OK, I'm continuing to write about my eating adventures from when I went to San Francisco a few weeks back!!!! Before I hopped on the plane to fly up to Oakland and take the BART over to Powell St., I went on to YouTube and watched the episode of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdaine where he went to San Francisco!!!!! In watching Bourdain tool around SF, some of the places he went were definetely off the beaten path and looked like places I would love to visit while up there!!!! When the SF episode had originally aired a few years back, I remember watching and taking notes of food dwellings I would visit the next time I was up that way!!! One of the places that I noted and had wanted to visit for quite some time was a liquor store in The Mission District called That's It Market!!!!! Yes, a liquor store!!!!! Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Every now and then I'll drive by a liquor store and see that there's a deli inside or that they bake pizza's onsite, but there's something very unsanitary and grimy about eating food prepared inside of a liquor store in my opinion!!! I don't ever buy groceries at a liquor store, nor do even buy booze there!!!! Liquor Store's are very unkempt and filthy in my experience and the thought of consuming any product that is sold from one of these alcohol distributing establishments instantly makes me want to gag and dry heave!!!!!! Seriously!!!!! I think it has something to do with the clientele liquor stores tend to cater to!!!! Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! But being that some SF food writer took Bourdain to That's It Market for his show, I figured I could bite the bullet due to the fact that this place might be an exception and put out some pretty dignified caloric goodness!!!!!
What was it that brought Anthony Bourdain to That's It Market in The Mission?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Something called the Cubana, which according to That's It Market is the largest torta in the world!!!!!!!! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! When I saw Bourdain on TV sitting at the counter, stuffing a Cubano into his face while sucking back a tallboy of Tecate, I knew that this was an experience that I had to live out for myself!!!!!!!!! Before I went down to The Mission District, I asked a bell hop at the hotel I was staying in if The Mission was a safe enough part of town!! He responded by telling me, "It's not that safe. If I were you, I would go down there with somebody. I wouldn't go alone." Hmmmmmmmmm this was going to be tricky!!!! I needed a Cubana and I couldn't talk anybody I was with to go down there with me!!!!!! If I had to risk getting jumped or mugged for all of my cash in the The Mission, then so be it!!!!! I don't care!!!!!! The Cubano was a sandwich I would walk through a g-damn war zone for just to be able to cross it off of my bucket list!!! Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! When I hopped on the BART and made it down to The Mission and emerged from the underground tunnel, I didn't look to me like The Mission was a bad neighborhood at all!!!! Never at one point did I feel the least bit unsafe there!!! It's like Broadway in downtown LA, but a little nicer!!!! That bell-hop didn't know what he was talking about!!!!!!!! Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
Anyway, when I came to That's It Market and walked inside, it was a typical trashy liquor store that I usually avoid with the bums loitering outside the front door, expired food sitting on the shelves, and a wide array of porn mags on display behind the counter!!!!! However, when I walked over to the grill on the right, the woman who was working it and cooking the beautiful looking sandwiches for the The Mission locals was incredibly friendly and welcoming!!!!!!!! I looked over their menu for a moment, but I knew what I came for and what I wanted!!!!! The largest torta in the world, please: The Cubano!!!!!!!!! Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! When I ordered my Cubana, the nice lady simply nodded her head!!! I then took a step back and just watched the magic happen on the grill!!!!! Beef, sausage, ham, pork leg, chorizo, hot dog, eggs, cheese, mayo, jalapeno, tomato, avacado, on a massive bun of bread!!!!!!!! I walked over to one of the coolers and grabbed my Tecate to have the exact same experience as Bourdain, but they told me I couldn't drink in the store. Bummer!! That's fine!
When my Cubana was finished and served to me on a plate, it was abslotely colossal!!! Like, one of the biggest sandwiches I have ever seen!!!!! And it was filled with such marvelous looking greasy fatty Mexican food beauty!!!!!!!!! I remember just before Bourdain took his first bite into his Cubana, he stated, "I'm going to hate myself later for this!" Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hahahahahahahahahahhahaha!!!! When I picked up my Cubana and looked at the cross section of it and saw all of the different high caloried greasy protein resting against the bread, I said the exact same thing as Bourdain, "I'm gonna hate myself later on!" Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! And though I may have hated myself later on, which I wll spare you the details of, I didn't hate myself at the moment that first bite of Cubana entered into my mouth and passed through my teeth!!!!!! In fact, I was loving myself and thrilled to death that I had made the decision to come to The Mission and eat lunch in a dirty sketchy looking liquor store!!!!!! This torta was staggeringly good!!!!!!!! All of the different pork and beef products combined with the mayo and avocado and bread made for one of the most unforgettable and lustrous eating experiences in my entire existence!!!!!! Holy God!!!!!!! Though in San Francisco there are countless eating options, the Cubana at That's It Market in The Mission is a place that is worth planning an entire vacation to San Francisco around!!!! Forget Alcatraz, forget Chinatown, forget Fisherman's Wharf, the Presidio, the Golden Gate or going across the Bay!!!!!! The complete focus of your vacation when you go to San Francisco should be That's it Market in The Mission!!!!! This torta will send you into a different reality and has the potential for your entire paradigm to completely shift!!!!! Why would that happen after eating this sandwich?!?!?!?!?! I don't know!!!!!!! But it's so good tasting, a whole new life experience and reality will be opened up to you like never before!!!! More than LSD, weed, or ecstasy could ever dream of doing!!!!!!!! Swear to God!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
When in SF, you absolutely have to eat the Cubana at That's It Market in The Mission!!!! You owe it to yourself and to the dignity of your family name to do so!!!!!!!!!! Sure, later on in the day you'll regret eating it, but in the long run, The Cubana will change your life for the better!!!! Thank you Anthony Bourdain for bringing this torta to our attention!!!! You have done more for humanity than any Nobel Peace Prize winner could ever do!!!!!!! Totally serious!!!!!!!!! Do this place and do it hard!!!!!!!!!!! Cubana!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!