Luis Chong

Part of the Metreon's new dining area. Sanraku restaurant is in the background.

​While renovations are grinding on at the Metreon at 101 Fourth St. (at Mission), the new modern and brightly illuminated food court (mostly) opened this last weekend. The eateries that debuted on Saturday, were Buckhorn Grill, Jillian's, and Japanese restaurant Sanraku. Monday and the next few weeks, welcomes SF Soup Company, Cako Creamery, Cako Cupcakes, and So Green Yogurt.

SFoodie attended a preview tour of the Metreon makeover last week, presented by Scot Vallee, Vice President of Development of Westfield Group. The most noticeable changes are the closure of Metreon's corner entrance (the Target store's future entrance), and renovations to the entrance on 4th street, which leads to the AMC ticket counter.

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Tyler Gourley

​After a few foiled attempts by PG&E, the Mexico City styled tequila bar Mosto officially opens tonight, reports the crew from Tacolicious, which is also opening next door.

The bar may be a demure 700 square feet, but it boasts over 326 different bottles of tequila, mezcal, and sotol (a spirit distilled from the dessert spoon evergreen shrub) combined. Available by the glass (1.5 oz) or carafe (5 oz), the tequilas come with a shot of house made sangrita and an escabeche "pickle-back." 

The menu is organized by spirit type, with tequila, the largest category, getting further subdivided by age (blanco, reposado, añejo) and by region (lowlands, highlands, and Tamaulipas/Guanajuato--areas outside of Jalisco legally allowed to call their product tequila). Besides being a large list, it's impressively curated and organized, with the largest collection of sotol we've seen anywhere.

The cocktail menu is designed to be straightforward, with all the drinks using fresh juice and house made syrups and sodas. Two margaritas grace the menu: the house El Mosto ($9, El Jimador Reposado, agave nectar, lime juice, served on the rocks) and the Margarita Contramar ($9, Pueblo Viejo Blanco, agave syrup, lime juice, served blended), made the way the famed Mexico City restaurant serves them. 

The classic and maligned Tequila Sunrise ($9, Corralejo Reposado, house-made grenadine, orange juice) makes a comeback, and Ferro's Lil' Devil ($9, Don Julio Blanco, Massenez Cassis, lime juice, house-made ginger beer) is refreshing with ginger bite. The timeless Paloma ($9, El Jimador Blanco, St. Germain, grapefruit juice, Jarrito's Toronja) gets a slight update with elderflower liqueur and drinks way too easy.

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Elia Varela Serra

Farm: Table's Shannon Amitin and his new roast.

​When Farm: Table opened two and a half years ago, it was one of the first cafes to bring high-quality coffee to the Tenderloin. It was also the first San Francisco business to serve coffee from Verve, the Santa Cruz-based roastery. More >>

​There's a new cocktail heavyweight on the Emeryville card with Prizefighter Bar, opening tomorrow in the old Kitty's location. The team behind the new watering hole are veterans of the San Francisco bar scene: Jon Santer (Bourbon & Branch, Beretta, Range), Dylan O'Brien (Bloodhound, Churchill), and Polly Hancock.

Santer explained, "Prizefighter is an American bar in the classic sense of the term--fun and friendly with delicious cocktails, beer, wine and spirits."

The cocktail menu works well for groups and solo, from heavyweight cocktails to featherweight non-alcoholic house made sodas ($4).

Large parties can enjoy pitchers of beer ($15-$16), sangria (white or red with choice of spirit, $40), punches (relax, the drinking kind, for six to eight $50), and pitchers of lower alcohol "patio" cocktails ($24-$35) like a spritzes and Bloody Marys. "We designed the bar to be a comfortable place to come have a beverage and some laughs with friends," said Santer. "Maybe play a game of shuffle board, or hang out on the patio in the sun."

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​Is the mall--er, city of-- Emeryville on its way to becoming a new cocktail hub? With Prizefighter set to open later this month in the old Kitty's location, comes news that Alex Smith has left his position as bar manager of Gitane to open up a Honor, a new bar and grill.

Set to open in the old Sushi Village space at Powell and Hollis streets, a mere seven blocks away from Prizefighter, Honor is designed to be a casual neighborhood spot serving pub fare and quality cocktails. As a 2011 Bar Star and one of SF's most creative bartenders, we're excited to see what kind of menu he comes up.

No set opening date yet, but the tentative opening is sometime next month.

Honor, 1411 Powell (at Hollis), Emeryville

Ed Anderson

Tacolicious taco platter. No such thing as too much of a good thing.

​Update: The restaurant has seen some advancements from PG&E but is still on hold power-wise and has to wait for inspections even after power comes on, according to Tacolicious's spokeswoman Tracy Gomez. They're now aiming to open the week after Thanksgiving. Fingers crossed!

