7X7.com

February 2009

Heaven Can't Wait

Heaven's Dog: Inside Charles Phan's Latest Venture

Located at the base of the Soma Grand building, Heaven's Dog offers two visions of the celestial. A dark side, where dangerously good cocktails (the gingery, rum-based Shanghai Buck is extra-treacherous. Read our complete cocktail report card here [1]) are served on a beautiful blond-wood bar cut from one 28-foot-long trunk of cypress and diners lounge on midcentury-inspired orange-vinyl couches while supping on dan dan mein.

And, directly next door, an illuminated side called the noodle bar-stark white with counter-only seating and a long open kitchen where cooks roll out dumpling dough and flame-licked woks jump with green beans tossed with salty Szechuan pickles. Charles Phan [2]'s first venture, cuisine-wise, out of Vietnam and into China is being manned by chef Andy Wai, whose simple, small-plates menu includes a gorgeous braised pork belly sandwiched within a soft and sweet clamshell bun (undoubtedly a nod to Momofuku's version in NYC), handmade little shrimp-and-chive dumplings and an egg omelet with pork. The menu is no-frills, but it's also stamped with Phan's fresh touch. Between the Federal Building employees streaming in for lunch and pretty much everyone coming in for dinner, we bet this formerly lonely block will now be a dining destination. Anyone else who opened a restaurant here would be hard-pressed to succeed, but Phan continues to prove himself as one lucky dog.

URBANDADDY.COM SF

January 2009

Dog Days

Chinese Resto and Cocktail Bar in SoMa

The art of naming a restaurant is often taken for granted.

Usually it's something straightforward, then once in a blue moon you get something like Spotted Pig...

Or Heaven's Dog-Charles Phan's first foray into Chinese food-opening Friday in the SoMa Grand.

Essentially the name symbolizes great success in Chinese-and when you've got a casual noodle bar by day and upscale cocktail lounge by night, the grand effect is set up to be just that-a one-stop shop for dining, drinking and general revelry.

If you opt for the evening session (and you should), bring a date, walk past the woven wood wall, and you'll drop into an intimate lounge with a 30-foot cypress tree-trunk bar manned by an all-star cast of bartenders culled from Bourbon & Branch, Beretta, Flora and Zinnia.

Start with drinks inspired by Charles Baker's The Gentleman's Companion like the absinthe-spiked, Manhattan-esque Remember the Maine or the Pisco Apricot Tropical. Then get a few Belgian and German beers or Old World wines that pair nicely with the pork belly and duck-laden dishes from the market-fresh menu.

For a nightcap, grab a seat in the lounge by the bar, where you can look forward to more cocktails and a DJ spinning until late night (we are in SoMa, after all).

In other words, make a day and night of it.

Heaven's Dog, 1160 Mission St (at 7th), 415-863-6008