San Francisco Food Blog

It's a big week for bookish San Francisco foodies interested in sustainable farming, vegetarianism, and foraging.

• Tomorrow, Wendell Berry -- writer, farmer, and godfather of the organic farming movement -- appears at Herbst Theatre (401 Van Ness at McAllister) in conversation with Michael Pollan for a City Arts and Lectures event. The utterings of both are often quoted (Berry: "Eating is an agricultural act"; Pollan: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Perhaps tomorrow's talk will yield more gems. (The event is sold out, but in the past, we've had success buying extra tickets from attendees outside Herbst.) In any event, it should be altogether more civilized than Wednesday's equally booked appearance by David Chang (with Chris Cosentino, among others) at Cafe du Nord.

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Foer: Overthinking the porkchop?

​• On Thursday, Nov. 5, super-committed foodies might want to attend two high-profile events. Langdon Cook, author of Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, appears for a free discussion at Omnivore Books (3885 Cesar Chavez at Church) at 6 p.m.

• Then, at 8 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center (3200 California at Presidio), there's an appearance by Jonathan Safran Foer. The birth of the author's first child first child precipitated the comic novel Everything is Illuminated. A serious examination of the ethics of eating flesh resulted in his new nonfiction book, Eating Animals (the one-word response to the implied question of the title is No, by the way. Tickets are $10-$18 -- or wait till Friday, Nov. 6, and you can hear Foer for free at 7 p.m. in the Multicultural Community Center at U.C. Berkeley's Student Union (Telegraph at Bancroft, Berkeley).

We're no fans of the optimistic predictions that the recession is over. But October saw the fewest closures of San Francisco restaurants in the past six months. And for the ones that did close, new tenants were generally already in line.

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You still got roughly two months to get to Two.

​After changing Hawthorne Lane to the more casual Two a couple of years ago, David Gingrass announced that, along with the end of his lease at the close of this year, he'd be vacating the premises while pondering his next move. French Laundry vet Corey Lee has already secured the space for the upcoming Benu. Two (22 Hawthorne at Howard) remains open through December.

Meanwhile, the erstwhile San Francisco Brewing Company will become the Comstock Saloon, a new venture from the owners of Absinthe.

No plans have been announced for the next incarnation of the space atop the Embarcadero Center that spent two decades as Chevys. Nor for the storefront next to Lupa, whose owner -- Stefano Coppola -- tried out Bistro 24 for three months (Coppola's City Grill previously occupied the space for only six months). Got a sec? Read the short list of the 86ed (after the jump).

Poggio

Fit for a pig: White truffles shaved over Poggio's house-made tajarin pasta.

​Ah, truffles. Seasonal white truffles are now arriving from Alba in the Piemonte region of Italy -- same with black truffles from the Périgord region of France (they're also found in Spain, Italy, and Slovenia) -- and local chefs are celebrating the annual harvest of the gnarly lumps with special dinners and dishes.

Earthy, fragrant truffles are among the most expensive and rewarding of rare ingredients. The hard-to-find fungal tubers often grow at the base of trees, to be snuffed out by truffle-hunting pigs and dogs. Pungent in a way that's frankly sexy, they enhance everything from scrambled eggs to more complicated preparations.

• At Americano in the Hotel Vitale (8 Mission at the Embarcadero), executive chef Paul Arenstam references the annual Fiera del Tartufo Bianco d'Alba with his own White Truffle Week, Nov. 2-6. Truffles will be featured all day long, on all of Americano's menus (even room service), simple preparations that allow the aromatic truffles to shine. They include breakfast eggs with shaved truffles (served all day); risotto al tartufo bianco; pizza bianco con tartufo; and buttered fettuccine with truffles. All dishes are $45, and include five grams of white truffle shaved at table.

m. Brody

Mission Street Food's Anthony Myint (left) with Magic Curry Kart's Brian Kimball.

​A full house celebrated San Francisco's street-food scene at last night's panel discussion at the Commonwealth Club, The Street Food Movement: SF Hearts the Cart, moderated by SFoodie blogger Tamara Palmer. In fact, a number of the 250 in attendance were so inflamed by the prospect of sampling street-food wares at a companion tasting at nearby gallery space 111 Minna., they cut out of the auditorium early to go stand in line for treats.

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Charles Phan: Thinking about production is key.

​We were among the stalwarts who stayed to the end of the Q&A session, which -- predictably -- ended with the hopeful Q, "Any brilliant ideas for carts?" Brian Kimball of Magic Curry Kart, who's working towards becoming a licensed psychotherapist, responded, "Make what you're good at." The Slanted Door's Charles Phan, in his role as elder statesman and practical guy, said, "You have to think about time and salability. Production is really important."

The four panelists were collegial but wildly different. Soft-spoken professional cook Anthony Myint of Mission Burger and Mission Street Food was serious about making charitable donations (in his case, to organizations fighting hunger) part of the business plan. Gobba Gobba Hey's Steven Gdula, who turned to baking gobs when the recession made his freelance food writing career difficult, started baking a dozen pastries at a time in his home oven and has transitioned to being able to turn out six dozen in eight minutes in a commercial kitchen.

