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The San Francisco Examiner March 2009 Heaven's Dog in SOMA is a taste of paradisePatricia Unterman - Special to The Examiner
Fifteen years ago, Slanted Door owner Charles Phan came up with the idea of cooking Vietnamese dishes using Chez Panisse-style sourced ingredients and smart presentations. He presciently opened on a then-run down block of Valencia Street because it was all he could afford.The rest is history. The current Slanted Door in the Ferry Building is one of the highest-grossing restaurants in San Francisco. Now he is applying the same principles to Chinese comfort food in collaboration with Chinese chef Andy Wai, and pioneering yet another down on its luck neighborhood, Mission between Seventh and Eighth streets. A lot has changed on this block since the eco-monument of a Federal Building opened. Heaven's Dog is next door on the ground floor of the SoMa Grand, a tony high-rise made sexier by the presence of Phan's restaurant. The building provides affordable parking, though I easily found street parking day and night.
Browned to perfection: Salt-and-pepper squid with ginger and red peppers is so tasty its difficult not to devour it like popcorn Bret Putnam /Special to The Examiner
As with all his places, Phan hired architect Olle Lundberg to design a modern space centered around natural materials, in this case a spectacular bar made from a long, curving 4-inch-thick slab of cypress - its grain, cracks and knots preserved and highlighted. A small dining room juts off the bar room and lounge, with natural wood tables and orange leather banquettes. In an adjacent room, a noodle counter stretches in front of the kitchen, one of my current favorite spots for lunch. Two of us sat by the window at the black granite kitchen counter and shared a wonderful Niman ranch pork omelet ($11), a soft mound of barely-set scrambled egg full of wok-smoked bits of chopped pork, Chinese chives and fresh cilantro, along with a bowl of spicy green beans ($8) peppered with Sichuan pickled vegetable and red chilies. Rice vermicelli noodles ($10), wok-fried with curry spices and bits of pork, shrimp, fresh ginger, bean sprouts and egg, took on a seductive toastiness. In the sophisticated bar room, bartenders concoct inventive cocktails around hand-cut ice. The kitchen quickly produces small plates to go with them, such as curry puffs ($7), thin pastry triangles filled with potato and chopped beef with a minted rice-wine vinegar dipping sauce. Pot stickers ($8), pale on their one cooked side one night, were redeemed by a tasty celery-scented pork filling and soy-vinegar dipping sauce. With drink in hand, it's easy to devour tender, golden rings of salt-and-pepper squid ($13) like popcorn. Pork-filled Shanghai dumplings ($8) are OK, they're but not as good as Yank Sing's, the only place in San Francisco that has mastered them. Moving on to dinner, organic pea shoots ($9) wok-tossed with ginger and shallots are sweet and delicate. A dark, balanced sweet-and-sour gravy moistens battered slices of excellent meat in Andy Wai's version of sweet and sour pork ($15). For innards fans, star anise-braiseripe ($8), tender, aromatic and soulful, are served over fresh egg noodles. My favorite dish here happens to be Wai's shrimp won ton soup ($8), a shellfish-inflected broth with tiny bits of crispy pork, thin noodles and small, delicate shrimp won tons. Charles Phan's genius is creation and repackaging traditional dishes and presenting them in exciting surroundings. At Heaven's Dog, he proves that Chinese dumplings and cocktails are made for each other. Patricia Unterman is author of the "San Francisco Food Lovers' Pocket Guide" and a newsletter, "Unterman on Food." Contact her at pattiu@concentric.net. IF YOU GO - Heaven's Dog
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