I woke up my first day in San Francisco and my friend was at work. She left me some house keys and advised me to take a walk a few blocks down the street to Haight St., the old historic hippie district. Just before leaving I was informed by another friend via facebook that a pretty good place to go on Haight Street was Amoeba Record Store, and also Asqew Grill. So off I went!
I was reluctant to go into Asqew at first, because my friend had left out the "Grill" part and I quickly realized that this place specializes in grilled meats. And here I was trying to exercise my vegetarianism. But I inched towards the store front anyway to check out the menu, and quickly realized there were seafood and vegetarian options to appease me. The restaurant wasn't at all intimidating for a lone wanderer like me to step in and enjoy a pint and a meal. I went up to the counter, ordered, and sat at a nice window table to do some Haight St. people watching. You are allowed to mix and match skewers, so I ordered the peppercorn ahi tuna and the marinated tofu. After you've chosen your skewers, you get to choose a side out of interesting options like citrus couscous, coconut cilantro jasmine rice, mac'n'cheese, and garlic mashed potatoes. There are also salads and cool things like grilled artichoke and corn on the cob. I decided to try something a little different and got the grilled mascarpone polenta, which arrived in a marinara sauce with my skewers on top.
I preferred the tofu over the tuna, because I require my tuna to be medium rare to rare and this was cooked well done which made it seem more meaty than fishy. I kinda wish I had paired the tofu with the portobello skewer for a fully vegetarian meal. The marinade and the grill imparted lots of flavour into the tofu and I seriously loved it. It was served with little cups of some sort of white sauce that I couldn't identify, but the server told me it had something to do with cream and wine so I dunked my tofu in it and ended up dunking some of my tuna in it as well. Yummy! My experience with polenta is limited, and in every case it was always a bland pile of mush. But now I see what all the hype is about. When polenta is made into a cake and grilled, it's actually quite nice and it went well with the marinara sauce. I suppose the mascarpone probably played a role in this as well. I also really enjoyed the Flying Dog Pale Ale I had with my meal. I left very satisfied.
Apparently there are several locations of Asqew Grill in the Bay Area. Not a bad choice if you are looking for a lunch spot. Oh yeah, and they deliver!
Asqew Grill
1607 Haight St @ Clayton
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