San Francisco's Trick Dog and The Bon Vivants have been awarded the 2014 Spirited Award for the best American bar team at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans Saturday.
This is the first year for the award that celebrates teamwork in the bar scene.
At first glance yesterday, the Japantown half of the J-POP SUMMIT Festival appeared to be a well-run street party. There was a well-contained area for sake tastings and cans of Sapporo, plenty of toilets, a refreshing ratio of vaping to actual smoking, and all the Sweet Lolita fashion you could ask for. But after the obligatory detour through New People and a stroll around Peace Plaza, pretty much everybody wanted the same thing: a bowl of ramen, from any one of J-Pop's six purveyors.
Consequently, the lines running up Post Street were absolutely interminable, even when factoring in San Francisco's strange love of queuing up for commonly available foodstuffs. Ramen is delicious, particularly on a foggy day, but by 3:15 p.m., volunteers in yellow shirts were closing off the lines, fearing that people might not get served before the festival ended at 6. I asked five groups of people who'd waited a long, long time how they felt upon obtaining their quarry at last.
According to Reuters, the country's top chocolate company, Hershey Co., raised its prices for the first time since 2011 by roughly 8 percent on Tuesday, July 15. The hike has been brought on due to "soaring" cocoa bean and butter prices.
San Francisco is one of the few places in which it is imaginable to crave hot, rich ramen in the middle of July. The incoming clouds and fog beg for something far more warming than summer's obvious choices: tomato salad, BLTs, ice cream. Ramen has exploded in popularity amongst the hip and food-obsessed in the last couple of years, and the newest joints offer such a mix of traditional and totally-out-there approaches to noodle bowls that it's hard to get bored. Pop-ups like Hapa Ramen are likely the best source of creativity in the ramen game, but this week we're looking at two of the most popular shops in San Francisco and Oakland: Ken Ken Ramen and Ramen Shop.
See also:
Who Makes the Better Banh Mi: S.F.'s Saigon Sandwich or Oakland's Banh Mi Ba Le?
Who Makes the Better American IPA: SF's 21st Amendment or San Leandro's Drake's?
Who Makes the Best Fried Chicken: S.F.'S Front Porch or Oakland's Miss Ollie's?