Promise you won't smudge the handrail of your BART car.

​UPDATE: The locations for the chocolate giveaway have changed. Find the current locations here.
Didja get your free Bay Bridge broken hot dog yesterday at Zog's? Still hungry for schwag? This evening, samples of Divine Chocolate will be handed out at a number of BART stations: from 4 to 8 p.m. at Montgomery in S.F., and from 5 to 7 p.m. at 24th Street in S.F. and at the Ashby and Rockridge stations in the East Bay.

Turns out October is fair trade month, and Divine Chocolate is fair trade-certified, co-owned by the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers Cooperative in Ghana, West Africa. We think it's only fair that your unfair commute is improved by bagging a bite of fair-trade chocs. For free.

Melissa Perello was born in Nutley, N.J., lived in Houston, and went to cooking school in upstate New York, but San Francisco is where the 32-year-old chef formed her restaurant bones. She arrived here fresh from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., to gig with mentor Michael Mina at Aqua. She later moved to Aqua's sister eatery, Charles Nob Hill, to work alongside Ron Siegel, eventually moving up to executive chef.

Perello: Not feeling S.F.'s raging pig cult.

​It was at Charles that Perello's California-inspired French cuisine won her a trophy case worth of accolades; 2002 Chronicle Rising Star Chef, three James Beard Rising Star nominations (2002, 2003, and 2004), and a spot on Food and Wine's list of best new chefs for 2004. She joined Fifth Floor as executive chef, and snagged a Michelin star in 2006. And yeah, that was Perello (with friend Anna Wankel) racing across San Francisco this summer in the hometown episode of Food Network's Chefs vs. City, battling Chris Cosentino and Aaron Sanchez.

Mondays, Perello's been drawing foodies to Sebo in Hayes Valley, for ingredient-driven menus with a whiff of American rustic. But these days, she's in the final throes of opening her own place in the Castro, Frances (3870 17th St. at Pond) -- look for it to open around Thanksgiving. It's named after her grandmother, with whom she spent summers cooking in Northern Texas. After the upscale settings of Aqua, Charles Nob Hill, and Fifth Floor, Perello is eager to offer seasonal American cooking, showcasing artisanal products from Northern California farmers, in a neighborhood setting.

SFoodie: What definitive moment made you realize you had to be in the kitchen?
Perello: No true definitive moment, really. I was just always a very strangely focused kid -- knew I wanted to go to culinary school by the time I started high school. My mom has a story she loves to tell of how she came home from work one day to find me boning out a leg of lamb. I was like 10 or something. I would watch cooking shows 24/7 (such a dork!) and try to re-create them for dinner. My grandmother Frances (the restaurant's namesake) was a big encouragement. I would spend summers with my grandparents and she was always cooking, me at her side, peeling, rolling, cutting, etc.

Flavors, ingredients, or techniques you have an irrational attachment to?
I'm big on braising or roasting almost anything you throw at me. If all else fails I love to throw it in the oven with a fair hand of seasoning, a little olive oil, and cook until the flavors of a slow oven make the ingredients shine.

Most overrated ingredient in S.F?
Pork everything ... not that I'm not a fan, a huge fan, cuz I am! And I cook much of it myself. Just a little oversaturated with hog exposure.

M. Brody

The chocolate ganache burger -- the bun's a hole-less doughnut.

​We still think the best thing about Hubert Keller's Burger Bar in Macy's (170 O'Farrell at Geary) are the sweeping views over Union Square. But, credit where credit is due, the two dessert burgers on the menu are cute, especially the chocolate ganache version, an exact simulacrum of a cheeseburger, down to the translucent sheet of jellied passion fruit doubling for American cheese. And at $5.75, they're bargains.

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The pineapple burger, with mint-leaf "lettuce."

​Special glazed donuts (sans holes), serve as buns (no longer warm as promised when they reached our table). The chocolate cheeseburger boasted mint-leaf "lettuce" and strawberries. There's a cheesecake version (for vegetarians?) enhanced by a round of caramelized pineapple -- much more substantial than the almost invisible pineapple wafer that failed to enhance a savory jalapeño bacon, Swiss cheese, and pineapple burger ($16.35, with onion rings).

Extra points for the swirls of strawberry sauce "ketchup" and the adorable mouse garnish composed of a puff of whipped cream, almond ears, and infinitesimal chocolate dots for eyes and nose. Excellent work, Burger Bar pastry chef! Minus points for Keller's insanely complicated Web site, complete with weird clicks and annoying techno music we could only manage to turn off on certain pages.

By the way, Keller now offers a FleurBurger at Fleur de Lys, inspired, apparently, by the ones at Burger Bar. The menu describes it as "lightly spiced dark chocolate ganache, home-made Beignet, cherry-flavored milk shake, & frozen fennel ice cream 'Pommes Frites.'" The prix-fixe menus there range from $72 to $95. But that whipped cream mouse is priceless.

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Something tells us they'll run out long before the bridge reopens.

