San Francisco Food Blog

J. Birdsall

The BBQ Pork Rib Plate: A successful mashup of snarl and finesse.

​In July, Ryan Ostler and Kat Zacher wadded up their aprons and split from The Broken Record, where they'd racked up critical hype as independent kitchen operators at the rough-edged Excelsior bar. They're back, this time at Bruno's (2389 Mission at 20th St.), cooking five nights a week (Tues.-Sat). Judging from dinner last night -- a week after they fired up the range -- the break from the Record was good for them. Their Southern roadhouse cooking blew us away with its mashup of country snarl and city finesse. If you've ever walked out of Wexler's feeling that Charlie Kleinman's rehabbing of American BBQ was too tidy to totally satisfy, there's a good chance you'll find deliverance at Bruno's. Plus, with entrees maxing out at $16 (half are under $10), it's satisfying in ways that have nothing to do with what comes out of the smoker.

J. Birdsall

Spciy Buffalo Wings: Electric.

​And what comes out of the smoker is amazing. Take the BBQ Pork Rib Plate ($16). Smoked over hickory and applewood, the West Texas-style ribs had a densely pebbled, espresso-colored crust, a sweet campfire perfume that somehow made you think of maple syrup, and a luscious, properly stringy texture. You didn't even need the accompanying sauce (not spicy, but subtly smoky).

An Oyster Po'boy ($8) had a tangy aïoli that threatened to overwhelm any sea-like nuance of the star ingredients, but was hard to fault. The yeasty tang of Tabasco turned Spicy Buffalo Wings ($7) electric. Even so, the most startling thing about them was the texture: crisp skin, juicy flesh you had to strip off the bone. Crisply fried shallots and tart yogurt dressing turned a Roasted Beet Salad ($7) from Cali set piece to American classic with a whiff of backwoods. And Zacher's apple tart dessert special with buttermilk ice cream ($5.50) was as texturally satisfying as fried pie.

J. Birdsall

The breakfast sandwich: Quietly deft.

​Used to be only prep cooks and cleaning crews who showed up early mornings at restaurants. But eateries are trying to get you in the doors -- whenever they can get you, frankly -- and if that means staffing up with a short-order a.m. line cook and server, so be it.

This morning, Bar Tartine joined Pizzaiolo and Salt House as members of the Bay Area's Breakfast Club, dinner-focused restaurants with casual morning service. Tartine's Good Morning Breakfast offers half a dozen options, a couple of house-baked pastries, and coffee drinks extracted from Four Barrel beans (though on day one, the java was Blue Bottle).

J. Birdsall

An apple fritter from Tartine Bakery.

​A breakfast sandwich ($7.50) of scrambled egg and house-cured bacon piled on a split biscuit was quietly deft: egg curds of almost custardy lightness and subtly smoky bacon on a biscuit with a buttery aura. Honestly? It was the sprinkle of mixed chopped parsley and thyme that gave the thing a kind of delicately weedy lift. Nice.

Poached hunks of tangy-sweet fruit studded a bakery-made apple fritter ($2.75). The soft-textured bran muffin ($2.50) was all about surprise, from the coarse-sand crunch of demerara that dusted it to the snarl of salted maple butter that came with.

Pretty much the most refined start to a Wednesday we can remember having.

Good Morning Breakfast at Bar Tartine 561 Valencia (at 16th St. ), 487-1600. Wed-Fri, 8-11 a.m.

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).

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.

J. Birdsall

Pozole, topped with a julienne of radish and finely shaved cabbage.

​Chilango opened a week ago, in the old Azteca Taqueria on Church in the Castro. Where you could once score a gut-busting burrito of middling quality, chef Roberto Aguiar Cruz is putting together Mexican street-food dishes remarkable for the quality of the ingredients. And they're hella tasty.

Cruz helped open Mexico DF (he's still listed as chef on the Web site), and before that cooked at Fonda in the East Bay. (The chef has family roots in the state of Nayarit on Mexico's Pacific coast.) His menu of two dozen antojitos, in this case, pretty hefty snacks -- almost all of them built around house-made tortillas or some other permutation of corn masa. It's not your everyday masa: It's from La Palma in the Mission, and contains a puree of nopal, or cactus. Not only does it tint the dough a pale green (the color pretty much fades with heat) and add a very subtle grassy flavor, but it yields tortillas with wonderfully rustic chew. Cruz claims Chilango is the only restaurant in the city that uses cactus masa. All beef and pork are Niman; the chicken is from Fulton Valley.

J. Birdsall

Tacos de suadero, long-cooked brisket turned crisp on the griddle.

​A trio of tacos filled with suadero (long-cooked beef brisket, turned carnitas-crispy on the griddle, $9) were fantastic, a hefty flurry of browned meat shards under a sprinkling of onion and cilantro. Tacos come with two salsas, a viscous red chile number so mild it was borderline bland, and a searing raw-tomatillo mash that more than made up for it. The kitchen's version of pozole ($10) is decidedly refined, with nuggets of dark-meat chicken and hominy in a guajillo chile-spiked broth with plenty of body, under a delicate julienne of radish and cabbage. Duck flautas ($12) were one dish that seemed to suffer from the toothy tortillas, rolled around shredded bird and deep fried. They proved a bit hard to chew.

The only thing harder to chew at Chilango? The prices, reasonable when you consider the ingredients and the kitchen's chops, but arguably steep if you can't quite shake the memory of those Azteca burritos. Cruz told us he's considering dropping the prices at lunch. But even at the present level, you won't find us complaining.

