The Best Dishes Eater SF Editors Ate This Week: May 6

The Buffalo Bill 3.0 sandwich at Turner’s Kitchen.

There’s certainly no shortage of excellent food to be found in San Francisco and the Bay Area — but there’s plenty worth skipping, too. Luckily for you, Eater editors dine out several times a week (or more) and we’re happy to share the standout dishes we encounter as we go.

Here’s the best of everything the Eater SF team has eaten recently. Check back weekly for more don’t-miss dishes.

Buffalo Bill 3.0 at Turner’s Kitchen

I don’t know what it is about sunny weather, but there’s something about the intoxicating combination of warm temps and abundant vitamin D that gets me craving a big sandwich. That’s how I found myself at Turner’s Kitchen, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sandwich counter in the Mission located on a surprisingly quiet stretch of 17th Street just west of Guerrero. I ordered the Buffalo Bill, a two-hands-required sando stacked with thick slices of roasted turkey, white cheddar cheese, and a heap of herby buttermilk ranch coleslaw, which had a perfect creamy-tart flavor and lots of crunch. A brown butter buffalo sauce turned up the heat, just enough to keep things interesting. On the side, I opted not for salad or jalapeno coleslaw, but the Robin Leach “chips and caviar,” which despite the name does not actually feature caviar, but rather tobiko (as listed on the menu). Nevertheless, it turned a takeout sandwich lunch into a bit of an adventurous and slightly more fancy affair starring shatteringly crunchy salt and pepper chips buried under sourcream; dill; and 1.75 ounces of salty, popping tobiko. While this lunchtime combo came with me back to the house, I’m looking to more sunny days — and more sandwiches, hopefully, enjoyed al fresco at one of this city’s many parks. Turner’s Kitchen, 3505 17th Street, B, San Francisco

— Lauren Saria, Eater SF editor

Sesame chicken at Kiri

Biting into fried chicken thigh crisped in sesame tare is like chomping into a San Francisco future rooted in the city’s dining past. The dish is a nod to now-closed Japanese restaurant Hisago’s chicken, zhushed up with fine dining chops. At the better part of 10 p.m. inside New Taraval Cafe on April 28, every booth was stuffed with happy faces smiling through well-peppered beef, shatteringly crisp calamari, and Castella sponge cake swimming in strawberry-studded milk. Kiri’s installation at the old school Sunset restaurant was packed, the chicken the tony pick of this menu, though there weren’t notable misses at the inspired Japanese and Chinese pop-up. The splash of citrus provided by a cut of orange is not accouterment but a needed complement to the chunks of chicken, like lime to taco. The hype in the room, and the crunch and tenderness of the chicken, felt like spinning the lazy susan at San Tung. It’s a big enough plate for two, especially if you’ve fired a neba neba salad to start and a Japanese custard to wrap. Both Brians, Ishii of Rintaro and Jackson Lee of Coffee Movement, are on fire alongside pastry whiz Sandy Kim and jack-of-all-trades Fred Lee. This team of restaurant talent is pushing the scene further, mining San Francisco nostalgia while iterating into the future — starting with chicken. Kiri, rotating locations, San Francisco

— Paolo Bicchieri, Eater SF reporter

Blooming Caesar Salad at Fare Play

The last thing one may want to do after a tiring day of work is to sit at a restaurant, but sometimes that’s just the remedy that’s needed. Such was the case when I went to Fare Play recently. The Fare Play team knows just how to turn a routine dinner into something more: a welcoming, joyful salve, made up of dishes and banter that had me and my dining partner smiling and laughing constantly. And speaking of turning something routine into something more, I was truly impressed with the restaurant’s Blooming Caesar Salad. The salad was a refreshing mix of flowering spring greens; yellow and orange carrot; and upcycled, crisped potato skins for extra crunch, tossed in chef Brendan Blaine Darby’s Caesar dressing. The salad arrived tableside under a cloud of fluffy Parmesan cheese, and my dining partner and I kept returning to it throughout the meal. There’s a reason why the restaurant uses the hashtag #lickingood on its Instagram; diners literally lick plates clean. The restaurant is unpretentious enough — and the dishes good enough — to warrant such behavior. Plus, it’s heartily encouraged. I may or may not have asked for the dressing recipe, entranced as I was by Darby’s cooking and hospitality from Sergio Garrido-Ramirez, who runs front of house. Already I’m making plans to return for another hit of salad before the pop-up winds down at the end of June. Fare Play, 167 11th Street, San Francisco

— Dianne de Guzman, Eater SF deputy editor