Last night on Geary and Jones. First, at Public Barber Salon, a few artists producing work in the Tenderloin made a calendar. Twenty bucks buys you months worth of artists juxtaposed with their art. The art will be up until January 16, 2012.
Then, around the corner at Kare-Ken.
A Japanese style curry restaurant. Open less than a month, about ten seats fit in this pop-up style restaurant. Upon sitting down, my party and I were greeted by a nice guy. With a limited menu, it was still difficult to make a selection, everything looked good. We ordered the shrimp tempura curry, dry-beef curry, and chicken-katsu curry. Every order we placed was greeted with a modifier, such as the shrimp is breaded tempura style. When the shrimp did arrive, it was more heavily breaded than "tempura" would suggest. And, they weren't serving the meatball curry that was on the menu, due to the consistency not being up to par. The green tea is cold, not hot, as I assumed, so I ordered sprite instead.
Everything is served to go style, with plastic forks and knives. With such a limited staff, there's probably a method to this madness, on account, they don't want to be doing dishes throughout the shift. Hopefully, when they start making money, they'll invest in some dishes, and someone will wash them. We are in San Francisco after-all. People will, and should, recycle their containers until then.
The art was good, and some of it, I really liked. My chicken-katsu curry was also good. I ordered the sauce mild. It was savory-sweet, not unlike pumpkin, which is perfect for this time of year. It's time the Tenderloin take its medicine: An infusion of young talent, producing good work.
I had fun tonight, and the best part was: I didn't even have to leave my neighborhood.