Chilango Cenaduria y Antojeria 235 Church (at Market), 255-7330. Open daily, 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.

M. Brody

The chicken porridge: An extravagance of crispy shallots

​It was delightful indeed to sit in the brand-new Out the Door Bush and peruse an alluring East-West morning menu that features chicken porridge (aka chao, congee, or jook) and phỏ as well as baked eggs with French ham and tomato coulis, and poached eggs with braised Niman Ranch beef brisket and crispy potatoes.

Sunlight streamed in through the glass window wall, illuminating a chic, spare décor that wittily juxtaposes hard surfaces (gray and white marble tables and counter tops) with soft (a pale wood wall and plaid upholstered armchairs). Alongside the long open kitchen is an impressively big oven, whose flickering flames roast pork and fish for lunch and dinner.

M. Brody

Coffees, with coconut-jam-filled pull bread.

​We drank Vietnamese iced coffee ($3.50), and French press coffee (single $3, double $6), nicely served in a silver pot, and picked at a warm coconut pull bread ($5), a three-leaf-clover affair, each leaf filled with luscious house-made coconut jam.

The chicken rice porridge ($7) was haute nursery food, flavored with the exciting, herbal, ever-so-mildly soapy, and bright green leaves of rau ram, topped with tender shredded chicken breast and an extravagance of crispy shallots. Two poached eggs from Sun Hill Farms spilled their golden yolks over the diced braised brisket and equally small crispy potatoes ($13), a deconstructed hash.

J. Birdsall

Ironside's interior marks the juxtaposition of manly and vintage.

​Not two blocks from AT&T Park, it was opening day of sorts. District spinoff Ironside opened for breakfast and lunch today (happy hour and dinner starts next month, reportedly). By 12:15 a line snaked from the counter to the sidewalk; half an hour later, it'd shrunk by half.

Spread over two floors in the 1913 Chronicle Books building (it was the machine shop for a factory specializing in warships during WWI), the loft space is all exposed brick and splintery wood, with swaths of gunmetal blue, Danish modern tables and chairs in teak, and a huge retro billboard hyping beer. In other words, a solidly manly vibe that honors the building's past.

J. Birdsall

Flammenkuchen to go: Instantly devourable.

​The lunch menu is strictly of the moment: meticulously flat-crust pizzas (in 9- and 11-inch configurations), salads, sandwiches. Flammenkuchen flatbread (an adaptation of an Alsatian quiche-like tart -- $11 for the 9-inch) was delicious -- a crust as thin and brittle like some gargantuan Pop chip, smeared with crème frâiche, dotted with globs of caramelized onions (they tasted a bit like ale) and unselfconsciously fatty lardons of smoky bacon. We couldn't stop eating.

A porchetta sandwich ($9) was slightly less lovable, if only because its inspiration seems to have been a turkey on white. Not content to be merely soft and slightly fatty, the thin slices of roasted pork sort of melded with mayo and melted scamorza cheese in a pale, seriously rich stratum.

Ironside 680A Second St. (at Townsend), 896-1127. Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-4 p.m. (for coffee); lunch is Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

M. Brody

The fully loaded No. 31.

​When we saw that the Quizno's down on Bush near Battery was gone, replaced by a place called Hi-Tea, we assumed the newcomer was one of those Asian bubble tea spots, like Tapioca Express or Quickly, with an array of little snacks appropriate to the name.

When we visited the immaculate, even chic storefront yesterday, we were delighted to find both a charming setting, and that a more appropriate name for the place might be Hi-Phở. Perplexingly, Hi-Tea is rather light on
the beverages (milk tea and a few flavored fruit teas with tapioca, $2.75) and snacks (a limited line of Fiorello gelato, $3.50-$4.50 the scoop). But it offers 14 varieties of phở (identified only as "beef noodle soup, Vietnamese style"), for $6-$6.25 the generous bowlful. Beef is the only option available, in combinations ranging from a single item (beef ball or steak, say) to several. We chose the fully loaded No. 31: rare steak, well done brisket, flank, tendon, and beef balls. You order at the counter and a tray is brought to your wooden table, from which, through potted palms, you can admire both the passing parade on Bush and the judiciously chosen art hung on purple and yellow walls.

M. Brody

Who knew? The dining room is modestly chic.

​The phở's presentation was glamorous, in stoneware on red and black lacquer, though the herb-and-vegetable side plate was meager (only bean sprouts, a few sprigs of Thai basil, and a lone stem of cilantro). But the broth was tasty and the quality of the meats uniformly excellent. We especially enjoyed the firm little five spice-scented beef balls, rather like mild sausage. This was Hi-Phở indeed.

The place could also be called Good Morning Vietnam, since it offers Vietnamese spring rolls ($3.95) and five spice-grilled chicken or pork chop over rice ($6.25). China represents via baked rice Hong Kong style ($6.50-$7.50), served with your choice of coconut, tomato, black pepper, or cheese sauces. Pure comfort food -- and workers in those nearby high rises could certainly use some comfort these days.

Hi-Tea does both a brisk lunch business and a second wave, near closing time, at 5:30, when office cube denizens heading for home pick up expertly packaged takeout. Hi-ho BART and Muni.

Hi-Tea 110 Bush (at Battery), 391-3322. Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Sun.

M. Brody

Beef tenderloin crudo, with mouth-searing rocoto chiles.

​Hotly anticipated Bocanova teased visitors to Eat Real by turning them away from its pre-opening meals. The pan-Latin eatery opened for real on September 1.

