i ran by lolo (22nd st, between mission and valencia) over the weekend and noticed the intelligent use of waste materials (mostly fabric and plastic offcuts, and recycled papers) in the furniture. the bar is a continuously laminated sheet of newspaper announcements of lottery winnings, and the wall of the bar appears to be made of recycled bags from colima salt from mexico. the people at the tsuji school gave me a small twist of colima salt to highlight the superiority of the hokkaido salt rubbed over the grilled ayu served at dinner.
in any case, food and wine were good and appropriately priced. lolo seems to resist classification in any cooking tradition, though there are a few unusual and ethnically identifiable ingredients (most obvious: huitlacoche) and more unusual spanish wines and latin american preparations than i'd expected. at the barman's suggestion, i got a glass of rotllan torra priorat reserve 2001 (good, but overpriced -- fortunately, a generous pour) while waiting.
- octopus tiradito was excellent; cold, tender but not mushy, just chewy enough, and dusted liberally with something red and spicy that wasn't paprika and might have been annatto.
- fried shrimp taco sounded lame but was actually marvellously done. it came dressed with a spicy remoulade/sour cream sauce and was served on top of rounds of thinly-shaved jicama.
- the seafood corn sopes were filled with a barely-cooked mix of shrimp, scallop, and octopus bound with a light mayonnaise and came with a salad of shaved red cabbage and persian cucumber.
- duck confit was DIY and came on a huge square plate with four quadrants containing a mound of shredded duck confit, a small pile of cilantro (someone had gone to the trouble of plucking the leaves from the stems and discarding imperfect ones), a steamer basket full of fresh corn tortillas, and a small bowl of a sweet/tart sauce reputed to contain grapefruit.
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