Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen ~ 24th Street Deli

"Say, Mr. Rosten, how do you say 'persimmon'[1] in Hebrew or Yiddish?!"

http://wisesonsdeli.com/24th-street-deli-menu


Place: Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen 
~ 24th Street Deli
Location: 3150 24th Street (at Shotwell)
Hours: open Monday-Saturday 8:00am, Sunday 9:00am
Meal: (both of these items were off the Noshes[2] & Appetizers section of the menu) Pickle Plate ~ seasonal selection of assorted vinegar & salt fermented (aka "pickled") vegetables (and, apparently, fruits, too); two Potato Latkes[3] ~ (with sour cream & house apple sauce [which they have as two words, but I prefer the smooshed-together word "applesauce", Peter Brady]); and a cuppa (and 1-1/2 refillas ~ which is self-serve and bottomless) Intelligentsia Coffee House Blend - Direct Trade

http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/product/coffee/intelligentsia-house-blend

(I can neither confirm nor deny that "Chan Chan" is 
el dialecto cubano way to say "persimmon"[4]. I just heard this song again this morning on my car stereo on my way home after breakfast and like it enough to share it here.)


I have been meaning to get back to Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen ~ 24th Street Deli (see previous 'blog-entry from August 9th, 2014) for some time now. I remembered that I really enjoyed my first meal that I had there. And after this morning's simple-but-interesting meal, I have to make another mental note (Are there really any other kinda notes with me?) to get back there again one of these days. Wise Sons now also has three other locations:  a stand at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market (which was their original location), inside The Contemporary Jewish Museum, and also a bagelry/bakery on Fillmore Street.

A few other of their Breakfast Served All Day menu items that I was tempted by this morning: Matzo Brei (matzo fried with eggs ~ with salt & pepper, sour cream & jam, or maple syrup; I had this same dish the last time I ate at saul's Restaurant & Delicatessen [see last 'blog-entry from December 26th, 2015]); Market Scramble (seasonal vegetable scramble, served with toast & housemade preserves; I forgot to note exactly what today's scramble included, I think it had spinach and another ingredient [I am pretty sure it wasn't persimmons, though] and some kinda cheese; Who am I supposed to be? The note-taker guyer?!); or Challah French Toast (made with our own challah, cut thick then topped with seasonal fruit [I wonder if any of those fruits would happen to be persimmons] and served with pure maple syrup and orange compound butter; I had their cinnamon babka as my toasty choice the last time that I ate there and I bet that would be a great basis for French toast, too).

These were a very good version of potato latkes. They were nice and crispy on the outside and made from very finely grated/shredded/riced potatoes. I really shoulda gotten the three Latkes option! (Or at least had an egg laid [layed? whatever] on top.) I happened to mention to one of the counter-staff lady-persons that these would make for a great base for a Jewish Eggs Benedict dish and she told me that they do just that once in a while on their weekendly "Specials" menu.

Today's seasonal selection of assorted vinegar and salt fermented vegetables were: beetroot, cucumbers (known in some strange lands as "pickles"), cabbage (as in "sour Kraut"), cauliflower, carrots, green beans, one esúpero picante Thai chilli, and persimmons(?!?). I asked the same counter-staff lady-person what the roundish orange pieces of pickled vegetables were. She said they were just carrots. I had to take her up on that one (Round carrots? Don't be meshugge!) and asked her to check with the kitchen staff. They weren't carrots (not that I even thought that they were); they were in a separate bowl by themselves. However, not one of the rest of the front-counter staff, nor any of the Mexican cook-staff, could really tell me what these were (and they also didn't know the word for "persimmon" in Spanish[4]). It was pretty funny, as they all then had to try the pickled "vegetable" to determine just what the heck it might be. So, I am going with pickled persimmons until I am proven wrong. 

Previously in the past (because "previously in the future" only makes sense if you drive a 1983 DeLorean DMC-12) they had offered Mr. Espresso® as their house Coffee, which is a very decent local roastery. However, I much prefer the Intelligentsia Coffee that they are now serving.

http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/location/san-francisco-roasting-works

The only condimentary supplementation that I noticed were bottles of Tapatio® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce. It really didn't matter as no hot sauce was used nor really needed with today's breakfastary input, anyway.

Pickles and Latkes for breakfast?! Well, it worked great for me.

"If Peter Piper plated pickles, where's the plate of pickles that Peter Piper plated?"


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: 
Pickle Plate ~ 7.4;
Potato Latkes ~ 6.8;
Intelligentsia Coffee House Blend - Direct Trade ~ 7.0

___________________

1. For those of you that have never eaten a persimmon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon

Side-note: Like the tomato, persimmons are not popularly considered to be berries, but in terms of botanical morphology, the fruit is in fact a berry. 

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, number Oy!:

Once again, whenever it is necessary to explain any Yiddish or Yinglish terminology, I must break out the only true lexicon of these words that I own: 
The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten.

Per Mr. Rosten:

nosh
nosher
noshen

Rhyme respectively with "gosh", "josher", "joshin'". German: nachen, "to eat on the sly".

3. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-culinaristic pointer of the day, number Vay!:

Also per Mr. Rosten:

latke

A sweet-natured and lovable-but-goofy mechanic of taxicabs; a foreigner of unknown country origin.

(Nah, not really. That was just my stupid joke-input.)

Pronounced LOT-keh, like "vodka". Slavic: "pancake"* - usually a potato pancake.

*(Actually, I did a little more research and it appears that it may come from the Russkoe word for "patch", which is "латка" ~ pronounced just like it looks.)

4. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, número tres:

For what it is worth, "persimmon" in Spanish is "el caqui".