Food: August 2009 Archives

                             

It was a festival-heavy weekend for us, what with Outside Lands bridging the generations through music, food, wine and Tom Jones, and the first annual Eat Real Festival in Oakland, a celebration of street food, local beer and sustainable eating. Unlike the SF Street Food Fest the previous weekend -- which was delicious but way more mobbed than anyone was prepared for, and by some accounts, not very "street" -- Eat Real was crowded but civilized, and spread out on a few blocks of the newly rebuilt Jack London Square along the Oakland Estuary. Over a dozen vendors who operate out of taco trucks pulled the trucks into the plaza and along the promenade, and they were joined by a few dozen more vendors with carts and tents. The theme of the affair was "putting the food back in fast food," and pretty much all the offerings were of the cheap and hand-held variety, all between $2 and $5 -- except the beer, served out of a shed rigged with 40 rotating taps, which came out to about $6 a glass if you bought a four-glass tasting. Food highlights included some awesome corn empanadas with chimichurri sauce from El Porteno, the chocolate cupcake with caramel icing from Sweetface Bakery, the B.L.A.T. from newcomer Jon's Street Eats, some simple fried smelts with aioli from Whole Foods' Tapas To Go truck, and a downright perfect mini-burger from 4505 Meats. Also present were mobile mainstays like the twitter.com/thepietruck, Seoul on Wheels (who are making a comeback) and the Amuse Bouche folks. (See a full food slideshow at SF Grub Street.)

One of our current and rather popular numbers at the bar is the Promissory Note, which was conceived at a very late hour for a Domaine de Canton ginger cognac liqueur competition. All of our original cocktails at the Alembic are fairly classically styled, most are indeed based on some old school concoction. I broke with that mold for this one and really set out to layer some flavors in a gentle manner, which worked out surprisingly well. Starting with a little Canton and dry vermouth, which I love as a combination, I started fleshing it out with a dash of this, a spoon of that. Sort of a new approach for me, but one I intend on exploring more.

Eye On Blogs brings this poll to our attention. Asylum, a gentlemen's online magazine that features articles like "10 Things You Should Never Say to a Girl With Huge Boobs" and "Look Glourious in Brad Pitt's Crisply Caribbean White Suit," came up with the top four manliest restaurants in the U.S. San Francisco, strangely enough, made the list, snatching the best-in-the-west title with the Mission district's Zeitgeist.

Oh boy. We just got work from Dennis Herrera's office that the SF Department of Health will come down hard on over three hundred San Francisco restaurants today, invalidating their food safety certifications. According to the City Attorney's Office, "the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH) will be notifying 345 San Francisco restaurants that their certification for food safety managers will no longer be recognized as valid as a result of inappropriate testing and certification procedures." Oops. The City Attorney's Office goes on to say, "Officials from DPH also informed state and county public health authorities throughout California of at least 183 additional restaurants outside of San Francisco whose certifications are similarly affected. Another 78 certifications whose holders list no address have also been identified."

The first annual SF Street Food Fest went down on Saturday, and pretty much half of San Francisco showed up to the one-block-long festival. The thing got a ton of buzz, a piece on NPR, links on a hundred websites, and as we all know, street food and nonstaurants are all the rage right now. As the folks at Beer & Nosh put it, "It was crowded, expensive, and with long lines for food that wasn't exactly street food. Yet the crowds were docile and friendly, the food delicious, and in spite of all of the problems, it seemed like a good time was had by all." We give special props to Jamie Lauren's gourmet sausage dog from Absinthe and the BBQ chicken sammie from Zella's Souful Kitchen. Also, KQED has a nice slideshow.

We're taking a break from the regular cocktail column today to highlight one of our favorite wineries in the Greater Bay Area, Cline Cellars. Situated at the south end of Hwy 121, just past the Infineon Raceway, it's a mere hour's drive from SF. Given that their tasting room stays open until 6 p.m., it makes for a convenient last stop on any Sonoma wine-tasting trip, and one that will likely make you a devoted fan.

Finally, a food festival that we can afford! San Francisco Street Food Festival 2009, which is a benefit for La Cocina, is a free, day-long block party full of micro-entrepreneurs, informal food vendors, and renowned chefs bringing you delicious eats for $8 or less per item.

