Subject: Foods

• Street Food to Star at Oakland's Eat Real Festival in August

  Nothing is hotter these days than street food, but some of the newest sidewalk chefs are rolling out their carts without the blessings of local authorities. Even if you track them down via Twitter, you may show up to find they've been busted before you get there. If you're hungry for the latest, hottest, tastiest, most imaginative, and cheapest street food around -- that's guaranteed to be there when you are! -- the Eat Real Festival just might be your meat. From Friday, August 28, through S

  June 12, 2009

• You Want Cactus Fries With That? Mission Street Food to Remix McDonald's Classics

  Mission Street Food becomes McMission for the night.The menu at Mission Street Food is normally miles from McDonald's (even though the two are technically down the street from each other), but there will be some striking similarities as MSF becomes "McMission" this week. Food imagineers from Cal Academy of Science's The Moss Room (sous chef Ben Coe, kitchen manager Blake Kutner, and assistant pastry chef Angela Gong) will be remixing McDonald's items such as McNuggets, McRib, Big Mac, File

  June 23, 2009

• Labor Day Eat-Ins to Kick Off Slow Food's Campaign to Fix Food in Schools

  sarahmroos/FlickrLast year's Slow Food Nation eat-in at Dolores Park is serving as a national model.Remember Slow Food Nation, the sprawling food fest that gripped San Francisco over Labor Day weekend last year? Organizers had pledged it would be an annual event, with the likelihood that this year's fest would again take place in S.F. This morning, Brooklyn-based Slow Food USA announced a change in plans that appeared to acknowledge lessons learned from last year's event. Instead of the confab

  June 23, 2009

• Noodle Theory fuses Asian noodles with quality ingredients and zesty spicing

  June 24, 2009

• Sangria is as Cooling and Variable as the City's Summer Weather

  JonnyGdeCA/FlickrScore a prime example at Ramblas on Valencia.Sangria is as delectable and as open to experiment and interpretation as paella, its great culinary cohort of the Spanish table. This fruity, sparkling concoction is the perfect light-spirited libation for the summer months and is malleable enough to be prepared in several variations. The basic idea is to throw slices of fruit into a big pitcher with some sugar, a splash of brandy, and a bottle of wine, chill it for an hour or so, a

  June 25, 2009

• Little Skillet's stellar takeaway can brighten a summer day

  July 1, 2009

• Sweet Beat: Our Food Critic's Sugar Crawl Through the Streets of S.F.

  Janine Kahn Little Skillet's Red Velvet cupcake: First on the list. We wanted to take our friend Dieter on a tour of the best bakeries and ice cream stores in town. He's a well-traveled Berliner who loves to eat. But when we learned he was sleeping off his jet lag, we decided to put an ice-lined cooler in the back of the car and bring the sweets to the sweet.   First to go into the care package was a cream-cheese-frosted red velvet cupcake from Little Skillet (360 Ritch at Towns

  July 7, 2009

• The Tipsy Pig: Comfort food in quiet surroundings one night, a mosh pit on another

  July 8, 2009

• Fancy beef at extravagant prices at 5A5 Steak Lounge

  July 15, 2009

• Eating Unnaturally, Naturally

  July 15, 2009

• A Squishable Feast

  July 15, 2009

• Seasonal ingredients and skillful handling make Flour + Water a Mission hit

  July 22, 2009

• Camel Milk Chocolates? You Might Soon be Able to Score Some in Noe Valley

  A Noe Valley shop hopes to be among the first U.S. retailers to sell chocolate bars made with camel milk. Jack Epstein, owner of Chocolate Covered (4069 24th St. at Castro), told SFoodie he only recently found out about the camel milk chocolate bars, manufactured by Dubai-based chocolatier Al Nassama. "The gentleman who manufactures it is an acquaintance of a very good customer of mine," Epstein said. "He tried it and likes it, and I trust his palate. I will try to carry it if it's possible."

