Last call: At 7x7's eats blog, booze scribe Jordan Mackay weighs in on last week's localista episode of No Reservations. His take? Bourdain's become a caricature of the gruff talkin', meat eatin' truth teller, a vaguely Krusty-like figure shambling through a tired, touristy San Fran:
The "I'm a macho meat man" is getting a bit old, as is the Alice-Waters piling on and the predictable hippie-vegan-liberal jokes. Episodes like this one show that Bourdain is starting to become a caricature of Bourdain, just like every other man in the food world. While I liked the Sebo, Taco Truck, and Incanto sequences, the fact that the show gave so much air time to past-their-prime places like the House of Prime Rib, Red's Java House, Tadich Grill and Aub Zam Zam was incredibly disappointing.According to Mackay, Tony's redemption was left in a soft pile of tape on the cutting room floor. Namely, the excised scene of Tony's swing through Alameda's Hangar One/St. George's Spirits for a taste of foie gras-infused vodka. Still, Mackay ain't buyin': Despite all his macho meat talk and punk rock, the guy is apparently an uninterested lightweight when it comes to good drinks. Gulp.
"Be prepared to sit in a garden, bring your own plate and silverware, bring some food to share, just show up," said David Cody, manager at the garden and the Eat-In's organizer. Cody said he expects what he called "general festivities," including the chance to do some actual harvesting and planting in the garden.
The Potrero Eat-In is expected to be one of more than 230 national potlucks on Labor Day, organized by local Slow Food chapters. The events are part of Slow Food USA's Time for Lunch campaign focusing on improving food in public schools.
For more information on the Potrero Eat-In, go to the permaculture garden's Web site.
| Food Network |
| Boitano freestyles in the kitchen. |
Consider a chef's meal for four from Thomas McNaughton of Flour + Water (starting bid: $200), or having Delfina's Craig Stoll working at your kitchen island, cooking dinner for up to 10 people you really, really want to impress (starting bid: $500). We suggest hiding your dogeared Rachael Ray cookbooks at the bottom of the junk drawer for the night.
Come up with the cash, and you could also score dinner from Nopa's Laurence Jossel and Nopalito's Jose Ramos -- either a so-called interactive dinner for four (we're pretty sure interactive means something nicer than helping with clean-up), or a straight-up dinner for eight, both in your home (starting bid: $400). You could even schmooze with Tyler Florence with up to 20 of your friends, hanging out with TyFlo in his Mill Valley Kitchen shop, slurping wine and apps and having the kind of private-store shopping experience Jessica Alba probably gets at, like, Fred Siegel. Except that you'll be walking away with whisks and Japanese knives and stuff.
Check out the S.F. Street Food Festival Web site for the complete roster of goodies and instructions for bidding.
| Balboa Theater |
| The array of cakes included clafoutis and banana bread. |
The bakers were an eclectic bunch, bringing sheet cakes, bundts, cupcakes, and, stretching the rules a bit, banana bread. The array included lots of chocolate, pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting, Marsala wine cake, lemon poppyseed, a peach-blueberry clafoutis, and an unusual green tomato cake. One baker carefully iced cupcakes with a "J" for Julia.
"Most of the bakers said they used family recipes," Balboa employee Serafina Kernberger told SFoodie, "and nobody mentioned they'd used a Julia one!"
Theater owner Gary Meyer told us one man even brought copies of a photo he'd taken of Julia and Paul Child; he posted one and gave the other away. Meyer was so impressed he's giving the photographer, Michael Jang, a show in the Balboa's lobby this fall. More pics after the jump.
This isn't the town for iced coffee, except when it is. Sure, cities like Chicago, New Orleans, and Manhattan have the kind of suffocatingly humid summers that turn the hollow of your back into an uncontrollable sweat sluice, soaking the waistband of your undies the way drip irrigation moistens humus.
J. Birdsall
Taste the chicory, not the sugar.
What we've got that those other towns don't? Coffee fetishists like John Quintos, who owns the kiosks Cento (360 Ritch at Townsend) and Vega at Langton (1246 Folsom at Ninth St.). He sources beans from Blue Bottle, and learned to make chicory-steeped New Orleans-style iced coffee from BB's James Freeman. But Quintos departs from Freeman in one key respect: instead of pre-sweetening, he serves up his iced naked. "I just want you to taste the whole coffee experience," Quintos said. Considering a cup costs $3.50, you'd better.