At lunch on a muggy afternoon just 10 days in, we chose the lofty dining room over the extremely tempting patio with port view. There are lots of dishes on the menu, including raw bar offerings of halibut ceviche ($9), Dungeness crab deviled eggs with chipotle aioli ($9), black bean soup ($7), and burnt carrot and arugula salad with avocado vinaigrette ($9).

M. Brody

Bocanova's lofty, color-splashed dining room.

​But we felt carnivorous, as well as corny. We tried beef tenderloin crudo ($8), tender rosy raw beef, oiled and topped with crunchy jicama and carrot strips, bitingly hot minced rocoto peppers, and fat fried capers. Two crisp little empanadas ($5) were stuffed with smoky sautéed mushrooms and sweet corn kernels, dressed with a bit of lime crema.

Three fat-rimmed strips of chewy, flavorful Mishima Ranch short-rib steak ($16), served charred rare as requested, were draped atop a fruity and assertive, happily undersweetened pineapple ancho salsa. And Brentwood corn ($6) was grilled, slicked with lime butter, and flecked with parsley. Everything was tasty, but no single dish made us sit up.

M. Brody

Grilled Brentwood corn with lime butter.

​We didn't have room for dessert, but admired the look of cream-cheese flan ($8) in its fancy wrapped presentation, served with organic huckleberries, strawberries, and candied grapefruit and rose petals, served to a neighboring table.

We would have enjoyed our cucumber gimlet more if we didn't remember with every precious sip that it cost $13 (cocktails range from $10 to $14). There are bargains to be had on the wine list, which features Spanish and Portuguese wines as well as North and South American ones.

And there were service mishaps that can turn a hot meal lukewarm -- dishes not appearing in the order requested, toted by servers with no idea which one of three side-by-side tables they were intended for. The boxed-up remains of grilled steak never made it back to our table -- we had to mount an intervention. But those are gaffes you have to overlook in a restaurant still finding its legs. And Bocanova's setting -- its bayside location and glamorous room -- is swell, and the menu intriguing. We'll give the place another whirl.

Bocanova 55 Webster (at Jack London Square), Oakland, (510) 444-1233

The falafel sandwich: A handheld mezze platter.

​Today marked the San Francisco debut for Liba, Gail Lillian's taco truck turned falafel wagon, splashed with tendril-y design elements and an electric honeydew-green color scheme. Its location: a strip-like lot skirting an old loading dock at 155 De Haro (at Alameda), behind Showplace Square East in the Design Center district, at the base of Potrero Hill.

Sweet potato fries come sprinkled with persillade.

​

The limited menu offers falafel sandwiches and bowls, with fries and quirky bottled soft drinks like Boylan's seltzer from New Jersey. The falafel themselves? Pretty much textural elements, craggy and free-form, like hunks of dislodged popcorn ceiling turned brown and savory. The real focus of Liba's falafel sandwich ($7.50) are the salads, spreads, and relishes that turn it into a kind of handheld mezze platter. You get to pick three

The optional hummus may've been little more than a line of subtext wrapped in tahini bitterness, but Liba's olive-orange relish with thyme (again, optional) was the falafel's spiritual thesis: a rush of salty kalamata tannins that nudges the whole thing into the realm of epic. A tomato cucumber salad (our third option) was all about goodness of the central element: ripe, deep red, and tender, and with lush tomato sweetness. All that, plus a flurry of feta crumbles and a neon-sour dill and cardamom pickle, and with self-serve garnishes like rosemary peanuts and sumac onion relish. We couldn't even taste the smear of chimichurri paste the menu promised would be there.

The truck parks in a lot that fronts an old loading dock.

​Good thing the pita bread is thicker than you're used to. Liba owner Gail Lillian sourced it from Hamati Bakery in San Bruno. White and faintly spongy like exceedingly flat focaccia, but with characteristically pita brittleness.

Thick sweet potato fries ($3) are sweet and palpy, vaguely crisp, and yet far from flaccid. The taste is all about browning reaction, perfumed with a scattering of the chopped garlic-and-parsley mix known as persillade. Not bad for a San Francisco debut. Liba opens for business in S.F. 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Mon., Wed., and Fri. It appears in Emeryville Tue. and Thu.

M. Brody

Stellar: No. 4, the fresh tuna sandwich.

​Always on the lookout for a good sandwich, we were thrilled with the three we tried yesterday, day two of American Box, Fish & Farm's takeaway lunch service. It's available in the restaurant's private dining room, called the Fish Tank, right across from Fish & Farm's main entrance. You order by number from a menu of 10 options that include a couple of salads, pork tacos, and soup.
​We enjoyed No. 6, the curiously named Grilled Moist Melt Box ($8), sharp cheddar tarted up with caramelized onion and house-made pickles on thin, tangy rye bread. It came with picnic-perfect potato salad, made with red new potatoes and chives. The No. 5, chilled bavette of beef ($9), combined plenty of satisfyingly chewy, cold rare beef with bite-y arugula, sliced cheddar, and a sharpish horseradish cream on a long, soft roll.

But the surprising star was No. 4, an unusual line-caught tuna sandwich ($9): a brioche-like bun spread with tartar sauce, stuffed with herbed tuna salad made from freshly cooked fish, and layered with juicy heirloom tomatoes, arugula, and mild soft cheese.

There was an intriguing duo of bacon tater tots served with slaw (the No. 9, $5). Soup of the day could be cauliflower ($6), drizzled with oil and topped with chives. Yesterday's daily sweet was something called Gracie's Chewy Gooey ($3), a brownie.

