Each week, we share some favorite recent bites, the dishes and snacks and baked goods that didn’t find their way into a full review. Want the list a few days earlier? Sign up for our free newsletter, Bite Curious.
“Tinis and weenies” is Tallboy’s recipe for success. Hot dogs anchor the food menu at the Oakland bar, all vegan and crafted by the inimitable Singaporean Lion Dance Cafe, whose Oakland restaurant closed a few years ago. On a recent outing, I went with the Lion Dancing Dog, which was smattered with peanuts, cucumber, fried shallots, sambal mayo and pickled jalapeños. I doubled down on the flame with a “Green Curry,” a clarified rum martini with pisco and green coconut curry.
Tall Boy. 4210 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. tallboy.bar
Chicharron mofongo from El Coqui Puerto Rican Cuisine in Santa Rosa. (Cesar Hernandez/S.F. Chronicle)
I met a friend for dinner at El Coqui Puerto Rican Cuisine in Santa Rosa, a lively restaurant styled with tambores (drums), which sit on a shelf behind the bar. The menu has all the Boricua favorites, the most memorable being the mofongo, pounded plantains spiked with garlic and shaped like a sand castle. We added the deeply browned chicharron, which was burrowed beneath the plantains and whose crackling skin provided textural contrast to the soft dish. Then we drenched it in the garlic-infused vinegar that sits on every table. Ask for a side of lip-stinging hot sauce.
El Coqui Puerto Rican Cuisine. 400 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. elcoqui2eat.comÂ
Nam khao from Lao Table in San Francisco. (Cesar Hernandez/S.F. Chronicle)
Lao Table is one of the nicest places to score Lao food in the city, with tall ceilings, plaid patterns and colorful light fixtures. While the cooking didn’t necessarily have the flavor intensity as some other Lao restaurants – Venetian Cafe and Champa Garden – the classics were well executed. I was into the pairing of the turmeric-tinted sausages – aromatic, moderately hot – and nam khao, a confetti-like crisp rice salad with fermented pork and lettuce wraps.
Lao Table. 149 2nd St., San Francisco. laotablesf.comÂ
This article originally published at One of the Bay Area’s best hot dogs is vegan – and hiding out in an Oakland bar.