#soulfoodisworththewait

so in continuing on my journey in creating a holiday atmosphere at home, I did as any sane, but very hungry person would do. I went to Brenda’s.  Brenda’s soul food in the good old TL ,(that’s the Tenderloin for you not local folks) where getting a seat in under an hour is nearly impossible and getting one in an hour and a half is what is defined as victory. By the time you sit down, you almost forgot what you were there for.  Until that is, you see the cream biscuits and beignets being tenderly put down at the table next to you.  You are then transported info the sweetest spot where all things soul food start to speak to, well…your soul. Like many other things I have been doing lately, Brenda’s is one of those places that while it’s your local, always makes you feel like your treating yourself to a mini vaca. Reason to celebrate you ask? If you count, “I rolled out of bed this morning and managed to brush my teeth” a cause for celebration, then most definitely. The juxtaposition between the worn out pavement that seems to tell a story, the homeless person on the corner barely clothed, and the occasional outburst regarding something about the devil, and the abundance of well to do, but ironic hipsters drinking lattes outside the restaurant creates an unsettling, but familiar (and dare I say comfortable) vibe. This is San Francisco, but it might as well be somewhere as far away from home as India.

The food transports you to a little pocket of the deep south, and whether or not you have been there, you belong. But it’s the scene outside that’s transformative….welcome to SF.