Take your box back to the office, to a park, on a road trip, or -- hey! -- you could even duck into Fish & Farm's dining room and sit at a table. But grab your own disposable cutlery on the way in: There's no table service.

American Box at Fish & Farm 339 Taylor (at O'Farrell), 474-3474. Cash only.

M. Brody

Funny name, tasty sandwich: No. 6, the Grilled Moist Melt Box.

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J. Birdsall

The rib steak for two: Challenging.

​Bar Tartine's been reborn. Well, reshaped. When the Valencia Street restaurant reopened two weeks ago, its menu had morphed from the meticulously etched cooking of former chef Jason Fox to the more low-slung, classic Northern California style of Chris Kronner.

J. Birdsall

Fig-walnut anchoiade: Alice-y.

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But simplicity isn't always easy to pull off. Sure, the kitchen nailed it with an appetizer of fig-walnut anchoïade ($8) served with leafy radishes. You couldn't devise a more ardent homage to Chez Panisse: the soft, mashy dip, softly radiating anchovy, above a dark, sweet shadow of fruit. And a little munchie of cheddar crackers ($3) were as tasty as the browned, frazzled ooze from a grilled cheese sandwich.

Other dishes cried out for more polish. An app of potted foie gras ($14), encased in congealed duck fat, offered up a livery nub all but lost in its unctuous insulation. A rib steak for two ($48) had the intense animal throb of nicely aged beef, but -- webbed with fat and sinew -- it was difficult to cut and, when it came to some of the muscle fibers running through the steak, chew. A side of corn pudding ($6) had a one-dimensional sweetness and soft, pappy texture.

Still, we'd be fools to give up on the new Bar Tartine after a single dinner. If Kronner can make the simplicity of the menu approach the dark elegance of Tartine's narrow dining room -- brooding as a Dutch painting -- he'll have achieved something worthy of the reshaping.

Bar Tartine 561 Valencia (at 16th St.), 487-1600

M. Brody

Crispy brandade fish sticks.

​We were saddened last year to learn that Lara and Gar Trupelli of San Francisco's Beach and Park Chalets won the rights to launch a restaurant in Oakland's Lake Merritt Boat House (though not at all surprised that the couple planned to name the place Lake Chalet). After all, the stolid, unimaginative food was never the draw at the Trupelli's S.F. eateries. Instead, the focus seems to have been the real estate mantra Location, location, location. Well, they do brew their own tasty beers.

​Hopes grew when the Trupellis named ex-One Market chef Jarad Gallagher to helm Lake Chalet. But a recent lunch in the renovated building, which started life as the Oakland Fire Department's High Pressure Pumping Station Number One in 1910, was less than totally reassuring.

The place offers downstairs and upstairs dining rooms (upstairs boasts better views), an open kitchen by a long downstairs bar with prime seating overlooking the dock and the lake, and a cozy upstairs bar with a fireplace. The décor makes the place feel like an upscale corporate hotel. We sat upstairs, next to the windows -- which actually open to let in a breeze -- but had to change tables after a hostess told us the section she'd placed us in was too full.

Alas, the warm hummus and crispy pita appetizer ($8.50) was unavailable. We switched to a fresh-tasting English pea and ham hock soup ($7.50), garnished with crispy fried Brussels sprouts leaves and a bit of crème fraiche. But spicy chicken wings ($10.95), mired in blue cheese dressing (with the "celery hearts" of the menu description appearing only as four tiny decorative leaves), failed to excite, while a fat tuna burger with peppers ($13.95) was a bit bland, despite a touch of basil aïoli.

M. Brody

The communal table: Long waits at prime time?

On Friday, only its second lunch service, the Castro's Starbelly already felt like the popular neighborhood restaurant and gastronomic destination it clearly wants to be. This is the second venture (after pizza-and-cocktails phenomenon Beretta) from Deborah Blum and Adriano Paganini. Executive chef Adam Timney, who counts Bacar and EOS on his resumé, does produce some pizzas (including one topped with Starbelly bacon and market peppers), but there's a broader emphasis here on salumi, salads, rotisserie meats, and the occasional homey surprise, such as a classic chicken pot pie with buttermilk biscuit crust ($12 at lunch). 

​House-made chicken liver paté ($9) spread like velvet on grilled toast. It came with a ripe fig and a crisp assortment of pickled vegetables that included radishes and carrots. Rancho Gordo split pea soup ($5) was freighted with chunks of house-smoked ham hock. Irresistible tiny padron peppers from Mariquita Farms ($5) were roasted with a bit of sea salt and olive oil; only a few were spicy-hot, but anticipating which ones was part of the pleasure. But the star among our starters was an amazing heirloom tomato gazpacho ($5), on whose sweet broth floated glistening dots of basil oil and cleverly spiced chunks of ripe avocado, every bit as velvety as the paté.

Sandwiches reflected the chef's stint at Boccalone. The Starbelly salumi "submarine" ($9 -- picture after the jump) boasted pistachio-studded mortadella, prosciutto, salami, and roasted red peppers on a crisp, floury roll (we added thin, skin-on fries for $2; they came with a ramekin of tomato sauce). Thinly sliced porchetta ($8) came topped with spicy salsa verde and cooling arugula, sided with a deeply flavored pork jus. A Diablito ($5) -- a spicy drink combining house-made tomato juice and beer, a variation on a Michelada -- cooled us. The wine-and-beer-only license seems to have inspired some intriguing cocktails, including a Madeira cobbler and a champagne cocktail with vermouth.

