Photo: J. Barmann/Grub Street
Trick Dog has been on a lot of people's minds and tongues lately, and we are willing to bet that at least one of your friends has suggested going there in the last week. You may not know that amidst all their very original mixed and bottled cocktails there is also a food menu. You eat, you see, so you can drink more.
Union Square/Tenderloin: Mikkeller Bar (which, if you ask a Danish person, is kind of like naming something Heineken Bar) is on its way from the guy behind Oakland's The Trappist and the more recent Trappist Provisions. It's going into the space at 34 Mason previously known as Crash Club. [Full Pint via Scoop]
Ferry Building: Noted bean purveyor Rancho Gordo is opening a shop in the Ferry Building this summer. [Scoop]
Bayview: If you leave now, you can still catch a couple hours of Speakeasy's day-long celebration of their new tap room, featuring music and food trucks. It goes 'til 9.
Sunset: The former Bashful Bull (1222 Noriega) is for sale. [Eater]
Garaje, the replacement for Chinese dive Bill's Kitchen at 475 Third Street, has just opened for business, as SFist reports. We first broke news of this switch last summer, noting that one of the new owners is Stephen Paoli, the son of longtime FiDi restaurateur Joseph Paoli, of Paoli's Restaurant, and owner of Dos Pinas in the Design District. The menu features a cheap and funny mix of stuff, like escabeche, carne asada fries, Chinatown ribs with pineapple fried rice, a "drive-in" cheese burger, and tacos. And, they warn, the refried beans do have lard in them. [SFist]
Fast on the heels of their just-about-open second location in Palo Alto, the Tacolicious team of Joe Hargrave and chef Telmo Faria have snapped up the shuttered Caffe Maria space (1548 Stockton at Columbus) in North Beach. As Tablehopper reports, the space was too good to pass up, and they'll be starting construction next month, hopefully finishing by early summer. And they'll be giving the only other taco games in the 'hood, Don Pisto's and Nico's, a potential run for their money. This will make four total outposts of the new mini-empire, including the original Marina location, and the Valencia Street one opened in 2012.
If you haven't had it, next week is the time to brave the wait and head back to Flour + Water for the Osso pizza — which we featured as part of our 50 Best Pizza Places this week. It will return Monday February 18 through Wednesday February 20, and there's also broccoli rabe, fontina, and grated horseradish on there. [Grub Street]
HOT NOW.
"If Edinburgh is overweight today," says Tam Fry, the spokesperson of a U.K.-based anti-obesity group, "then it will certainly be obese by tomorrow." Fry is referring to the chaos in Edinburgh, where Krispy Kreme opened its first Scottish outlet last week with numerous promotions and freebies that have caused three days of mile-long lines and a general accumulation of cruller fiends. London resident Ben Esterson camped out in the cold outside the store to make sure he was the first customer. He is now entitled to two dozen free doughnuts per month for one year. "I was first in line for the Wales Krispy Kreme store too," Esterson tells the Daily Mail, "so when I heard they were opening in Scotland I couldn't not be first here as well." Fair enough.
Ouch.
Food fights aren't supposed to involve chemical spray and trips to the emergency room. But after a fifteen-minute, 200- to 300-person food fight at South High School in Minneapolis turned into a violent brawl, police had to intervene. According to a sergeant, students were throwing "anything they could get their hands on," sending four people to the hospital with minor injuries. So far, no arrests have been made, but the cops are reviewing surveillance video. These kids should probably dye their hair and start donning disguises; the charges can be extensive. School officials maintain that the cops sprayed above the crowd, but students are complaining about the effects: Mace doesn't taste as good as pie to the face. [Earlier, AP]
Look away, lovers of Samoas and Tagalongs: 13,200 boxes of unexpired, "perfectly fine" Girl Scout cookies were crushed by a tractor in Redlands last spring and then sent to a landfill. A CBS investigation finds the Southern California region's scout council pinning the blame for all this waste on ABC Bakery, which supplies the troops with their product and destroyed the cookies when a local troop bought more than they could offload. The devastation-by-tractor is basically how the unsold extras get disposed of around these parts, a policy set to change now that food banks and churches are catching wind of the practice. "We would have gladly accepted the cookies and they would probably disappear as fast as any product we have in here," says a Westside Food Bank rep. Indeed, the deliberate waste makes good old destruction pretty hard to stomach. Nonetheless, take a look as oh-so-many Thin Mints meet the big metal death machine in this video.
