San Francisco Bay Area and California Food News — — SFGate

San Francisico Bay Area Food news. — SFGate

• Presented By:
  
• Restaurant openings
  Bask: Longtime San Franciscans will always remember the quirky corner building at 42 Columbus as late-night burger joint Clown Alley (or perhaps as Pickles). Now it's been reborn as a Basque restaurant, appropriately...
  
  
  
• 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...
  
  
  
• Mission Bowling Club, S.F.: Comfort food
  The clatter of falling bowling pins, followed by cheers of victory and/or groans of defeat, will tip you off that this is not your usual Bar Bites experience. With a menu comprising technique-driven comfort food...
  
  
  
• 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...
  
  
  
• Jessica Largey in charge of Manresa kitchen
  The seeds of Manresa are scattered throughout the Bay Area, with chef-owner David Kinch 's influence felt indirectly through his ideology and directly through the alumni of his restaurant. Now there's more where that...
  
  
  
• Chef's Night In - James Syhabout
  James Syhabout's freezer used to be filled with ice cream. Now, with a baby at home, vanilla and chocolate have gotten the boot. "Now, we have Emma food," says Syhabout's wife, Stacy Ly. Emma is the couple's...
  
  
  
• What's New: Top 100 Restaurants app
  Smart phone-users now can have The Chronicle's 2012 Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants at their fingertips, with critic Michael Bauer's annual guide available as a free app for iPhone and Android phones. The app allows...
  
  
  
• A spring treat: strawberries, sabayon and Moscato
  Strawberries - the quintessential fruit of spring - are featured in all manner of desserts, but garnishing a goblet full of them with a light, soft zabaglione custard is one of the nicest. This slightly frothy dessert...
  
  
  
• Joanne Weir from family of chefs
  Joanne Weir recalls her first failed baking attempt. "I was about 8 or 9, and I had decided to make oatmeal cookies," says the San Francisco chef, who has spent much of the last three decades working as a cookbook...
  
  
  
• S.F.'s Central Kitchen opens; Flour + Water spinoff
  The Flour + Water gang had hoped to open their new venture, Central Kitchen, a bit earlier than Thursday. But, delays can mean the restaurant gods are smiling. And they did, offering chef-partner Thomas McNaughton and...
  
  
  
• What's New: Two Bay Area Mexican restaurants
  A pair of high-profile Mexican restaurants opened last week, just in time for Cinco de Mayo festivities. Copita, in Sausalito, is from restaurateur Larry Mindel (Poggio, Il Fornaio) and chef Joanne Weir, and is 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....
  
  
  
• What's New: S.F. restaurant openings
  San Francisco movie buffs will remember that Burritt Alley was where Sam Spade's partner was shot in "The Maltese Falcon." Tucked away near the Stockton Tunnel, Burritt Alley isn't much these days, but it's back in the...
  
  
  
• WHAT'S NEW / Also open
  Namu Gaji: It's showtime for this new Korean-Californian restaurant from chef Dennis Lee and brothers David and Daniel, who shuttered Namu at the end of last year to make way for this Mission venture. While Lee's menu...
  
  
  
• 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...
  
  
  
• Hecho review: New chef, much better sushi
  I've never quite understood the combination of sushi and Tequila at Hecho, and when I reviewed the restaurant soon after it opened, the concept wasn't any clearer. However, when I heard that Sachio Kojima had taken over...
  
  
  
• What's New: This week's openings
  The triumvirate behind popular San Francisco restaurants Town Hall, Salt House and Anchor & Hope have crossed the bridge for their fourth Bay Area project. For their new Walnut Creek restaurant and bar - named Corners...
  
  
  
• Original Joe's review: A classic reinvented
  Whoever said you can't go home again has never been to the reincarnated Original Joe's. The original Tenderloin restaurant was devastated by fire, and it took four years for the Duggan family to agree to move the...
  
  
  
• Mua review: Music, eclectic decor match the food
  Sitting at the end of a bar (there are three) alongside a bronze bust with a female mannequin's leg coming out of its head, it occurs to me that Mua may have never felt so serene. On this rainy Thursday afternoon, this...
  
  
  
• Presented By:
  
• Bar Tartine review: great Eastern European food
  Once in a while, a restaurant comes along that is so different and exciting that it becomes my personal benchmark. Two places quickly come to mind: Aziza, where Mourad Lahlou uses his Moroccan heritage as a reference...
  
  
  
• Original Limon morphs into one of its rotisseries
  It's not unusual for chefs who have successful restaurants to spin off less expensive offshoots; it started with Alice Waters and her Cafe at Chez Panisse and has progressed to chefs like Coi's Daniel Patterson (Plum...
  
  
  
• Claudine restaurant a Financial District delight
  There's something intriguing, romantic and exhilarating about discovering a restaurant tucked away amid the urban frenzy - that's why Belden Place seems so magical. In some cases the location and the experience...
  
  
  
• Tacolicious review: Chic meets hip in the Mission
  When my colleague Amanda Gold reviewed the Tacolicious debut in San Francisco's Marina district two years ago, she joked that she half expected that the i's would be dotted with hearts, given the perky name, the upscale...
  
  
  
• State Bird Provisions review: many great dishes
  State Bird Provisions seems like a strange name for a restaurant, but it's certainly a conversation starter. Owners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski, both former chefs at the now-closed Rubicon, named their restaurant...
  
  
  
• WHAT'S NEW / Openings
  Asian Box: The first location of a fast-casual Asian restaurant that restaurateur Frank Klein hopes to multiply across the Bay Area and beyond, has opened in Palo Alto. Running the kitchen is executive chef Grace Nguyen,...
  
  
  
• Farmstead review: 2-year-old restaurant improving
  Few places promote, or practice, the farm-to-table movement as seriously as Farmstead in St. Helena, a 2-year-old restaurant that's part of Long Meadow Ranch Winery and Farmstead. On the back of the menu, the Hall...
  
  
  
• Haven review: Plenty of style, but fine-tuning its substance
  Anyone remotely interested in the Bay Area dining scene knows about Coi in San Francisco and Plum in Oakland. Now full-time chef and sometime writer Daniel Patterson has opened another project at Jack London Square, one...
  
  
  
• Ristobar review: A new chef worth watching
  Last year Ristobar, owned by pastry king Gary Rulli, was a new addition to the Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants, thanks to the cooking of Angelo Auriana. However, Auriana left last spring and the cooking stagnated while...