Issue #6 June: The Best Thing to Eat This Summer Is Butter Chicken 🐔🧈
Plus a cute neighborhood ice cream shop, the feel-everything movie of the summer, and what to bring to a party that everyone will love
Happy Pride Month 🌈 I hope your summer is off to a good start. I just saw my friend post his trip to Disneyland for Pride and it looked so fun. My next trip is coming up at the end of July where I will visit the other happiest place on Earth–Scandinavia. I’m excited to share my trip with you all then, but for now, here’s what I’ve been up to.
Eat 😋
Tiya (Marina, SF)
Tiya opened last month in the former Maybeck’s location in the Marina. Started by two brothers with Michelin and James Beard lineage, Tiya is their “New Indian” restaurant–bold Indian flavors with seasonal Californian ingredients. In order to try as much food as possible, my partner got the standard tasting menu and I got the vegan. Each dish from both menus were so visually striking that I would gasp aloud as the servers set them down on the table. Highlights include the pani puri, the potato chat 🥔, the BEST BUTTER CHICKEN EVER (along with the accompaniments), and the tiger shrimp xec xec 🦐. They offer an a la carte menu for those who just want to eat butter chicken at the bar, but if you’re looking for a special treat, the $90 5-course tasting menu is a great value compared to other fancy tasting menus in the city.
SF Hometown Creamery (Inner Sunset, SF)
SF may not have hot summers like the rest of the world, but we do have cute ice cream shops for those rare warm-ish days. One such day, I stopped in SF Hometown Creamery for an afternoon treat 🍦. I’ve had SFHC from their little ice cream van parked at Marina Green on weekends, but this was my first time in their shop. They only offer a few flavors, but everything is made from scratch on-site, including their waffle cones, which might be the best in the city. Their most popular flavor is mint-chocolate chip made with fresh mint 🌿 from their backyard, but I opted for mango sticky rice 🥭🍚 since I planned to share it with my pup. It tasted exactly like the Thai dessert, but even better since it was on a waffle cone. I wondered if Penrose was going to think sticky rice kernels in his ice cream was weird, but he licked up his share even before I finished that thought.
Shop 🛍️
While we’re on the topic of summer, I thought I’d share my daily sunscreen ☀️. I love many Supergoop products like Unscreen and Daily Cream, but the Glowscreen is perfect for WFH days where I just want a bit of glow for Zoom. It has a nice consistency that goes on smoothly and the tint (I use the shade Sunrise) gives a subtle radiance to even out my skin tone without looking oily. It also works as a primer so I can add a foundation on top if I want more coverage.
Watch 📺
The original Inside Out is one of my favorite Pixar movies (along with Ratatouille, Up, and Wall-E). I even dressed up as Sadness for Halloween that year 💙. So I had very high expectations going into Inside Out 2, ready with a fresh pack of tissues to cry my heart out. And it did not disappoint. I started crying immediately 😭. It’s even more beautiful than the original movie and I love all the new emotions that arrive: Anxiety, Embarrassment, Ennui, Envy, and brief cameos from Nostalgia. Sadness is still my favorite character (Phyllis Smith is such an extraordinary voice actor) though I found myself wanting more of Nostalgia, which I think says a lot about my own age 😆.
Read 📖
Uncanny Valley: A Memoir (Anna Wiener)
After finishing Uncanny Valley, I was left with feelings of disgust (to use my Inside Out emotions). Anna Wiener’s memoir about her journey from NY publishing to the SF tech scene resonated with me deeply. I was also a liberal arts major who began my career in publishing making minimum wage. Now I’m a non-technical tech employee who eats $20 Sweetgreen salads and uses phrases like “scale” and “optimize” unironically in personal conversations 🙃. Wiener’s observations of the tech founders and employees she meets and works with are the same people I meet and work with. Her unease witnessing the gentrification of SF neighborhoods and the toxic workplace environments she describes are all familiar to me and to people I know. At times, it felt like Wiener took the words right out of my brain and packaged them into a coherent, articulate narrative. I recommend this book to anyone who grapples with the meaning of work in their lives, but especially for those working in tech.
FAQ ❓
Q: What should I bring to an upcoming party / potluck / BBQ, etc. that will please a crowd?
A: My go-to crowd pleaser for any occasion is the Princess Cake from Schubert’s. They have lots of lovely cakes and baked goods, but the Princess Cake never disappoints. The bright green marzipan will bring a smile to even the pickiest eaters. Underneath the marzipan is a white cake with raspberry and kirsch custard filling that’s delicate and light and most importantly, not too sweet 😋. I recently brought this cake to a friend get together and everyone loved it 💚.
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