​So maybe Caltrans rushed it a little with that Labor Day fix. Forced onto BART with the teeming hordes? Emerge from your sardine can at Montgomery station, walk over to the little yellow stand huddled near the One Post Street building, and claim your prize. Until they run out, Zog's Dogs will be giving away a free Bay Bridge Dog -- broken in half! -- to anyone who shows a BART ticket. (Print out a coupon from the Web site and you can score a free lemonade, too.)

Zog's Dogs One Post (at Market), 391-7071. Free dogs today from 10 a.m. until supplies run out.

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It was the summer of love for S.F.'s food carts.

​A reminder: SFoodie's Tamara Palmer is moderating a panel of high- and low-end contributors to S.F.'s street food scene this Thursday at the Commonwealth Club's The Street Food Movement: SF Hearts the Cart. Speakers range from Charles Phan of The Slanted Door and Anthony Myint of pop-up restaurant Mission Street Food to micro-moguls Brian Kimball, who operates the Magic Curry Kart, and Steve Gdula, baker of Gobba Gobba Hey. The panel will discuss what's coming up as well as what's going on, and will answer audience questions. "We'll discuss the very different paths and motivations that led our panelists into street food as well as the challenges of legitimacy, both in terms of licensing and technique," Palmer told us. "And then, we'll feast!"

Which means that after the discussion, everybody will take to the streets, walking over to 111 Minna Gallery (111 Minna at Second St.), where they can sample some freebies and purchase full-size treats from such heroes of the movement as Bacon Potato Chips, Bike Basket Pies, Crème Brûlée Cart, Gobba Gobba Hey, Magic Curry Kart, Mission Street Food, Soul Cocina, Sweet Constructions, and Smitten Ice Cream. "It should be a great snapshot of our local scene, especially for those who have yet to run around the streets looking for vendors," Palmer said.

The Street Food Movement: SF Hearts the Cart Commonwealth Club, 595 Market (at Second St.), 597-6700. Thursday, Oct. 29, 6:30 p.m. Tickets: $12 for club members, $20 for non-members, and $7 for students with a valid ID.

M. Brody

The books nobody wanted -- even as freebies. Sorry, Guy -- and Gourmet.

​We made out like a bandit at 18 Reasons' cookbook exchange last night. We're slightly embarrassed about it.

We already have a sister and two friends we regularly give castoff food books to, and we're pretty attached to the ones that remain. So we scrounged around and came up with a couple of paperbacks: Havana Salsa and The Bad for You Cookbook, plus a hardcover copy of Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood. Celia Sack, owner of Omnivore Books -- who co-presented last night's event -- greeted us at the door and placed our books on the proper tables, without scoffing. Rachel Cole of 18 Reasons served up wine and told us about two book clubs starting in January, one devoted to food writing and another to cookbooks.

M. Brody

Seriously? That's it?

​There were several hundred books to choose from, food-themed games, even a couple of recipe boxes. We ended up with a beautiful copy of L'Atelier of Joël Robuchon; Mark Kurlansky's brand-new The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food -- Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal (whew!); Eat My Words: Reading Women's Lives through the Cookbooks They Wrote; and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements. Thanks to a surfeit of books, we were all allowed to take one more than we brought, a haul considerably better (and cheaper) than the one we got at the massive Friends of the Library sale last month at Fort Mason.

Bravo TV

Wickett: Not totally bummed about getting axed.

​Laurine Wickett of San Francisco's Left Coast Catering made it all the way to Episode Nine on Top Chef, last night's infamous Restaurant Wars competition, by pretty much flying below the radar. Things looked tense in Episode Three, when the notorious pasta salad she helped concoct at an air force base sent fellow San Franciscan Preeti Mistry home. But though Wickett never won a challenge in the ensuing weeks, she never lost one either -- until last night's show, when she worked front of the house, forgot to describe the courses, and undercooked her rack of lamb.

She didn't seem entirely unhappy about losing. During today's post-elimination phone conversation, when we reminded her that Tom Colicchio blogged that he thought she was ready to go home, Wickett replied, "I think I was. I wasn't hungry to win. Maybe eight or 10 years ago, I would have been more competitive. When I wanted to be famous like Wolfgang Puck and was working 90 hours a week."

She auditioned for Top Chef on a whim. "I hadn't ever watched it. I didn't even have any idea that there was a Quickfire challenge on every episode! I wanted to help my business -- the jury's still out on that. It's given me a better idea of who I am as a chef. Being on the show made me lose focus at first, but then I realized that I cook from the heart, for my clients, to make people happy. Not to feed my ego."

Since leaving the show, Wickett has done an unpaid stage at Michael Mina. "Top Chef opened my eyes. I felt out of touch with what was going on in the food world. At Mina, I did a lot of grunt work, but it made me see a different style of cooking. As wonderful as that style is, with a lot of steps involved, it doesn't always translate into a comfortable meal. The food really becomes too precious."

M. Brody

Luis Villavelazquez: The Lewis Carrol of cupcakes?