We shared one sweet (reality had to set in some time): ripe peaches and vanilla ice cream dusted with crunchy brioche crumbs and drizzled with olive oil ($7), the perfect late-summer dessert.

Starbelly 3583 16th St. (at Market), 252-7500
Open Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-midnight, and 10 a.m.-midnight Sat.-Sun. A policy of no reservations for parties under six has reportedly led to long waits during prime time, even at the big communal table.

M. Brody

House-made pate: Velvety.

Continue reading " Hot Meal: Lunch at Starbelly"...

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M. Brody

Beaten biscuits and devilled eggs: Purists rejoice.

​With hostesses that sit opposite their restaurants like strip club barkers, brandishing menus and enticing prospective diners to lunch, Belden Place can look like a tourist trap. But in fact the tourists who wander into the alley's lairs or onto the patios out front usually find nice plates of food at surprisingly uninflated prices.

​At the new Trademark Grill, ensconced where Voda Vodka Bar most recently poured, the menu reflects executive chef Jerry Mendoza's concurrent gig at the Elite Café and his past sojourn at the late-lamented Meetinghouse. There are the famed Meetinghouse biscuits, real Southern-style beaten biscuits, small and square (four for $5). They look homemade -- some slumped rather than perfectly risen -- and pull apart steamy and many-layered. The devilled eggs (three for $3) are a purist's version: tender whites piped with creamy, voluptuous yolks, no sting or crunch of pickle relish, just a spicy dusting of smoked paprika.

The real-deal biscuits and eggs outclass more ordinary mains. The barbecue brisket sandwich ($15), chunks of mild, juicy meat bathed in sweet sauce on ciabatta, comes with a vinegared multicabbage slaw and indifferent fries. A rare, pepper-crusted grilled Niman Ranch steak salad ($12) is scattered with crunchy red onions and marinated mushrooms almost as fleshy as the meat among its greens. Many other tables boasted soft-shell crab BLTs on toasted brioche ($12) or Dungeness crab salads with avocado ($12). Pleasant food for a pleasant day.

Trademark Grill 51 Belden (at Pine), 397-8800

M. Brody

Barbecue brisket sandwich: Chunks of mild, juicy meat.

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Tags: restaurant reviews

J. Birdsall

The shrimp salad sandwich: Subtly spiced with pimenton.

The cart itself? Probably wouldn't look at it twice, the green canopy and sneeze guard you expect on any crappy coffee and croissant wagon in a downtown lobby. But the sandwiches and salads at Carte415 (in the atrium lobby at 101 Second St. at Mission) have bright, accessible flavors and a kind of meticulously honed quality that reminds you of Kitchenette.

Chef-owner Joshua Skenes thought he was close to rolling out Carte415 (it serves lunch weekdays) nearly three months ago. After enduring weeks of bureaucratic creep, he's done it, just in time to take advantage of peak summer produce. Early Girl tomato gazpacho ($5) had a fiercely concentrated sweetness and vivid textures (including nicely kibble-y croutons). And a salad of Yellow Doll melon and greens with ricotta salata, pistachios, a spritz of Meyer lemon, and vadouvan-spiced oil ($6) was simply the most eerily refined salad you'll eat out of a plastic bowl. Ever.

Carte415's shrimp salad sandwich (all sandwiches are $8) on Bakers of Paris brioche had a light, pimenton-spiked mayonnaise. Quince jam on the Boccalone charcuterie sandwich knew its place -- it kept a low profile, letting the meats be the focus. A Cowgirl three-cheese sandwich studded with grilled rapini and a cherry tomato relish would have been better hot from a griddle -- at room temp, the toasted bread was slightly leathery. Still, on its third day in business, Carte415 is quietly hawking some deeply satisfying food in an area where you might least expect it. More photos after the jump.

Continue reading " Hot Meal: Lunch from Carte415"...

Tags: restaurant reviews

J. Birdsall

Leave your postmodern, New American notions at the host station.

It sprawls like a Denney's, and, like a coffee shop, many of the surfaces at Gussie's (1521 Eddy at Fillmore) are designed to be Windexed: laminated menus and tables, with a mop-friendly tile floor.

Probably a good idea, since there's no use even trying to eat the fried wings (a must-order option with the Signature Sweet Potato Waffles, $13.79) with knife and fork, and your fingers end up shiny. The chicken's garlicky from marinating, with a frizzled, seasoned-flour coating, not battered like the Colonel's. 

The double stack of thin, sweet potato waffles are stretchy, chewy even -- like, in a good way. They taste like pumpkin pie spice, saltier than you expect. Flooded with syrup (we're guessing simple sugar and water fortified with blackstrap molasses), they begin to seem like thick, caramel-y crepes.

Forget your notions of postmodern, New American, neo-soul, Cali-meets-Harlem chicken and waffles: Gussie's is unapologetically old school.

Tags: restaurant reviews

Cinnamon crumble cake is flocked with craggy streusel.

We know you do it -- point to that square of blueberry crumbcake at the coffee counter, grunt to the counter girl, eat it from the bag while walking to your office cube. We do it, too. Salt House (545 Mission at First St.) wants to make it so you don't have to. 

Starting last week, the downtown restaurant launched a casual breakfast service: house-made pastries ($2.50-$3), a breakfast sandwich ($7), bagels ($2-$6.50), and Ritual coffee ($2.50). You can slump over your Fazenda Boa drip at one of the tables (order from the counter first), or take it to go. Just keep in mind that, unlike that chain coffee-shop pastry you suck from a bag, this is morning food good enough to savor. Slowly.

