Heaven’s Dog in SoMa is a taste of paradise

By: Patricia Unterman
Special to The Examiner
March 17, 2009

Browned to perfection: Salt-and-pepper squid with ginger and red peppers is so tasty it’s difficult not to devour it like popcorn. (Bret Putnam/Special to The Examiner)

Fifteen years ago, Slanted Door owner Charles Phan came up with the idea of cooking Vietnamese dishes using Chez Panisse-style sourced ingredients and smart presentations. He presciently opened on a then-run down block of Valencia Street because it was all he could afford.

The rest is history. The current Slanted Door in the Ferry Building is one of the highest-grossing restaurants in San Francisco.

Now he is applying the same principles to Chinese comfort food in collaboration with Chinese chef Andy Wai, and pioneering yet another  down on its luck neighborhood, Mission between Seventh and Eighth streets. A lot has changed on this block since the eco-monument of a Federal Building opened.

Heaven’s Dog is next door on the ground floor of the SoMa Grand, a tony high-rise made sexier by the presence of Phan’s restaurant. The building provides affordable parking, though I easily found street parking day and night.

As with all his places, Phan hired architect Olle Lundberg to design a modern space centered around natural materials, in this case a spectacular bar made from a long, curving 4-inch-thick slab of cypress — its grain, cracks and knots preserved and highlighted.

A small dining room juts off the bar room and lounge, with natural wood tables and orange leather banquettes. In an adjacent room, a noodle counter stretches in front of the kitchen, one of my current favorite spots for lunch.

Two of us sat by the window at the black granite kitchen counter and shared a wonderful Niman ranch pork omelet ($11), a soft mound of barely-set scrambled egg full of wok-smoked bits of chopped pork, Chinese chives and fresh cilantro, along with a bowl of spicy green beans ($8) peppered with sichuan pickled vegetable and red chilies.

Rice vermicelli noodles ($10), wok-fried with curry spices and bits of pork, shrimp, fresh ginger, bean sprouts and egg, took on a seductive toastiness.

In the sophisticated bar room, bartenders concoct inventive cocktails around hand-cut ice. The kitchen quickly produces small plates to go with them, such as curry puffs ($7), thin pastry triangles filled with potato and chopped beef with a minted rice-wine vinegar dipping sauce. Pot stickers ($8), pale on their one cooked side one night, were redeemed by a tasty celery-scented pork filling and soy-vinegar dipping sauce.

With drink in hand, it’s easy to devour tender, golden rings of salt-and-pepper squid ($13) like popcorn. Pork-filled Shanghai dumplings ($8) are OK, they’re but not as good as Yank Sing’s, the only place in San Francisco that has mastered them.

Moving on to dinner, organic pea shoots ($9) wok-tossed with ginger and shallots are sweet and delicate. A dark, balanced sweet-and-sour gravy moistens battered slices of excellent meat in Andy Wai’s version of sweet and sour pork ($15). For innards fans, star anise-braised tripe ($8), tender, aromatic and soulful, are served over fresh egg noodles.

My favorite dish here happens to be Wai’s shrimp won ton soup ($8), a shellfish-inflected broth with tiny bits of crispy pork, thin noodles and small, delicate shrimp won tons.

Charles Phan’s genius is curation and repackaging traditional dishes and presenting them in exciting  surroundings. At Heaven’s Dog, he proves that Chinese dumplings and cocktails are made for each other.

Patricia Unterman is author of the “San Francisco Food Lovers’ Pocket Guide” and a newsletter, “Unterman on Food.” Contact her at pattiu@concentric.net.

IF YOU GO
Heaven’s Dog

Location: 1148 Mission St. (between Seventh and Eighth streets), San Francisco
Contact: (415) 863-6008; www.heavensdog.com
Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.lunch Mondays-Fridays; 5:30 to 10 p.m. dinner nightly
Price range: $7 to $22
Recommended dishes: Beef curry puffs, pork omelet, salt and pepper squid, organic pea shoots, spicy green beans, shrimp wonton soup, Thai basil ice cream
Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express
Reservations: Accepted

Hot spots: Good Pizza

Corner of Mission and 7th Street, San Francisco; (415) 626-8381

There’s nothing like a high-profile restaurant to change a perception of a neighborhood.  After three visits to 7th Street and Mission, I began to look at this Mission street corridor anew. The vibrant Civic Center farmers’ market is one block away at Market and 7th Street.  A block and a half east on Mission in Mint Alley, lines form at Blue Bottle Cafe. On the corner of 7th street and Mission, Good Pizza serves as a canteen for almost a block of Chip Conley’s Joie de Vivre green motels and hotels. Good Pizza uses high quality local ingredients like Hobbs’ pepperoni and Molinari Italian sausage for thin crust pizza that is crisp and crunchy yet pleasingly chewy. The topping on a huge slice of sausage and mushroom pizza (slices $4.25 to $5.75, lunch only) had just the right balance. Whole pizzas hot from the oven are even better, especially with $19 bottles of wine and $5 side salads made with fresh greens.  Plus, Good Pizza delivers to all the rooms.