SFGate: Dining Out - Restaurant Reviews

From SFGate.com: the Bay Area's home page, online home of the San Francisco Chronicle and much more.

• Santorini review: Good dining in Danville
  You might wait a bit for your waiter, your menus and your dinner at Santorini, but unless you've got someplace to be, it'll be time well spent. Tear off a piece of warm, floppy pita bread and swipe it through chef Tony Mirmotalebi's creation of day-old...
  
  
  
• Presidio Social Club lovely, but service lags
  Few places have the history and allure of San Francisco's Presidio Social Club, which looks out over the lush Presidio landscape. With dogs and their companions playing catch in the green grass, it feels like an affluent suburban neighborhood. The Presidio...
  
  
  
• Good show - and food - at the Iron Gate in Belmont
  Dining out is always theater, but few restaurants put on a show like the Iron Gate in Belmont. Tuxedo-clad waiters are perpetually rolling carts up to tables to toss a salad, saute a steak or prepare a dessert - a performance often finished with a 2-foot wall...
  
  
  
• At Maven, food and drink make winning pairs
  With the growth of the cocktail culture, eating out is beginning to take on a new form and revising our view of what a restaurant is. This change repeatedly raises the same question: Is it a bar or a restaurant? At Maven in San Francisco, which took over the...
  
  
  
• Bouche review: S.F. taste of Provence
  If you're a sardine fan, Bouche will make you swoon. The $9 appetizer drew raves from just about everyone I know who's tried the dish at this small French spot that opened in December, perched above San Francisco's Stockton Street Tunnel. The dish turns a...
  
  
  
• Redd Wood review: upscale pizza, with much more
  It's interesting how the right talent and a tight concept will turn a fledging space into a hot ticket. Cantinetta Piero in the Hotel Luca lasted less than three years, even though it had a big budget and was built from the ground up. While the interior was...
  
  
  
• Divino review: family Italian place in Berkeley
  Standing two steps away, pizza in hand, Marco Polo Garbarino knows he has the full attention of the 7-year-old at our table. Like a clown, Garbarino scans the dining room, acting as if he has no idea where the pie goes. Then he "spots" Owen and sets the...
  
  
  
• Quince review: 4-star restaurant gets even better
  Four-star restaurants don't just happen, no matter how talented the chef. It's a long process, as the chef matures, finds a culinary voice and transforms the other elements of the dining experience to support his vision. Take the French Laundry, for example....
  
  
  
• Forchetta/Bastoni review: 2 good places, 1 roof
  When husband-and-wife chefs Steven Peyer and Jamilah Nixon decided to open a restaurant in what was the former Pizzavino 707 space last November, they had a challenge. Peyer likes fancier northern Italian cuisine. Nixon likes Asian street food. Their solution?...
  
  
  
• Txoko review: Promising, but still in growing stage
  The tissue-thin paper napkins in the chrome dispenser at Txoko have been replaced by cloth. The one-time stand-up bar now has stools, and the menu has expanded. When it opened, Txoko, which took over the North Beach space that once housed Enrico's, was trying...
  
  
  
• Kacha Thai in Walnut Creek: Bistro with a heritage
  Kacha owners Ing and Jinko Laongsuwan met in 2005, a few months after Ing relocated here from Thailand. Jinko, whom Ing describes as "a low-tech guy," had been driving around the East Bay with foldout maps trying to find a location for his first restaurant. "...