Results tagged “michaelbauer”

There are two ways to best judge a restaurant's quality: the soup and the bathroom. Both signify a venue's subtle, yet overall, attention detail. Visiting a new restaurant's bathroom is one of the most titillating moments of a meal for your editor. So, much to our delight, today 's Michael Bauer discusses restaurants' cans, giving top ratings to Gitane on Claude Lane. "The somewhat quirky interior, designed by Mr. Important Design, has a sexy aura that's also encapsulated in the bathroom. It feels like walking into an extension of the dining room, starting at the draped foyer," he gushes. Our favorite has to go to Orson. See, they have seven private bathrooms, all of them complete with low-lighting, black walls, and bowls of coffee grounds. Have a favorite? Let us know in the comments.

In his new column, Chron foodie Michael Bauer sounds more than titillated by the concept of Saison, a new restaurant from partners Joshua Skenes and Mark Bright that is set to begin service one night a week only with a set menu. From the sound of it, after a few sold out weeks they'll likely be serving three nights a week, but this does serve as another example of ingenuity in the face of economically uncertain times in the restaurant biz.

Although he brought this up over a year ago, SF Chronicle's Michael Bauer needs discuss it again. Because nothing has been done about it. What on earth are we talking about? Perfume stink in restaurants. Bauer hates it; in fact, he even has a strict no perfume policy in the Food & Wine department. As he explains, "To me it's almost worse than secondhand smoke. I've had clouds of stinky floral perfumes engulf me as I try to enjoy my meal. Not only does everything end up tasting like a truckload of gardenias, I leave with a headache." Which: true. (Though, we have to add, it's not nearly as bad as Castro trash who sport tank tops and/or flip flops at eateries, which are acts of hostile selfishness.)

After making a TV appearance at some sort of Minnesota State Fair, Eater kicked off a search for famed SF Chronicle food critic Michael Bauer's elusive visage. (Oh God. Speaking of TV, did anybody catch the premier episode of Obsessed last night? Give it time; it has loads of potential. Because: remember the scene where, after arriving at the germophobic gay guy's jarringly immaculate Palm Springs home, the therapist whips out a tampon and says, "As luck would have it, I'm on my period," and then uses his pristine bathroom to insert a fresh Stayfree? Then, in a stroke that was nothing short of genius, she asks said obsessed gay guy to come look at her used tampon floating in his once -sterilized toilet? That's called TV magic, folks.) In record time, they found a photo of him frolicking at the Ferry Building in a mustard yellow top. Hungry for more, the fine people over at Eater are now requesting your help in finding other local food critics' faces. Help them out, won't you? (Update: Since most of you are new to the internet, or so it would seem, we've partially blocked out Bauer's face. In the meantime, here you go.)

San Francisco Chronicle food scribe Michael Bauer came out with his annual Top 100 this weekend. California and American restaurants, as expected, weighed heavily on the list. A few new additions were Jack Falstaff, Nopalito, and the Nettie's Crab Shack. And those that got cut? Bar Crudo, Cafe Majestic, Cav, Poleng Lounge, Shanghai 1930 (noooo!), Slow Club, and Tartine Bakery, just to name a few. Any of your favorites not make the list?

Everyone's had to do the dreaded parent intro dinner at one point or another and The Gate's Michael Bauer put up his list of suggestions of where to go. On Mike's list, we've got Cafe Majestic, Rubicon and Perbacco among others. Personally, we liked the suggestions of commenters more: Cassis, Zuni Cafe (pictured at left) and Rivoli for East Bay'ers.

The bay area Michelin Guide 2008 is out, and there’s not much changed from last year: the French Laundry is the only place with 3 stars (the most) in the wider bay area. Aqua and Michael Mina are the only 2 stars in the city. Those Michelin guys are so stingy with stars, Chez Panisse’s Alice Waters still clutches her lonely one. Jean-Luc Naret, the director of the Michelin guide, was handing out press copie this morning at a brunch at Bloomingdale’s. He was ebullient. We asked him about last year belly dancers controversy, and he was like, but they were there, the inspector saw them! It was “a writing error,” he added, “not a rating error.” We do writing errors all the time too! We can totally relate.

You know how sometimes we point out when an out-of-town publication takes an outside-in look at our fair city? We've pointed to such pieces in the L.A. Times and the Economist even recently. Well, our lovely sister site, LAist, did much the same, criticizing San Francisco Chronicle Food Maestro Michael Bauer's recent take on the L.A. Food scene.

Roasted Chioggia beets with nectarine juices & marjoram.

The Chron ran an article on Sunday that we really, really wanted to write some commentary on after reading it. "Food bloggers dish up plates of spicy criticism"; subhead "Formerly formal discipline of reviewing becomes a free-for-all for online amateurs." We really wanted to say something because, well, we think it's a huge load of crap, and somebody, aside from one of the injured parties, has to call bullsh**. For crying out loud, they upset our beloved Tablehopper. They took her quote out of context. How dare you, sirs. How dare you?

The new Michelin was stingy with stars for San Francisco: no 3 stars restaurants (the only one in the wider bay area being the French Laundry in Napa), two 2 stars (Aqua and Michael Mina), and a 12 one stars (Fleur de Lys, La Folie, the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton, Rubicon, Bushi-Tei, Quince, Range, Acquerello, Masa's, Gary Danko, Boulevard, Fifth Floor). Alice Waters got only one tiny puny star for her Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Spanked!

Taquerias can be fun to discuss and debate but watch out! Everyone has their own opinion. Our wallets especially love them, and we live in the Mission, where we are able to do our own "trial by taqueria" tasting and experimenting. However, we feel it's best to take Burritoeater's approach of alternating days (up to three, if possible) between taqueria visits.

We have so far stayed out of the debate about the fancy, high-end restaurants in the city, except for the occasional snide remark. Snark is cheap: We just make cynical jokes when Michael Bauer decides which places are worthy of his attention or not, or when chef Daniel Patterson complains about the lack of culinary imagination of the leading restaurants. We sat on the sideline too long, and it's time to toss our hat in the ring.

Check out that cute logo: the Assocation of Food Journalists just handed out its awards this past weekend, so we would like to congratulate all our San Francisco winners: Bonnie Wach, the excellent contributor of the San Francisco Weekly, which thus gets a step ahead in the hotly contested weekly of the week competition. Who ever said the Weekly food critics were underperforming? Awards also went to Julie Kaufmann, of the Merc, for best food section, and to the Chron’s Miriam Morgan, Linda Murphy, Carol Ness, Michael Bauer, Craig Lee for best food section, best photography, best feature writing, best news reporting, etc. The Chron sure racked them awards. Congratulations to all of them.

We've always been of the opinion that people who do an excess of reviews (movie critics, people employed as food critics, etc) often lack perspective and, therefore, the ability to make their judgments relevant to the common reader. Your Trimethyldioxypurist? Well, we'll admit, we're a full-blown caffeine addict. We need it to function. We may be coming at it from a different place than some of you.

Sam Breach of Becks & Posh bravely opened up a copy of 7x7 magazine (San Francisco's answer to society mag New York Magazine) only to find her own name in it! Of course, 7x7 doesn't have any of their content on-line (for shame). From Sam's report, the article looks at the influence of online critics versus Chronicle bigwig Michael Bauer in terms of chef's opinions. Sam was nice enough to not only copy out this quote but to link to some of the best local foodies out there: