RICE PAPER SCISSORS

Our Lucky Mission Festival in February came to be because we wanted to celebrate the Lunar New Year with the traditions we enjoyed growing up — but with more booze and dancing.

Usually, the Vietnamese/Chinese New Year is celebrated in the family home, with meals and red envelopes filled with money (not bad things, at all!).

However, we wanted to reimagine it and make it a holiday that more people can get into. After all, it’s about food, family and friends — and we can all use more of that in our lives.

The result: a month of pop-ups and partying!

We kicked things off with the Good Luck Biagarten, an indoor beer garden reminiscent of casual drinking spots in Vietnam. You could buy beers by-the-bucket OR the bottle.

The Potsticker Party was a casual cooking class we threw to teach people a new craft. People made Pork and Squash potstickers over beers and got to enjoy the fruits of their labor in Good Eggs HQ in the Mission.

To get people raging for the Lunar New Year, we hosted the Lion Dance Party at the Verdi Club. Lion dancers from the Chung Ngai Dance Troupe broke it down to “Sexy and I Know It” — combining the old the new. DJ Spinnerty spun classic party jams (everything from Robyn to Christina Aguilera) while 12FPS held it down on the photobooth.

(Best Chinese lion dance photobomb ever.)

We hope you’ll join us for next year’s Lucky Mission Festival!

Photos (top to bottom): Pete Lee, Akia Graybill, 12FPS

We love how cuisines can mesh together and evolve to become it’s own thing. The dishes from our Dungeness Crab House took from not only Viet-Cajun cuisine, but also traditional Vietnamese and New Orleans specialities.

For example, the Crawfish Etouffee Bouchee (pictured below) was a combination of the Vietnamese Pate Chaud (puffy pastry filled with meat) and Creole etoufee (thick seafood stew) - but made with a thick crawfish and sea snail gravy.

See more photos our Viet-Cajun dishes here.

Photos by Patrick Kawahara

We started 2013 with a New Year’s Day Brunch a new pop-up location: Whiz Burgers, located on 18th and Van Ness.

For a while this location intrigued us. We weren’t sure who owned it or how to approach them to do a pop-up. Our curiosity pushed us to ask anyway.

We met John Kim, whose father owns Whiz Burger, one day at the take-out window. John told us that Whiz Burgers has been around since 1955. Twenty years ago, his father owned a liquor store on 14th and saw that Whiz Burgers was for sale — so he bought it. It’s been run by the Kim’s ever since.

Since Whiz Burgers was closed for New Year’s, the Kim’s allowed us to pop-up in the space for our brunch. “I wanted to support another small business,” John said.

Thanks to the Kim’s for letting us pop-up and everyone who came out to start 2013 with us!

And don’t forget to get a fresh banana shake and seasoned fries from the Whiz sometime this year :)

Photos by Andria Lo
See full set here
More photos from Doc Pop here

This year, we were lucky enough to have our New Year’s Day Brunch photographed by Doctor Popular.

He’s a fellow Mission District dweller who does everything from DJing to building LEGO dioramas.

While hanging out with us, he got behind-the-scene shots inside the Whiz Burgers.

Using his Minolta SLR and rolls of expired Konica film, he captured the vibes of the iconic burger joint.

See more photos on Doctor Popular’s website here.

Our visit from Anthony Bourdain aired on TV

Traveled to Vietnam

Landed our first office and commercial kitchen (where we did an awesome shoot with Refinery29)

Had our first interns

Who helped us produce our spread in Food & Wine

And a music video

Which we made to try to get voted into the SF Street Food Festival (it worked!)

Afterwards, went on tour with The Bold Italic (and Allan, who snapped this pic)

Came home and gave Eddie Huang a tour of the Asian side of the Mission

Squeezed in a few end-of-summer camping trips

Which inspired The Camp-In movie night

Brought back the Dungeness Crab House

And said goodbye to the Underground Market, which started it all.

2012 was an adventure. We look forward to 2013 being a year of more first’s, popping up in crazy locations, traveling and learning new dishes — and doing it for all of you guys.

Come celebrate the beginning of 2013 at our New Year’s Day Brunch tomorrow at Whiz Burgers!

Cheers,

Valerie + Katie + the RPS team

A few weeks ago we threw our second Dungeness Crab House, a dinner celebrating the Bay’s favorite crustacean.

This dinner had us on the edge of our stools. In the week prior to the event, the crab fishermen went on strike (as they did the year before) due to a price dispute between them and the wholesalers.

We wanted to support the fisherman so we had a back-up plan (Bass Haus!) in case they didn’t resolve the strike before the dinner. But luckily all was worked out two days before the dinner. Phew.

Also on the menu: White Truffle Garlic Noodles (another treat of fall/winter) as well as Jasmine Tea Shaved Ice — a great excuse to bust out the Korean shaved iced machine we scored at a garage sale near our office.

Another crab dinner is scheduled for January. Stay tuned!

Valerie + Katie

More photos from the amazing Pete Lee here. 

About a month ago, we hosted The Camp-In, a pop-up dinner and movie night with our Mission neighbors Alite Designs and The NWBLK .

With Alite’s camping gear coupled with our little red stools, we transformed The NWBLK into an indoor campground. 

It was a dinner and movie night, but instead of driving in, our guests camped in to watch Wet Hot American Summer — which was pretty appropriate with the rain that night.

