Posts for July 9, 2012 -- Grub Street San Francisco -- Restaurant News, Openings, Chefs

Posts for July 9, 2012

7/9/12 at 5:30 PM
Neighborhood Watch
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Oakland Beer Hall Closed After Fire; Tacolicious Heads to Palo Alto

Union Square: Grand Café is hosting another of its Misfit dinner series July 19 to 22, this time featuring guinea hen. More details on the dishes here. [Grub Street]
Oakland: CommonWealth Café and Public House, the two-year-old beer hall, is closed after a fire on Sunday that caused at least $100,000 in damages. [EBX, Facebook]
Novato: Remember that huge Southern Pacific Smokehouse place that closed almost as soon as it opened? Well, it's being taken by Dean Biersch, of Gordon Biersch fame, for a third location of his Hopmonk Tavern concept. [Scoop]
Palo Alto: Tacolicious is plotting an expansion down on the Peninsula, in the Mantra space in Palo Alto. Mantra, meanwhile, is still open. [Scoop]

7/9/12 at 4:20 PM
Video Feed
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Video: Vice Parties in the East Bay With Brandon Jew and Brett Emerson

By Jay Barmann

Vice has lately been making the rounds of the city's younger, hipper chefs (see also the earlier videos with Ravi Kapur, Anthony Strong, and Danny Bowien) going on late-night culinary adventures at their favorite S.F. spots for their "Munchies" series. Now it's Brandon Jew and Brett Cooper's turn, as the Bar Agricole and Outerlands chefs take them to Berkeley's Ippuku and then to Oakland's Boot & Shoe Service for some boozy shenanigans and serious talk about food.

7/9/12 at 3:30 PM
Let Them Eat Foie
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French Snub Their Noses at the Foie Gras Ban; S.F. Restaurant Starts Serving It Legally, on Federal Land

By Jay Barmann

The latest from the foie front.

Two more bits of foie-related news for your Monday: First off, Decanter reports today that wine merchants in Gascony, the region in southwest France that's home to the country's foie gras industry, are initiating a boycott of California wines in response to the foie gras ban. Sales of the stuff to California apparently amount to three or four percent of foie sales in France, so a few people there will have their incomes hurt if the ban stays. As for the impact to California wine sales, not much California wine is sold over there to begin with, so... [Decanter]

And secondly, today brings a press release from Presidio Social Club announcing that the restaurant, being on federal land in San Francisco's Presidio, is going to become the first in the state to restart foie gras sales perfectly legally.

7/9/12 at 1:25 PM
The Other Critics
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Michael Bauer and Patricia Unterman Both Review Gioia Pizzeria

By Jay Barmann

Gioia's Salsicca pie, which Patty says "satisfies."Photo: Courtesy of Gioia

Gioia Pizzeria, which made a name for itself in Berkeley and only recently opened a San Francisco location at 2240 Polk Street, gets the double-review treatment this week by both Michael Bauer, and the as-of-late web-only Patty Unterman. Bauer, always a pizza lover and long a fan of Gioia's original location, says the pizza is still good at the new location, but not always perfect — on one of his three visits, a formaggio pie came out limp in the middle and dripping with "rust-colored grease." Also, his other favorite thing, fried chicken, isn't so well done here, with too thick of a battered crust on it. Still, he likes the salsiccia and the prosciutto-arugula pies, and he recommends the stuffed shells, vegetable fritto misto, and the meatballs too. All told: two and a half stars. [Chron]

7/9/12 at 1:15 PM on Grub Street NY
Bookshelf
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Mark Bittman Turning ‘Vegan Before 6’ Philosophy Into a Book

By Alan Sytsma

How to eat everything ... vegan.Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Maybe he was in cahoots with the sneaky vegan group, after all: Reps write in to say that Mark Bittman is hard at work on his new book, and it's all about his selective-veganism approach to eating meat-free before 6:00 p.m. You may recall a few years back when he first divulged his "VB6" philosophy and said he'd lost 30 pounds with the plan. VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health … for Good, will hit bookshelves next March. [Earlier]

7/9/12 at 1:07 PM
Lists
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Regarding the Best Bao In Town

We've often wanted to take the time to explore the many varieties of the Chinese buns known as bao available across San Francisco, but now the Bold Italic has done it for us, and given us a list for taking our own self-guided tour. Their favorites: Café Honolulu in Chinatown, Fancy Wheat Field Bakery in Portola, and Café Bakery & Restaurant in the Outer Sunset. [Bold Italic]

7/9/12 at 12:40 PM
Oeno-File
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Delfina Debuts a ‘50 Shades of Orange’ Wine Flight

By Jay Barmann

It's sort of like rosé, but actually the opposite.

