Season Three, Episode Nine: I'm thirsty for some Paella! Thirsty Bear review

--this article first appeared in UCSF Synapse on January 27th, 2011--

Thirsty Bear

661 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 974-0905

Four out of Five Stars

I haven’t seen my classmates Judy and Ashley in forever, and so this past Friday, we decided to take advantage of living in one of the gastronomically advanced cities in the US and explore restaurants that we haven’t been to; as deliciously delectable as the dried chicken wings at San Tung are, I’m afraid I should try to expand my horizons. Luckily, living in such a wonderfully bustling city like San Francisco, there’s always something going on, and right now (from January 15 – 31) is Dine About Town. At participating restaurant $17.50, gets you a two-course lunch meal, and for $35, you can get a three-course meal. For a starving poor graduate student (with a discerning taste for good food), that’s a pretty good deal in this city.

Thirsty Bear has that Bostonian feel to it, with the exposed brick walls and tall ceilings. They also serve beers that they brew on site, so that’s a plus. And unlike other Dine About Town restaurants, Thirsty Bear has their ENTIRE menu as part of the deal. AND you actually get a four-course meal (salad, tapas, paella, then dessert), so that’s another plus!

In a rare occurrence (and keeping in line with my I-want-to-be-more-punctual New Year’s Resolution), I arrived at the restaurant 10 minutes before our 8:30pm reservations. Look at me, I’m all grown up. Ashley and Judy showed up a bit later, and as I greeted them, the big boisterous group next to us stole one of the chairs from our table. Really? That’s just rude. At least have the decency to ask BEFORE you take a chair off our table.

After we got our pitcher of sangria (which was delicious), we got to ordering dinner. For our salads, we all got the frisée salad (mixed greens, pear, dried cranberries, walnuts & pomegranate vinaigrette). The dressing was on the lighter side, which was a definite plus. I never really got the American fascination with drowning their salad with dressing; it defeats the whole healthy aspect of eating a salad.

I was a bit bummed, because by the time that we ordered, the bocadillos (house made mini-burgers of niman ranch pork, lamb, and wagyu beef) were all out. Our server explained that they only have limited amount of buns everyday (delivered daily from a local bakery), and so once they’re out, they’re out. Bummer! Next time! So instead, for our tapas, we ordered albondigas (pork & beef meatballs, creamy polenta, queso fresco & fried shallots), seared duck breast with bosch pear, dried cherry sauce & toasted hazelnuts, and chorizo soria flatbread, romesco, broccolini, manchego & pepperocini with quail eggs. Before we ordered the flatbread, I thought that the quail eggs were going to be boiled (because that’s the only way that I’ve had it). But when it came out, it was done sunny side up (which was a pleasant surprise). The polenta that came with the albondigas was actually quite tasty, and the flat bread was surprisingly delectable; I was afraid that it was going to be a bit salty, but it was just right.

I would say that the portion sizes for their tapas are smaller compared to restaurants in Spain. Nonetheless, I would have to give it up for this restaurant (and others like it) for taking advantage of serving smaller portions, calling it “tapas” and charging a higher price for it. Though really, we as Americans can certainly benefit from this insidious practice. Really, we don’t need to eat everything “Super Sized”.

For our main course, we all had paellas. Judy and I got the Paella Valenciana (saffron, chicken, chorizo, clams, mussels, shrimp, red peppers, and peas) and Ashley ordered the Paella of the Day. The paellas were actually quite good! The paellas were just the right balance of dryness and wetness (unlike Filipino paellas which are a bit on the wet side). Though the way they do it in Spain, they usually have a minimum 2-person to get an order of paella (since they cook it to order) because the servings are usually pretty big (they cook it in a pretty big pan). Even with the smaller portions, we still ended up taking most of the paellas home because we got so full!

For desserts, we all ordered the churros with the Spanish hot chocolate. The churros were bite-sized (which was perfect since we didn’t even finish our paellas because we were so full). nd the Spanish hot chocolate was so rich; basically we were drinking melted chocolate!

Final Verdict? Ever since I had bacalao (dried and salted cod) in Lisbon, I’ve been craving them, and now I’ve finally found a place that serves them here in the US. So that’s something to come back to. Locally brewed beer available? That’s another plus! Good atmosphere and good mix of people, so that’s another plus. It’s too bad they don’t really have a good happy hour (they have drink specials but no food specials), otherwise, I can definitely see myself going to this place more often.

