Daily Feed - September 11-20, 2010

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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

September 11-20, 2010

go to next week's blogs

Monday, September 21, 2010
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Cell phones and wifi cross the line:

... at Borderlands Café where caffienators must wire themselves without cloud computing. A cloud of steamed milk foam capped my 'ccino:

... in this café conjoined with its scifi and horror book business.

This nofi zone is a nice nook for off the grid grinds.

Borderlands Café
870 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA
415.970.6998

Sunday, September 19, 2010
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Zut! has only been suited up for the last few weeks but they are already doing a brisk business in their Fourth Street digs.

A refreshing 2009 Fallegro Gagliardo Favorita primed our palates with a grapefruity greeting.

Meatballs ($9.00):

... were served in a nicely balanced tomato sauce with grilled pita. Perfectly ripe avocado and grated Pecorino capped these lamby lumps in this bleat meat treat.

Smelts ($7.00):

... were dealt with aioli and lemon after a roll in flour and dip in the fryer. These fries with eyes were our kind of crispy critters.

They don't have a wood burning oven, but they achieved a nice blister to the borders of the sausage pizza ($14.00):

... which they gilded with eggs and lightened with arugula. This mozzarella melded, tomato and pepper-punched pie partnered pleasantly with the 2007 Etna Rosso Nerello Mascalese.

Pork roti ($23.00):

... rolled into our bellies with a warm potato salad. This olive oil dressed, pistachio punctuated, kalamata tapenaded dish was strewn with watercress. We savored the cracklin edges and anointed the oinker with the olive spread and washed it down with a 2008 Montpertuis Cotes du Rhone.

Michele Wimborough 's light hand with the sucrose made her desserts sparkle. The muscavodo pot de creme ($7.00):

... with crisp whole wheat hazelnut sables was a pleasing pudding with nutty notes. The moist chocolate torte ($7.00):

... with a cap of whipped cream had an acidic accent from a moat of blackberry and raspberry sauce.

We caught Chef Jim Wimborough:

... hard at work as we sauntered out of alluring Zut!

We'll have to return to explore their cocktail program and upcoming wines on tap.

Zut! Restaurant
1820 Fourth St.
Berkeley, CA
510.644.0444

Mark your Calendar

Last year's cocktail week was seriously excellent - from the kick off party at Le Colonial to the epic Epic festivities and this year promises more of the same.

Whether you want to crawl with Dominic Venegas, tour Distillery No. 209 or hang at Hangar One there is an event for you. For instance, you can dust off your polyester suit to attend Martin Cate's history of the fern bar on Saturday, Sept. 25th. You will ponder the Wallbanger, learn that the Tequila Sunrise is not just a hokey song and discover the culture behind the 'tails as Cate leads you through this Galliano and Charbay sponsored seminar at Elixir.

There are too many events to list here, so check out the official site for all the deets.

San Francisco Cocktail Week
September 21-27, 2010
Various locations

Saturday, September 18, 2010
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The Plate by Plate benefit for APA Family Support Services filled San Francisco's Terra Gallery with community minded collaborators at this first annual tasting event.

Chef Dominique Crenn's compressed watermelon composition was capped with poached shrimp, basil "soil" and avocado ice:

This marvelous merger of melon and mer showed off her Michelin Star touch:

A ceviche:

... from the crew from Georges was a marinated, maritime, protein punch. This acidified arrangement hit the seafood spot.

Nicola Dellamorte of 54 Mint:

... brought innocent looking meatballs in tomato sauce:

... but the pomodoro pool surrounding these stellar pork and beef orbs had a satisfying depth which he attributed to his grandmother's recipe.

Chef Nick Balla's:

... beef tataki with grated daikon:

... had us tatalking about how we need to go to Nombe for more of his swell chow.

Yoshi Murakami of Boutique Sake poured:

... a subtle, citrus-kissed Fukuchi 3 man 2 sengoku Junmai Daiginjo and an earthy Iikaze Junmai Daiginjo that we adored:

We ran into cnet-lebrity Brian Tong:

... who was enjoying his apps with 'tizers.

5A5's hamachi shooters:

... were on target. These yellowtail, avocado, ginger, yuzu, tobiko and ponzu chambers were armed with a kick of hot pepper.

Guests bid between bites as they perused auction items at this fantastic fundraiser put on by Project by Project.

Plate by Plate
Terra Gallery
511 Harrison St.
San Francisco, CA

Friday, September 17, 2010
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Ritual Coffee is a cybersquatter sanctuary. We managed to muscle our way into a couple bar seats next to laptop leerers who acquiesced to our plea for their parcels to be positioned off the last available chairs.

We sipped on our Gibraltar:

... and iced latte and our leisurely pace lapped the tops off those surfing and writing at this hipster hangout with craveable caffeine.

Ritual Coffee
1026 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA
415.641.1011

Thursday, September 16, 2010
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I wish they sold slices at Boca Pizzeria. It would have been nice to wedge one down one with my chopped salad ($11.95):

Ropes of smoked mozzarella, thick slices of salami and chunks of chicken were dressed delicately in this pleasant portion that required some supplemental slicing on my part.

The restaurant was echoingly empty:

... during my late lunch but the staff was still on the ball at this pie-centric purveyor.

