Now in its seventh season, if you are not watching Check, Please! Bay Area, you are dead to us. Or, perhaps, you are dead for it is quite popular—especially with the local foodie sect (not to mention the famewhores who make cameos). Basically, four local commoners appear on the show. Said guests go to each other's favorite Bay Area restaurant, and then have a round table discussion critiquing their respective tastes in food and eatery selectional while getting lit on red wine. It stands as a brilliant review of our encapsulated area's class, gender, and wacky socioeconomic issues.
Among so many entertaining reasons why you should watch Check, Please! Bay Area, here are the show's greatest habitual archetypes:
5) Mr. Summer's Eve from the Mission who must recount his ordeal at a shopping plaza eatery in Walnut Creek where he dined on tuna tartare from a martini glass. He's very shitty about it, and then bitches about how vegetables should always be served crisp. Ha. Dipshit.
4) Mom from Corte Madera tells the chilling tale of venturing to a soul food joint in Bayview or the Tenderloin. She's freaked, not pleased, and couldn't find any goddamn parking. "Nothing you would cross the bridge for, that's for sure," she chirps.
3) The lesbian who makes everyone eat at a Berkeley vegetarian shed. No one wants to hurt her feelings about the mashed yeast or the [insert name of developing-world ethnic cuisine here] paste wraps. You can smell the liberal guilt emanating from the screen.
2) The engineer. There is always an engineer.
1) Host Leslie Sbrocco. Not only humorous with a delightful on-camera presence, she maintains poise in the face of prickdom or shyness while moving the conversation along swimmingly. (The guests are plied with wine before the cameras roll, which also helps.) We have nothing but praise for her and the show. She knows her stuff and yet also possesses a sense of humor—something so refreshing when to comes to the food scene's mix of self-importance minus self-awareness. Sbrocco is this SFist editor's spirit animal when he attends food events.
Season seven already aired, but you can check out episodes of Check, Please! Bay Area Thursdays on KQED 9 at 7:30pm. You can also view them online.
Also, you can meet Sbrocco and the entire Check, Please! Bay Area crew in person on Friday, September 14, at SOMA StrEat Food Park. According to Tamara Palmer, "At this special event celebrating the show, a crew will be filming and soliciting stories about your favorite food experiences for an upcoming episode." Admission, a mere $15, will include a glass of wine, with food available for purchase from such food trucks as "Garden Creamery, Kasa Indian, Smokin Warehouse BBQ, Golden Waffle, Slider Shack, Tres Truck, and Iz It Fresh Grill."