San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
S.F.’s first mamak restaurant
A new Malaysian spot in Noe Valley, and more Bay Area openings
Azalina Eusope does not so much create Malaysian recipes when she’s in the kitchen as she timetravels back to her childhood in Penang, where she first fell in love with cooking.
Over a simmering pot of laksa (spicy noodle soup) Eusope sometimes closes her eyes and imagines frolicking in the floodwaters after a monsoon in Penang, her pet orangutan, Madu, by her side. People ate canned sardines after a storm, she remembers, because fresh food just wasn’t an option. The smell would fill her home.
These childhood experiences have shaped the arc of Eusope’s culinary career over the last decade. As such, the chef has a new restaurant that’s also a byproduct of those memories: Mahila, San Francisco’s first restaurant to focus solely on mamak cuisine, a cooking style from Muslim Indians in Malaysia often associated with openair food markets. Eusope is a fifthgeneration street vendor.
The restaurant is in Noe Valley, in the former home of Spanish restaurant Contigo. This is Eusope’s second food business in the city, after her food stand, Azalina’s, on the first floor of the Twitter building, but it’s her first fullservice restaurant venture .
The Mahila menu is a sibling to Azalina’s menu, but more ambitious. Where Azalina’s is compact and consists mostly of curries, Mahila’s has a cadre of starters — sweet potato dumplings with green onion chutney; Malaysian crepes with an egg and served with curry; white carrot pudding; and coconut green bean salad.
Entrees at Mahila include salted black cod fish curry for $25; Ayam masak merah (chicken cooked in a spicy tomato sauce) with green tomato chutney for $20; and oxtail soup for $17, among other things. Like Azalina’s, Mahila has vegan options, including a cucumber shoot salad for $15. Brunch will be available on weekends. Unlike her food stand, the 70seat Mahila will be tended by servers, all people of color.
Eusope has been a presence in San Francisco’s food scene since she launched her catering business in 2010. Her food stall opened in 2015. During that time, Eusope cooked for former President Barack Obama and became friends with Lin Manuel Miranda of “Hamilton.”
“He ate here for weeks and I had no idea who he was,” Eusope said. “I just keep my head down and do my work. I never know who is actually paying attention to what I’m doing.”
Still, Eusope admits she knows there’s a market for her food and that it has a following. So what took so long for her to open a fullservice restaurant?
“I could have done this earlier, but I had things going on in my personal life that needed to be addressed first. I also just wanted to make sure I picked the right situation. With Mahila, I don’t have investors in this with me. This is all mine,” she said.
1320 Castro St., S.F.; www.exploretock.com/mahila
— Justin Phillips
One65
With the recent unveiling of a pair of 10course tasting menus starting at $250 per person, one of which includes a “caviar composition,” San Francisco’s French dining hub One65 completed its rollout in Union Square this month.
One65 is arguably the year’s most ambitious San Francisco restaurant project. The sixfloor, 25,000squarefoot venture at 165 O'Farrell St. comprises four interconnected restaurants: One65 Bistro and Grill, One65 Patisserie, Elements Bar and Lounge, and O’ by Claude Le Tohic. Chef Le Tohic’s resume includes a stint in the kitchen of Joël Robuchon at the MGM Grand Las Vegas.
In the opening 10course menu for O’, there’s a duck breast dish served with lavender honey, turnips and porcini mushrooms. The aforementioned caviar course on this menu comes with shrimp tartare and lobster gelee, among other things.
One65 Bistro and Grill on the third floor has an opening lunch menu that includes a $28 skirt steak, $26 smoked salmon, a turkey club for $20 and a $27 burger.
On the fourth floor, Elements Bar and Lounge has dark hues, black leather seats, charcoal walls, wood surfaces and mood lighting. The bar’s menu has a theme based on the elements of fire, water and earth. Cocktails range from $14 to the $75 Bird in Hand made with Tequila, Campari, honey, grapefruit and absinthe.
165 O’Farrell St., S.F.; www.one65sf.com
— J.P.
Mägo
After stepping away from San Francisco’s fine dining scene following the 2017 closure of AQ in MidMarket, chef Mark Liberman has reemerged in Oakland with Mägo, which translates to magician in Spanish.
Mägo is Liberman’s first solo project. After a series of permitting delays, the restaurant officially opened on Piedmont Avenue in the former home of CyBelle’s Pizza.
“This has been a grassroots effort getting this place open,” Liberman said. “I didn’t want to open this with a business partner so I didn’t. That might change down the road, but I wanted to have control over everything. It made the process more challenging, but it felt right.”
In terms of functionality, the 45seat Mägo is modeled after a dinner party — the kitchen is open, and instead of servers, cooks deliver most of the food. The back patio will eventually overlook a restaurant garden.
The origin of Mägo as an idea goes back to early 2017, when Liberman was closing AQ in San Francisco. In the years since, the chef has said he’s been searching for simplicity, especially after having a daughter.
“In the past, I had no problem working 18 hours each day and pushing myself six days per week,” he said. “As I’ve grown older, I have a family at home and those priorities change. I don’t want those hours. I don’t want that kind of life for my staff.”
As for why Liberman’s project landed in Oakland, he said he just liked the Piedmont area, with its mix of residential and business crowds. It also didn’t hurt that his restaurant was funded by a successful Kickstarter, which exceeded his goal of $25,000 and showed there was support from the surrounding community.
3627 Piedmont Ave., Oakland; www.magorestaurant.com
— J.P.
Grand Lake Kitchen Dimond
Weekend brunch lines are a consistent sight outside Grand Lake Kitchen, just north of Lake Merritt. Those long waits might be eased with the opening of a second location in Oakland’s Dimond district.
Husbandandwife team Dave Wasem and May Seto recently opened Grand Lake Kitchen Dimond, carrying over the original restaurant’s most popular American brunch and deliinspired dishes. Five years in the making, it’s a larger and more ambitious project at 5,500 square feet with a designated togo area, a retail section and familyfocused patio.
The 75seat dining room features a full bar, turquoise banquettes, tiled floors and a slightly sleeker aesthetic compared to the original. Menus feature a few unique new dishes, including savory mushroom porridge and fried green tomatoes with pimento cheese.
The togo area highlights softserve ice cream, cookies, bottles of wine and quick deli sides like green goddess kale salad and tuna macaroni, although anything off the regular menu can be ordered there as well.
The retail section, meanwhile, features cookbooks, greeting cards, ceramics, Tshirts and other tchotchkes — a neighborhood gift shop, essentially.
Wasem and Seto are encouraging diners to bring their kids to the enclosed, 20seat patio. An additional 20 seats or so will be added to the sidewalk soon. There’s also a private dining room available for events.
2042 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. www.grandlakekitchen.com/location/dimond/