Hard Water and Wooden Pickles

Here I thought they were talking about that calcium-rich Fillmore water and instead they mean Bourbon.   The San Francisco Chronicle was reviewing another restaurant from Charles Phan (of the Slanted Door, Out the Door, etc) -- although Charlie Phan is easier to say -- called Hard Water.  It specializes in Southern cuisine, like gumbo, fried chicken, and muffaletta.  Appropriately they offer collard greens, black eyed peas, macaroni and cheese, and grits as sides but I don't see any chitlins on their menus, although they do offer boiled peanuts.  These are all a foil for his American Whiskey, which is the point of the place -- you can order flights of different kinds.  After a few whiskeys I suppose you would eat anything, so maybe they will eventually try chitlins...  I must admit that those pieces of fried chicken look mighty tasty and the cocktails look intriguing but they are $11 apiece (like at La Mar) so perhaps that is the going price for cocktails in San Francisco, at least when they have a view.  They offer one called the "Presbyterian" with Wild Turkey 101 bourbon, lemon, ginger, and soda which is evidently a spicier version of a common cocktail.  Maybe I should frequent bars more often so I'd know.   Ooooh.  I wonder if they have happy hour with half-price drinks.  THAT would make it affordable.

Oh, oh, I just read that they share a public restroom outside...??

Instead maybe we should try another new restaurant that opened in December and that is located in our neighborhood on Russian Hill: Verbena.  According to the San Francisco Chronicle, they celebrate  vegetables (not necessarily vegetarian) and they have an "illuminated wooden pickle wall" -- sort of like Hard Water's bourbon wall, but wooden pickles?  what fun is that?  I wonder what other food walls we can find in San Francisco.  Oh my gosh they use Garum with their beef rib, and also pumpkin milk, lovage, beet sauerkraut, nettles and chickweed.  Are we ready for this??

What is this???  It looks like a dish didn't agree with a customer...