​For the inaugural outing this morning of Arlequin's pastry stand on the south side of the Thursday Ferry Plaza farmers' market, chef Luis Villavelazquez put together an intriguing lineup of cupcakes, beignets, scones, and cookies with uncommon combinations of ingredients and flavor profiles. Cocoa nib cupcakes stuffed with huckleberry jam and frosted with violet-essence icing? Fromage blanc scones studded with figs and glazed with honey, or savory wheatberry scones slicked with olive oil? We'd put the imagination of the Arlequin (and Absinthe) pastry chef right up there alongside Lewis Carroll's.We wanted to follow him down the rabbit hole and try everything, but reality intervened.

M. Brody

Scones seemed perfect for the season.

​Our favorites were perfect for the season: the dusky scone excitingly perfumed with the pungent Indian spice blend garam masala, enfolding chewy bits of persimmon, and glazed with coffee ($2.75); and the autumnal squash cupcake, happily not too sweet, stuffed with pillowy cream cheese and topped with brown butter frosting ($2.50).

We also enjoyed the very chocolaty, dense, and lumpy chocolate cherry cookie ($1.75) and the classic beignet with raspberry jam (the same ones Arlequin makes for I Preferiti de Boriana in the Ferry Building -- $2.50). The modish beignet stuffed with maple/bacon custard ($2.50) was shocking in its intensity and fattiness: perhaps better for later in the day than as an eye-opener. But we'll happily open our eyes any time of the day with the split scone sandwiched with house-made pecan butter and glazed with Rittenhouse 100-proof rye whiskey ($2.75).

Arlequin Stand at the Thursday Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market One Ferry Building at the Embarcadero; Thu, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m., or until sold out.

M. Brody

Beignets (left) and cupcakes: lime/coconut, squash, cocoa nib with huckleberry, and chocolate chip with maple frosting.

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Tamara Palmer

Sweetiecups' "La Vie en Brie"

​We thought we were way over cupcakes, but as we told a friend, "If cupcakes were always as good as the ones we had at the SF Food Wars Mini Cupcake Clash, we'd be happy!" (Or words to that effect.)

Sunday was a perfect day for cupcaking in the delightful courtyard next to Stable Café, temperate and a little overcast. We were charmed by the scene: eager attendees, who'd paid a more-than-reasonable $10 to sample what turned out to be 22 different mini cupcakes, wandering down a Willie Wonka dream-alley lined with tables laden with sweets. Creativity abounded, in the naming of the teams as well as their confections, and also in costumes and the ineffable art of display. Who could resist the two mustached girls (Team Mustache, bien sur) who cooked up beer-flavored bites called "Guinness Gasm"? Or the Sweetiecups, with their carefully-decorated pear/walnut cakes iced with brie, paired with tiny cups of white wine? Or the three-tiered cheerful yellow-and-white-checked gingham stand of Hella Fat's "My Grandma's Bananas"?

Savory oddities included olive oil cupcakes with vinaigrette-flavored frosting, and bacon poppers hiding cherry tomatoes, iced with chive cream cheese. We loved the little bacon-and-maple syrup Piggycakes, too.

M. Brody

Sliders and a shake: The Cheesecake Factory with black truffles?

​Sliders and a shake: Is this the Cheesecake Factory with black truffles?​We blush to admit that we got caught up in the hype swirling around Hubert Keller's new Burger Bar. We showed up for a late-night snack on Saturday, its second day of operation, despite having visited the Fleur de Lys chef's Las Vegas Burger Bar shortly after it opened in Mandalay Bay in 2004 and leaving slightly less than, how you say, blown away. But hope springs eternal. Maybe especially when it comes to burgers.

Alas, once we entered the Macy's sixth floor space (reachable after store hours via a dedicated elevator) -- despite its Keller pedigree, the infamous $60 foie-gras- and truffle-slathered Rossini, its extensive beer and abbreviated wine list -- it was eminently clear that this is, after all, a chain restaurant, with all that that implies: beer-sign décor, annoying techno, mini TVs in the booths, T-shirts and mugs for sale, and indifferent service.

M. Brody

Channel surf 'n' turf: Booths come with their own TVs.

​The rather overwhelming, eight-page oversize menu offers a choice of four basic meats (Black Angus, $9.75; sustainably farmed Country Natural, $10.50; and American Kobe beef and buffalo, both $16.50) and four non-meat patties (veggie, salmon, and turkey, all $8.50; and chicken breast, $9.25), served in six different buns, with tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and dill pickles.

Special orders not only don't upset Burger Bar, the kitchen apparently craves them. There's a list of more than 50 add-ons for customizing your burger, ranging from the expected (cheeses and bacons) to the less so (asparagus, pineapple, and pesto) to the downright unexpected (black Perigord truffle sauce, grilled half-lobster, and black truffles -- the latter a whopping $30).

An 800-pound roasted steer was butchered in the museum's atrium. It was a first for SFMOMA, as well as for the excited crowd assembled for Saturday night's Futurist banquet: blood dripping on the floor as an 800-pound roasted steer was butchered on a huge wooden table in the middle of the atrium.

Knives, cleavers, and hacksaws were flying, all called into play by the all-woman brigade as onlookers stood within inches -- risking spilling their own blood, as they had minutes before when an enormous iron spit was pulled from the beast, after it had been bicycled in from the street. Clumps of the rare beef were plopped on a conveyor belt that ran through the room.

