Openings
• Good news for those who love Thai food: After Osha (432 Sutter at Stockton), Amphawa Thai Noodle House (5020 Geary at 14th Ave.), House 530 (530 Valencia at 16th St.), Lers Ros (307 Hayes at Franklin).
• Tacolicious II and the adjacent tequila bar Mosto opened (741 Valencia at 19th St.).
• Traditional French fare is now at Bistro Unique (1849 Union at Octavia).
• Catering to the Financial District lunch rush, Ottoman (584 Washington at Columbus) is serving Turkish dishes, while Indo-Bali Cooking Street (343 Kearny at Pine) covers Indonesian cuisine.
• Southern barbeque finds a spot in the Mission at Southpaw BBQ (2170 Mission at 17th St.).
• Seasonally inspired dishes and decor are "fall"-ing in to place at AQ Restaurant & Bar (1085 Mission at Seventh St.).
Hella Vegan Eats has already been up and running in the S.F. Bay Area for awhile. In fact, just this last weekend they were at a Shop Oakland event, serving up Navajo Fry Bread, Orzo with Butternut Squash "Cheddar," Cranberries and Shaved Brussels Sprouts, and the most delectable apple fritters we've ever tasted. Obviously, owners Sylvee and Tiffany Esquivel are an extremely talented duo who want to share their food with Bay Area, and beyond. That's where La Cocina's Incubator program comes in. The year-long program is basically a crash-course in owning and operating your own sustainable food business. They accept very few applicants, but once you're in, it's a one-stop shop for food success.
What exactly does that mean?
Where: Shotwell's
When: Wednesday, Dec. 7, 6 p.m.
Cost: varies
The rundown: By popular demand from everyone (except vegetarians, people with high cholesterol, and cows), Brisketfest is back. The organizers say the sequel will be bigger, badder, and hungrier than ever. Jablow's Meats will offer a New York Pastrami on Rye, Slow Hand BBQ will have Texas BBQ Brisket Sandwich, and Nute's Cupcakes will serve up the traditional Thai Panang Brisket Curry over Rice.
There will also be special sodas on tap, including Smoked Apple Cider Soda, and Xtra Dry Ginger Ale. They're also working with the Shotwell's team to bring you special beer and soda cocktails too, including pairing the smoked apple cider soda with a chocolate stout, and matching the ginger ale with sake, as well as in a hoppy ginger IPA shandy.
The best laid plans of people and pie do not always turn out. We've just heard from Three Babes Bakeshop that they've broken off their plan for co-habitation with Bacon Bacon in the old Ashbury Market Space.
As we had originally reported last week, Three Babes was going to open in the joint location today, but according to Three Babes co-babe Lenore, "We weren't able to reach an agreement with Bacon Bacon in order to finalize our moving in last week, so plans for a partnership are no longer on the table."
The New York Times ran a barnstormer of an opinion piece this weekend detailing how the contracting out of school lunch to management companies and food processors has affected nutrition, wages, and even standardized test scores.
Lucy Komisar, an investigative reporter funded by a progressive media organization, details how the USDA purchases $1 billion of commodities -- meats, produce, dairy -- every year designated to school lunch, and how almost half of that food is then given over to food processors, who turn it into chicken nuggets and fries that cost triple the price of the raw ingredient and strip out their nutritional value. More and more schools in turn are dismissing their cafeteria staff in favor of these prepackaged meals. As Komisar writes:
Roland Zullo, a researcher at the University of Michigan, found in 2008 that Michigan schools that hired private food-service management firms spent less on labor and food but more on fees and supplies, yielding "no substantive economic savings." Alarmingly, he even found that privatization was associated with lower test scores, hypothesizing that the high-fat and high-sugar foods served by the companies might be the cause.
Sunchokes, a variety of reddish tubers, are part of the daisy family. They can be mistaken for ginger or galangal, due to their knobby looking appearance. The flavor and texture of a raw sunchoke can be compared to a water chesnut. Once cooked they have similar characteristics of potatoes without the starch and a taste slightly reminiscent to artichoke hearts.
Often called Jerusalem artichokes, they can be found locally at farmers' markets and on many San Francisco menus throughout the fall and winter months.
