What a delight Café Colma, located inside Lucky Chances Casino, is. Where else can you get an Irish coffee and fettuccine alfredo (the real, wonderfully psychotic order of one of my dining companions) alongside Mongolian beef and all-day breakfast? Where else can you chase an order of adobo chicken with a banana split and a 3 a.m. game of Pai Gow? No offense to that alfredo, but the Filipino dishes are the highlights here. The sinigang with pork ribs is particularly noteworthy, bracingly sour and fortifying.
Café Colma. 1700 Hillside Blvd., Colma. luckychances.com
I finally made it to Bar Shoji, the nighttime incarnation of the café behind the matcha einspänner craze; I’ve been dying to go since Cesar put it on our Now List. Does chef Intu-on Kornnawong’s halibut ceviche ever sing. It’s the dish that features the most overt Thai flavors — Kornnawong was formerly the chef at Jo’s Modern Thai in Oakland — and you’ll smell the lemongrass before the dish even hits the table. There’s plenty of spice, and the nori rice crackers provided for scooping add delicate crunch.
Bar Shoji. 140 New Montgomery St., San Francisco. instagram.com/shoji_sf
Deep in the Richmond District, Butter Love Bakeshop is not the place to go if you’re seeking the immaculately laminated and shellacked goodies you might see in the window of a Parisian patisserie. Its crumbles, pies and doughnuts are rustic, even a little visually rough around the edges, but the pastry is nonetheless terrific. Case in point, the mega buttery, flaky puff pastry swaddling a full-sized hot dog and shredded cheese. Sure the frank was a little well done on the ends where it poked out of its pastry casing, but I can’t imagine a better hand-held snack to take to the park or the beach. Chase it with a slice of seasonal fruit crumble…