Everyone's favorite gut enthusiast Chef Chris Cosentino of Incanto is quickly solidifying his spot as San Francisco's king of offal, this hilarious Lips & Assholes t-shirt being his latest foray into cultural influence. Note the "lovely shade of hot dog pink," and the Mr. Hanky-esque wiener mascot. (via Eater SF)
-- Brian Bernbaum
Attention "young urbanists," if you haven't already heard, Oakland's Temescal neighborhood is the next best place to gentrify if you want to give San Francisco the slip. Dubbed "Gourmet Ghetto" in the Wall Street Journal, a cluster of news restaurants around Telegraph Avenue and 51st Street -- many of them opened by Chez Panisse alumni -- are generating wafts of "culinary movement" buzz. Among the fledgling eateries are Bakesale Betty, Pizzaiolo, La Calaca Loca and Cafe Mariposa.
-- Brian Bernbaum
Because Chef David Chang's commentary so perfectly distills the ongoing restaurant showdown between front of the house (waiters) and back of the house (cooks), as illustrated by the prolific reaction to the Chronicle's front page story "Chefs' high hopes, low pay leave S.F. restaurants starved for help," this post from November (Straight From The Chef's Mouth: Waiters, Go Fuck Yourselves) stands out as the SFoodie post of the year. Plus, how often do I get to type the word 'fuck' and actually attribute it to somebody else? Just for fun here's Chang's comment again, originally from his interview as one of GQ's Men Of The Year:
“I know nobody expects to make money as a cook, but cooks have to live, and they can’t live on $300 to $400 a week. It makes me mad that cooks are treated like shit and servers say, ‘Well, you choose your profession.’ Whatever you guys say, you don’t work as hard as cooks, so go fuck yourselves."
-- Brian Bernbaum
Although technically Brawndo doesn't count as food -- except possibly for plants -- I still have to anoint it the best new food of 2007 based solely on this hilarious ad, containing possibly my all-time favorite line from any commercial ever:
"It will make you wonder why you've never crushed a human skull with your bare hands."
Crazy? Yes. Does Brawndo taste like crap? Probably. But who cares when you've got advertising gold like this.
-- Brian Bernbaum
There's just something about this Japanese "Consommé Punch" potato chip commercial. Maybe it's the sad school boy. Maybe it's the scary-in-a-David-Lynch-sort-of-way dog. Maybe it's their tender friendship. Whatever it is, the commercial provoked my favorite comment of the year, from Keith:
"i nearly peed my pants when i saw this video, and i'm pretty sure my children will have nightmares about dancing dogs forcing them to eat Japanese potato chips encoded into their DNA just from me having seen this, but it made laugh, and it's not just because i've been up all night. well maybe it is, but it was still funny. 'CONsoomay, CONsoomay, CONsoomay PunchEE' gratuitous woot!"
-- Brian Bernbaum
It's shocking. It's disturbing. It's Canadian. And the worst part is that it's eerily realistic.
-- Brian Bernbaum
Chef Chris Cosentino of San Francisco's Incanto and The Next Iron Chef fame is known for his willingness to eat just about anything that comes from an animal. In fact he's known for his offal and organ meat boosterism, so it was with some shock and -- I must admit -- a little delight that I read about his recent adventure with the Philippine delicacy Balut. It seems even the great Cosentino won't eat it, which officially qualifies Balut as the most disturbing food of the year.
(via Eater SF/pic courtesy offalgood)
-- Brian Bernbaum
The history of SPAM told by an animated slice of toast, actually 220 of them, plus -- amazingly -- only one toaster. That's the Toastvertising promotion behind "The Book of SPAM," an epic overview of the eponymous canned meat: from the New Years Eve party in 1937 where it was named to its WWII-era introduction in Hawaii to the SPAM-mobile of today. A great gift idea for the one or two SPAM devotees left in the world. Also, don't miss the great "making of" video. (via Laughing Squid)
-- Brian Bernbaum
Nice job, Chronicle Bargain Bites. As Eater SF so eloquently puts it: "The Chronicle Inadvertently Ruins BYOB For Everyone." It seems by revealing that Afghan restaurant De Afghanan Kabob House has (rather had) a BYOB policy in a review last week, the paper alerted the Alcohol Beverage Control to the illegal practice. They then emailed reviewer Tara Duggan to let her know that they're watching. Thankfully Michael Bauer posted the email in his Between Meals Blog:
"A licensing representative at California Department for Alcoholic Beverage Control wasted no time in e-mailing Tara: "This is just a courtesy notification having to do with the restaurant located at 1303 Polk St. At the end of your excellent review yesterday, you mentioned that the establishment did not serve alcohol, but allows guests to bring their own. This is illegal ... At the present time, we do not intend to file against the restaurant, but will assign undercover officers to drop by periodically to make sure that the practice has ended."
Note the sinister use of the word "excellent," as in: "don't fuck with us."
(via Eater SF)
-- Brian Bernbaum
Who can argue with this disturbingly cute pro-pork cartoon? Aside from vegetarians, Muslims and observant Jews, that is. (via Weebl's Stuff)
-- Brian Bernbaum
The Chronicle reports on a clutch of bars in San Francisco that have dragged prohibition-era speakeasies kicking and screaming into the 21st century, complete with computer-generated rotating passwords -- Bourbon & Branch -- a novelty slide ("the fastest, creakiest, most dangerous contraption in all of San Francisco ... ") and turntables masked behind a baby grand piano where swing-era jazz is mashed up with techno -- Slide. It makes you wonder how much more fun getting drunk must have been when there was a law against it.
(photo courtesy/Slide SF)
-- Brian Bernbaum
I’m not going to do much more than link to today’s NY Times article about Meatpaper [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/dining/19meat.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin], because it sounds so much like my cup of chai that I’m going to dash out and see if I can find both the just-out second issue AND the first on a newsstand before I resort to sending Meatpaper [http://www.meatpaper.com/] $9.95 for the first issue.
So. After searching fruitlessly for the over-advertised 3 Musketeers Mint bar, I found that the thrill of the chase outweighed the thrill of the taste: my first 3 Musketeers Mint (a mini) did not taste like more.
But my first taste of Hershey’s Kisses filled with mint truffle did, indeed, taste like more, and induced in me a kind of lust that led me to the nearest Walgreens.
It didn’t really qualify as Wii-level madness, but I was irritated by the fact that I was seeing (or “seeing,” as I fast-forwarded with my TiVo wand) commercials for the new mint-flavored 3 Musketeers bar and yet was somehow unable to find it on the shelves of Safeway, Walgreens, or Longs (where have all the apostrophes gone?*), the usual place I stumble across cheap, mass-market chocolate. (Which, by the way, I do not disdain, either in theory or practice.
Like shooting highly caffeinated fish in a barrel, the ultimate map aficionados at Gridskipper break down some of the best and (not coincidentally) most expensive cafes in the city, brewers whose cozy lounge-ability is second to the really important part: the rocket fuel itself.
My top choices include the always amazing Philz Coffee, leading contender Blue Bottle and, of course, what can only be fairly described as the Starbucks of Mission hipsters, Ritual Roasters, where the attitude is at least as fresh as the brew.
-- Brian Bernbaum