The decor has, apparently, not been changed much from the Plate Shop days.Photo: Brian Smeets/Grub Street
Plate Shop only closed two weeks ago, but today marks the debut of Fast Food Francais, its replacement from the team behind Le Garage and L’Appart. As the name suggests, it's a twist on American fast food, with a menu of multiple burgers as well as wings, sausage, and mac and cheese (with chèvre, of course). The Scoop has the details, and they just opened last night. Make reservations here. [Scoop]
Fast Food Francais - 39 Caledonia Street, Sausalito - Open Monday to Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Please, everyone stop calling her voluptuous.
British chef, TV personality, and cookbook author Nigella Lawson — who's referred to in the press alternately as "goddess," "siren," and "England's younger, sexier Barefoot Contessa" — has just arrived in San Francisco to promote her new Italian cookbook, Nigellisima. She'll be at Book Passage at the Ferry Building tonight at 6 p.m., signing books, and she'll be at Williams-Sonoma in Union Square tomorrow, Saturday, at 5 p.m. (She's also doing a luncheon event in Larkspur tomorrow afternoon for which there are still seats available.) Also, be sure and check out this clip of her on Jimmy Kimmel earlier this week talking about her time working as a chambermaid in Italy.
While there actually is a hamburger joint called Harlem Shake opening up — in Harlem, naturally — any day now, there's also this viral video phenomenon to contend with, which combines a sort of third cousin to the uptown dance and a Bauuer song, that was released last year. Everyone and their mother has been uploading their own Harlem Shake videos in the last few weeks, recorded in offices, parking lots, dorm rooms, and elevators, so it was only a matter of time before a few restaurants got into the act. Check out a whole MenuPages-worthy multiverse of tabletop dancers and demented dishwashers, just ahead.
The space at 850-856 Bush.
Hopwater Distribution, which because of the name we're going to wager will be a beer bar, is headed to a former retail space at 850 Bush Street (near Mason). The new spot comes from one of the partners involved with the revamp of Dogpatch Saloon, Christopher Barry (also and owner of 83 Proof), along with partners Jon Paul Guinea and Sky Wegman. The liquor license app just went in this week, and it suggests there will be food involved. So, stay tuned for more as we learn it — and the name, as is sometimes the case, could be subject to change.
Curtis Duffy's Grace in Chicago has earned, in two months of being open, national acclaim as one of America's most ambitious restaurants, Duffy's eyes set on every prize to be had. What few have known, and only rarely came out in the press about Duffy, was that his ambition and drive as a chef — which led him from a Colorado country club to Charlie Trotter's, Alinea, and two Michelin stars at Avenues before opening his own restaurant — was rooted in a troubled childhood, which climaxed horrifically with the murder-suicide of his parents in 1994, when Duffy was 19.
Horsemeat was in cottage pies delivered to 47 schools.
Throughout this scandal, food-manufacturing companies have protested that hidden horsemeat is an issue of mislabeling, not food safety. News broke today that adulterated meat ended up in school meals, hospital food, and restaurant dishes in Britain, which is particularly alarming because yesterday, public authorities announced that small amounts of the meat contained a powerful equine painkiller. The phenylbutazone drug is potentially harmful to humans, but the chances of getting sick are low: Out of 206 horse carcasses, eight tested positive for phenylbutazone, and only six of those carcasses were exported to France (French meat wholesaler Spanghero is the current culprit). Horsemeat isn't typically harmful; the issue here is that these horses weren't sourced responsibly and raised to become part of the food chain. [AP, NYT, Earlier]
Women wore houndstooth bikini bottoms with striped pants underneath in the aughts? Really?Photo: Coca-Cola
Recently appointed Diet Coke creative director Marc Jacobs designed these limited-edition cans of Coca-Cola Light in honor of the company's anniversary in Europe, and, surprisingly, he illustrated someone other than himself. Each can celebrates a recent fashion decade (the eighties, nineties, and aughts), and is inspired by Broadway and Radio City Music Hall, where Diet Coke made its debut in 1982. In all likelihood, the corresponding ad campaigns will showcase Jacobs's abs, or at least a topless model. [Earlier, NYDN, Cut]
On a promotional tour for his new Die Hard movie — the title of which could have been so much better — Bruce Willis hit Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. One topic of conversation: Willis's days as a New York bartender. Per Fallon, people would actually travel to see Willis, who apparently dabbled in some flair. Willis won't confirm or deny — he'll only say that the secret to being a well-liked bartender is just giving drinks away (especially if the customer is John Goodman). Watch the clip, straight ahead.
“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.