Here's how he does it (instructions are essentially identical to ones at the Blue Bottle Web site, where -- if you're DIY deficient -- you can buy a homebrew kit). The key? A ratio of 80 percent ground coffee to 20 percent roasted chicory, which has a tobacco-leaf sweetness (buy it in bulk at Rainbow). Add it to room-temp tap water, and let the coffee-chicory mix float on the surface like a raft for 8 to 12 hours. "The water extracts flavor from the bottom down," Quintos said. If no more than 20 percent of the mixture sinks to the bottom, he knows he's had a successful brew.
niallkennedy/Flickr
The Cento kiosk on Ritch Street.
Quintos cracks the crust and pours the resulting mixture through a fine strainer, then serves it over ice with milk or half-and-half. Purists sip as is, full chicory sweetness unobscured (Quintos calls it "the wood"). The rest of us might choose to sweeten with simple syrup, obscuring the wood at the risk of sullying our fetishist cred.
Alexis Koefoed of Soul Food Farm in Vacaville told SFoodie she's trying to organize a CSA for chickens and eggs. Koefoed -- whose pastured chickens are in fierce demand by four-star chefs -- said she's hoping to make monthly dropoffs to Davis, the East Bay, and the Mission District. If it turns out there's enough demand in the city, the Mission might end up with two deliveries a month. Currently, city residents can buy Soul Food Farm chickens and eggs at Avedano's Meats, Prather Ranch Meat Co. in the Ferry Building, and Bi-Rite.
"It's been an idea of mine for quite some time, but I just hadn't put it together," Koefoed said. "It seemed like a good opportunity to do it now, since I have an opportunity to raise more chickens." The authentically free-range broiler chickens, which subsist on a diet of bugs and worms supplemented by a grain-based feed, will weigh in at between 3 and 4 pounds, with heads and feet attached, at a cost of $6.50 per pound. Eggs will be $6.50 a dozen. CSA subscribers will be able to order as many chickens as they like; eggs will be limited to three dozen at a time.
Subscribers will prepay an amount Koefoed has yet to determine, then make purchases against it, giving them the ability to skip deliveries. Local writer and editor Bonnie Powell, who helped Clark Summit Farm in West Marin organize its meat CSA last year, is aiding with the startup. Koefoed said she's looking for additional volunteers to help with distribution. Check out Soul Food Farm's Web site for more details or to sign up.
| M. Brody |
| Beaten biscuits and devilled eggs: Purists rejoice. |
At the new Trademark Grill, ensconced where Voda Vodka Bar most recently poured, the menu reflects executive chef Jerry Mendoza's concurrent gig at the Elite Café and his past sojourn at the late-lamented Meetinghouse. There are the famed Meetinghouse biscuits, real Southern-style beaten biscuits, small and square (four for $5). They look homemade -- some slumped rather than perfectly risen -- and pull apart steamy and many-layered. The devilled eggs (three for $3) are a purist's version: tender whites piped with creamy, voluptuous yolks, no sting or crunch of pickle relish, just a spicy dusting of smoked paprika.
The real-deal biscuits and eggs outclass more ordinary mains. The barbecue brisket sandwich ($15), chunks of mild, juicy meat bathed in sweet sauce on ciabatta, comes with a vinegared multicabbage slaw and indifferent fries. A rare, pepper-crusted grilled Niman Ranch steak salad ($12) is scattered with crunchy red onions and marinated mushrooms almost as fleshy as the meat among its greens. Many other tables boasted soft-shell crab BLTs on toasted brioche ($12) or Dungeness crab salads with avocado ($12). Pleasant food for a pleasant day.
Trademark Grill 51 Belden (at Pine), 397-8800
M. Brody
Barbecue brisket sandwich: Chunks of mild, juicy meat.
Let's do lunch:
Grossed out by the hot dog-sloppy torta Cubana Anthony Bourdain mashed into his face last week on No Reservations? Go classic, says SF Weekly food critic Meredith Brody, with a hot pressed Cubano (pork, ham, Swiss cheese, mustard, and mayo) and fried sweet plaintains at Paladar Café Cubano, 329 Kearny (at Pine), 398-4899.
Drink therapy:
So you're even forgoing car camping at Clear Lake in this suckiest of economies. Console yourself with happy hour drink specials (3-7 p.m.) at log-cabin-rustic Bigfoot Lodge, 1750 Polk (at Clay), 440-2355. The upside? Unlike camping, your fellow merrymakers at the Bigfoot will have showered that morning. Probably.
Synchronicity, or something altogether freakier? The Giants game against the Mets hits the HD flatscreen at 4:10 p.m., almost the exact minute Martini Hour drops at MoMo's, 760 Second St. (at King), 227-8660. Score $4 specialty martini, drafts, wines, and shots till 7 p.m.