A female cadre of butchers hacked up the beast.​It was the central spectacle of a rather spectacular event, part of a showcase devoted to Futurism entitled Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism's First 100 Years. The carved beef eventually reached its audience in decorous slices, served on Tartine bread with mole sauce, bean foam, and arugula salad.

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OPENrestaurant, an art collective of restaurant professionals, greeted attendees with an array of unusual cocktails -- including, besides the inevitable absinthe-based one, an alcoholic gazpacho (this blogger's favorite), and one made with avocado and topped with candied orange rind that ate like a mousse. Edibles -- some more edible than others -- featured bruschetta topped with porcini foraged (illegally) in the Presidio, beet gelée and goat cheese molded into a (beeting) heart, hollowed-out tomatoes stuffed with halibut, taco cones stuffed with more beef, and (the most delicious dish of the evening), a stew made from city vegetables topped with pesto.

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All this was consumed with a backdrop of projected found images (interspersed with video footage of the butchers and cooks at work), industrial noise, Italian speeches, and music. Attendees included filmmaker Les "Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers" Blank, Davia Nelson of PBS' The Kitchen Sisters, Jonathan Marlow of San Francisco Cinematheque, and Hannah Eaves of Link TV.

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Did somebody just lose their sweet tooth?

​One a recent night in the Richmond, you could have furnished a small apartment with the finds left out on the sidewalk. On one block, we passed five chairs (three wood, two plastic), a woven wicker hamper in good repair, a Formica-topped coffee table, and box upon box of books and tapes (we snagged a Wallace & Gromit three-tape set for some parents we know who still possess a combination VCR/DVD player).

But who would fish chocolate pasties out of the box laden with lotions and body gel? On closer inspection, the contents seemed to tell a short story -- a rather tawdry one. Getting out of a home-based business, perhaps, due to changes in what Craigslist will post? Or just someone who lost their taste for sweets?

gretchen robinette/Flickr

This Jell-O wrestling scene from Bender's isn't even Freaktoberfest. Scared yet?

​The wacky Schmaltz Brewing Company is celebrating its blood-red Halloween lager, Coney Island Freaktoberfest, with an eponymous event at Bender's (806 S. Van Ness at 19th St.) this Saturday, 7-9 p.m.

In case 22-ounce bottles of beer brewed with six malts, six hops, and an alcohol content of 6.66 percent (get it?) isn't quite enough to get your personal freak on, consider this: For Freaktoberfest, Schmaltz has laid on an appearance by the Hubba Hubba Revue. Comedy! Striptease! Variety acts! No less an authority than SF Weekly named Hubba Hubba 2009's Best Burlesque Revue, featuring Bunny Pistol, Pin Key Lee, Sid Scenic, and Honey Lawless.

So make sure you're over 21 and bring money. Five bucks gets you in the door; inside, you'll get $1 off pints of Schmaltz's Coney Island Lager, and find $5 bottles of Coney Island Human Blockhead. Get freaky, people.

Fulk: He won't be inviting Padma over for snacks.

​In case you were glued to Glee last night, you missed Ash Fulk getting bounced from Top Chef. Fulk might be the nicest contestant ever. "I was outcooked," he said this morning by phone. And he wouldn't diss anybody on the show -- except for Padma. More on that later.

Born and bred in Pleasant Hill in the East Bay, Fulk worked as a prep cook at LMNO in Oakland (now defunct), did catering for the California Shakespeare Festival in Orinda, then crossed the continent to work as a chef on a farm in upstate New York for a summer. "Every chef wants to make it in New York," Fulk told SFoodie. He considers himself lucky to have landed at Trestle on Tenth, a Swiss-influenced New American restaurant in Chelsea.

The goateed chef, who never won a single challenge, thinks Top Chef's judging process is grueling. "It's very long and very nuanced. Even in a restaurant review, you don't get a dish broken down like that. Listening to people say 'you suck' 10 different ways." He even had something good to say about this season's bête noire, Robin. "Throw her some props, she's had a successful restaurant, which I haven't." But his courtliness vanished when it came to Padma: "I'm sure she's a lovely person, but I don't really want her at my dinner party."

m kasahara/Flickr

Divali central: Dosa on Fillmore.

​Dosa is celebrating Divali (aka Diwali or Deepavaili), the Festival of Lights, a holiday as important to Hindus as Christmas is to Episcopalians (okay, other Christians too). Starting tonight, Dosa is offering special Divali dinners at both locations (995 Valencia at 21st St., and 1700 Fillmore at Post); they continue through Sunday, Oct. 18 (Divali itself runs Saturday through Monday). Dosa chef Anjan Mitra's holiday menu includes chickpea and avocado salad, potato leek and red bell pepper soup, lamb biryani, spicy andrha prawns, spicy sweet scallops, and batter-fried chile bhaja with onion chutney. Mitra slipped us this unusual scallop recipe, which juxtaposes maple syrup and Thai chiles, in quantities suitable for two. Perhaps illuminated by candlelight.

