Blue Plate San Francisco

Making friends in San Francisco is not the easiest, particularly for those not adroitly adept at it. Whether from being an introvert or a snarky bitch whose humor people just don’t get , it is a challenge. I mean, once you are a couple, you don’t exactly go trolling through couple bars to meet folks. Are couple bars even a thing? Plus, it would seem almost a bit to swingery to approach strangers in a bar and say—”hey! Wanna be friends!” Seriously, who does that? And if anyone truly has, did it even work?

Social situations make me tense. The more people there are, the worse it gets. Even with small gatherings of people I know tend to have an expiration time of around four hours before I begin to feel exhausted by the effort to present myself and be chatty and interesting to others. I can usually feel myself shutting down the more saggy my body gets. Makes me a total riot at parties!

For me and the SO, meeting others to hang around with was difficult effort sense we both had moderately sarcastic sometimes dark senses of humor which isn’t to everyone’s taste. Thus the ones we were able to cultivate usually evolved through either work or hanging at the South Beach sailing club across the street from our apartment. You know, the whole shared hobby experience thing. Though the sailing was more their hobby than mine. I like hanging out on a boat on the Bay, but usually if it involved casualness and wine not strong winds, high waves, getting wet and pulling lines. That is more of a work-out than a relaxing sail around the Bay—to me anyway.

Food was another hobby, mostly mine, but the SO enjoyed trying new spots, especially if they offered “experience” in addition to food. Think Saison, Atleir Crenn, Aquerello kind of thing where the ambiance and dance multiple wait staff was just as fascinating to them as the sometimes experimental food.

Over time we did have a handful of peeps we could hang around with who knew us well enough to laugh at our terrible humor and still call us on our s**t if we were truly being dickish. It is a fine line you know. One such couple we had started to get to know was S&T. S formerly worked with the SO at one of those health tech companies that makes things you can wear and was a start-up that made good. They remained friends after the SO moved on and we started hanging out as they both liked to try new food spots much like us. It also helped that S was from the South like me, though they were from that state that started the war, but I looked past that. We all have our crosses to bear.

The thing about being from the South is you’ve grown up with down home, homestyle, low-country, Southern style cooking and still have an affinity for it even into an adulthood where you have lived in SF longer than you lived in your home state. The fact there is a proliferation of such places in the Bay Area I had always found surprising. Things like fried chicken, meatloaf, cornbread, greens, smoked meats, biscuits, etc., some people call it comfort food, which I guess in a sense, it is. It makes people thing of home and childhood for some reason even though they may not have particularly grown up eating it all the time. For those of us who did eat like this, it was almost like grandma, 3000 miles from home. Almost. I still am challenged by some barbecue here and finding a really truly good biscuit, though Brenda’s has come close on that one.

It is nice when different factions of one’s life can converge together for an enjoyable night out. Thus it was that me and the SO were able to meet up with S&T for a dinner at a homestyle restaurant that S swears by and super loves their fried chicken. When they said it was Blue Plate I said, “oh yeah, I remember eating there like yeeeaarrs ago. That’s still around?” I remember going there with Ms. O and the memory I had was of a small space and sitting at tiny table not more than five inches from the tables on either side of us. You know, a city restaurant which was packed, loud and I could hear the tables next to me talking more than I could Ms. O. But the food? Eh, didn’t remember it.

With their rave of the place it seemed like the perfect opportunity to rediscover a neighborhood haunt that is still going strong all these years later. Herewith then is my not review of Blue Plate with S&T, which, as a side note, turned out to be one of the last couples dinners the SO and I had.

Bread, it is a staple of any Southern meal. It can be in most any form from biscuits to cornbread to white bread to rolls. I try to watch my bread intake because—carbs—but for me, even growing up, bread was always a vehicle for butter. It is a condiment in the South you know. If the bread is fresh baked and served warm, even better. It means the butte will just melt through all the nooks and crannies. While the SO was used to it, I always seemed to throw the waiters off when I said please bring several extra butters. I think they thought I was kidding, but they soon learned I was not. They all do eventually. And any place that serves up some freshness when you sit down and then brings more when you ask is a winner. Not to mention it is gratis. How can you beat that!

Neighborhood restaurants like to keep menus simple as far as entrees go and you get a couple meat things, a pasta thing, a “vegetarian” thing and a seafood of the day thing. That nights offering was scallops. The SO got this to be healthy. With all the butter in the sauce probably not that healthy but the trade off was a manageable (meaning small-ish) portion size.

Fried chicken, it is pretty ubiquitous on menus around town. It seems to always be one of those meat dishes on pared down menus. Now S says Blue Plate did the best and swears by their chicken as Southern transplant. Well, I felt I had to take their word and ordered this for myself. There were actually four pieces of crispy chicken and kind of gravy for dipping. Interesting for sure. I used it to dip the bread in, because that’s what Southerners do. The creamed spinach was actually fresh and green and surprisingly light. Not old school steak house like.

**meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans**

Meatloaf, a classic, like fried chicken, you are gonna find on every menu in this town from high end variations to traditional diner fare. Every place does their own version to varying degrees of success. Blue Plate is known for theirs. It is a large chunk that was crisped up before serving. That bacon sprinkle didn’t really understand since it seemed kind of under done. Gravy was more like an au jus. I asked for some butter for the potatoes and ketchup for the meatloaf, because that is what I do.

**butterscotch pudding with pecan brittle**

This was a flashback. I remember as a child just absolutely loving butterscotch pudding with a generous dollop Cool Whip on top. My parents used to make it from the pudding box and then Del Monte started making it in tiny pull top tins you could put in a lunch box! The 70’s, what a crazy time. Putting pudding for kids in a small metal thing with a pull top of sharp edges that you give your kid to take to school and hope they don’t cut their tongue when they lick the lid after pulling it off, because that is what we all did.

Somewhere along the way pudding and me parted ways. My dessert tastes changed and as we all know, I gravitated toward things with more heft and pudding just didn’t do it for me. I’m also not a fan of brittle. Too hard and gets stuck in your teeth and hard to get out. Thus this dessert was all on the SO. I had my sights set on something else.

There was no cake on offer so by default, key lime pie it is. Tangy sweet custard on a thick layer of buttery graham crackers topped with a helping of fresh made cream. After filling up on bread and fried stuff, it was just the right size to top off our Southern style meal with our couple friends S&T.

The meal itself had no surprises, which, when you are having dinner with friends is perfectly fine. You don’t have to worry overly fussy food, or worse, food that isn’t good. You can just relax into the evening and catch up with what everyone is doing. In essence, you can enjoy the evening and the company without worrying about the food. Those are the joys of Southern comfort food, friends and a nice night out. See, having couple friends isn’t that hard after all!

I can just make out the sun on the horizon as it gets closer to setting. The end is nigh it tis’.