So I’m starting to really like Food Network Magazine, they have fun recipes and it’s so easy just to flip open the page and start cooking rather than having to go online, search for the recipe, and print it out. I decided to try out the “Almost Famous Soft Pretzels” recipe. It’s my first time making any sort of bread with yeast.

It ended up not being too difficult. I had to let it rise for about an hour and it almost took up the space of the whole bowl.

Then you “punch” it to let out all the air… it actually made a “pheewww” sound as it deflated…

It’s pretty hard to shape pretzels though. The dough is very sticky and stretchy. This is when I miss my granite countertop. With tile countertop, I’m afraid the grout will be dirty so don’t want to roll out anything directly on top. Plus I don’t have a big enough cutting board 🙁 Oh well…

But they still turned out pretty nice… the outside was nice and brown and crisp, the inside soft and chewy. The sauce a bit too sweet and be sure not to use too much cider vinegar or else it’ll be watered down. Also I didn’t use the butter in the recipe at the end, the pretzels don’t need it.

Pancho’s Salsa Bar & Grill

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http://www.yelp.com/biz/p…san-francisco-2

Ron and I had dinner on Monday night at Pancho’s, it’s only a few blocks from our apt so we thought we’d give it a try since it’d be nice to have a convenient Mexican place to go to nearby.

We ordered the nachos with chicken, a steak “Borracho Burrito”, and horchata.

The horchata was pretty good but could’ve done with a bit more ice or cooling.

The chips with the nachos were nice and crispy but the cheese wasn’t evenly spread around so that was a bit disappointing. But at least the cheese was fresh and not that processed goo.

Ron had the burrito (sorry no pics) and it was filling although we thought the sauce was a bit strange. In the description, it’s a Homemade Mexican BBQ sauce and it was just a bit too sweet for our taste.

Unfortunately, I don’t think their food sat well with my stomach as I had a stomach ache all night long so I don’t think we’ll be going back there… but doesn’t mean anyone else shouldn’t try it since I have a sensitive stomach for Mexican, I can’t even eat Taco Bell!

Pancho’s
3440 Geary Blvd (at Stanyan)

Masa’s Restaurant

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http://www.masasrestaurant.com/

I had the pleasure of attending another pharmaceutical company dinner (Novartis) at Masa’s Restaurant. The speaker presented about Reclast, an intravenous drug for osteoporosis. We use it sometimes at work but not often since most of our patients have cancer, so we’re used to seeing Zometa. We had a very intimate dining experience at Masa’s in their wine room with about 14 people attending.

I was too self conscious to take photos until the end… the dessert was a baked Alaska with a little bits of fruits (mostly strawberries).