Top Tastes is not a list of all-time favorites (another thing altogether). Instead, I write about the best eats since my last newsletter, often from new openings. MID-RANGE BAR BAMBINO, Mission – I recall the days when Bar Bambino was one of the few Italian charcuterie restaurants around. When I heard they were shifting to a Germanic focus, particularly on… Read more →
GIN for a Winter’s Night: Taste-Testing 6 Gins
A favored experiment: gather a few industry and non-industry friends, taste a specific spirit side-by-side, sample it in the same cocktail recipe, and compare notes. Gin seemed appropriate for a rainy Winter’s night. While gin is fabulous all year ’round, there’s something about its bracing herbal and citrus qualities that evoke Winter, particularly in Northern California where crisp air and… Read more →
Library Bar at Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
Not to be confused with downtown LA’s Library Bar (a pleasantly casual, book-lined hang-out, though not memorable on the drink front), the Library Bar, hidden in the back of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel‘s lobby, makes about the best cocktails I’ve ever had in LA (alongside the New York classicism of The Varnish and molecular creativity of The Bazaar). And that… Read more →
SF Beer Week 2011 & Tre Bicchieri Italian Wine Event
This year’s SF Beer Week was the biggest yet. February 11th’s Opening Gala was mobbed even at VIP hour (big increase from last year), while tastes of new releases like Russian River’s Pliny the Younger, ran out in mere minutes. It’s hard to appreciate the over-crowding, but at least there’s a week full of events to spread things out. Maybe… Read more →
February 15, 2011
“… some wines and beers and spirits are among the most finely crafted foods there are, the best that the world and care have to offer. Their flavor can be so rich, balanced, dynamic, and persistent that they touch the mind not with release from the world, but with a heightened attentiveness and connection to it.” – Harold McGee, “On… Read more →
Commonwealth Chef Jason Fox’s Latest Creations
I’ve written of the Mission’s Commonwealth many times since opening, including it in my best openings of the year in the Guardian and The Perfect Spot. I wrote about Chef Jason Fox’s uni dish last week and am ever dreaming about those brilliant foie gras bon bons. Here’s photo highlights of my recent return to a restaurant that just keeps… Read more →
Cocktail-ing at Gitane, 15 Romolo, Clock Bar & Wine at Commonwealth
GITANE, Financial District/Downtown – With new (since last Fall) bar manager Alex Smith helming the bar, there’s some beautiful things happening at Gitane. Sherry remains prominent, in keeping with the restaurant’s Spanish influence, while horizons expand in everything from chorizo bitters (house-infused with actual chorizo, of course) to salted maple syrup. La Convivencia ($12) fills in as an aperitif with… Read more →
Top Tastes
Top Tastes, rather than a list of all-time favorites (another thing altogether), are among the best eats since my last newsletter, often from new openings. Many don’t make the cut, being a revisit previously written about or simply not as stand-out as dishes mentioned. CHEAP EATS DYNAMO DONUTS, Mission – Sure, Dynamo Donuts is old news and I’ve tried most… Read more →
Around the Bay: Upscale Indian in San Mateo & Farm-to-Table in Oakland
Intriguing bites and openings in other parts of the Bay Area? All Spice is a new, upscale Indian restaurant in San Mateo. Though still working out kinks with some dishes not yet fully realized, the space is romantic and service engaging in a cottage I adored in its former iteration. Oakland’s Camino is a space I love for different reasons:… Read more →
Touring Long Meadow Ranch in Napa’s St. Helena
Long Meadow Ranch Winery does it all in Wine Country: grass-fed beef, heirloom fruits and vegetables, eggs from their chickens, lush olive oils, and, of course, wines. Seeking to grow everything used in their restaurant and winery, they continue to push boundaries, currently exploring a dairy and cheese-making. I’ve written a few times about Farmstead, their restaurant, helmed by delightful,… Read more →