James Murphy: Big Into Coffee, Planning His Own Espresso Line

By Jada Yuan

In watching the Sundance screening of Shut Up and Play the Hits, the documentary of LCD Soundsystem's final show ever at Madison Square Garden, it is clear that James Murphy loves three things: music, his French bulldog, and coffee. He loves coffee with a passion unmatched by pretty much any somewhat famous person besides David Lynch, who has his own coffee line and has been known for putting rants about the virtues of coffee versus tea in movies like Inland Empire. In fact, when Stephen Colbert asked Murphy what he wanted to do now that he was retiring from rock stardom, he said, "I like to make coffee."

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Haven Brings Life to Long Dormant Jack London Square; Major Public Market Project Nixed

By Jay Barmann

Haven, the new restaurant from owner Daniel Patterson and chef Kim Alter in the Jack London Market complex in Oakland, has been bringing in new foot traffic at a steady clip to the long desolate area at the eastern end of Jack London Square. As the SF Business Times reports today, developers have scrapped plans for the enormous, interior public market planned for the same building, which was to be modeled on Seattle's Pike Place Market and the Ferry Building; they are now, instead, looking for food manufacturing tenants to fill the vacant space.

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Top Chef Texas Is Headed North for Its Finale

By Alan Sytsma

The other week, rumors popped up that the latest, Texas-fried season of Top Chef would shoot its finale in Vancouver, British Columbia (nickname: the San Antonio of Canada), and now some tweets from the various TC judges confirm it. Gail Simmons tweets that it's the birthplace of Jason Priestley; Emeril points out that it's also the birthplace of Greenpeace; Padma says it's also where "the Chinese Buffet was founded." Guess the challenge will be an ecofriendly egg roll cook-off, guest-judged by Brandon Walsh?

Mary Risley’s Secret Ingredient to Teaching Well

"I drink a bottle of wine every cooking class, so it's better if the class in my house!" — Mary Risley, she of "Just Put the F**king Turkey in the Oven" fame and Tante Marie's Cooking School, on why she doesn't teach regular classes anymore at her school, but does sometimes do private classes in her home kitchen. [SFoodie]

Cochon 555 Hits Napa This Weekend; Fried Food Is Not That Bad For You!

• The Napa edition of Cochon 555 kicks off the roving contest's season o' porkapaloozas this weekend, and reigning King and Queen of Porc (John Stewart and Duskie Estes of Zazu), who won both the local and national titles last year, will return to defend their titles. [BiteClub]

• An Alameda County law that says you can't smoke within 20 feet of the entrance of a bar or restaurant was the reason that police nabbed a suspect in an Oakland homicide. The suspect was smoking too close to the door of Mac's Sports Bar in Hayward, and he was wanted in connection with a December murder. [Chron]

• The USDA's "Plant Hardiness Zone Map" for gardeners, which hadn't been updated since 1990, shows that warm zones have drifted northward. Cough, climate change, cough. [Salt/NPR]

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Even Paula Deen’s Sons Almost Quit the Family Biz

Just days after bringing us the scathing news that Paula Deen's publicist recently quit, "Page Six" delves even deeper into the Deen family: According to "sources," Bobby and Jamie Deen were initially very unhappy with Paula's plans to endorse Victoza. So unhappy that they almost — almost — met with other talent agents in an effort to move out from under their mom's shadow. But! Paula "put them both under a lot of pressure," and they ended up helping their mom after all. What, did she threaten to cut of their allowance? [Page Six/NYP, Earlier]

A Potentially Scandalous Mondavi Memoir; The Grateful Dead Inspire a Winemaker

By Jay Barmann

"Imagine the tell-all they could write about me!"

• Robert Mondavi's widow Margrit, 85, is working with a ghost writer on a "frank" memoir about her life in and around the wine business, including a story about a famous, costumed Roman orgy the couple hosted at their home in the eighties. [Decanter]

• Margrit also recently gave the famed Wappo Hill mailbox from the couple's recently sold estate to chef Richard Reddington, at his request, to feature in his new Yountville pizzeria Redd Wood. [Grub Street]

• Grateful Dead bandmember Phil Lesh is busy opening a restaurant and music venue in Marin County called Terrapin Crossroads. Meanwhile, the "earthy, savage blend" of the Dead's Steal Your Face album inspired a Mendocino winemaker to make a Syrah blend and name it for the album. [Mass Live]

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Andrew Zimmern Feasts on Roasted Raccoon for Breakfast, Banana Pudding for Dessert