Dosa's Spicy Sweet Scallops
Yield: Two servings

4 tablespoons maple syrup (preferably organic)
1 ½ teaspoons lime juice (more to taste)
4 Thai chiles, finely chopped
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 sprigs cilantro, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus more for the bell pepper
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
6 scallops
Salt and pepper to taste
Microgreens for garnishing

Look hard -- see the ginormous "L" on his forehead?

​Food52, a new food networking Web site from ex-New York Times food editor Amanda Hesser, has plans to publish a cookbook of its contributor's recipes. In the meantime, it's hosting a curious Tournament of Cookbooks. Bracketed just like a sports play-off, food52 has chosen its 16 "most notable cookbooks of 2009," to be judged by 17 "top food writers and chefs." The include Gwyneth Paltrow, in her GOOP guise, right up there with Harold "On Food and Cooking" McGee and Grant Achatz of Alinea and "I can't lose my tongue, I'm a chef" fame. The smackdown promises to play out briskly over the next three weeks, culminating in what food52 calls a "celebratory event" on Nov. 9 in NYC.

And there's an S.F. angle. The play-offs begins today with chef Daniel Patterson (Coi, Il Cane Rosso, the upcoming Bracina) choosing between two fellow star chef's cookbooks: John Besh's My New Orleans, and Real Cajun by Donald Link and Paula Disbrowe. More in sorrow than in anger, Patterson chooses the "more modest" but "pitch-perfect" Real Cajun over Besh's book, which he calls "gorgeous" but "too ambitious for its own good." Patterson winds up his well reasoned, thoughtful 1,000-word explanation with this: "My New Orleans is more impressive in scope, more beautiful, more at home on the coffee table. But when I'm cooking at home, it's Real Cajun that I want in my kitchen."

Ouch! Besh knocked right out of the box in Round One.

If you wanna ask Besh how he feels about losing, he just happens to be signing My New Orleans tonight at Omnivore Books (3885a Cesar Chavez at Church) from 6 to 7 p.m. Maybe afterwards you can all caravan over to Coi for drinks in the lounge!

M. Brody

Home, home on the range: The buffalo burger with sweet potato fries.

​We usually don't resort to looking up restaurant names in the dictionary, but when you call yourself Acme -- "the highest point or stage; one that represents perfection of the thing expressed" -- you're asking for it. Would you be shocked to know that Acme Burgerhaus, which opened late last week on Divisadero, offers a decent burger that isn't anywhere close to being the acme of anything?

M. Brody

Late weekend hours and beer discounts might be the tastiest things here.

​In a space slightly nicer than fast food, with five tables and arty photos of musicians on the walls (for sale at $250 and $550!), Acme offers your choice of eight different half-pound burgers: Niman Ranch beef, chicken, Boca, salmon, buffalo, lamb, and so-called Kobe beef, $6.95-$10.95 (add cheese for 50 cents more). Sides include regular and sweet potato fries, chili-cheese fries, and beer-battered onion rings, chili cheese fries ($2.95-$3.95). There's also a choose-your-own-toppings salad (spring mix or spinach, plus seven ingredients from a list of over two dozen, $5.95; add grilled steak, chicken, or tuna for $2), with a choice of four bottled dressings. Beverages are limited to soda and six beers on tap: Anchor Steam, Sierra Nevada, Amstel Light, Blue Moon, Pabst, and IPA.

​We tried the buffalo burger ($7.95), mindful that the mild-tasting meat is unusually lean and therefore difficult to cook accurately. Sure enough, our medium-rare burger came out closer to medium, but still slightly juicy. The toppings bar included romaine, pale tomatoes, thick-sliced red onion, good-quality dill pickle spears, and both sliced and pickled jalapeños, as well as the largest dispensers of mayo, ketchup, and mustard we've ever seen. Fully dressed, our burger was, well -- okay. Our favorite part was the grilled, glossy brioche-like bun.

M. Brody

The lunchtime Juicy Lucy: Half the protein, pretty much all the flavor.

​Fish & Farm offers you a lady-or-the-tiger choice: Do you want to spring $8 at lunch for the takeaway Juicy Lucy -- two 2-ounce Niman Ranch burger patties sealed around a core of American cheese -- or $14 at dinner for the 7- to 8-ounce Niman Ranch cheeseburger, covered with melted white cheddar?

Otherwise the burgers are, as a hostess told us, close cousins. The same grilled onions, house-made pickles, secret sauce, and toasted Acme bun. At lunch, the burger comes with fresh potato salad, and you can get it to go or perch at a table in the Fish & Farm dining room (sans servers), part of the restaurant's American Box lunch service. At dinner, there are fries on the plate, you can add Hobbs bacon or a fried farm egg for an extra two bucks, wash it down with a cocktail, wine, or beer, and command anything else you'd like from Fish & Farm's menu -- maybe six oysters on the half shell ($15), mac 'n' cheese with ham hocks ($6), or a chocolate peanut butter mousse ($9) that comes with chocolate ice cream, salted caramel sauce, and peanut brittle.

​Having sampled both day and night burgers, SFoodie knows they're juicy indeed. The lunch version goes down a soft and succulent treat; but if you want a charred crust, you're better off with the bigger, nighttime version (and ask for it that way -- blackened). The choice is yours.

