We hope the servers were extra nice to her.
This week in celebrity sightings we find that the first thing Ann Curry did after losing her job as host of the Today show was fly to San Francisco. She was spotted last Friday, one day after her semi-tearful goodbye on Today, dining at Ame. Hopefully a weekend San Francisco food and drink comforted her weary, under-appreciated soul. [Tablehopper]
Pinch-hitting for Bauer in two-star territory this week is Carey Sweet, who files a review of the newish Mill Valley music venue and restaurant Sweetwater Café. The kitchen is the new home of former Pizza Antica and Café Des Amis chef Gordon Drysdale. He calls what he's doing at Sweetwater, "Party food that's farmers' market driven and not deep fryer driven," and Sweet says the atmosphere is "buzzy and fun." There's counter service, but apparently servers will also take orders from tables, and Sweet says most of the food is "impressive," including a well composed mushroom soup, and the signature sliders. All told, though, it still gets two stars. [Chron]
Oakland: Friday is a first Friday, which means not only is it an Art Murmur night in Uptown and Downtown Oakland, it's also a night for Jack's Night Market, the monthly event at Jack London Square. You can expect local farmers selling fruits and vegetables, as well as local foodstuffs, beer, and other libations too. It runs from 6 to 10 p.m.
San Francisco: And let this serve as a reminder that the SF Street Food Fest this year features a new night market the night before the actual festival. As La Cocina tells us, "This event will partner well-known chefs from chefs across the country with La Cocina program participants to create one-of-a-kind dishes in an environment reminiscent of the nighttime markets in Bangkok." The fun runs from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, August 17, and will include entertainment and dancing. We suggest getting tickets in advance. They're $25. [Earlier]
The window next to Vega.
Fans of the Crème Brûlée Cart need not always follow it around town now via Twitter. Eater reports that operator Curtis Kimball has found a semi-permanent at the window next to the Vega coffee bar at 1246 Folsom (between 8th and 9th), which was previously occupied by Goody Goodie Cream & Sugar. He expects to be open in about three weeks, so basically by August, and he'll be open seven days a week — noon to 8 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, and noon to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Also, hours for the cart (Market and Sutter) and truck (Market and Castro) are going to be extended soon as well. [Eater]
Perfect little fish...Photo: J. Barmann/Grub Street
Bar Jules is well known and well loved in its Hayes Valley environs, having brought simple, consistent, California farm-to-table food to the neighborhood in 2008. Chef Jessica Boncutter has received many comparisons to Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, and her style remains the same sort of fresh, daily changing, seasonal approach with a Mediterranean bent. The cozy restaurant was named one of Bon Appétit's best new restaurants in the country in 2009, and since then has fallen a bit off the radar with the press (though not with its longtime fans) given the ascendence of new San Francisco restaurants in 2010 that tried to break free of the Waters-inspired Cal-Med shackles that characterized our city's cuisine for a couple of decades. But Bar Jules remains packed every night for a reason: the food is still pretty awesome, and never disappoints.
Foie, naked with nowhere to go
Foie gras may not have been exactly "easy" to find on Monday, but it was still being served it appears, as we unfold the first foie sighting in a SoCal restaurant right at the starting line of the statewide ban. According to The Orange County Register, French-born chef Antoine Price got the jump on the rest of his rebellious peers by offering a seven-course "Foie You!" prix-fixe at his San Clemente restaurant, Cafe Mimosa, on Monday night. The chef claims he was using foie that was purchased legally before the ban for dishes like a foie gras club sandwich and his own version of Jose Andres' cotton candy-wrapped foie, though the sale of the liver to his guests might have been a technical violation of the newly enacted measure. Still, the chef cares not. Walking the "foie you" outlaw lifestyle as much as he talks it, Price says, "They can lock me up if they want...I don't mind." [O.C. Register; GS]
Use your words, people.Photo: Facebook
Chick-fil-A, the chain that may or may not have invented the fried chicken sandwich but definitely donated millions of dollars to the anti-gay-marriage movement, is trying to promote its "Cow Appreciation Day'' on Facebook. But gay rights advocates and gay people on Facebook aren't ready to forget the company's well publicized position in the culture war. Chick-fil-A's marketing department put up a fill-in-the-blank game on their Facebook page, encouraging fans to fill in the phrase "My favorite part of Cow Appreciation Day is ____." And wouldn't you know, there are already dozens of comments filling in the blank with "homophobia."
