Palace Family Steak House

tablehopper

2008-07-02T18:15:00.000-07:00

From http://www.tablehopper.com/2008/07/chatterbox-july-1-2008.html:

A tablehopper reader wrote in to tell me the famed green-glowin' steakhouse in the Mission, yes the historic ~PALACE STEAK HOUSE~, will be closing at the end of July, after 40 years in business. No more steak dinners on plastic trays and garlic bread and booths and free parking. Man. When I get a chance to investigate more I'll report back. 3047 Mission St. at 26th St., 415-647-2011.

I believe the site originally said PALACE FAMILY STEAK HOUSE.

FULL TROTTLE! photo roundup

2008-06-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

Five different galleries for your photo perusal pleasure!

Photo by Ted Leibowitz

Photo by Julie Bernstein

Photo by Willo O'Brien

Photo by Humuhumu

Photo by Alex Macmillan

FULL TROTTLE! video

2008-06-29T16:54:00.000-07:00

FULL TROTTLE! final notice

2008-06-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday!
June 28, 2008!
San Francisco!
FULL TROTTLE!
And it's FREE!

Flyer by Humuhumu
Featuring performances by:
Palace Family Steak House (11:15 p.m.)
the Hi-Nobles (10:15 p.m.)
the Final Frontiersmen (9:45 p.m.)
Control-R (8:45 p.m.)

Ted from BAGeL Radio DJs between bands and IN AND AROUND YOUR MIND!

Doors at 8pm!

We will also be announcing the PFSH project for the 2008/2009 fiscal year!

All of this for FREE at Beale Street Bar & Grill
(133 Beale St. b/t Mission and Howard in San Francisco)

SF Joy Boy's 40th Birthday Party

2008-06-03T06:35:00.000-07:00

Although I am in the midst of preparing for my own birthday party, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that 3/5 of PFSH played SF Joy Boy's 40th Birthday Party last week. All proceeds from CD sales went to the Marin County Humane Society where SF Joy Boy adopted his amazing dog, Elsie! I'm sure the $15 we raised through CD sales will last them at least 7 seconds!

We also brought Rhine Wine Cup from The Joy of Cooking to the party. It involved steeping cucumbers in the punch. Which? Rules.

Photos by Humuhumu

FULL TROTTLE! promo video

2008-06-02T18:38:00.001-07:00

Today Is Gina Day!

2008-05-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today is Gina Day! The word from Gina Day HQ:

To observe this holiday, you need to perform a selfless act. That's it, just one selfless act. Maybe buy an unexpected gift for someone, or visit someone in the hospital. Apologize to someone you have had conflict with, or give praise to someone you normally wouldn't. Tell someone that you love him/her or comfort someone who needs support. Basically, make someone else happy or at ease with a selfless act.

Now get out there and get selfless!

FULL TROTTLE! save the date

2008-05-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday!
June 28, 2008!
8pm!
San Francisco!
FULL TROTTLE!
And it's FREE!

Flyer by Humuhumu
Featuring performances by:
Palace Family Steak House
the Hi-Nobles
Control-R
the Final Frontiersmen
and a few other surprises!

Ted from BAGeL Radio DJs between bands and IN AND AROUND YOUR MIND!

We will also be announcing the PFSH project for the 2008/2009 fiscal year!

All of this for FREE at Beale Street Bar & Grill
(133 Beale St. b/t Mission and Howard in San Francisco)

Joy Of Cooking Update: May Wine

2008-05-19T23:33:00.000-07:00

May Wine was tasty enough to be happily consumed by guests at a clothes swap hosted at my apartment. Presentation was key, I think. Fountain? Check! Floating orange slices? Check! Strawberries at the bottom of each punch glass? Check!

The green thing on the left is Humu's inedible Asparagus Salad. If you want to make that abomination yourself, the recipe is here. (Note that this is not a Joy of Cooking recipe.)

Humu also made Frozen Pineapple Salad which was much better. It is the best thing yet that she's made from the Marysville cookbook.

Lastly, the show we have on June 28 (very close to my birthday) has a name: FULL TROTTLE!

Sticker Mystery

2008-05-14T23:08:00.001-07:00

Alert reader Rani has noticed stickers that abound in the northeast Mission District that say "RICH" in big black blocky letters on a yellow field. As far as I know, these have nothing to do with PFSH despite having my first name on them and having the same font and color scheme as PFSH. Does anyone know what the deal is with these stickers?!

Joy Of Cooking Update: Bowle

2008-05-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

Photo by Humuhumu

Bowle is just fruit, Madeira, sugar, ice, and a whole lot of white wine. It's pretty good, though. We brought it to drummer Matt's birthday party.

Speaking of birthdays, we'll be playing for my birthday at Beale St. Bar & Grill on Saturday, June 28. More details to come. Note that it's Pride weekend. Prediction: Tons of parking downtown near Beale Street and no parking whatsoever in the Castro! So come for the plentiful parking, but stay for the PFSH rocking.

