But at least your bathroom will smell better: Becks & Posh offers up a smidgin of verse to mark the passing of local asparagus.
Hello, kitty: Squid Ink' s Carl Stone probes one of Tokyo's latest crazes, the cat café: Simply, you pay to spend time in a room with a few other people ... and eight to ten cats of all breeds and varieties. A magazine on the table introduces each "member" by name, breed, date of birth and personality quirks. Here the cats, not the customers, are king -- please don't pick them up or wake them if they're sleeping, and of course tail pulling is completely forbidden. See one you like? Buy her some kibble -- altogether a cheaper date than the roast chicken at Zuni.
The 19th-century bartender Duncan Nichol invented the pineapple-flavored guzzler at the Bank Exchange (it stood where the Transamerica Pyramid now towers), a saloon that survived the Great Earthquake but perished with Prohibition in 1919. "It was very famous in San Francisco," Toro-Lira told SFoodie. "In 1901, 1902, every visitor to the city had to taste it." But it was Nichol's secret, especially the pineapple gum syrup on which the drink is based.
Bar Bambino cheese- and cured meats-monger Colin Shaff will explore how various animal milks are treated during cheese production. Christopher Losa, the restaurant's owner and wine director, will plumb wine making's great schism: old-school terroir-driven methods versus what he called a more "hands-on modern approach." It's happening this Sunday, May 31, 3-5 p.m. Cost is $45 per person. E-mail Bar Bambino or call 701-8466 to secure a spot.
Interested parties can question Majumdar on his ridiculous good fortune at Book Passage in the Ferry Building tonight at 6 p.m. They can also peer into the morass that is the journalistic research process in this comment thread Majumdar posted on Chow while casting around for destinations. Two of our favorite suggestions after the jump.
The sought-after fruits of Kuhn's labor will be the stars in the third of four Moveable Feast dinners, this one slated for Aziza in the Richmond on Tuesday, July 7. Chefs Mourad Lahlou, who helms Aziza's kitchen, and James Syhabout, the former chef de cuisine at Manresa in Los Gatos currently working to launch Commis in Oakland, will be in charge of transforming Marin Roots' vegetable abbondanza into a multicourse prix fixe meal ($80; $100 with wine pairings). Ten dollars of every ticket will go to CUESA, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, nonprofit organizer of the Ferry Plaza market.
So why are we telling you about an event six weeks from now? Because the June 2 dinner at Spruce has long been sold out, and we expect tix for this dinner to disappear like hotcakes. Or maybe like vegetable fritters.
It had to happen -- SF Weekly food critic lost her virginity, and to a hunk of foie gras, no less. Brody experienced her gastro rite de passage at überluxe Gary Danko, which opened in 1999 and still has a way with a cheese cart. And in case you think a place not accustomed to skimping on the lobster and caviar has to be Prada-shoe fancy, think again.
Brody found casually dressed Texans at the bar, and waiters too well trained to get all sniffy when you pick up the wrong fork. Read the buttery details at www.sfweekly.com. Here's an appetite-whetting lagniappe:In some famous temples of cuisine, the atmosphere can be a little stiff, even verging on pretentious -- something one can experience while enjoying otherwise wonderful meals at New York's Le Bernardin and Yountville's The French Laundry. Although after seeing Gary Danko giggle and charm his way through a couple of TV episodes of The Best Recipes in the World, you can infer that perhaps his restaurant would reflect some of that lightheartedness. Danko was even pictured in My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals, lying around on gold lamé pillows at a staged orgy featuring a mountain of caviar and two voluptuous drag queens, also in gold lamé.
"I went back and forth on it," said Jeanty, who was not present for Friday night's final dinner service in San Francisco. "Just the way the economy is going, and the specific things that the politicians are doing in San Francisco, just makes it too expensive to do business there." The chef cited Healthy San Francisco, as well as the city's 2007 paid sick leave law, and the minimum wage boost (to $9.79 per hour) that took effect earlier this year. "The politicians seem to come up with something new every week," said Jeanty, who said he plans to focus his attentions on Bistro Jeanty, his brasserie-style restaurant in Yountville. None of the San Francisco staff is transferring to Yountville.
"I sold out in 40 minutes," said Sexy Soup Lady, whose real name is Kristin (she preferred not to give her last name due to licensing issues). Kristin announced via Twitter that she plans to steer her cart back to the alley in two weeks, when the Friday supper scene resumes after the wedding of Crème Brûlée Man.
Let's do lunch:
Explore northern China by way of the Outer Sunset: SF Weekly food critic Meredith Brody says seek out the lamb with chives and onion pancake at Old Mandarin Islamic (3132 Vicente at 42nd Ave., 564-3481).
Drink therapy:
Insulate yourself from the fog's chill (with enough green left over to score a burrito on the way home): One-buck beers tonight at The Abbey Tavern (4100 Geary at Fifth Ave., 221-7767), all night.
Drink in a whiff of New Orleans at backwoods prices: $1 oysters, $4 drafts, and wine specials at the Elite Café (2049 Fillmore at California, 346-8400), 4-6 p.m.