Season Three, Episode Eight: New Years Resolution, Revisited

--this article appeared in UCSF Synapse on January 6, 2011--

Yes, it is that time of the year again, and no, I’m not talking about the National “Return Unwanted Christmas Presents” Day. It is that time of the year when gym membership sign-ups are probably at their highest (and gyms reaching its fullest capacity), nicotine gum and patch sales are brisk, and lots of broken promises are initiated. With the new year, some people are reenergized and motivated to change what they feel like is an area in their lives that they can improve upon, and thus make New Year’s resolutions.

Last year, I made such a plunge, and now, let’s look back and see how successful (or in some cases = EPIC fail) I was in maintaining those resolutions.

Spend more time with Family and Friends
Overall, I’d say I did fairly well in this department. In the past, I called home MAYBE once or twice a month; this past year, I probably called once or twice a week. I have made time for the BFFs, and reconnected with friends that I’ve been meaning to catch up with.

Fit in Fitness
I think I held my end of the bargain, considering the circumstances. Rotations (and HP&M classes) did take a toll on my body, but I made it a point to work out at least 2-3 times a week. Otherwise, I would’ve not had the energy to do work I had to do when I got home.

Tame the bulge
This one I’m not so sure how I did. Considering that I’m still carrying a little extra “holiday weight” (no thanks to my mother!), I have gained about 15 pounds as compared to the beginning of last year. The hopeful person in me would like to say that the weight gain is mostly from muscle weight, though the realist in me would partially attribute it to my mom’s devilishly delectable desserts she made for the holidays.

Get out of debt
Well, this one was NEVER going to happen; as I’ve mentioned previously, I just took on a mortgage last year, and unless there is a substantial trust fund that’s set to mature under my name, I don’t see my mortgage being paid off. And staring at me like a barrel of a gun is my ever-increasing student loan debt; though if I get into a residency, I get to postpone the joy of paying back these loans for another year. But as far as unsecured debt, I’m actually doing pretty well; no outstanding credit card debts, no car payments, etc.

Learn something new
So, last year, my friend and I threw around the idea of sharing a Rosetta Stone CD and learning Chinese. Yeah, that DIDN’T happen. She and I were just too darn busy with school and work stuff that we didn’t really have time to fully get something out of the experience. There’s always next year.

Help others
Still making good on this promise. MHC is going strong, and we just celebrated our one-year anniversary this past December (though I did miss the festivities!).

Get organized
Definite improvements in this department. For starters, it’s been awhile since I was able to finish things way BEFORE a deadline; I guess I’m one of those late-starters… But my residency applications were all finished before New Years’ Eve, which is impressive since most of them are due the second week of January. I’d call that progress. AND I’ve made a serious dent in organizing my house, that it was actually presentable enough to have my first overnight guests, my college best friends Maiti (currently doing her third year of medical school in Cuba) and Michelle (works in LA, in town for a wedding in Berkeley). We’ll see about that housewarming party (it might actually happen BEFORE graduation! Lol).

No new shoes in 2010
I am actually really proud of this one! A resolution that saved me hundreds of dollars! It’s amazing how much money I spend on shoes, and even more amazingly, how strongly I resisted breaking this resolution, in spite of many temptations.

Try to be punctual
Hmmm… let’s see, how should I put it? Work in progress? Hahaha… Though I’d say, I was better this year. Last year, I was supposed to meet up with high school friends for dinner at 5:30 and I didn’t show up until 7:15. This year, meeting up with the same high school friends for Free Museum Tuesday at the Museum of Art in Balboa Park in San Diego (which if I may add, is quite impressive and makes me wish that I went to it more often while I was living there) to see the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit, I was only late by 45 minutes! Hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

So by my count, I have five fulfilled resolutions, one unresolved resolution, and three epic fail resolutions; that’s not too terrible. What’s my new year’s resolution this year? Redo the ones that I wasn’t able to accomplish? While that may be the logical one, I probably didn’t fulfill them for a reason. Turn in my SITC columns to my managing editor BEFORE 5pm on Mondays? Hahaha… So, let’s try for something in the middle: A dear friend of mine (who is an avid reader of my column) has suggested that I should write more about being single, given the title of my column. Touché. So I guess I’ll try doing that, but after I’ve talked about my European/Moroccan adventures! Stay tuned for that one, folks!