tea for quite a long time. It was when I worked at the bookshop that I realized I really, really love tea, and when I started getting some decent income, I found that I’m someone who really loves tea to a probably unhealthy degree. Half of my boyfriend’s cupboard is all the loose tea that I’ve purchased in the past year. I’ve finished maybe four or five bags, tins, and jars of the stuff. Before I discovered loose leaf, I was the person who would yoink tea bags from hotel breakfast lounges. After I discovered loose leaf, I went to Daiso to pick up disposable do-it-yourself custom tea bags so I can have a quick and easy way to make my fancy teas at the airport (without having TSA stop me). Then it went to tea balls and tea strainers and temperature-specific tea pots and my goodness I have a problem.

Anyway. This is a pretty cool-looking tea mug. The brand here says it’s by company called Samadoyo, and it’s sold at the Wild Tea Qi store as part of their tea stuff collection. It’s made of sturdy glass, which is a huge plus, and it’s a really convenient way to steep tea perfectly. In the right circumstances, I’m sure I’d use this more often than not. Unfortunately, this time around, I don’t think I’m dazzled enough to use it daily (though it was definitely a cool thing to have at work – my coworkers have grown accustomed to my new “tea contraptions” that I bring in from time to time).

I haven’t yet tried my teas from Wild Tea Qi because this strainer combo wasn’t what I was expecting. I mean, to be fair, physics should have told me that the amount of tea this wonderful 400mL mug would hold would only be…well…less than half of the mug. Which, you know, is fine. If I wanted to do a tea tasting.

But work is stressful and horrible and I need mugs of tea at a time, and less than half a mug of perfect tea is not enough to keep me awake and relatively peaceable during the day. The best case scenario at work would be me having my boyfriend’s fancy perfect Bona Vita variable temperature kettle, my Adagio tea steeper, and my lovely Ren and Robbin in the Morning mug. But this is too much for me to carry on a 2.5 mile walk out to work. And I don’t like the idea of people touching my tea stuff. Which is why having one relatively good piece of tea steeping equipment is extremely important to my daily life.

Basically, this mug is awesome if you use it as a mug by itself, because it’s one of those cool clear glass ones and it holds a fair amount of your choice of wonderful hot beverage. But then it’s also branded, and some people might not care much for that. And in terms of tea, yes, it’ll probably be perfectly steeped, but it’s only going to be a small amount. If I want that amount small amount of tea for tasting, I’ll get a gaiwan. I do not what that small amount. I want so much tea that by half of my day I think to myself, “Huh, I did not know the human body could hold that much liquid.”

For $18.20, I think it would be better to find a different mug/infuser combo on Amazon. Most glass mugs minus the infusers are around $25-$30 for a 4-pack, so you can even have fancy tea in glass mugs with a friend or three.

Super Duper

Type: Restaurant (Burgers)
Rating: 5/5
Would definitely return.

When most people think of burger places in California, I imagine that a majority of Californians like myself will say, “Well, of course you’ve got to go to In-n-Out.” While this is true, I have learned that you can actually go one step further when it comes to the fast food burger that isn’t quite fast food, but is reasonably priced and immensely satisfying: Super Duper.

I’d never been to this place until this past weekend, and I feel silly for not having gone even though it’s relatively close to work. We’ve got a bunch of great burger places in San Francisco, so it can be difficult to figure out what’s worth going to. My top three are Umami, Roam, and now, Super Duper, all of which are extremely excellent for different reasons. In the end, I would go to Super Duper if it’s a) time for some fantastic fries, b) it’s on the way, and c) I want to be in a place where parking is relatively easy. So I guess most of my reasons are related to location more than anything, but even that plays a huge part in deciding where I want to go to eat.

Going backwards from my list, the one at Yerba Buena means I am pretty much guaranteed to find parking within a 5-block radius. There’s the 5th and Mission garage, there’s the garage next to Crunch on 3rd and Harrison, there’s the 25-cent-an-hour parking on 3rd and Bryant (when the Giants aren’t in town), and probably a whole lot more that I haven’t found myself. This is good news. Secondly, if I’m in this area, I’m probably going to Target. This means I can either eat beforehand to get my Target on, or afterwards to feel good about my Target run. And lastly? Fries. Oh my goodness. These fries.

Oh my. So much goodness. These garlic fries are even better than the ones I had at the garlic festival, mainly because a plethora of sweaty drunkards and too-hot weather weren’t involved. The other positive point to these fries is that they are covered in cheese, which makes it even more delicious. And there is garlic in every wonderful, beautiful bite. I mean, the fries were more of a highlight than the burger to me, and the burgers were pretty damn fantastic on their own.

