PLOW IN SAN FRANCISCO...LET'S DO BRUNCH!
I had a recent Thursday free and decided to try some new place that always seems so hard to get into on the weekends. I came across
Plow, located in the Portrero Hill neighborhood in San Francisco. After perusing the website it's one of those organic, locally sourced, farm to table places that are so trendy right now here and looking at the
menu it's pretty much a lunch/brunch place and we all know there are just not enough of those in this town (I say with a massive eye roll). But I decided to give it a try anyway since Portrero is not a neighborhood I normally frequent.
Here's its nondescript location at the corner of 18th and Tennessee.
It's noon on a Thursday and yet the tiny narrow place is full except for 2 single seats at the bar, which is good since I came all this way not to wait to eat. I took my place at the bar where I could watch the action in the kitchen, something I really do enjoy.
After giving the menu a thorough look I decide to keep with the whole brunch theme and get the dish that seems to offer the most--the plow--2 eggs, house made sausage, fried potatoes, 2 lemon ricotta pancakes and syrup. Above you can see them making the potatoes that ended up on my plate. They are deep fried then sprinkled with sea salt and rosemary that itself has been deep fried separately before being sprinkled than tossed through the potatoes. I liked the crispiness they achieved and the since I enjoy the smell and taste of rosemary--these were a winner for me.
Eggs are cooked to order and I had mine fried hard and the came out as ordered. There were 2 house made sausage patties which were fresh off the griddle, moist, slightly spicy with red pepper flakes, parsley, black pepper and the sage that gives it that nice "sausagy" flavor. As for the lemon ricotta pancakes, normally they come with powdered sugar on them which I asked to be left off and if it had been on there these would have been like dessert pancakes. The texture is creamier than a regular pancake and the lemon can be a bit much if that is not a flavor choice you like. For the most part they were okay in the small portion I got. They offer these as a main dish that comes with 2 very large pancakes and I don't think I could get through that much of them, nor by the way could the woman sitting next to me. But who knows, they may be right up your alley.
If you are looking for a new brunch place and have some time to venture over to Portrero Hill and then wait for a table (which lots of folks will do in this town) then you should give this place a try, the food is good and fresh, if a bit pricey ($14.75 for the plate above) but that's what you get with these new-fangled organic restaurants in San Francisco--techies and hipsters will feel right at home.