We thought we'd keep with this shrub thing after last week's Strawberry Gin Shrub recipe, since it's new to us (and probably you) and is actually quite delicious. At this week's CUESA farmers' market cocktail event, there were a number of highlights including an apple-chartreuse-Bols Genever concoction from Alicia Walton of Elixir, a raspberry and Galliano drink from 15 Romolo, and a peach cocktail from H. Joseph Ehrmann.

Packaged in 48-count iced cartons, iced jumbo green onions, branded under the Omo and Fu Choy names, are being recalled as a precautionary measure due to the possible presence of Salmonella. The iffy onions were sent to three U.S. locations: R.A.M. Produce Distributors of Detroit, Michigan, Franzella Distributing of San Francisco, CA, and United Food Service of East Point, GA. According to PRNewswire, "58 cartons were shipped from two distributors to small grocery outlets in the Detroit and San Francisco areas."

Michael Chiarello (who, as it turns out, is some sort of gastronomic genius, because he is plowing through with relative ease) made a funny at this weekend's SFChefsFoodWine event. Eater overheard this bit of whimsy coming from the mouth of the Napa wonderboy.

This weekend San Francisco hosted its first ever SFChefsFoodWine bash -- put on by the (controversial) Golden Gate Restaurant Association -- a "foodie" event that saw industry bigwigs (Paolo Lucchesi of Eater, Marcia Gagliardi of Tablehopper, Mary Ladd of SFoodie, Camper English of alcademics, and Michael Bauer of SFGate) mingle with food bigwigs (Joanne Weir, Hubert Keller, Thomas Keller, Tyler Florence, Jamie Lauren), where they foraged for some of the best food and wine that the Bay Area has to offer. And how. Mm.

If you were envious back in May when we talked about the farmers' market cocktail event at the Ferry Building during Cocktail Week, and you didn't make it to the SF Chefs. Food. Wine. extravaganza this past weekend, you have another chance this week to sample the wares of a group of talented SF bartenders and chefs. On Wednesday night, August 12th, from 5:30 to 7:30 come down to the Ferry Building for an evening of cocktails made with botanical-based spirits (including gin, Chartreuse, Bols Genever, and Square One Botanical) and fresh farmers' market fruit and herbs. The event is being co-hosted by CUESA, which manages the Ferry Building Farmers' Market, and the United States Bartending Guild, and will feature a number of local mixologists who have contributed recipes to SFist's Friday drink column, including H. Joseph Ehrmann and Alicia Walton from Elixir, Scott Baird from 15 Romolo, and Brooke Arthur from Range. Get advance tickets here and come on down for some first class boozing.

God. Anthony Bourdain. What's going on, dude? You've turned into that guy. You know, the guy in class who tries too hard to look punk. The reality show contestant who looks into the camera and declares, "I tell it like it is, and people have a problem with that." The guy at the party who prattles on about the glory that is bacon (in addition to your badassery of smoking and drug taking, of course.) Let's take a look at your most recent weblog post.

SFist reader April sent us the above images of a fish in a trash can in the heat, found this weekend in Noe Valley at Church and 28th Street. We find it oddly hypnotic.

Last night marked the kickoff of this SF Chefs. Food. Wine. event in Union Square, a weekend-long orgasm of culinary grazing, seminar-ing and drinking meant to rival the annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. The tent on the Square was filled with wine merchants from far and wide (some from local counties, including the yummy Morse/Il Giollelo wines from Amador County, and a couple Australians), as well as restaurants plying their bite-size wares (including a delicious strawberry gazpacho from former Top Chef contestant and Absinthe executive chef Jamie Lauren -- more on the weekend's food in a later post), as well as a number of local cocktailians including Brooke Arthur from Range, Thad Vogler from Heaven's Dog, and a delicious rum punch from the forthcoming SF Tiki bar, Smuggler's Cove.

by Amy Crocker

The US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has officially declared this week National Farmers Week. Farmers markets are "important nationwide outlets for agricultural producers." What's more, thousands of farmers markets offer "consumers affordable, convenient, and healthful products sold directly from the farm in their freshest possible state," which benefit people tenfold, economy- and health-wise. Most of us already know about the bigwig farmers markets in the Bay Area (e.g., Ferry Building, Civic Center, Noe Valley), but there are more of them out there. To find the farmers market nearest you, visit apps.ams.usda.gov.