Author: Virginia Miller

Mexican Brunch to Upscale Indian Food: 7 SF Restaurant Standouts

by  on  in The Latest, Top Tastes

These newcomers or new menus cover the gamut, from upscale Indian to casual Mexican food. Alongside this month’s full restaurant reviews, these seven are also worth visiting, with last month’s standouts here:
—Better-Than-Nola Muffalettas at Sandy’s, Haight-Ashbury
—Non-Alcoholic Pairing with Fine Dining Creativity: Sons & Daughters
—Fab Mexican Food & Cocktails with a View: Barrio
—1940’s Supperclub Live Jazz Dream: Dawn Club
—Unexpected Modern Indian Tasting Menu: Blue Mermaid Restaurant
—Low-Gluten Pizza Alternative from Rome: Pinsa Rossa
—Hearty Mexican Food 7 Days a Week: Tacos del Barrio Read more →

A Pizza Master Opens Her First Place in Berkeley: Pizzeria da Laura + Original Joe’s North Beach

by  on  in Around the Bay, Top Tastes

My Sicilian side can tend to dominate. That intense passion for the things I love, bordering on an obsessive impulse to research, study and dig deep, includes food. This was only fueled by homecooked pastas and sauces from my Italian mama and grandfather growing up on both coasts. Add in my crucial teen years in New Jersey after we moved across the nation from SoCal and my hankering for red sauce, American-Sicilian food was solidifed in Jersey and NYC’s deep Sicilian culture.

Here, I dig into two spots, one new, one old. The new pizza destination in Berkeley turns out pies from Sicilian to NY-inspired, and the latter is an over 80-year-old San Francisco red sauce American-Italian institution always worth keeping on your dining rotation. Read more →

Interviewing Robert Dawson of Kō Hana Distillers, Oahu, Hawai’i

by  on  in Imbiber, Wandering Traveler

In the Spring 2023 print issue (Vol. 19, Issue 4) of Distiller Magazine, my interview with Robert Dawson of Kō Hana Distillers, Oahu, Hawai’i. My video in the fields with owners/founders Robert Dawson and Jason Brand the first day they were using their new John Deere harvester after years of hand-harvesting in April 2022: www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Mg20wFth4&t=6s. ARTICLE HERE: My Distiller Magazine features… Read more →

June 1, 2023

by  on  in Intro Letter

THIS ISSUE:
— May Eats Checklist: 6 restaurant and eatery standouts of the month, from Greek food to banh mi, fermented Japanese foods to modern Filipino.
— Two New Restaurants You Don’t Know, but Should: Pizza and global small plates with natural wines and vinyl at cozy Back to Back. And Xica, a modern Mexican restaurant in an airy, large space overlooking a fountain-lined square with order-at-the-counter casualness.
— San Francisco’s Inaugural AAPI Cocktail Week.
— Distiller Bottle Column: This issue I review rum, sotol, gin, Scotch whisky, Cognac, RTDs juice mixers, American single malt, and more.
— Healdsburg Wine & Food Experience 2023: Top tastes and events over this leading Sonoma County food and drink event. Read more →

DISTILLER Bottle Column: May 2023

by  on  in Imbiber

Reviewed this issue:
— Rhum J.M Terroir Volcanique Rum
— Los Magos Barrel-Aged Sotol, WhistlePig Edition #1
— Bertha’s Revenge Small Batch Irish Gin
— The Yuzu Co. Cold-Pressed Yuzu Juice
— Mortlach Midnight Malt 30 Year Scotch Whisky
— Miixt Vodka Kombucha Refresher
— Merlet XO Cognac
— Santa Fe Spirits Colkegan Unsmoked Single Malt Whiskey
… and more Read more →