These bad boys are the “mini” burgers, which, on their own, are a sweet $5. A super burger is this plus one more quarter-pound patty for $7. A mini was perfect for me, and they’re cooked to a nice medium (I’d prefer them medium-rare, but this was still pretty tasty). You can add stuff to your burger according to their menu, and even if you add stuff, it’s still probably going to come out to be cheaper than Roam (and definitely Umami).

If it matters, everything here is organic. You can even bring your veggie friends here, since they also make veggie burgers, which are apparently also quite delightful. They’ve got some housemade pickles (things I don’t like, but the boyfriend says they are really excellent), and their ice creams and shakes are made with Strauss, which is one of the most legit still-in-a-glass-bottle milks you can find at places like Whole Foods.

Oh…and…yes. So we did get a super shake. Because Strauss. And cookies ‘n’ creme. Anyway, in terms of food, everything was delicious and of excellent quality. The burgers are a solid choice in the world of sandwiches with beef patties in between them; they are infinitely better than In-n-Out, in my opinion. But don’t go expecting something that can compete with Roam and Umami. Roam beats SD out in terms of the dozens of things you can add to their burgers; Umami is king when it comes to burgers being made exquisitely. Super Duper is good when you don’t want to seem overly-accidentally uppity, but still want to be the bearer of good food times. Plus, their fries are the best out of these three, anyway. I’m not overly fond of Roam’s, and if I’m at Umami, I get their cheesy tots, so there you go.

To summarize, Super Duper is, in fact, super duper. Now that I know it’s just about two blocks away from work, I know that I’ll be going here for my burger cravings. Or, to be more accurate, my garlic fry cravings.

New Nagano Sushi

Type: Restaurant
Rating: 5/5
Would definitely return.

I came back to San Francisco full of heavy thoughts. I wanted to place those thoughts elsewhere and decided to go for a drive. I invited the boyfriend to come along if he so chose, and we drove down to the Inner Richmond since I was hoping to clear my mind a bit. Originally, I wanted to find Okina Sushi. Though I found it, I also found that the parking around there was terrible, so we decided to try our chances on Geary to see if anything looked interesting. With the help of our smart phones and excellent parking on a Friday night (to be fair, it was 2 January, which meant most people were still playing hooky from work), we found ourselves less than a block away from New Nagano Sushi.

It was hard to miss with the bright yellow sign. I’d seen it before and wondered what it was like, so I was happy to see that the interior was very warmly designed. It’s not overly artsy, and it was nice and quiet since there was only one other party in the restaurant. Now, I know that usually an empty restaurant isn’t a good sign, but I figured since almost the entire block of Geary had suspiciously easy-to-find parking, I decided that it was probably due to the city still being in vacation mode. We were seated right away by the sushi chefs, and the waitress brought us menus and water right away, followed by some tea while we were browsing through the vast menu. It’s nice when restaurants aren’t crowded; as you’d expect, you get really excellent service.

After about 15 minutes of perusing through the menu (we had to figure out what I could eat, since I don’t react well to large amounts of mayonnaise), we decided on three rolls: the Zebra Roll, the King Kong Roll, and the Salmon Delight Roll. After a final look at the menu, we also ordered the Salmon Skin and Snow Cone handrolls. The waitress was also patient and kind while she checked with the chefs to see what had mayonnaise and what didn’t.

The waitress was quick and attentive, and the food came rather quickly. The Zebra Roll came out first, which was basically a crab roll with seaweed salad on it. This was tasty, though we were a bit worried at first since she informed us that anything with crab in it had a bit of mayo to hold it together. Thankfully, whatever amount they used was perfect. I could still taste the wonderful mayo flavor and I didn’t get sick. The next ones were the King Kong and handrolls and the Salmon Delight…oh my goodness. So delicious. I wish I had taken pictures, but we were hungry and the food was gone within minutes.

The King Kong roll was definitely my favorite. It had everything I loved in a roll: a bit of crab, some unagi, some snow crab, avocado, tobiko, unagi, and unagi sauce. Perfect. I didn’t even have to worry about the mayo drizzle that many sushi restaurants usually use. I had a bite of the boyfriend’s Snow Cone roll, which included some hamachi…which was excellent. I’m not entirely educated in the raw stuff yet, but I am happy to report that I’m a new convert to it. Boyfriend confirmed that the hamachi they had was the good stuff. What I really enjoyed about the food was that they didn’t overdo it with the rice. Some restaurants use way too much rice and it becomes filler; they use just enough, and it tastes just right.

All in all, everything was delicious. The service was also excellent, and I hope that it will continue to be excellent whether the restaurant is busy or not. They treated us very well, and I felt like I was back at my boyfriend’s favorite sushi place back in his hometown where everyone was extremely kind and wonderful. Good service really makes food taste better. I will definitely be coming back, especially now that I know they have ramen as well!