Photo by jimheid/Flickr When ordering an after-dinner tea at Slanted Door, you'll be asked, "Smokey or floral?" This is what you get with "floral." Isn't it loverly?......

Man, we can tell how long we've been doing this by the number of Zagat posts we've amassed! The 2008 edition is out: your nice alphabetical list of restaurants with a grade for food, decor and service, as rated by the users of Zagat. This year, it is going 2.0, with the introduction of such spiffy new things as colors, as in two of them, black and red! Post-it "love it" tags to customize your......

--Picture of a woman collecting bottles from people in the iPhone line by reader zombie. Thanks for sending them in, zombie! [ZombieTime.] --Four murders in San Francisco this weekend, 10 murders throughout the Bay Area. One guy was stabbed in the back at Columbus and Union (by Washington Square Park). [Chron.] --Spotted: Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Siebel on a dinner date at the Slanted Door last night. [from a reader!] --The Chron Sunday Styles......

We're back! Until our editor returns from vacation, that is. --Daly's not wearing green beads anymore. --They're opening a Trader Joe's in Oakland! --Wild pigs contaminated your spinach. --There was a minor fire at the Slanted Door yesterday at the Ferry Building. --Surveying the homeless in Golden Gate Park --Gelato wars in Los Gatos --Was it sexism that only scantily-clad female cheerleaders were suspended after a Halloween party last year? Picture from the SJ Merc......

Sure, we talk all big about how we're above crass materialism and how yuppie bastards are ruining this town for us Missionistas -- but okay, we'll fess up: we are extremely excited about the Westfield San Francisco Shopping Centre's reopening of the old Emporium space on Market and Powell this Thursday (the 28th). Cross your fingers along with us that the opening ceremonies will include Gavin cutting a red ribbon with a big ol' pair......

We did not really expect to meet with Dr Evil, but we really wished Nina Zagat would do some air quotes here and there. The quote is the hallmark of the guide. Could she do them when she talks about the "laser" or the "tractor beam"? No such luck. Come on, not even once! Boy, were we disappointed. The Zagat 2006 is out, and it's the 20th anniversary of the SF edition. So we got to hang out with Nina in her suite at the Four Seasons. She did not wear a burgundy jacket either, but she was like her guide: passionate about food, yet very organized. She was still raving about her lunch at the Slanted Door, and especially the excellent jasmine tea she had. ...

It is no wonder that, when stealing the word amuse-bouche from the vocabulary of French cuisine, Americans commonly take only the first part, and unceremoniously dump its trailer. The First Amendment covers the freedom to butcher the French language, we cannot let old Europe's silly traditions straight-jacket the American idiom into a convoluted and elitist language. So amuse it is. Still, some of the silly French cooking traditions find a way to creep back......

You know we love San Francisco. You should also know that we hate the fact that nobody f**king delivers (coming soon to an SFist Rant near you). So when we heard about a new service that delivers gourmet food to your door, we got excited. But, of course, there's a catch. You have to cook it yourself. That's right, via Contraversion, we first heard about Besos Foods. They do all the shopping (primarily from......

While it's very hard to encapsulate an entire year, here are some the things that stand out. GOOD STUFF Sports: Swimming star Michael Phelps. He could have entered fewer races to help ensure better results in his best events, but he didn't -- he participated in every event in which he had a shot, putting it on the line for Team USA. He also gave up his spot in the 4x200-meter relay finals to give......

To paraphrase and bastardize Six degrees of Separation, San Francisco is like 18th century Florence, with brilliance on every corner. Here, EssEffist humbly attempts to give you a shapshot of that brilliance, as seen through the pages of this week's local food media....