Staying true to the movie, we got hot AND wet cooking up pho and banh mi outside.

Despite the downpour, we were stoked to see folks come out to enjoy the show (and our Bulleit Bourbon S’mores)!

To top off the sweet night, we got a shout out from David Wain, one of the creators of the movie.

More photos here.

A big thanks to our partners Alite Designs and The NWBLK for their help making this happen.

This past weekend we wrapped up the first leg of The Bold Rush, a West Coast tour with The Bold Italic that showcases SF goods. Our first venture was to the ever-so-sunny Los Angeles, where we did a pop-up at Poketo, a beautifully curated gift shop.

The Bold Italic folks put us up in an Airbnb in Downtown LA, which we shared with videographer Eric of High Beam Media and Allan Hough, ping pong party master behind American Tripps.

Our detailed “Guest Handbook” had two notable instructions: 1) Absolutely No Partying!!! (emphasis, theirs) and 2) that we were welcome to use their “not-so-glamorous” rooftop pool and jacuzzi.

Little did they know that we hail from SF, a land of no-swimming-pools and constant 65-degree weather (save for the last few days). Needless to say, we very much enjoyed the weather and Airbnb amenities.

We consider The Bold Rush as a kind of “cultural exchange.” Along with The Bold Italic, we’re bringing our SF/Southeast Asian vibe to our West Coast “sister cities” and The Bold Italic folks will document interesting things in each city.

Here’s Sarah Han of The Bold Italic and Eric filming Angie, one of the co-owners/sweethearts at Poketo. Their brick-and-mortar is located in the beautifully industrial Arts District of LA, which we would recommend exploring. After a trip to Poketo, get a bratwurst and beer at Wurstkuche, an indoor biergarten next door (note to SF: We need one of these), and then dessert at The Pie Hole, a cute pie shop across the street.

The Bold Italic brought a trunk show of SF goodies to LA, including lots of local art and handmade goods. Although there were lots of local goodies too — members of Beachwood Sparks played a free show and we got down on some Peach Cobbler pie from The Pie Hole.

At the pop-up, Katie’s sister Ming Ming came to help out, since Katie was in NY for a wedding. Thanks Ming Ming!

LA was a great way to start off our trip! Tomorrow we’ll be hopping on a plane to Portland and then finishing off at the end of the week in Seattle. See you in a bit, SF!

— Valerie

More shots from our pop-up at Poketo:

More photos on our Facebook page.

Read The Bold Italic’s recap in words and pictures!

• 2,982 views on our Justin Beiber parody video
• 1,000 Beef and Mushroom Pho Rolls served
• 800 Daikon Cakes fried up
• 200 shots of Vietnamese Iced Coffe poured
• 18 hour work day
• 10 awesome folks on the RPS team
• 6 hours Katie Kwan was hawking on the street
• 5 miles Josh, our runner, ran around the Mission to re-up on supplies
• 1 bottle of Bulleit to celebrate
• 1 well-deserved Uber ride home

The SF Street Food Festival was the challenge and pinnacle of our summer. First, being a part of the Whole Foods Local Forager contest where we had to rally up friends, customers, and strangers to vote us into the festival. I guess Justin Bieber works charms!

Then, figuring out a menu item, a process, and a crew that could work fast, so nobody had to wait around for their street food. (That is the whole point of street food, after all!) We consulted SFSFF veterans Hapa Ramen and Wise Sons for pointers. Favorite part: Richie talking about tent set-up while breaking down a pig in his kitchen. Multi-tasking at it’s best.

On the day of, all our detailed lists and planning came together. Our team hustled. Josh literally ran around the Mission to buy more ingredients for the Beef Pho Rolls, and at one point ran a 50 pound box of fresh rice noodles from 16th and Mission to our booth on 22nd and Folsom. Katie got jacked on our Vietnamese Iced Coffee and put the “hawker” in hawker fare for the entire day. I expo’d like it was nobody’s business.

Y’all came and ate. Some people said the Beef Pho Rolls were their favorite was their favorite dish. One customer spoke to Mission Loc@l how our Daikon Cakes are deep-fried, not pan-fried, for ultimate crispy pleasure (something Katie picked up in Hong Kong.) Those comments warmed our hearts!

Best way to end the day? Unloading at our kitchen, then kicking off our clogs and realizing “Oh shit, we served over 2,000 folks in 8 hours.” A bottle of Bulleit and Uber car ride home later (which I fell asleep in), we went to bed, happily exhausted.

The following Monday, we celebrated with an amazing dinner at State Bird, combined with a tearful goodbye to our summer interns. Katie and I both took the week off to hang out in the sun (she in Tahoe, me in Maine) and now we’re back, ready to do it again at the Eat Real Festival next weekend in Jack London Square. So excited.

Insta-credits

1. The crew! (via @ricepapersf on Instagram)

2. Fried Daikon Cake up front, Beef Pho Roll in the back. Taken by Felicia Chanco. (via @ricepapersf on Instagram)

3. Katie, taken by Omar (via @streetfoodsf on Instagram)

We couldn’t have asked for better weather for our Grill Fest that went down this past Saturday. Good food, good weather, good friends — we die!

Thanks to everyone who BBQ’d it up with us and to Mission Dispatch for hosting. See y’all at our Dim Sum Brunch this Sunday!

See the full set on our Facebook page. Give us a thumbs up if you like!