By Alan Sytsma

Zimmern digs in at Craft.Photo: Melissa Hom

As the host of Bizarre Foods on Travel Channel, which kicked off its latest season this week (airing Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT) , Andrew Zimmern made his name eating some seriously strange stuff. But he swears that things are different when he's off the clock: "I go home at night, I pick up the dry cleaning, and I make a roast chicken and some crispy potatoes and my wife and son and I sit down to a nice dinner." But that doesn't mean it's impossible for some errant offal to sneak into his day-to-day routine, especially when chefs recognize him in their restaurants. "The disaster for me is when I'm with my wife and son and we stop at a burger bar or something," Zimmern says, "and the chef decides to send out a month-old pig head from the freezer. I just want to eat a burger with my son!" Fortunately for Zimmern, there were no surprise pig heads this week while he was in New York — Zimmern, a native New Yorker who now lives in Minnesota, says he gets back to town about once a month — but there were plenty of other interesting things. For tales of sauteed duck testicles, calf-brain sandwiches, and much, much more, take a gander at this week's New York Diet.

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01/26/12

SF Grill Castro Opens Tonight; U-Sushi Debuts Downtown; and More

By Jay Barmann

Castro: SF Grill Castro (2301 Market at Noe), the full name of which may be SF Grill Castro Almost Famous Panini Grilled Sandwiches, opens tonight in the former Beautifull! space attached to Gold's Gym. See the menu here. [Grub Street, Earlier]
North Beach: Park Tavern has nixed the Healthy S.F. surcharge from their checks, and Mr. Bauer couldn't be more pleased. La Folie has also done the same. [Between Meals/Scoop]
Downtown: U-Sushi just made its debut at 525 Market at First. [Tablehopper]
Mission: Regarding the "explosive but delicious" hot wings, made with ghost pepper and requiring a waiver, at Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. [Bold Italic]
Oakland: B Restaurant is helping put on a BBQ fundraiser for the Creative Growth Art Center, which will take the form of an Eastern North Carolina Pig Supper on Friday, February 3, during Art Murmur. Get tickets here. [Grub Street]

First Look Inside the New Original Joe’s, Now Open in North Beach

By Jay Barmann
View Slideshow

Mayor Ed Lee was there to cut the ribbon, and Original Joe's came alive again today in a location just couple of miles north of where they began life on Taylor Street. The new location, which was formerly Joe DiMaggio's at the corner of Stockton and Union, feels timeworn enough with its dark wood and (albeit freshly upholstered) red and green booths, and the Duggan family welcomed in a host of old friends, fans, and hungry cops today for opening day.

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Will SeatMe Try to Unseat OpenTable?

By Jay Barmann

The SeatMe team.

Local OpenTable competitor SeatMe, which has been quietly putting together a still-secret client list of restaurants (we only know about Saison, Nojo, and Txoko at the moment) that will either be making the switch or bringing their reservations online with the new company, gets a little love in the new issue of 7x7. "OpenTable's product is stale, and their pricing has never been challenged," challenges SeatMe co-founder Alex Kvamme, 23. Thems would be fightin' words, and we look forward to seeing the two SF-based companies start to battle for the hearts (and wallets) of restaurant owners in the coming months. [7x7, see scan here]

The Ultra-Green Noble Café Opens in Oakland

Noble Café, which purports to be the country's first 100% carbon-neutral coffee shop, just opened at 100 Grand Avenue in Oakland, in The Grand residential development. Right now they're just doing coffee, tea, and pastry, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, but they'll be launching an organic lunch menu soon. [Tablehopper]

Michael Bauer Continues Steakhouse Tour With Bourbon Steak Update; Bonné Revisits Big 4

By Jay Barmann

Right after slightly upgrading Harris' last week to two and a half stars, Michael Bauer swings back to Bourbon Steak just a year after they opened and finds things not quite as interesting as they were before. "When a steak house cuts back on bells and whistles, you get, well, a steak house." He complains of a simplified menu, some wine served too warm, and some iffy service, but get this: The stars don't change. The place got three stars in 2010, and they notch another three this week. To the credit of chef Omri Aflalo, the non-steak dishes are apparently quite good, and the steak still solid. But this is another case of reading a review where you really expect to see a certain star verdict, and Mr. Bauer confounds us again. [Chron]

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The James Weird Awards: Marijuana Mouth Spray and Streets of Animal Blood

By Laura Reineke

After last week's shenanigans, a slight drop-off in weird food news was to be expected, but we still saw penis cakes, geoengineered food, and strange PR stunts in the mix. For more, check out the James Weird Awards, straight ahead.

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