Open since 2004 in what was then the pretty desolate neighborhood of Uptown in Oakland, Luka's Taproom & Lounge was at the forefront of a total makeover in the area, and they're still going strong. The Wall Street Journal today gives them some much-deserved credit for being pioneers, and for serving up some consistently decent mussels, clam chowder, burgers in their busy spot at Broadway and West Grand. [WSJ]
Jonathon Sawyer
As you can probably guess, this summer's unprecedented weather isn't just muggy and uncomfortable, it's also terrible for crops. Yes, at first it sounds great that we'll all be eating ripe peaches and tomatoes sooner than usual, and warmer weather means the promise of a longer growing season. But chef Jonathon Sawyer — a Food & Wine Best New Chef and owner of Cleveland's Greenhouse Tavern and Noodlecat (and noted lover of wild mushrooms) — thinks this might not be a good thing: "My farmers are terrified," he says. "Everyone’s on the edge of their seat, anticipating these locusts and insects of biblical proportions. We’re all pretty terrified of what might happen once it starts getting real hot.”
Yuck.
Workers at an Indiana Subway restaurant worked while unwell with "norovirus" — a nasty stomach flu with symptoms we won't share around lunchtime — getting their customers just as sick with their super-contagious, pickle-juiced germ-wiches. In fact, of the 75 people who had norovirus in the county, 72 had eaten at Subway before getting sick. Ugh, it's like Shigella, (remember her?) all over again. [HuffPo]
Roka Akor Chicago, which opened in 2011.
Just as Hakkasan, the London-based upscale Chinese chain, is expanding to San Francisco this year at One Kearny, another London-based Asian chain is making the move here as well: Roka Akor. It's an offshoot of Roka, the Japanese steak and sushi restaurant with locations in the UK and Hong Kong, and they already have U.S. outposts in Chicago and Scottsdale. Via the liquor licenses this a.m. it appears they're taking the cursed space at 500 Jackson Street that's been home to Scott Howard and Zinnia in recent years, and was almost home to Aziza before that deal fell through. Bon Appétit named the Scottsdale location of Roka Akor among the ten best sushi spots in the country three years ago, so there's that. The Scoop contacted someone at Roka Akor who does not give a timeline for the S.F. expansion, but we should know more in the coming months. [Scoop]
The Vin Club
Wine bar and café the Vin Club (515 Broadway at Kearny), where winemaker Dario Zucconi has been pouring his own Vin Nostro label as well as other international wines for the past three years, just had a farewell party on Saturday, June 30. Zucconi and partner Charlie Geis have sold the business to Ramsey Hanna and a team of "experienced restaurateurs" who they say will "keep the place going while injecting new (younger) life into the neighborhood." It's unclear whether they will be keeping the name (the new liquor license has no DBA) or if a brief closure is in the works for a remodel. Update: Well, looks like Tablehopper already the word on the new name, which is Antologia. The focus will be Latin American and California wines, and there's a soft opening scheduled for Saturday. [Tablehopper]
Fior d'Italia's Wharf-adjacent location was one they'd only been in for six years after multiple moves around town.Photo: Courtesy of Fior d'Italia
When Fior d'Italia (2237 Mason Street) closed in May, chef Gianni Audieri and his wife Trudy said they hoped to reopen, but they weren't able to buy out partner Bob Larive, who had sold off the liquor license. Now the Audieris tell the Chron that they've found a new liquor license for the purported Oldest Italian Restaurant in the country, and that they hope they can reopen by October, with just a few cosmetic changes inside. "We can't change too much," jokes Gianni, "because some of the people have been coming for the last 100 years." [Chron]
“Billy's Philly”
Billy is only there after 5 pm but if you are around go there and ask for his billy philly, the best philly you'll find this side of the Mississippi.
“Elegant Sauces & Fabulous Bread”
It is the place me and my love go for every intimate moment.
“Are you kidding?”
You have to be totally drunk to think that this is even acceptable as a public watering hole.
