$4 toast is a tired local reference at this point, but to the rest of the country, it's still shorthand for Everything Wrong With San Francisco. The newest shot at S.F.'s toast culture is a food review in Seattle's The Stranger in which restaurant critic Bethany Jean Clement works out her feelings about fancy toast, first ordering a slice that costs $3 at a cafe and feeling embarrassed, then finding herself enjoying the $4-$6 slices at another restaurant and feeling vaguely embarrassed about that too. Scattered throughout are obligatory derisive references to S.F. rent, nouveau riche, etc. etc.
See also: 16 Fresh Approaches to the Tired Subject of $4 Toast
Last week we told you to get ready for artisanal tea to become a thing. Today there's more proof: Coffee giant Starbucks announced at a shareholders' meeting today that it's commissioned none other than Oprah Winfrey to create a new tea blend for its brand Teavana. Oprah will be making a chai blend, which she developed with "Teavana's leading teaologist Naoko Tsunoda." (How many teaologists does Teavana employ, one wonders?)
With Dennis Lee, one of our fair city's most exciting chefs, now busy with the April 1 barbeque-centric opening menu at Magnolia Brewery's new Dogpatch location, now is a great time to step back and revisit the city's definitive destination for New Korean meets New California cuisine, Namu Gaji. It feels like decades since Lee and his brothers David and Daniel opened the original Namu in the Inner Richmond, a world away from the corner it now occupies at 18th and Dolores.
