Posts for October 15, 2010

Rainbow Grocery Mocked, Bar Agricole Serves Al Fresco, and More

By Jay Barmann

Mission: Let's round out the week with some amusement at the expense of the cooperative, shall we? SF Weekly's Michael Leaverton writes a Best Practices column about visiting Rainbow Grocery which is full of gems like this one: "waiting for a hippie to finish packing vegetables in his '80s Civic and get a fucking move on is like watching a drunk trying to finish a card trick." [SFoodie]
SoMa: Bar Agricole has officially opened up their front patio, with 34 seats, a water feature, and heat lamps. [Eater]
Marina: Chotto, a new izakaya, is opening in mid-December in the former Three Seasons space at 3317 Steiner. [Scoop]

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Only in the Tenderloin

On Larkin, just a few steps down from Saigon Sandwich, is a new concept in fusion restaurants: a Mexican-Vietnamese shop called Wrap Delight where you can get both burritos and banh mi. How's that for multiculturalism in the 'Loin? [Tenderblog]

One Writer Wonders Whether She Put Gourmet Under

By Jay Barmann

Those were the days...

"Did I think about the fact that I was probably bankrupting the magazine?... Seriously, those articles were going to be written anyway. If I hadn't done it they would have hired someone else. For my 40th birthday I asked rather petulantly to be sent somewhere nice. There was a new resort opening in Antigua that needed to be reviewed. I was just the reporter for the job." — Ann Patchett, writing in the Journal about the glory days of endless expense accounts at Gourmet, when she "never saw a bill" and now feels vaguely guilty. [WSJ via Gawker]

Related: A Blogger Turned Gourmet Contributor Looks Back

Show Dogs Celebrates One Year; Laszlo Celebrates Ten

By Jay Barmann

The new pulled pork sandwich at Show Dogs.

Gayle Pirie and John Clark (Foreign Cinema) opened Show Dogs last year, next door to the Golden Gate Theater at 6th and Market. Tonight, they celebrate one year in business, being one of a series of new eateries that helped earn the oft sketchy area "gourmet ghetto" status from the Times. Tonight's party, which has a $20 admission fee, will include free-flowing beer and a sampling of new menu items like the pulled pork sandwich pictured here, with pickled red cabbage, and the ShowBurger, with special sauce, arugula, and tomato.

Also, next Thursday, October 21, at 8 p.m. Pirie and Clark's Foreign Cinema-adjacent bar, Laszlo, is hosting a blowout bash to ring in ten years, with a bunch of long-time favorite Bay Area DJs and a brand new cocktail menu from bar manager Bryan Ranere. [Grub Street]

Mission Gastroclub Does Breakfast for Dinner

By Jay Barmann

The chilaquiles with homemade chips and an egg on top.Photo: Jesse Friedman/Beer & Nosh

Yeah, yeah, we know. As soon as bloggers start writing about some cool underground thing that's happening, it's no longer underground, and too many people try to show up, and it is thus no longer cool. But blame Beer & Nosh, who today writes about a little underground dining concern called the Mission Gastroclub which pairs home-brewed beer with experimental food. They just did a dinner themed "breakfast for dinner" featuring these lovely chilaquiles at left with a Soul Food Farms egg, and an English breakfast dish with a pickled Scotch egg and homemade blood sausage. They've got 75 people on their email list so far, and the dinners, limited to fourteen people, tend to sell out as soon as they're announced. But there you have it. Hope we didn't ruin it for everyone.

Mission Gastroclub [Beer & Nosh]

Unterman Says Corey Lee Has ‘Changed All the Rules’ at Benu; Bauer Says Alfred’s Has Gotten Better

By Jay Barmann

Patti U. tries out the tasting menu at Benu, and says, "by the sixth course... I was in love." She adores the faux shark's fin soup and the 1000-year-old quail's egg, and notes that "Everything that actually lands at the table — food, ceramics, glassware — is refined and interesting." She's a little confused by the à la carte menu, however, and says, "I didn’t know how to make a meal out of it," referring to some delicious dishes that nonetheless make for odd pairings. But she says it's still a steal, at $160, for a "Michelin-style three-star extravaganza." [Examiner, Earlier Slideshow]

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Charlie Parker to Take the Helm at Plum

By Jay Barmann

Well, we were about to run with it as rumor, but Daniel Patterson appears to have scooped up another bright young chef to take the helm at Plum. Sources tell Grub Street that Charlie Parker — the 27-year-old chef at Bonny Doon's Cellar Door Café and former Manresa sous who was recently profiled by the Times — has already given notice at Bonny Doon and will start work in the kitchen at Plum in January. Parker has become known down in Santa Cruz for the sort of composed, idiosyncratic, vegetable-focused cuisine practiced by two of his mentors, David Kinch and later Jeremy Fox. Fox, as you may recall, backed out of a deal to work with Patterson earlier this summer, and Patterson then hired former Aqua chef Ron Boyd in the role of "corporate chef." Got all that? Lauren Kiino and Boyd currently head up the kitchen at Plum, but Kiino will soon move on to open Bracina at Jack London Square, set for early 2011. Could another Oakland project be lined up for Boyd as well? The Scoop just confirmed the news.

Earlier: Creating an Idiosyncratic Restaurant to Pair With an Idiosyncratic Winery [Grub Street]
Daniel Patterson Opening Three More Restaurants in Oakland? [Grub Street]

Pudong to Open in the Former Mecca Space By December

By Jay Barmann

We caught wind of the change of ownership back in April, and now the Scoop is reporting that the new concept for the former Mecca space (2029 Market) is Chinese, and it's called Pudong. They've hired chef Jason Xu, formerly of Shanghai 1930, and the menu's going to focus on the cuisine of Shanghai, which bears a few hints of French influence from the long-ago French presence in the country. But "they are very adamant that Pudong will not be fusion cooking, or any type of fusion." The space is getting a remodel, complete with new marble and stone floor, and they're aiming for a December 1 opening.

Pudong headed into the Mecca space in the Castro [Scoop]
Earlier: New Owners Take Mecca Space... [Grub Street]

Don Some Alice Waters Drag This Halloween

By Jay Barmann

Photo: CHOW

Still haven't figured out what to be for Halloween? Look no further than CHOW's guide to dressing up as a food celebrity. They've got helpful how-tos for impersonating Mario Batali, Paula Deen, and "Sexy" Michael Pollan. But the obvious standout is this Alice Waters number: handmade purple hat, flowing purple scarves, a rough-hewn gemstone necklace, and "a basket of [local] organic vegetables that you can gaze upon beatifically."

Food-Celebrity Halloween Costumes: Sexy Michael Pollan and More! [CHOW]

Mary Sue Milliken Kills Wild Animals And Our Misconceptions

By Hadley Tomicki

Milliken: Not a killer, but don't push her

Beside the beaming smile and stream of chatter coming from partner and Top Chef Master Susan Feniger, we somehow got the impression that Mary Sue Milliken was the meeker of the Too Hot Tamales, the Border Grill founders and two of T.V.'s first celeb chefs. Wow, were we wrong on that one. In a Q&A with L.A. Weekly, Milliken details her recent bloody adventures in Mongolia where she learned to kill and butcher her own beasts. She helped gun down a roebuck and slit a lamb's throat during a hunting expedition, then after narrowly missing a boar, she returned home, satiating her newfound bloodlust by purchasing live squabs for her backyard. Starting with two, the birds multiplied until, "I had to harvest, because it was becoming like an Alfred Hitchcock movie every morning." But back to that lamb and our shattered misconceptions of Mary Sue Killagain Milliken.

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Pépin Birthday Lies; McDonald’s In Riverside Goes Green, Literally

• So, it turns out Pépin's 75th birthday was actually in December, but he had another celebration last night at Waterbar anyhow. [Bunrab, Earlier]

• Coca-Cola has installed two "Freestyle" soda fountain machines in Oakland and Emeryville, which offer a choice of 106 different Coke brands from Vanilla Coke to Minute Maid strawberry lemonade. [Scoop]

• Condé Nast Traveler readers choose San Francisco as their number-one destination in the U.S. [CNT via 7x7]

• Pay attention to the Bauer bell ratings! Scientists have discovered that background noise affects the taste of food, which could explain why airline food always seems so awful. [BBC]

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Alton Brown Makes His Own Avocado Ice Cream, Does Shots With John Hodgman

By Helen Rosner

Brown at his Chelsea Market party.Photo: Melissa Hom

Alton Brown is a man on a mission. "There's a drink I developed that I call Brown's Bitter Truth. It's two-parts bourbon, one-part Campari, one-part sweet vermouth, a splash of Gran Marnier, and an orange twist," he says. "I love this drink. I'm on a book tour right now" — in support of Good Eats 2: The Middle Years — "I'm going from city to city, and wherever I go, I teach the bartender how to make it." The Atlanta-based Brown was in town last week largely for the New York City Wine and Food Festival, but he also paid a visit to the New York Academy of Medicine. "As it happens, they have a library with 10,000 culinary pieces, including what is considered to be one of the first cookbooks, the Roman Apicius, one copy of which is in the Vatican and one is here," he explains. "I'm thinking about doing a project about the history of cookbooks. I'm fascinated by where we are in the culinary world, and how we got here, and I'm really interested in tracing that back to its genesis in books." Find out what Alton ate last week in this edition of the New York Diet.

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