The past 24 hours in gossip, innuendo, and cold hard facts about the San Francisco food scene.
The old west may show up in the Mission. Eater SF shares the former Bombay and Bazar and Ice Cream space may become a throwback to the cowboy days of yesteryear. The same team (Woodhouse Fish Co.'s McNiven brothers) that was behind the first restaurant idea for the space, Mohave, are looking to open West of Peco there instead (550 Valencia at 16th St.). The affordable-price point restaurant would be old West-themed and serve casual, comfort food. Its hearing with the Planning Commission is today.
Cantillon Zwanze Day
When: Saturday, Sept. 17, 11 a.m.
Where: Russian River Brewery
Cost: "We won't know until they deliver it on Saturday," they told us on the phone.
Attention PBR-swilling hipsters: sour beer is the cool thing now. If you haven't made the pilgrimage to Northern California's mecca of 'wild ale', Russian River Brewery, this weekend might be a good bet.
Northern California gets only keg of Cantillon Zwanze, one of the most-sought cult beers in the world. It's scheduled to go live at 11 a.m. We expect the keg to blow quickly, so arrive early.
But don't fear, there are other sour beers at Russian River that are sure to get your tastebuds in a twist.
We've gotten ahead of ourselves. Back up to the year 1900.
Who's afraid of the big bad "brett"?
Brettanomyces yeast, used in conjunction with bacteria in many sour beers, is known to impart flavors with lovely descriptors such as "horse blanket" and "petting zoo." As old wives' tales go, winemakers who visit sour beer production sites must immediately burn their clothing and pray to Bacchus in hope that they don't transport the wild yeast home and contaminate their wine.
Despite its reputation, many brewers and beer aficionados become addicted to the earthy flavors imparted by the yeast. An inscription over the barrel room at San Diego's Lost Abbey brewery reads "In Illa Brettanomyces, Nos Fides," or "In the Wild Yeast We Believe."
New Taste Marketplace, the monthly small-vendor market held at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, is sort of like a church jumble with much, much better food. This Saturday brings back marketplace staples like Snapdragon Baking Co. (get the black sesame toffee), Jablow's Meats, and Bottom Drawer Provisions. In addition, there will be chile verde, bacon-wrapped mochi, and frozen custard for sale. Bonus: the patio out back, where you can spend a half-hour in the sun finishing off your purchases. The market's sliding-scale entrance fees go to the Food Pantry, which is associated with the church.
New Taste Marketplace
Time: Saturday, September 17, noon-5 p.m.
Place: St. Gregory of Nyssa, 500 DeHaro (at Mariposa).
Tickets: $0-$10 sliding scale entry fee
Foodar -- the sixth sense for good restaurants -- is hard to explain, but if you have it, you know what it feels like.
Some tiny nondescript place in a strip mall inexplicably calls out to you, and it turns out to have amazing food. Or a place is crowded with happy-looking people, yet you just know it's going to suck.
But how do you know?
Intuition is often your unconscious mind processing information that, if you stopped and thought about it, would make perfect sense. Because I care so much about food, I've been trying to unravel the clues behind foodar for years. Here's what I've come up with.
Where: Miss Pearl's Jam House, 1 Broadway (at Water) Oakland, 510-444-7171
When: Sunday, Sept. 18, 2:30-5:30 p.m.
Cost: $50, tickets and complete rum listing online
The rundown: The Ministry of Rum returns to the Oakland waterfront for its annual San Francisco Bay Festival, packing Miss Pearl's Jam House with a huge selection of rums, cocktails, and bites. Over 50 rums will be available for tasting, covering every style imaginable, including clean Puerto Rican and Dominican rums, earthy and complex agricole varieties, and powerful molasses-based Jamaican spirits. The festival organizers expect a couple of brand new rums to make their premier at the event.
Smuggler's Cove owner and rum master Martin Cate will be in the house dispensing potent sermons in tiki cocktail form, for those of you who require your dose of kill-devil in a less concentrated manner.
Because the event is conveniently located next to the Oakland ferry port, enjoying the ride while singing sea shanties is a smart idea, as is starting the day on a full belly. Bites will be provided, but being touched by the rum spirit all day can overwhelm even the most faithful.
I was tasting wine at my desk at 11 a.m. when a coworker asked why. Because I hadn't had time earlier, I said; it's best to taste early in the day when your palate is fresh.
That wasn't what he was getting at. He drinks wine, but never considered tasting as a separate event from drinking. That's because he doesn't read stories about wine.
Joe and folks like him buy the majority of the world's wine: they drink it, they like it or don't, but they don't obsess on it.
I'm not trying to convert anyone into wine geekery. But if I could get your attention for just three minutes, here are 10 things about wine I'd like to tell you. If you read only one wine story this year, please make it this one.
1) The package doesn't matter as much as the product
Don't avoid bottles with screwcaps or bag-in-box wines, and don't assume big heavy bottles are better, because those are just marketing.
Yesterday, the LA Times ran a great piece checking up on how strongly the state was enforcing six-year-old regulations requiring farms to provide shade, water, and rest periods for their workers so they don't die of heat exposure. The answer: not well.
While many farms do erect moveable shade canopies, not surprisingly, many farm workers don't know of their rights, and cash-strapped agencies aren't investigating reports of abuses within the quick timeframe required to catch offenders.
Earlier this week, Ruth Reichl told Inside Scoop that she thinks the next big food issue will be "social justice for [farm] workers." But this isn't necessarily a social-justice issue. Laborers like the ones who furtively talked to the Times reporter may fear for their jobs if they complain, but with illegal immigration from Mexico plummeting, many states are hurting for farm workers. If farms don't protect the workers they have, they might some day find themselves without enough workers to protect.