Fish & Farm 339 Taylor (at O'Farrell), 474-3474. American Box lunch takeway: Mon-Fri, 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Dinner: Tue-Wed, 5-10 p.m.; Thu-Sat, 5-11 p.m. Closed Sun-Mon.

emilylucchettiblog.com

Who doesn't like somethng sweet and fluffy when it's nippy?

​There's a nip in the air, and we hear it might rain next week -- perfect time to whip up some tangy gingerbread. Emily Luchetti, executive pastry chef at both Farallon and Waterbar, dresses up the classic fall cake with apple compôte and a luscious apple sabayon. Check out Luchetti's blog for links to her three cookbooks (Classic Stars Desserts, A Passion for Ice Cream, and A Passion for Desserts) and more recipes.

Gingerbread with Apple Compôte and Apple Sabayon
Yield: one 9" x 13" pan

For the gingerbread:
1 cup molasses
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease the sides and bottom of a 9" x 13" pan.
Mix molasses, boiling water and baking soda together in a large bowl. Cool to room temperature. With an electric mixer, beat the butter and brown sugar until light; mix in the egg. Sift together the ginger, cinnamon, flour, and baking powder. Add salt.
In three additions, alternately add dry ingredients and the molasses mixture to the butter mixture. Mix thoroughly after each addition to make sure there are no lumps.
Spread batter into the prepared pan. Bake 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool before cutting.

M. Brody

Swish swish.

​Shabu shabu is the Japanese equivalent of fondue. It's a participatory meal you cook at table, dipping meats, seafood, and vegetables into a simmering broth that picks up flavor as the meal wears on. The name, legend has it, is onomatopoetic, from the sound a piece of food makes as you swish it through the soup. Shabu shabu = swish swish.

Bill Murray asks in Lost in Translation, "What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?" One answer: a restaurant that's both fun and delicious, as in Prime Rib Shabu, which opened 10 days ago in the Inner Richmond. The compact storefront is nicely decorated with gleaming wood, pierced-metal light fixtures, and Asian art, but the real focus is the hot plate at the center of every table.

M. Brody

Owner Luke Sung knows the value of good ingredients.

​There are five different shabu meals, or sets: thin-cut rib eye ($16.95), hand-cut extra-marbled rib eye ($18.95), thin-cut lamb shoulder ($17.95), seafood ($17.95), and vegetarian ($9.95). All the dinners come with chicken broth, two kinds of tofu (fresh cubes and dried yuba tubes), two kinds of noodles (fat udon and glassy vermicelli), enoki, organic ton ho (aka tong hao, spiky-leaved chrysanthemum greens), watercress, nappa cabbage, and lettuce, each of which you add to the broth as you like. The table is set with jars of chili oil, satay sauce, and chopped green onions, and Prime Rib Shabu's special fresh sauce (soy-based, with cilantro and jalapeño) arrives with the meats.

Food Network

Chris (left), we love you, bro, but tell us there isn't going to be a Season Two.

​We bow to no one in our love for chef Chris Cosentino. Incanto is on the short list of S.F. restaurants that (a) we unfailingly recommend to others, and (b) gladly spend our own money at. We're still dreaming about a perfect Cucina Povera meal there earlier this year, with an add-on of calves' brains cooked with Douglas fir fronds and pine oil. Pure genius. And we can never enter the Ferry Building without leaving with a few packages from Boccalone.

We get that appearing on television is part of the deal for chefs who want to build a brand. We've enjoyed seeing the telegenic, dimpled, earringed and tatted assisted-blond on everything from Check, Please! Bay Area and Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations to Iron Chef America. What's more, we were sad Cosentino didn't become the next Iron Chef, though proud that he lasted almost to the end.

So when the premiere of Chefs vs. City was announced earlier this summer, we set our TiVo's Season Pass. The Food Network show pairs Cosentino with the equally telegenic Aarón Sanchez of N.Y.'s Centrico and Paladar. We don't know quite what we expected, but what we got was a fake-macho mashup of The Amazing Race, Survivor, Fear Factor, and Man v. Food, with no more than a grudging nod to actual culinary knowledge or craft along the way. In each episode, our boys go up against local chefs or foodies to complete five food-related challenges, ending in a foot race for the finish line. (Suspiciously, there's a near-photo finish almost every time.)

It's waiting for you, down that aisle you never venture into.

​SFoodie bumped into this in an area of the supermarket we usually avoid, the zone where precooked meats like ribs and pot roast of the Hormel and Tyson variety lurk. But one weekend when we were far from the Mission, wandering Safeway and wondering what to have for dinner, we saw a package of Del Real carnitas. We took a chance.

Stripped of its glistening Cryovac plastic, the meat didn't look very promising; ditto when we released it from its taut plastic. But after only a few minutes in a nonstick pan (it comes with sufficient pig fat, so no additional oil or butter is needed), we had wonderful-smelling, appetizing-looking, moist, and amazingly delicious carnitas with the crisp edges we crave. If you prefer braised carnitas, chunk up the meat and steam above simmering water -- voila! (It comes with microwave instructions, too, but so far we've managed very nicely without that particular appliance, thanks.)