  July 23, 2009

• Company Lets You Customize Artisanal Ice Cream -- For a Price

  SanFranAnnie/FlickrNo guarantee what you come up with'll be as good as the coffee-toffee from Bi-Rite.​Fancying artisanal, flavor-driven ice cream with DIY flair? Maybe you don't want to deal with the fuss and muss of washing up your ice cream maker or dealing with a sink full of measuring cups and spatulas. Point your mouse to the online Perfect Flavor shop, and let the creative juices flow, scoring custom, hand-made, Slow-Food-friendly ice creams shipped right to your door. Locavores m

  July 27, 2009

• Five Local Ways to Celebrate National Milk Chocolate Day

  See's Candies Milk Chocolate Bordeaux.​Happy National Milk Chocolate Day! Yes, SFoodie has certainly logged in many hours as a dark chocolate snob. But we also know that milk chocolate was our sweetest gateway drug, and plan to celebrate this very important holiday with some of our local favorites.Don't worry, we're not by-the-book purists and there's nothing freaky here (like the camel milk chocolate we told you about last week). Just some straight-up, can't-fail missionaries of milk chocolat

  July 28, 2009

• Estancia Dinner at Jardiniere: Local? Grass Fed? We'll Settle for Tasty

  Mary LaddThe roasted skirt steak was beefy and tender.​Before digging in to the Estancia grass-fed beef prix fixe at Jardiniere (300 Grove at Franklin) last night, SFoodie and überblogger Amy Sherman chatted with Traci Des Jardins, who admitted to nursing a 14-hours-ahead jet lag (she'd just returned from a trip to Outer Mongolia). Chef Des Jardins reported that the Mongolian town close to the Russian border where she and her companions stayed is by no means a tourist attraction. "The may

  July 28, 2009

• The old-fashioned food cart is now hip -- and on the run -- with the help of Twitter

  July 29, 2009

• On National Cheesecake Day in S.F., Finding the Old-Fashioned Variety Can Be Tricky

  Jun Seita/FlickrOh no, you don't: The cheesecake at Zanze's.​Even if you hadn't marked today as National Cheesecake Day on your calendar, the Cheesecake Factory did. Dine there today -- the San Francisco location is on the eighth floor of Macy's (251 Geary at Stockton) -- any slice is half-price. In further celebration of the big day, the Factory is introducing its newest flavor today: Stefanie's Ultimate Red Velvet Cake cheesecake, named for the winner of an online contest (for the next y

  July 30, 2009

• Noe Valley Shop First U.S. Retailer to Carry Camel Milk Chocolates

  J. BirdsallThe camel-milk chocolates: One hump or two?​Over the weekend, Noe Valley sweets peddler Chocolate Covered (4069 24th St. at Castro) became the first U.S. retailer to carry a line of chocolates made with camels' milk. On Friday, shop owner Jack Epstein received his first order of the premium chocolates from Dubai-based Al Nassma, which recently began exporting the bars and molded chocolates. Epstein's shipment included all five camel milk bars, including a spiced version, one f

  August 3, 2009

• Mercury Lounge presents tasty pan-Asian fare before bringing the noise

  August 5, 2009

• For Chefs in S.F., Making a Root Beer Float Involves More Than Popping a Can

  eyjensen/FlickrSpecial enough for a birthday: The root beer float (with cookies) at Michael Mina.​Even if you knew that today is National Root Beer Float Day -- a fact we learned from Three Olives Vodka, which just released a root beer-flavored vodka to a nation happily unaware of what it's been missing -- you might not know there are San Francisco chefs and brewers who take their root beer floats very seriously. At Chenery Park (683 Chenery at Diamond), which will celebrate its ninth an

  August 6, 2009

• 54 Mint offers boldly flavored fare at a charming downtown location

  August 12, 2009

• Champagne Punch: Chunky, Fruit-Filled Kool-Aid for Grownups

  Kevin Littlefield/FlickrLight yet potent.​Before summertime comes to an end and the fruits of the season shrivel into luscious memory, satisfy your stone fruit desires one last time with a light yet potent champagne punch. Raid your local farmers' market for the juiciest plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and peaches. Pit, hull, and slice them into manageable chunks of edibleness and place them in a big punch bowl, throw in a few orange and gr