Joy Of Cooking Update: Planter's Punch

2008-05-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

Photo by Humuhumu

The Planter's Punch was a hit at Kesha's awesome dinner party. I'm starting to get the hang of these Joy of Cooking punches so I know, for example, to go easy on the simple syrup. Humuhumu's party fountain and my brand new ice crusher helped too. The presentation made the whole thing a spectacle.

The animal-themed sippy cups that I served the punch in didn't hurt either.

The ice crusher is brilliant. It's a Waring Pro; every time I look at it, I misread it as a Warning Pro. Unfortunately, despite its many positive attributes, the ice crusher is very nearly deserving of its own "Things That Suck" post. The beautiful clean look of the brushed steel and flawlessly clear plastic was marred by an obnoxious far-too-adhesive sticker. The sticker bragged about the great features of the appliance. Removing it naturally took far too much time and scuffed up the plastic. I would like to say to the person whose idea it was to put that sticker on there: I already bought the thing, Einstein, so I don't need advertising in my own kitchen telling me how essential and amazing it is.

Photo by Humuhumu

How About "Bill Bradley Washington National Airport"?

2008-05-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

I'm in Arlington, Virginia. I flew into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport which is located right here in Arlington. I'm staying in a hotel on Jefferson Davis Highway.

These things seem wrong. Arlington has gone Democratic in every presidential election since 1984. That means that they picked Mondale over Reagan! They picked Dukakis! They went for Gore, Kerry, and Bill Clinton. It should be Paul Wellstone Washington National Airport and Rosa Parks Highway.

49-Mile Scenic Drive

2008-05-03T05:51:00.000-07:00

Photo by Humuhumu

San Francisco has something called the 49-Mile Scenic Drive. Most San Franciscans know about it. Few San Franciscans have actually bothered to drive it. After more than ten years in San Francisco, I can now say that I am one of those few.

There is a strikingly non-scenic portion of the scenic drive along Cesar Chavez Street. That portion of the drive is redeemed, however, by taking the diligent driver right passed our namesake, the Palace Steak House.

Humu tried to time the photo below to have me driving in the foreground and the Palace Steak House in the background. It was perfect except for the vehicle that drove by.

Photo by Humuhumu

Break Room Disaster Averted

2008-05-02T20:13:00.001-07:00

I purchased a can of Coke from the vending machine in the break room at work.

It rolled down the chute, agitating the carbonated liquid inside.

It hit the bottom at a funny angle. When I picked it up, there was a pinhole in the lip of the can. A mini-geyser of cola was spewing out of the can.

I panicked for a few seconds. Cola was going to get everywhere!

I placed my finger over the pinhole, but cola continued to escape from the can.

I walked it over to the sink, but wasn't sure what to do. Cola was still getting everywhere!

All of this took about three seconds but felt like an eternity. Then I realized the solution.

I popped the top of the can just like I normally would to drink the cola. Of course, the mini-geyser stopped immediately.

Break room disaster averted!

Inspiration

2008-04-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

Apparently, my insanity inspires others.

My friend Erik was inspired by my Joy of Cooking Project to do his own Stomping Through The Savoy project. As a result, he was written up in The Wall Street Journal!

Now Humu has been bitten by the cook-everything-in-a-collection bug and is doing something very scary: Making all the "salads" in the 1979 Marysville United Methodist Women's Cookbok.

Surprise Freddie Mercury Cameo

2008-04-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

From our show in March...

Things That Suck #2: Fillmore Box Office

2008-04-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

This is well-worn territory and I'm sure others can add lots of other unsavory details.

If you don't want to pay Ticketmaster's $8 "convenience" fees for shows at the Fillmore, then you need to buy the tickets from the Fillmore box office.

The box office actually charges a $2 fee for advance-sale tickets unless you buy them on Sunday. (The Fillmore box office says the $2 fee "may" apply, but that appears to have been written by weasels. Apparently "may" is a synonym for "does" as far as they are concerned.)

The box office is located in a part of town that is moderately difficult to get to. It's served by two major bus lines, the 38 and the 22, but they are two of the most overcrowded and unpleasant major bus lines in San Francisco. The 22 especially may warrant its own "things that suck" post. Parking is challenging and paying to park in a garage to avoid a convenience fee on tickets kind of defeats the purpose of the trip. So you typically have to drive there, park illegally in a bus zone or in front of a hydrant, and try to get your concert tickets before you get a parking ticket.

On Sundays, the box office is supposed to be open for only 6 hours, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. In reality, it's open for less than six hours. The box office is notorious for opening late. And when I showed up at 2:40 p.m. a couple weeks ago, there was a sign saying that they'd be back at 3:00 p.m. I watched for about ten seconds as a few other people walked up, read the sign, and repeated some variation on, "This is bullshit!"

Joy Of Cooking Update: Fish House Punch

2008-04-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

Photo by HumuhumuUnlike last time, Humu and I arrived to my friend Leslie's housewarming party on the correct day this last attempt.

We brought Fish House Punch (sugar syrup, lemon juice, brandy, dark rum, peach Schnapps, club soda). It tasted pretty unpleasant but we were able to run it through Humu's party fountain, so it certainly looked appealing.

