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Muracci's Curry and Grill, in the FiDi, claims its curry-making takes even longer — two days. Indeed, whatever it's blending and simmering results in a denser, oilier gravy, one where the spices sometimes come to the fore and then, as you continue eating, melt away into a unified wash of umami. It's not particularly beefy, like the best Japanese curries I've tasted (sorry, not in the Bay Area); in fact, the plate I received was vegetable-free, lumpy with the grainiest, fattiest stewed beef I've eaten since college.

Comparing the two, is there a winner? Not a clear one. I'd give a second-place ribbon to both.

Lou Bustamante

4505 Meats’ Yum Yum sandwich combines cornmeal-crusted fried chicken with pickled vegetables.

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4505 Meats

1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: Embarcadero

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More About

• Louise Boudin
• Tim Archuleta
• Chicken Yum
• Food and Cooking
• Eating Out

Volcano Curry of Japan: 5454 Geary (at 19th Ave.), 752-7671.

Muracci's Curry and Grill: 307 Kearny (at Bush), 773-1101.

Boudin Belongs to the Past

By Jonathan Kauffman

As committed as we San Franciscans are to local foods, we have such conflicted feelings about the local companies that have made it big, don't we? Witness the Aidells Sausages stand at the Ferry Plaza farmers' market, kicked out this winter because the company had gone national. Guittard Chocolate regained its respect among local chocolatiers only once it introduced a premium, small-batch line of chocolate. And Boudin Bakery has been headquartered in San Francisco since 1849, but many in the food world write its sourdough off as fodder for tourists.

Did you know that Boudin sourdough has been baked at the company's 10th Avenue bakery since 1906? According to the company's timeline , Louise Boudin, wife of founder Isodore, lugged a bucket containing the sourdough starter away from the post-earthquake fires that destroyed their North Beach facility, then set up shop in the Inner Richmond. There's a chance that, when you bite into a hunk of the bread, you're eating the great-to-the-10,000th-granddaughter of the wild yeast organisms that soured the first Boudin loaf.

Somehow, though, Boudin has become synonymous with commercial sourdough, and when I bought a late-bake loaf (last baking: 7 a.m.) at the 104-year-old facility, I didn't find my opinion of the bread changing. Having been eating Acme sourdough for a couple of decades now, I noticed the thinness of the Boudin loaf's glossy crust, the compactness of the crumb, the restrained sourness of the bread. The tang crescendoed as I tore off more and more pieces of the sourdough, but never achieved the same mouth-contracting effect as other local sourdough loaves.

So the Boudin sourdough is not a great bread, but it's certainly a decent one. Someday, as a point of local pride, I have every intention of making it to Fisherman's Wharf to eat clam chowder out of a Boudin bread bowl, something my parents have been doing for years on their visits to town. But, like the crooked block Lombard Street or the Cable Car Museum, I suspect the Boudin bread bowl will remain part of the San Francisco they know, not the one I live in.