Michael Bauer added 26 new Bay Area restaurants to the Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants list, which you should pick up on Sunday, April 3, when the guide hits newsstands. It's an annual treat. And now, featuring parenthetical snap judgements and incisive remarks by your SFist editor, the lucky 26 restaurants are as follows:
1. A Cote, Oakland
2. Absinthe (Improved post-Top Chef Jamie Lauren? Oh snap.)
3. Angele, Napa
4. Bar Agricole (excellent chicken liver pate and deserts)
5. Benu (delicious cod semen)
6. Bistro Aix (another reason to venture out to the Marina)
7. Boubon Steak
8. Commonwealth (smack dab in the Mission's white-hot homicide arrondissement)
9. Cotogna
10. Farallon
11. Fifth Floor (These days, sitting at a table is for chumps. Fifth Floor has an excellent bar with old cocktail books to pore over. Perfect for those who like to drink alone. Like us!)
12. Gitane
13. Ippuku, Berkeley (Heh. That sounds funny.)
14. Mamacita (That sounds funny, too!)
15. Marlowe (Excellent bacon-deviled eggs, steak tartare, and other hot beef injections)
16. Mission Chinese Food (Perfect Chinese food soon to be co-opted by McSweeney's twee stench)
17. Morimoto, Napa (A restaurant helmed by a chef featured on a competitive reality cable TV show that, upon its opening, was taken very seriously by foodies and food critics)
18. Oenotri, Napa
19. Plum, Oakland (They don't even serve plums on the menu? Tissue of lies!)
20. Prospect (Here's our imitation of everyone at every food event over the past few months, "Blah, blah, blah dinner at Prospect last night, blah, blah, bthth)
21. Ristobar
22. Saison (See: Prospect)
23. Station 1, Woodside
24. Ubuntu, Napa
25. Waterbar (The worrisome Real Housewives of Orange County went here to film an episode. Or next door to Epic Roasthouse. We can't recall. Anyway, the RHWOOC had some sort of fight outside this place that was a pleasure to behold.)
26. Zero Zero (Our favorite place in God's universe. They boast a build-your-own soft serve ice cream sundae dessert menu, memorable pizza and pasta that lingers even after five glasses of wine, and the bartenders don't give you crappy attitude if you order a vodka cocktail.)
Speaking of Michael Bauer, the Chronicle food critic delivered a thoughtful blow to alpha-male Anthony's Bourdain tirade about the kicky muffin recipes and the James Beard Awards. Well worth your time.