We also met a man who might have been the only person who honestly thought the punch tasted great. "Tastes like brown sugar!" he exclaimed. He committed to finishing the punch--a commitment that still astonishes me, more than a week later. He had several pint glasses of the stuff.

Predictably, he was vomiting at the end of the evening.

Still, I admire his commitment. He is clearly made of the stuff that made America great.

I just hope he and his girlfriend (who had to take him home) don't hate me. They were nice and I liked them both. If you two are reading this: Sorry about the puke-inducement. We're all still homies, right?

Not The Joy Of Cooking: Name This Drink

2008-04-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

Photo by HumuhumuSometimes, you just need a way to get rid of stuff you're never going to use.

I had a can of Diet Coke.

I had a small amount of Cruzan's universally reviled Black Strap Rum.

These are things I would never drink.

Put them together, and you get a surprising vanilla flavor coming from a rum-and-Coke that no one should ever really drink.

I drank it until the can of Diet Coke was empty.

This drink needs its own name. It is not just another rum-and-Coke. What to call it? Sludgy McGhee? Vanilla Aspartame? Where'd The Motherf(*%^#ing Mollases Go?

Joy Of Cooking Update: Sangría

2008-04-14T22:51:00.000-07:00

Photo by HumuhumuFor this recipe, I purchased sustainably-farmed wine from Spain at Rainbow Grocery. Somehow, that seems worth mentioning, although I'm not sure if I can put my finger on why. Is it the sustainable farming part? The from-Spain part? The Rainbow Grocery part?

The Joy of Cooking sangría seemed a little bit on the sweet side. This makes it astoundingly dry by the standards I have come to expect from the punches in the book.

I didn't have a pitcher large enough to hold the volume of sangría that the recipe yields, so I put it in a soup tureen. I brought the sangría to a potluck dinner party at Kesha's place. Kesha, incidentally, is completely awesome and not at all the unadventurous person I made her out to be in the last post where I mentioned her.
She totally rules and I hope that she doesn't completely kick my ass for mentioning her in a post again. Oh, and everything she makes for dinner parties always completely rocks.

Amazingly, all the sangría was consumed. This was a first for the punch section of The Joy of Cooking. For that reason alone, the recipe was an astounding success.

Photo by Humuhumu

Joy Of Cooking Update: Whiskey Cup

2008-04-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Humuhumu and I went to my friend Leslie's new apartment for an apartment-warming party. Figuring this was a good opportunity to get through another punch recipe, Humuhumu and I dutifully made the Whiskey Cup. The Whiskey Cup is made with 2 cups of crushed fresh pineapple, a quart of sliced strawberries, 3 cups of confectioner's sugar, 2 cups of dark rum, 2 cups of fresh lemon juice, half a cup of fresh orange juice, 1 cup of grenadine, two liters of club soda, and two full bottles of bourbon. That's an awful lot of punch—probably about enough for twenty people—but we were going to a party, so no problem!

Transporting all of that in a big punch bowl was not an option; it would have sloshed everywhere! So, I packed some of the last things to be added into an ice chest, put a smaller bowl of pre-punch inside the larger punch bowl (to catch any sloshing), and we made our way over. We also had a gift for Leslie and a few other things, so it was a bit of a hassle. But I didn't care! There were going to be lots of people to drink all this punch!

When we got to Leslie's new apartment, the first thing she said to me when she opened the door was, "The party's next week."

Oops.

The picture is of me looking none-too-pleased with the amount of punch I had with no party to bring it to.

When we got back to my apartment, we put out the APB on Twitter and Facebook telling people to come drink some punch. But it was Saturday night and it was a tough sell as a lot of people already had plans. Brad and Lisa pulled through! They brought over pizza, a great time was had by all, and between the four of us, we managed to consume about half of the punch.

Pardon me; I need to go pour out the other half now.

Tomorrow: ¡Sangría!

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Button

2008-04-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

In light of the raging controversy over the color-scheme change to the site, we give you Happy Fun Button which let's you alternate between the two color-schemes. Enjoy!

Frank Loves The F-Word

2008-04-02T23:06:00.001-07:00

A new song, "Frank Loves The F-Word", is available at our MySpace page and our Facebook page. The song is inspired by, but not really about, a performance by London singer/songwriter Frank Turner that occurred in BAGeL Ted's living room.

Joy Of Cooking Update: Eggnog In July

2008-03-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

Until recently, I did not know about this other Joy of Cooking blog/project!

Looks like the blogger didn't finish every recipe. There appear to be recipes in the 1997 edition that are not on that site (e.g., Spiced Tea). They also stopped posting in November of last year. So, I'm thinking they've abandoned the project.

I don't actually ever expect to finish myself. But I also didn't expect to find someone else doing the same damned thing. Now I have to rethink everything!

I do have the additional self-imposed constraint that I'm cooking everything in
the order that it appears in the book. This other person skips around to appropriate recipes as needed. Me? I'll be having two different types of eggnog in July, the way things are going.