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ABOUT ME:

Name: Gutenberg

Location: Somewhere near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Occupation: BRPR (Bunrab public relations.)

 
the BUNRAB blog spot
 

Do you need to answer back? You can send me comments if you want to.

If I want to, I'll post 'em in this very blog.

-Gutenberg



 

November 17-22, 2008

 

go to next week's blogs

 

  Saturday, November 22, 2008
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Alameda was shaking with music, food and libations during this afternoon’s St. George Spirits Holiday Open House.

Lance Winters’:

... pain was transformed into our pleasure in the Agua Azul:

In his quest to chop up blue agave, Lance hacked his way through a variety of devices (including the destruction of 2 chainsaws.) He ended up using an industrial mechanism (designed for creating K-9 kibble) to tear through his prickly produce.

Cristal is the unaged distilled blue agave, Reposado is made from agave smoked (at T-Rex in Berkeley) and aged 6 months in used bourbon barrels. The Anejo also uses the smoked agave and was aged 1 year in used bourbon and French oak barrels. We loved our flight of these sensational, succulent spirits. The clear, crisp, floral Cristal, Resposado’s clean, balanced, smoke and the well rounded, almond Anejo. If you’re in the market for a local, Pee Wee Herman dance inducing beverage - look no further.

We sipped our way through the pear-fect de profundis, heirloom and absinthe verte and enjoyed cones of sliced Boccalone:

... salumi, nibbles from La Cocina and Recchiuti chocolates:

June Taylor brought a variety of her preserves:

... including a delicious fig port lemon thyme conserve made with St. George Spirits.

Jorg Rupf gave a talk:

... on Eau de Vie in the private bar upstairs as we sipped along.

Lou Bustamante:

... kept the energy flowing so there was no blockage of Qi.

No party can be truly hopping without Marcia Gagliardi:

We tempered our alcohol consumption with a cup of Recchiuti’s hot chocolate:

... made from pistoles (not powder) with an added hit of St. George single malt whiskey to gild the stilly.

We continue to be impressed by the distillation of talent at this Hangar that has swapped out airplanes for another uplifting craft.



St. George Spirits
2601 Monarch St.
Alameda, CA
510.769.1601





 

 

  Friday, November 21, 2008
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Bi-Rite Creamery always seems to have a line:

... screaming through the door to this concessional booth. We usually circle back for cone-centric contentment, but Chubby broke with conevention when he felt a calling to the mass of their sundaes. The coffee sundae ($6.50):

... with scoops of coffee-toffee ice cream, almond toffee, hot fudge and marcona almonds converted him into a man of the cloth napkin. The congregation of cool, smooth, crunchy, chocolaty, nutty, whipped-creamy, coffee goodness cult-ivated our devoted following making us truly believe that it will be a long time until our last rites.


Bi-Rite Creamery
3692 18th St.
San Francisco, CA
415.626.5600




 

 

  Thursday, November 20, 2008
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The combination lunch plates ($9.00 each) at Citrus and Spice are a choice from a list of 5 entrees and 5 sides. I went with the basil eggplant chicken:

... which was a mild medley of soft eggplant, mushrooms, peppers, chicken and basil served with a mound of rice. The taro fritters:

...were pleasing, polka dotted starch patties.

Chubby went with the chicken pad Thai with a fresh shrimp roll:

The noodles with tofu, spouts, green onion, egg and chicken were on the bland side without much in the way of textural interest and the shrimp cylinder had a nice dose of mint injected in this rice vermicelli dominant roll.

As far as combo lunches under a tenner go, this place provides reasonable belly ballast. I get the feeling that (as with most places) an a la carte order might deliver more of the promised spice.


Citrus and Spice
1444 Fourth St.
San Rafael, CA
415.455.0444




 

 

  Wednesday, November 19, 2008
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The time had come for us to rip out the tomato plants and pull off 13 pounds of unripe fruit:

... to make green tomato jam.

I saw the notes on the recipe and only used a third of the prescribed sugar and cut down on the cinnamon stick but added star anise and rosemary. A toast worthy way:

... to put up what we tore down.


-G





 

 

  Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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High Rise - or - Dude, where’s my carbs?

Chronic cappuccino? If you take your coffee break at 4:20, hemp milk:

...may have pot-ential, but we bypassed the maryjane for joe at the coffee joint today.

We’re always a little wary when we enter Comforts since we have experienced a lot of dis at this cafe and deli, but the person who helped us today didn’t scold an elderly person or dispense abuse along with the chow...she was actually very nice (maybe there is something to this hemp milk stuff).

We went with some Dee’s mini organic donuts (80¢ each):

...in pumpkin spice and Meyer lemon which weren’t our thing. It’s not that they were bad, the lemon glaze had a good citrus kick but the cake loop didn’t hold enough textural interest for the elevated expectation inspired by the outlay of dough. I applaud their use of organic ingredients, but feel Iliad-ease with these diminutive doughnuts. It seems that my taste in the dough-minion runs too lowbrow to be in Dee’s target audience.

In retrospect, I should have gotten baked on one of Comforts’ spliffy beverages to round out my appreciation with THC of the mini munchies made with TLC (although they claim to weed out all of this chemical compound before it hits your latte.)

This is a good place to feed your inner Woody Harrelson (but I’m trying to starve mine out.)


Comforts
335 San Anselmo Ave.
San Anselmo, CA
415.454.9840

Dee’s Mini Organic Donuts





 

 

  Monday, November 17, 2008
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An assortment of crostini ($9.00):

... topped with white bean sardine, dino kale pecorino and chicken liver spread were a trifecta start to our Delfina dinner.

Chubby dove into his house-cured anchovies ($8.50):

...swimming in a pool of olive oil with a radish, cuke and arugula salad.

We went with a friend who doesn’t eat animals and the vegetarian options turned out to be limited (since they used chicken stock in their squash risotto) so she went with the spaghetti with tomato sauce.

They were cool about leaving the pancetta off the side of Brussels sprouts ($7.50) and the chard ($7.50) came without animal enhancement. Both were examples of pristine produce procurement.

My petrale sole ($28.00):

...with olives, capers and dried tomatoes was moist, fresh and fintasticly flavored with briney, bulbous, bystanders.

Chubby’s lamb shank ($25.00):

...fell off the bone from its long braise. Carrots and gremolata added flavor fragments to this fregola festooned feast.

The service was friendly, accommodating and efficient and the chow continues to impress by their not mucking around too much with good quality ingredients (but it would be nice to have an additional vegetarian offering.)


Delfina Restaurant
3621 18th St.
San Francisco, CA
415.552.4055

 

Mark your Calendar

The St. George people know how to throw a party. Not only do they infuse the crowd with luscious libations, there is also always noteworthy nosh.

This Saturday is the Holiday Open House which will be swirling with their swell spirits to wash down bites from Boccalone, June Taylor, Recchiuti and La Cocina.

You can get a jump on your holiday shopping and there will even be Absinthe Verte and the De Profundis to sample for a ten dollar supplement.

If you are the type to get a Hangar-One-over, you can take advantage of the free shuttle service to the West Oakland BART station and the Alameda Main Street Ferry.


St. George Spirits Open House
Saturday, November 22nd, 1-6 p.m.
$30 in advance, $40 at the door - legal drinking age only
Hangar One
2601 Monarch St.
Alameda, CA
510.769.1601





 

 

 


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