These newcomers or new menus cover the gamut, from Greek mezé to dim sum. Alongside this month’s full restaurant reviews, these seven are also worth visiting, with last month’s standouts here (as always, I’ve vetted, visited or ordered from each place reviewed): Read more →
Vietnamese Food Haven (with Cocktails) at Bodega Bodega’s bánh cuốn (Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Miller) COME SEE OUR NEW HOME — The Bold Italic has a new home online, and this story has moved! Read it here: https://www.thebolditalic.com/elegant-vietnamese-diner-vibes-and-cocktails-at-the-tenderloins-new-bodega San Francisco’s Tenderloin has long been a key neighborhood for Vietnamese food, its western blocks dubbed Little Saigon. Head out to the entire half… Read more →
Nari’s miang pla branzino with California Caviar Co. trout roe. (Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Miller) COME SEE OUR NEW HOME — The Bold Italic has a new home online, and this story has moved! Read it here: https://www.thebolditalic.com/sfs-nari-is-a-bold-tribute-to-thai-cuisine-and-women Call Pim the Queen of modern Thai food. Named on Esquire’s shortlist of Best New Restaurants in America after opening in 2019, Nari’s… Read more →
Six new restaurants/eateries, plus one pre-pandemic gem and two bar stops, all draw me to the East Bay. Digging in also meant some disappointments, including solid but not destination-worthy cocktails at charming Palmetto, or overwrought cocktails that sound exciting but don’t deliver at The Miranda. But each of these eight has one (or a few) winning aspects: Read more →
These six notable newcomers cover the gamut, from Mexican pizza and Jewish deli pop-ups inside established restaurants, to a food hall nailing cuisine from Africa to the Middle East. Alongside this month’s full restaurant reviews — Good Good Culture Club from Liholiho Yacht Club, Automat from Lazy Bear, Chuck’s Takeaway from Charles Phan, Fort Point Valencia and 6 newcomers cafe & food truck edition — these new restaurants are worth eating at now: Read more →
Abacá’s Ube Colada cocktail. (Photo: Courtesy of Instagram via @restaurantabaca/@melissademata I’ll never forget first eating balut, the popular Filipino delicacy of a boiled, fertilized egg embryo eaten from the shell, which also shows up around Asia. At a table full of self-proclaimed “foodies,” mostly men, myself and one other woman were the only ones willing to even try it. My… Read more →
Redwood City’s Warung Siska Is a Passport to Authentic Indonesian Cuisine Photo: Courtesy of Instagram via @warungsiskarestaurant It takes a woman—or two, in fact—to bring standout Indonesian food to the Bay Area. I’ve spent months around Asia over the past 20 years, and one of the things I’m most proud of about the Bay Area is that it has remained… Read more →
In the Winter 2020-2021 print issue of Distiller Magazine:
My article on 10 of the world’s best bars and how they are surviving and recreating in pandemic
My dining column at print and online magazine, Bob Cut — column details and my philosophy here — covers both standout newcomers and longtimers we want to keep supporting.
During shelter-in-place pandemic times, the column is in takeout/delivery mode:
As with the past decade plus, here are my top 14 new Bay Area restaurant openings of 2019: Read more →