Tacolicious, a taco-and-tequila establishment in the Marina, is all set to open the doors of its new Mission District outpost -- if they can just get the lights rolling.

"We're ready, sitting here putting out tables and chairs, and the bar shelving is filling up," said Tacolicious owner Joe Hargrave. But, he added, "we're at PG&E's mercy."

But power should be coming to the restaurant's Valencia Street location very soon, and once the restaurant serves its first two days of food, its sister tequila bar -- Mosto, which is right next door -- will open as well.

Tacolicious, which was only a food stand in the Ferry Building in July 2009, is actually moving home with its newest Mission Location: Hargrave lives just a few blocks away, and the Dolores Park mural that will grace the restaurant's interior is a view he sees every day on his morning commute.

"The location is one thing that's great. Internet commenters at large these days are quick to make the comments that we're Marina people invading the Mission," but they're mistaken, he said.

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Anne Fishbein

Truffled beet salad at Umami Burger.

​There is a wave of hysteria around the local arrival of Los Angeles-based chain Umami Burger. They've got tattooed buns, secret magic spices, and ridiculously long waits for the same dish that McDonald's is selling for $3 -- all things that typically make people go crazy for something.

I believe the infatuation stems from San Francisco giving such a big shit about L.A. and then L.A. not caring about us at all. Agree/disagree? I mean, we love to pick on them and call them all stupid and vain, but when you ask people in L.A. what they think of S.F., they're all, "What's a San Francisco?" or, "You mean 'Frisco? It's cool." Maybe? No? Moving on!

Since we're all going nutso for its arrival, I wondered, "Is Umami Burger all that and a biodegradable bag of organic tater tots?" I looked to L.A. Weekly's restaurant critic Jonathan Gold for his take on the chain.

Gold starts his review of Umami Burger with a little history of the fancified cooking techniques its founder, Adam Fleischman, employs. The process is complex, and involves cooking at a low temperature for a long time, followed by a momentary searing. The results?More >>

Kenichi Kawashima

Seoul Patch's Korean fried chicken po'boy.

​Not long ago, Eric Ehler, who'd been a cook and sous-chef at Serpentine for three years, took a break from cooking to hang out in Seoul. "I didn't just love the cuisine of Seoul," says Ehler, who was born in Korea but had spent his life in the States. "I also wondered: What is this crazy Americanization of everything? Because of the American influence on the country after the Korean War, I saw a lot of foods there like corn dogs wrapped in french fries. Real Korean American food."

Ehler came back inspired to start up his own Korean American restaurant: Seoul Patch. He started out with a popup dinner at Serpentine last week, and his weekday lunch popup -- serving out of Rocketfish in Potrero Hill from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. -- launches today.

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ayukoba/Flickr

We like Sandbox Bakery's Japanese-style stuffed breads and can't wait to see what the owner will do with a bigger space

​Bernal Heights' popular Sandbox Bakery is planning to expand next month with a new restaurant to be called Eat at 903.

The restaurant -- named after the address, 903 Cortland -- is just across the street from owner Mutsumi Takehara's Sandbox. Takehara, a former pastry chef at the Slanted Door, opened the bakery last year. We're huge fans of its croissants and Japanese-style curry bread.

Plans call for the restaurant to be open for breakfast and lunch, and to sell takeout dinners. We can't wait to see what Takehara does with an expanded menu.

Jonathan Kauffman

Dumplings & Bun's pork bun (l.) and vanilla custard bun, each $2.

When Dumplings & Buns opened on California and Fillmore in late August, Eater SF reported that owner May Lee Iorfido had lofty goals: to become the Beard Papa of Chinese buns.

The shop looks like it belongs in Pacific Heights, with splashes of red, a black-and-white photo of the San Francisco native's progenitors, and jars of Asian-inspired condiments displayed around the room, all for sale. The menu is short and pretty much described in the name of the restaurant: savory and sweet buns ($2), each the size of a flattened Pixie tangerine, as well as a few dumplings ($3.75-$5 for three) and a noodle salad. The custard fillings of the sweet buns have playful flavors like chocolate, orange-ginger, and lemon Cointreau.

SFoodie has visited the shop twice over the past week, and while we think the time is right for upscaled Cantonese buns, the execution is still out of whack. Gummy tapioca-skin dumplings filled with grainy, underseasoned ground chicken. Chewy savory buns with a thimbleful of meat spread along the bottom. Pallid, dense sweet buns with a tiny nubbin of egg-crackle sliding off the top. (The buns are baked throughout the day, so we've only been able to try the vanilla and chocolate fillings, both the best part of the snack.)

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