Boca Pizzeria
454 Ignacio Blvd.
Novato, CA
415.883.2302

Mark your Calendar

The Public House's next third Tuesday dinner will spotlight Speakeasy suds including an exclusive bourbon barrel aged cask porter.

You can speak easily with the brewer who will be pairing his brews with heirloom melon and feta salad, braised beef cheeks and a warm chocolate croissant pudding. This brew and chew is a mere $40 per person (before tax and tip.)

If you are Glee-thusiast, you can catch your show in stereophonic sound on the big screen at Mijita. $10 sangria (san-glee-a?) pitchers come with free chips and salsa every Tuesday night during this season.

Check out all the deets here.

The Public House and Mijita
Speakeasy dinner
Tuesday, September 21st, 6-10 p.m.
Glee watching
Every Tuesday during this season
AT&T Park
24 Willie Mays Plaza
415.644.0240

Mark your Calendar again

Photographer and cook Eric Wolfinger will be focusing on helping Haiti during a special dinner at the Outerlands on September 20th.

Tartine, Delfina and Domain Chandon's donations in support of Eric's benefit for Mari-Med are a showing of community cohesion culminating in a 5 course dinner with wine pairings.

40 guests will enjoy Mr. Wolfinger's food enhanced by a 100% tax deduction.

Email for rezzies for this one night only event: reservations: ewolfinger@gmail.com

Eric Wolfinger
Benefit dinner for Mari-Med
The Outerlands
Monday, Septmeber 20
7 p.m.
4001 Judah
San Francisco, CA
reservations: ewolfinger@gmail.com

Wednesday, September 15, 2010
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The hamburger at Joe's of Westlake is everything a hamburger should be except for tasty.

I managed to make my way through the walker competition coming up the stairs and settled into a seat at the bar where line cooks were pumping out the chow for the crowded dining room.

My hefty, chargrilled, meaty mound ($9.75):

... was under-seasoned, under-garnished and bready, but to be fair, there are those who rave about this burger, so however bland I found it - they appear to be tuned into their core clientele.

Joe's of Westlake
11 Glenwood Ave.
Daly City, CA
650.755.7400

Tuesday, September 14, 2010
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Maguro marrow ($6.75):

... arrived in a bone henge formation at Yuzu Sushi and Grill.

Spheres of white gel sat on their boney pedestals and were served with a plucky ponzu sauce. I picked through these skellatinous blobs (dunking them in the citrusy solution) before savoring a selection of sushi ($23.00):

... with ika, suzuki, sake, hamachi, tsubu gai, tobiko, hotate, shiro maguro, amaebi, and yuzu tobiko.

All the nigiri was glowingly good at this humble hub of sparkling seafood.

Yuzu Sushi & Grill
54 37th Ave.
San Mateo, CA
650.358.0298

Monday, September 13, 2010
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WTF are these chiclet-sized ice cubes doing in my drink??? Seriously.

The accelerated dilution-rate in my Vieux Carre ($12.00) was an inconvenient truth in this warm weather, but there was no hint of a Kold Draft with these surface area-intensive masses. At least the Sazerac ($12.00) was okay during our visit to the Farley Bar at Cavallo Point.

Chili popcorn ($5.00):

... had planed lime zest to add interest to this little bowl of munching maize.

An oyster po' boy ($9.00):

... was costly due to the expensive shrink ray technology involved in producing this sub-sized-marine sandwich, but the crisp-crusted, juicy shellfish in a soft roll managed to amuse our bouches.

Gulf coast shrimp ($10.00):

... were perfectly cooked to highlight the fresh sweetness of these tail tidbits. These impaled bottom feeders were presented in a puddle of sucrose with a lump of aioli.

Even though our ingestibles were hit and miss, this bar is a nice place to have a relaxed conversation.

The Farley Bar
Cavallo Point
601 Murray Circle
Fort Baker
Sausalito, CA
415.339.4750

Sunday, September 12, 2010
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The San Francisco Brewers Guild hopped on board the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brian for another tour of the Brews by the Bay event.

Guests walked the gangplank:

... to gulp grog brewed by some of the area's budded talent.

There were cascades of froth fringed 'freshments like the magnificent Magnolia:

... taps pumping out their Proving Ground IPA and Oysterhead stout.

Cookie Elizabeth Faulkner:

... fed the troops shooting out nachos, fries and hushpuppies as well as BLT's ($5.00):

... made with bacon, arugula pesto and sundried tomato spread compacted and heated in a panini press. These crusty quadrants were just the belly ballast we needed to keep on on an even keel as we sauntered around sampling suds.

Thirsty Bear's:

... Golden Vanilla had more pod than we found 'pealing, but we relished their Rum Runner made with blackstrap molasses.

We bolted through Speakeasy's White Lightning:

... wheat beer with its summery sensibility before bolting down the gangway after a sensational Sunday afternoon.

Brews by the Bay
S.S. Jeremiah O'Brian
Pier 45
San Francisco, CA

Saturday, September 11, 2010
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We cone verged with our pals at MaggieMudd:

... for some lactose lumps. Our conical cuisine was capped with chocolate and a swirled chocolate coction ($3.75 each) which both churned out to be satisfying, sweet snackage.

They also make a variety of flavors for intolerant customers from soy and coconut liquids, but we found our scoops more than tolerable at this funky, little Bernal business.