The breakfast sandwich offered up beautifully rendered textures: crumbly sage biscuit, a clammy, free-form disc of scrambled egg, and a rusky-'round-the-edges chicken hash patty. Delicious. The pastries had finesse worthy of, well, a restaurant kitchen. A mini loaf of cinnamon crumble cake was buttery on the inside, its  surface flocked with craggy streusel. And a muffin was packed with more musky-tasting blueberries than we would've thought structurally possible. Go (Mon.-Fri. 6-11 a.m.). Additional pics after the jump.

Continue reading " Hot Meal: Breakfast at Salt"...

Tags: restaurant reviews

Lumpia came with a soy-based dip (left) and sweet-and-sour pineapple sauce.

 Last night's Filipino dinner at Citizen Cake (399 Grove at Gough) carefully balanced haute with homey. Okay, maybe haute is too strong. Aided by his mom and sister, Cake chef William Pilz engineered a series of familiar Fil-Am dishes (chicken adobo, pancit, lumpia) with flavors calibrated to appeal to diners squeamish about patis (that's Filipino fish sauce).

The best dish we tasted? Deeply flavored shrimp sinigang, with turnips and Chiniese long beans in a tomato-flecked broth that played the sour snarl of tamarind against a subtly bitter vegetable broth. Pilz' chicken adobo (not his mom's recipe, but a coconut-milk-fortified one he picked up from Romy Dorotan, chef of Cendrillon in New York) sublimated the taste of vinegar via a soy-dominant sauce reduced to glaze status. And while the chef's pancit showed off perfectly firm-soft bean-thread noodles and a kind of ambient veggie sweetness, it was the one dish that called out for more seasoning.

But hey, we appreciate how hard it is to translate food you grew up with into coherent restaurant dishes, especially for a crossover audience, and Pilz' one-night dinner only succeeded in making us hungry for more. And speaking of more, we've got additional pics after the jump.

Meredith Brody

The menu flaunts the farms and ranches where ingredients were sourced.

Last week, chef Daniel Patterson (Coi) and Lauren Kiino (formerly of Delfina) opened Il Cane Rosso (One Ferry Building at The Embarcadero), the little rotisserie-sandwich shop of our dreams. Kiino's red dog inspired the name, but the food, according to Il Cane Rosso's Web site, takes inspiration from "the small, family run stores that have fed southern Italy for generations." The menu changes daily, and lists the farms and ranches supplying the meats and produce that day. Antipasti like Peach Farm Early Girl tomato panzanella and marinated Full Belly and Peach Farm watermelon with cucumbers, feta, and chile oil (both $7.50) seem to flaunt the pedigree of their ingredients.

An Andante Dairy formaggio fresco and Blossom Bluff Farm peaches sandwich with toasted pistachios and arugula was tempting. So was a warm Soul Food Farm egg salad with "bagna cauda" butter and smoked mozzarella. But since a forthright meaty scent was wafting from the rotisserie, we settled on the Range Brothers Ranch porchetta with Santa Rosa plum mostarda and mustard greens on an Acme roll (all sandwiches are $9). We threw in the piatto del giorno, roasted Pozzi Farm lamb with Happy Quail orange, yellow, and green peppers and polenta ($12.50). Both were delicious, the full-flavored lamb, topped with a few strands of salty agretti, astonishingly so.

Coi and Kiino hope to have a wine and beer license by the end of the month. Until then, try a Fentiman's soda ($4.50), in flavors that include ginger beer and burdock root/dandelion. And what is the bacon-caramel granoturco ($5) you might ask? Very seductive housemade peanut brittle. More photos after the jump.

Intensely summery: Roasted goat with corn foam over cracked hominy.

Last night marked the official opening of Saison, a Sundays-only fine-dining prix fixe at Stable Café (2128 Folsom at 17th St.) in the Mission. It's a joint venture by sommelier and wine consultant Mark Bright (Restaurant Michael Mina, the Local) and chef Joshua Skenes (Chez TJ, the Mina galaxy, and Skenes' long-planned Carte415). 

On the phone, the chef bristled at the suggestion that Saison is a pop-up in the mold of, say, Chris Kronner's Thursday nights at Bruno's or Mission Street Food. "My perception of a pop-up is that it's something out of a garage, or in somebody else's restaurant," Skenes told SFoodie. Saison offers two seatings of some 20 guests each in the indoor-outdoor space at the rear of the Stable. Semantics aside, Skenes -- a young chef with impressive chops -- clearly wants to avoid being lumped in with clunkier food from lesser chefs.

Last night's prix fixe was a suite of intensively focused summer flavors ($60 for five courses plus mignardises, with an optional $30 wine pairing - you pre-pay online when you make the rezzy). First, an amuse-bouche of raw lobster and caviar. Next, mixed melon salad with Bellwether ricotta, vadouvan-spiked vinaigrette, wild fennel, and other greens. A square of soft halibut over lemon verbena leaves and a subtly smoky shellfish jus. Slices of what was supposed to be suckling goat, with foamy corn milk and a stew of cracked hominy, red Camargue rice, and faro with raw sorrel. Finally, perfumey Lucero strawberries in cream-enriched sabayon studded with bits of shortbread. Bright's wine pairings, ranging from a Toni Joost Riesling Kabinett to a Broc Cellars Syrah from Sonoma, simultaneously framed and softened the contours of Skenes' cooking.

Continue reading " Hot Meal: Joshua Skenes' Saison"...

