The past 24 hours in gossip, innuendo, and cold hard facts about the San Francisco food scene.
Bistro Unique opened in Hayes Valley yesterday (1849 Union at Octavia). And while Tablehopper gave a peek at the preliminary menu featuring traditional French fare, nothing stood out as overtly unique. Today, Eater SF discovers the moniker's origin is merely a play on the owner's name: Yannick.
If looking to pre-party before tomorrow's food-filled day, Tablehopper reveals that Monarch opens this evening (101 Sixth St. at Mission). The club features a dance floor on the first level and above it, a cocktail lounge.
An update on Ken Ken Ramen: Eater SF shares that they're readying to open Sunday, but there's also the chance it may not open until later that week, possibly Thursday. Ramen lovers - hold tight.
Hong Kong Lounge is readying to open a second location further up Geary in the shuttered Pot de Pho space. Tablehopper assures diners that while both the space and menu will be smaller than the original, dim sum and Peking duck will be available. Look for an opening next month.
Another pending opener, this one in the Financial District. Per Diem, the bar and restaurant slated for the Chancery building is well on its way to opening early this winter. Grub Street notes the liquor license has been approved, and the kitchen looks complete.
When Farm: Table opened two and a half years ago, it was one of the first cafes to bring high-quality coffee to the Tenderloin. It was also the first San Francisco business to serve coffee from Verve, the Santa Cruz-based roastery.
Now it's launching a new location. Owner Shannon Amitin just signed a lease for a second coffee location a few blocks away in the Warfield Theater Building (988 Market, at Golden Gate), the epicenter for the Mid-Market revitalization efforts. Amitin says it's not going to be a sit-down café --even a tiny one like Farm: Table -- but more like a coffee kiosk. He hasn't decided on a name yet, but is hoping to have it open by the end of January or February. Jan-Henry Gray, Farm:Table's current chef, will provide food for the new cafe, which will also sell pastries from Starter Bakery or B Patisserie, as well as cookies from former Absinthe pastry chef Carrie Collins.
We all know that to get through the holidays, you must drink. If you don't drink, may God have mercy on your soul. Here are our picks for festive drinks you can make and enjoy all day on Thursday, and still not look like you have "a problem." Day Time Holiday Drinking, say heeey!
5. Anything with Wild Turkey
Drink it mixed with cranberry for a one-two holiday punch, heated up with honey or agave and lemon in a hot toddy, or just serve it on the rocks. We call it "Thanksgiving Sweet Tea" in my house.
Where: Omnivore Books
When: Tuesday, Nov. 29, 6-7 p.m.
Cost: Free
The rundown: Brad Thomas Parsons, the author of Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, with Cocktails, Recipes, and Formulas is speaking about how great bitters are! He'll cover the history of the world's most storied elixir, from its beginning as a wanton "snake oil" to its current glory days as the ingredient that's in every cocktail at Bourbon & Branch. You'll learn a million specialty liquor fun facts that you use later to impress/annoy your friends -- that's worth more than gold in San Francisco! God willing, there will be samples.
Elia: My husband Miquel and I already had personal blogs. He's a Web developer, and I'm a journalist by training. Every time local websites referred to our neighborhood, it was always "the gritty Tenderloin," always repeating the same jokes and stereotypes. We just got tired of it, and wanted to show some love for the Tenderloin. So we started The Tender on a whim. Then we realized it was a lot of work to keep up. At first, we put up one post a week,
but as time went by, we got to know the local businesses, and the blog helped us meet the neighbors and locals.
For years, I've driven by Naples Pizzarella on Geneva, which has a banner proclaiming "Guatemalan Food," and promised myself to come back one day. Then last month I was walking by Stefano Restaurant, a neighborhood pizza-pasta place in Bernal Heights that never seemed to have enough customers, and noticed that the menu posted on the window now listed Guatemalan and Salvadoran dishes. Journalists like to joke that three's a trend, but I wasn't willing to wait for a third Guatemalan pizza place to open to write this week's full-length restaurant review in the SF Weekly.
Was the pizza good? Lord, no. Well, was the Guatemalan food good? Not always. But Stefano does serve some good dishes -- colorful enchiladas chapinas, fat little tamales called chuchitos, and a resonant pumpkin-seed stew called pepián, only served on weekends. For the full effect, make sure to eat it in the corner of the room by the vineyard-themed trellis, below the murals of Tuscan villas.
With the opening of Plum Bar, the new project adjoining Daniel Patterson's Plum Restaurant, Oakland has upped the cocktail ante.
Part three of an interview with Nopalito co-chefs Gonzalo Guzman and Jose Ramos. Read the first part here and the second here.
Staying true to homestyle, seasonal, authentic Mexican food is at the heart of Nopalito's operation. As such, Nopalito doesn't serve chips and salsa while you're waiting for your food, because it's not something restaurants do in Mexico either.
That said, Nopalito's co-chef, Gonzalo Guzman, acknowledges that this tomatillo salsa goes "really well" with chips. But he still pushes for it to accompany green enchiladas or even better, a pork stew.
Most of us conduct periodic sweeps through the refrigerator to ferret out the molding fruit salads and check the cartons of yogurt and eggs to see whether we've been keeping them too long. On Grist, though, National Resources Defense Council scientist Dana Gunders says that "use-by" dates are not a good guideline for knowing when something is ready to toss.
A quick look at USDA's food labeling site confirms that the only product for which "use-by" dates are federally regulated is infant formula. Beyond that, some states regulate dates for some products, but generally "use-by" and "best-by" dates are manufacturer suggestions for peak quality.Suggestions. For peak quality. That's all.
SFoodie recently overheard some people in a grocery store talking about how they'd had to toss out their mustard because the date had expired. A condiment primarily containing vinegar and mustard seeds that was created several millennia ago to be stored in a non-refrigerated environment? Hardly dangerous. One UK organization estimates that 20 percent of consumer food waste can be attributed to customers believing they had to toss food at its "sell-by" date.
Gunders' advice: "If that milk smells rotten, by all means throw it away." That's the approach we take. But in an era when most food is so highly processed that we don't recognize most of the ingredients, it's hard to know when all of them will go rotten.