Orange wine. It's been a trending thing for a while now, with a few select bottles and glasses appearing on some of the better Italian lists around town, like SPQR, Heirloom Café, and Locanda. Now Delfina is featuring a flight of orange wines this week for you to compare and contrast, and to introduce the uninitiated into this fairly unusual — but delicious — category of white wine.

7/9/12 at 11:45 AM
Sweet Beat
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New Japanese Spot Akiba Has Anime-Costumed Waitresses, Bread for Dessert

By Jay Barmann

Three-month-old Richmond Japanese spot Akiba (3141 Clement Street), which is mainly a dessert café, specializes in a trendy Hong Kong-style dessert called the honey toast box — a baked-to-order, hollowed-out half-loaf of sweet bread that's been toasted, drizzled with honey, and filled with an ice cream sundae. As NBC's Tamara Palmer reports, they also do honey toast fondue, with little squares of the bread dusted with sugar and served with Belgian chocolate for dipping. Another draw to the place would be the waitresses dressed like anime maids who bop around the room. [Good Taste/NBC]

7/9/12 at 11:00 AM on Grub Street NY
New Leaves
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Campbell Soup, PepsiCo Go Healthy

By Jenny Miller

Baby carrots: Campbell's manna?

First Starbucks added juice to its java empire earlier this year, and now Campbell Soup is buying juice and carrot company Bolthouse Farms, writes the Washington Post. Bolthouse's Earthbound Farm and Green Giant baby carrots are a popular healthy snack and the company also sells juices, which complements Campbell's existing V-8 line. The soup giant isn't the only big food biz going healthy: The Times has it that PepsiCo will start rolling out yogurt manufactured by German company Theo Müller. Wonder how that one will stack up in our next taste test? [WP, NYT]

7/9/12 at 9:55 AM
The Great Outdoors
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Farm:Table’s Very Designed Parklet Nears Completion

By Jay Barmann

You'll recall back in March that popular TenderNob café farm:table (754 Post Street) launched a Kickstarter campaign to build a very architectural parklet at its curb. The designers at the time said would provide both "a landscape" on the street as well as an "immersive experience" for sitters in its wooden pockets. Now this very ambitious project is nearing completion, with eight volunteers having come out this past weekend to start loading dirt into its planters, as architecture critic John King reports in a cover story in the Chron today. The grass and greenery isn't in yet, and painting has yet to start, but they have definitely taken this parklet thing up a notch. Design-nerd magazines will be photographing it for months to come. [Chron, Earlier]

7/9/12 at 9:15 AM
Nonstaurants
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LihoLiho Yacht Club Pops Up at State Bird Provisions

By Jay Barmann

Ravi Kapur's Hawaiian- and Asian-inspired pop-up LihoLiho Yacht Club, which got a lot of foodinistas-about-town excited this past spring, is returning in a new location and on a new night of the week this month. Kapur writes in to announce that he'll be doing the same three-course, family-style affair at State Bird Provisions on two consecutive Sundays, July 15 and 22. He says he's excited to get to use Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski's Fillmore restaurant, saying, "In my opinion, [it's] the most significant restaurant to open this year and will have a profound impact on our dining topography ... not to mention the kitchen is stellar and exciting to be able to cook in."

7/9/12 at 8:00 AM
Let Them Eat Foie
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Now That Foie Gras Is Illegal, Here’s What California Chefs Are Still Charging the Big Bucks For

By Jay Barmann

Foie, lobster, whatever.

While we wait to see if California's foie gras ban is even constitutional — a judge could issue an injunction to halt the law any day now — we've been curious to see how various law-abiding chefs have been dealing with it. Some have decided to replace the foie on their menus with something equally luxurious, or at least something they can charge an equally luxurious price for. Below, a few examples of what chefs in L.A and San Francisco are serving in lieu of that ultra-fatty liver.

Naked Chef: Jamie Oliver’s Wife Reads His E-mails, Apparently

By Alan Sytsma

So says the British Mail: Jools Oliver, wife of Jamie, says, "I’ll check his email. I’ll check his Twitter. I’ll check his phone … He says I’m a jealous girl, but I think I’m fairly laid-back, considering." Good news, though! Jools's sleuthing hasn't turned up any misdeeds from Mr. Oliver just yet. But we're not so sure — Jamie and Jay Rayner sure have seemed cozy lately. [Mail UK]

7/9/12 at 6:30 AM on Grub Street Boston
Keeping Your Composure
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Haute Hurling: How the Country’s Best Servers Handle Dining-Room Disasters

By Kara Baskin

Ready to blow at any moment.Photo: PYTHON PICTURES/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection

Dining at an exceptional restaurant is a study in theatrics. Servers’ moves are choreographed with the precision of a ballet. Greetings are rehearsed, dishes are explicated in colorful language, cutlery appears and vanishes as if placed by Houdini. Vexations such as food allergies or blubbering children are handled with grace and dignity. But occasionally, someone throws up.

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