Tags: restaurant reviews

Meredith Brody

Five's orzo mac 'n' cheese: the taste of urban renewal in downtown Berkeley.

Everything old is new again. Built in 1907, Berkeley's Hotel Shattuck Plaza has been remodeled as an upscale boutique hotel. Its restaurant, Five, opened last Wednesday. Executive chef Scott Howard garnered excellent reviews at his eponymous New American restaurant in San Francisco after a well regarded turn at Fork in San Anselmo. Five marks his return to the stoves after a year-and-half absence. It also marks a return for Shattuck Avenue, which has seen a run of store closings in recent years. After lunch last week, it was clear that Five is the best thing to happen to downtown Berkeley in a long time.

The name references the five senses as well as the hotel's 5 p.m. happy hour. It's decorated in Hollywood Regency style, reminiscent of designer Kelly Wearstler's work at the Viceroy in Santa Monica: Black-and-white checkered floors in the chic barroom, leading to a space lined with arched mirrors and white columns beneath a huge crystal chandelier.

Howard's seasonal cuisine made with sustainable ingredients shone as brightly as the chandelier. A bowl of delicious white corn soup swirled with chive oil ($7) arrived without its garnish of house-pickled chanterelles. They quickly appeared, though the corn-studded purée was just fine without their sharp contrast. An iron casserole heaped with Howard's signature orzo mac 'n' cheese ($10) concealed fat morels under a topping of tomato jam.

Janine Kahn

The Margherita: very superstitious.

Tony Gemignani is famed as a nine-time world pizza champion (both for dough twirling and baking), a status he's parlayed into a pizza school and Tony's Pizza Napoletana. Both opened late last month in the old La Felce space (1570 Stockton at Union), freshened up with dark wood walls and white marble tabletops. 

The Margherita ($18) was one of only 73 the restaurant cooked that day, a nod to superstition. We're told Gemignani won the Margherita pizza award in Naples on St. Anthony's Day, 6/13. He added the 6 and the 1 to get 7, and kept the 3 as is .Huh? Whatever -- we still wanted more char on the crust, and more basil, too.

We much preferred the classic Italian quattro formaggio ($15) with its pillowy top of asiago, mozzarella, parmigiano, and ricotta. We tried the rectangular, thick-crusted Teglia/Siciliano pizza as a Colombo ($24), freighted with sausage, pepperoni, garlic, and oregano. We also tried deep-fried string beans, unbreaded but a little limp, and a generous serving of light, herb-flecked beef-and-pork meatballs (a bargain at $5) in fresh tomato sauce.

In this moment of artisanal thin-crust chic, Tony's seems sincere if old-fashioned: tasty pies topped with lots of quality ingredients on sturdy, bready crusts. Next time we'll check out a thin crust - maybe the clam pie ($18). Even though it's described as New Haven style. Additional photos after the jump. 

The quarter rack: plush and unctuous.

Little Skillet isn't the only American-inspired street-food player in town. Late last month, Town Hall (342 Howard at Fremont) fired up a couple of grills in its back courtyard and began offering takeaway grub that leaves your fingers deliciously sticky and, if you're not careful, your Banana dress shirt all spattered. We showed up earlier today and found that, while Little Skillet is cute and all, Town Hall BBQ is -- we'll say it -- awesome. 

The smoked St. Louis ribs ($8 for a quarter slab, about four ribs) were plush and unctuous, clad in a coffee-colored crust and with a subtle smokiness.

Move over, Little Skillet.

They're Niman, dry rubbed and smoked 4 ½ hours over hickory. The accompanying barbecue sauce had restrained heat and a tart Tabasco twang. A grilled Hobbs Calabrese link po' boy ($8) was fantastic, thanks to the juxtaposition of soft torpedo, coarse Creole mustard, and long-sweated onions and red peppers.

A serious disappointment: The fried-chicken sandwich ($8). The bird had the restaurant's tasty signature coating -- textural as a popcorn ceiling -- but the flesh was icy cold. Not even vinegary, jalapeño-flecked slaw could warm the thing. And scale-thin Old Bay potato chips ($2) were un-greasy, but, okay, could've used a shake or two more salt and spice.

Look for the courtyard barbecue during Town Hall's usual lunch hours, weekdays 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Oh, and pack a stack of Wet Naps in your man purse. More photos after the jump.

Continue reading " Hot Meal: Town Hall BBQ"...

Tags: restaurant reviews

Meredith Brody

The Outer Sunset cafe offers relief from summer's chill.

Though you can see the Pacific from Outerlands' corner, and the interior is lovingly assembled from driftwood, there's a bit of Vermont lurking about the place. The rustic Outer Sunset café -- which opened in February -- is run by people flinty enough to get up very early to bake lévain bread, lattice-topped blueberry-nectarine pies, organic brownies, and prepare daily-changing hearty soups. 

That excellent lévain was put to good use in a big Black Forest ham open-face topped with sweet caramelized onions and N.Y. cheddar ($8), with a cup of celery soup sprinkled with crunchy breadcrumbs ($3 with a sandwich, $6 for a bowl with toast). A slice of cherry-plum pie ($4) was amazing. Co-owner and dessert baker Lana Porcello (with David Muller) often hangs out with baby Leithian, which only adds to Outerlands' quirky but very real charm.

Meredith Brody

Soup and sandwich combo: Hearty.

The small-plates dinner menu is more ambitious than lunch (the chef, a veteran of Range and Serpentine, told us he wants to stay anonymous). Prices range from $2.50 to $13.50, and the dishes might include corn chowder with roasted peppers and marinated cherry tomatoes, baked macaroni and cheese, and fish stew with a spicy tomato-fennel broth. And we hear the caramelized apple and duck Dutch pancakes, baked eggs, and bacon of Sunday brunch are spectacular.