M. Brody

Microwave at risk to your soul.

​Del Real carnitas has just about replaced spaghetti aglio e olio as the lazy girl's supper chez nous. We like to roll hunks in tortillas with pico de gallo, corn relish, sour cream, and just about an equal weight of cilantro. We also like it fried, for breakfast or supper, with a couple of over-easy eggs, refried beans, and again, lots o' cilantro. Where we shop, it costs $7.49 a pound, and a single package is enough to feed four very nicely.

M. Brody

It's all about the rum custard inside.

​When SF Weekly named Dianda's Best Bakery some years ago, a reader (no fan of its cookies and cannoli) asked plaintively what to try there. (We're not totally convinced by the cookies, either, and at $14.95 a pound, three of them ran us $2.25 the last time we tried.)

Our answer: Try anything stuffed with rum custard, such as the adorable mini-croquembouche, which we order by asking, "Can we have one of the bunches?" ("Bunch" appears to be its secret name, but we've never asked for just a bunch. "A bunch of what?" would be the likely answer.)

Anyway, this funky bunch is four bigger-than-bite-sized creampuffs filled with the aforementioned custard, stuck together with a bit of caramelized sugar. Makes a nice centerpiece for a doll's tea party, or pluck them one by one and see how long you can make this sweet treat last. By the way, as of October 1, Dianda's raised the price on all its pastries a quarter, to $3.75. We still think they're well worth it.

Dianda's Italian American Pastry Co. 2883 Mission (at 25th St.),
647-5469.

A magazine cover from 1947.

​The long-time local blogger for Gourmet told SFoodie she was sad to hear that the 69-year-old food magazine's November issue will be its last. "You worry about who's going to do all that in-depth writing that we're all still very attracted to," said Peggy Knickerbocker. In addition to blogging for Gourmet, the S.F. food writer produced a handful of print stories for the magazine over the past two decades. Knickerbocker wrote her last online piece for the publication about a year ago.

Meanwhile, outgoing Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl managed to thank her supporters and write an ave atque vale in 139 characters (including spaces) via tweet: "Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I'm packing. We're all stunned."

John Birdsall contributed to this post.

​Like a lot of you, we were shocked and saddened to read this morning that Gourmet magazine, one of the jewels in Condé Nast's publishing crown, is to cease publishing after the November issue. Ad pages at Condé Nast have been falling off a cliff, but the smart money was on the impending folding of its more populist but less talked-about magazine Bon Appétit, or perhaps even on folding it into Gourmet.

We immediately ran to globe-trotting Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl's Twitter page to see what she had to tweet. (When we last saw Reichl in February, at the Berlin Film Festival, she told us how much she loved Twitter: "Privacy," she said, "is a highly overrated concept.")

The tireless Reichl -- whose new PBS show, Gourmet's Adventures with Ruth, premieres October 17 -- has been out on a book tour for Gourmet's huge new book, Gourmet Today: More than 1,000 All New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen. We'd read all about her late September Bay Area food adventures (Coi, Incanto, Berkeley Bowl, Chez Panisse, Flour + Water), and were pleased to read that, back home in New York on October 2, she awoke thinking about the "splendid fried chicken sandwich at Bakesale Betty's in Oakland."

But we found her most recent tweet, two days ago, very poignant (never mind haiku-esque): "Foggy fall afternoon. Cup of lemon tea. Outside the window a deer is munching on the lawn. About to start the Saturday puzzle. Happy."

M. Brody

Too small to contain all of Batter Bakery's goodness.

​Clientele at certain coffee houses and markets (including the Dolores Park Café and Rainbow) have been enjoying buttery Batter Bakery treats for some time. But until recently, Batter had no store of its own for sweets like cappuccino chocolate chunk cookies, butterscotch blondies, and chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting.

Happily for the city's sweet teeth, last month owner Jen Musty opened a retail outlet in the FiDi, at the corner of California and Kearny, in a circular kiosk not much bigger than a phone booth (remember phone booths?). It's not large enough to contain all of Batter's line, so a rotating roster of nicely prepackaged cookies ($2.25), small bites ($1.25), bars and brownies ($2.50), shortbread ($2.25), and cupcakes ($2.75) show up as Sweets of the Week.

M. Brody

Offerings change frequently.

​The pumpkin chocolate chip muffin we scored was immense, especially next to the smallish cream cheese-frosted red velvet cupcake, which looked dollhouse-size next to it. Our faves were the rich and moist-textured chocolate mint cookie and fragrant lemon almond scone. The kiosk is open early enough for breakfast (try the buttermilk pecan coffeecake) and late enough to grab something to accompany an afternoon caffeine break. We'll be stopping by in the hopes of finding Batter's signature secret recipe cookie, the Sand Angel, rumored to be a cross between a snickerdoodle and a molasses cookie, and yet somehow neither! Check the photo goodness after the jump.

Batter Bakery 555 California (at Kearny), 706-8076. Mon-Fri, 7 a.m.-4 p.m.