After five years, Original Joe's has returned to S.F. Inside Scoop reports the Italian-American restaurant, which closed due to a fire, reopened in North Beach today. With fans rejoicing its return, and Mayor Ed Lee declaring it Original Joe's Day, we're pretty sure you'll be able to spot it: 601 Union (at Stockton).
Mr. Roboto gets to work at U-Sushi. Tablehopper discovers the that sushi restaurant, with robotic assistance that helps churns out rolls in approximately 60 seconds, has been rolling since last week (525 Market at First St.).
We knew the Citizen Cake space on Fillmore wouldn't be dark for long. Inside Scoop reveals that Troya, the Turkish and Mediterranean restaurant in the Inner Richmond, will open its second location in the spot. Troya Fillmore will open after a quick remodel.
Have you ever been the only sober friend in a group of drunks? Those of us who make, sell, and write about wine can feel like that at big public wine tastings, since many of the consumers who come to these events seem to take them a bit too far. Considering that both ZAP and the Golden Glass (ticket giveaway winners posted below!) are coming up, SFoodie thought it'd be useful to give you a view of what the folks pouring the wine would do in your place.
1. Spit. That's what the pros will be doing. Those big buckets on every table are there explicitly so you can vacate the wine you just tasted and move on to the next one. No one will be surprised to see you bending over it. The more you spit, the more wines you can taste.
2. It's a tasting, not a drinking. Know your limits. Even if you do spit, you're going to absorb alcohol through the inside walls of your mouth. We try to hit our limits by tasting as many wines as we rationally can, not as much as we can fit in before passing out. Isn't the goal to find that great undiscovered wine?
As a side note to this week's review of Izakaya Yuzuki, a 2-month-old Japanese restaurant in the Mission, I spoke to its chef, Takashi Saito, a alumnus of Ame and Kyo-Ya. In addition to making exquisite chawanmushi, fish cakes, and braised pork belly, Saito is starting a few culturing projects few American Japanese restaurants undertake. Here's a excerpt from our discussion last week:
SFoodie: On the menu, it mentions that you're culturing your own koji [rice innoculated with Aspergillus oryzae].
Saito: Yes. I'm seasoning with koji. For example, with meat or fish, I don't use regular salt, I use koji salt. The flavor of koji is kind of sweet, like sweet cooked chestnuts. To make it, I make a rice koji mixed with sea salt and mineral water, then keep it at room temperature for two to three weeks. Then the taste and the flavor of the koji comes out.
Is this something a lot of restaurants in Japan make?
A long time ago, every family cultured its own koji and used it, people of my grandmother's age. But now, it's not so popular. They've lost the use.
Until moving to Chicago last year, chef Roger Feely of Soul Cocina enlivened San Francisco palates with his world-wise cooking and helped to unite a community of small-scale food carts, eaters, and music appreciators in the Mission and beyond. Extensive international travels as well as time served in the kitchens of spots like Kitchenette and Citizen Cake have helped create a chef as nimble and confident in sweets as he is in savories, and with micro-regional specialties of lands within India, Thailand, and Mexico.
His absence is now felt in a dissipation of much of that scene, but fortunately his love of the area has ensured Feely's return visits. He'll occupy the kitchen at La Victoria, his last home-base before his departure, on Saturday (January 28) to cook up a four-course meal that will make us miss him more.
Mary Risley moved to San Francisco with the hippies, and founded Tante Marie's Cooking School in 1979, still educating amateurs and soon-to-be professionals, and still located in the same space she's been renting for 32 years. These days, Risley might be better known these days as the loveably affable cook from the hilarious "Just Put the F*cking Turkey in the Oven" video. In part one of this interview, which ran yesterday, Risley talked to SFoodie about the start of her cooking career and how culinary fashions still depend on the basics Tante Marie still teaches. In part three, which will run tomorrow, Risley will share a favorite recipe.
SFoodie: What inspired your YouTube video?
Risley: You've seen the turkey on the cover of Bon Appetit every November for 40 years. There's a turkey hotline, and people are in a panic, and ... I just thought it'd be fun. I called my friend the week before and we put it together in a few days.
Did you have any inkling that it would go as viral as it did?
No way! It was hilarious, just watching the numbers go up around Thanksgiving. I'm still getting subscribers -- it's up to 300,000 views! It's really true that turkey doesn't need a lot of care: You just stick it in the oven and go for a walk. But the number of people who stopped me in the street and said, "Well my turkey is good, I do it this way..." Man, it was just a joke! I would love to do it again, but I can't think of another thing that is as universal as turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. I don't know what to make fun of next!
In the 1980s, food types all talked up the simple little French restaurant they wanted to open -- nothing pretentious, mind you, but serving a proper blanquette de veau, just like the one they'd eaten in Bordeaux last summer. These days, we all seem to be collectively dreaming about starting a food truck or an artisanal food business.
Not so fast, says CHOW, the Debbie Downer San Francisco-based online food mag in an article published yesterday. Have you considered the fact that everyone else has been thinking about launching a line of preserves/pickles/mustards/cheese nips? Fact is, author Joyce Slaton writes, there's a very limited outlet for your products, since the big grocery stores won't take small-time goods and Bi-Rite is besieged -- besieged! -- with ambitious young artisans like you. And besides, if you've never worked in a small business or restaurant, you have no idea how hard it is, and how much of your life it will suck up.