Outerlands 4001 Judah (at 45th Ave.), 661-6140

Meredith Brody

Chicken and dumplings

When we heard that Pícan, the upscale Southern place in Oakland's Uptown neighborhood, had started serving lunch, we happily showed up to check it out.

Though the buttermilk fried chicken, crispy pork belly, and "Southern foie gras" (pan-fried chicken livers with bacon and shallots) weren't on the menu as we'd hoped from an earlier sighting of the dinner menu, we did try a side of fried green tomatoes ($4), rendered extra salty by a heavy dusting (in addition to the already-seasoned batter).

The salt shaker had come down a trifle hard, too, on boneless chicken and dumplings ($14). We loved the texture of the tasty Low Country shrimp and grits ($15), which also benefited from a perfectly poached egg. Making vanilla wafers from scratch for the banana pudding ($8) was a sweet idea that backfired: they'd been baked so hard they never softened. A mini mint julep in a shot glass ($5) hit its mark.

Overall, a salty and uneven lunch. But there's something appealing enough about this high-ceilinged place with an open kitchen we vowed to give it another try.

Pícan 2295 Broadway (at 23rd), Oakland; (510) 834-1000

Smoked chicken wings: A tad gnawy.

Despite the buzz it's sparked, brand-new Wexler's (568 Sacramento at Montgomery) strikes you as tiny and a little prim, tucked away in a gray block of Sacramento along a concrete canyon in the Financial District. Even the dining room has a touch of the austere, despite its otherwise playful bronto-bones canopy rippling across the ceiling. Show up in a business suit at lunch, and you won't feel like some overdressed douchebag. Or at least not the only one.

The idea? Barbecue through a meticulously upscale lens, engineered by former Fish & Farm chef Charlie Kleinman. An appetizer of smoked chicken wings reimagined Buffalo by way of Manhattan: four joints stacked in a pool of yogurty, Pt. Reyes Original Blue dressing, with a flurry of blanched celery slices. Score the wings tasty, despite lingering rubberiness. The Sloppy Joe was better: shreddy bits of smoked brisket in some jamlike matrix of tomato frontin' slow sizzle. Its Acme ciabatta roll: perfect. The house-made bread-n-butter pickles: ditto. Even the skin-on roasted steak fries had a gravelly potato-ness that seemed, well, sincere. Only you probably don't want to show up here sporting cowboy boots and a pearl-buttoned work shirt. Unless, of course, you bought them at Barneys.

The Sloppy Joe: Shreddy and jamlike.

Caldo de camaron: Don't skimp on the sexing up.

Damn Diana Kennedy -- the author pretty much buzzkilled any Mexican cooking that doesn't have the snarliest regional hook, like the pork stew with tomatoes and wild pigweed her Yucatecan maid taught her to fix. That's what makes Marino (579 Hayes at Laguna), which opened today in Hayes Valley, something less than fierce. It offers a taste of Mexican home cooking -- as long as by home cooking you mean food assembled by someone living in a condo with access to a nice big freezer.
If your high school Spanish fails you, you might not get that Marino is a seafood place, but the decor (ships' wheels and portholes, Cap'n Jack's style) leaves little doubt. The menu, however, skews Chevy's (fajitas, burritos, and combo plates), but there are also cocteles (seafood cocktails), including a grand Campechana and shrimp aguachile. Caldo de camaron, shrimp soup, is big, red and chunky, packed with deluxe frozen vegetable mix (which is to say, not just corn, green beans, and ripple-cut carrots, but lima beans, too, and even the odd piece of cauliflower). Sexed up with lime, it's not bad; crumble in shards of house-fried tortilla chips, and it begins to stir. And add a glob of the amazing table salsa (packed with flecks of charred tomato skin and a searing bite), and you swear you can make out the faintest echo of a snarl.

Janine Kahn

The tables in the front windows are a nice place to watch the passing parade known as the Haight.

Martin Macks, the Irish bar and restaurant shuttered since a fire in September, recently reopened, freshened up with light hardwood floors and five bigscreen TVs. It's good to see a state-side pub reopening, when they're closing in record numbers in Merrie Old England, with estimates running as high as six a day closing forever. A brand-new wood-burning pizza oven is a nice addition to the renovated kitchen. While waiting for our pizza, we indulged in big glasses o' crisp hard apple cider and chilly Stella Artois. We also tried the soup of the day, a nice creamy puree of broccoli ($3.50). It would have been a perfect starter before some of Martin Macks' Anglo-Irish specialties, like fish and chips ($11.95), Shepherd's pie ($13.95), and chicken curry ($11.95).

Janine Kahn

Bar at the front.

But as we said, we were there for the pizza. The one we sampled -- topped with pesto, cheese, and new red potatoes ($17/large) -- was good. Maybe not ready to take on challenges from the fancy artisanal pizzas around town, but certainly better-than-decent bar food. It had a bready crust from dough made in house, which picked up a touch of smoky char. You can design your own pie ($15 medium, $17 large) with your choice of pesto or tomato sauce, adding ingredients such as pepperoni or mushrooms for $1.50 each. On a chilly day in late spring, it hit the proverbial spot. We would have lingered over an Irish single malt if we didn't have to get back to work. Food pics after the jump.

Martin Macks Restaurant and Bar 1568 Haight (at Clayton), 861-2236.