  August 12, 2009

• Hot Meal: Lunch at the Trademark Grill

  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 men

  August 17, 2009

• Hot Meal: Lunch at Starbelly

  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 peppe

  August 24, 2009

• Kung Fu Tacos Serves Up Budget Fusion in the FiDi

  The Mu Shu Veggies taco: Sweet and chewy. "East meets South...of the border," claims Kung Fu Tacos, a new lunchtime taco truck that couples Asian-inspired flavors with a Latin twist. Kung Fu Tacos offers a menu that features multiple variations, including a vegetarian option, all heaped in fresh-made La Palma tortillas. Kung Fu Tacos starts serving weekdays at around 11:15 a.m., from the corner of Sansome and Jackson in the Financial District. Follow them on Twitter for updates.  On a

  August 25, 2009

• Omnivore Books to Host Pie Baking Contest

  chandoo.org​After last month's mighty fried chicken battle, eating enthusiast Celia Sack has announced a new cooking competition. Bring your best personally-baked pies (cut into bite-sized portions) to Sack's shop Omnivore Books (3885A Cesar Chavez at Church) on Thursday, September 10, at 6 p.m. and compete for the chance to win top honors as well as half the door money (if you ain't bakin', it'll cost you $5 to eat and judge the hour-long contest).Pie knows no boundaries, but prospectiv

  August 27, 2009

• Trek to the Sunset's Outerlands for inventive New American fare

  September 9, 2009

• New Chocolate Shop Opening in Former Joseph Schmidt Space

  dixiehu/FlickrThe Schmidt store in the Castro shut down last spring.​Dig this chocolate goss: A new chocolate shop is opening in the shuttered 16th Street retail store that was the original home of Joseph Schmidt. Schmidt (and Scharffen Berger) parent Hershey Co. closed the shop last spring; there were rumors that a Scharffen Berger shop would open in the space. But today, TasteTV is reporting via press release that Saratoga Chocolates (owned and manned, so to speak, by Mary Loomas) will s

  September 10, 2009

• Doggy Bag: Today's Odds and Ends

  ​A choice morsel from the food blogs (and beyond). Loaves and feta: On SFGate, Leah Garchik recalls Monday's Civic Center Eat-In, Slow Food San Francisco's 400-strong Labor Day potluck. Garchik reports on the offerings at her table: orzo, white bean salad, green beans in tomato sauce, Vietnamese sandwiches, pot roast (the meat was gobbled with particular enthusiasm), tomato-and-feta salad, coleslaw, banana bread, peach cobbler and sourdough bread. Quite the spread, really. And the questio

  September 10, 2009

• Make This Tonight: Joyce Goldstein's Samfaina

  M. BrodyGoldstein, serving chunky gazpacho -- but when does she sleep?​A real treat: an intimate dinner chez Joyce Goldstein, aka the hardest working woman in the food business. Goldstein, veteran of Chez Panisse and her own San Francisco restaurant Square One, is the author of 26 cookbooks, and a restaurant consultant specializing in recipe development, menu design, and staff training. Oh yes, she has a blog, too. And she still loves to rattle those pots and pans. When we arrived at her

  September 14, 2009

• Aicha serves flavorful Moroccan food at popular prices

  September 16, 2009

• Doggy Bag: Today's Odds and Ends

  ​Our favorite morsel from the food blogs. Don't get the soup: Andrew Simmons lays out a salad bar of office lunch reminiscences on Bay Area Bites, from the passively meh deli sandwich to the actively depressingly slices of dull pizza he scored at an indifferent place downtown. Soup? It can be a problem, especially from a certain chain of FiDi luncheries: I once found bugs of indeterminable type floating in a huge styrofoam cylinder of wonton soup from Lee's, that ubiquitous chain of dirty

  September 15, 2009

• Coda gives us all that jazz, and food too

  September 23, 2009

• Golden Island Cafe: Hong Kong-Style Sago Sweets in the Outer Sunset

  amorimur/FlickrThe sampler: From left, mango sago, mixed fruit, sago with coconut milk, and ice cream.​A unique alternative for late-night cravings in the Outer Sunset, Golden Island Café serves a variety of traditional Hong Kong-style desserts. The specialty here is sago, tiny translucent tapioca pearls served with shaved ice and fresh fruit. There's a variety of options -- strawberry, mango, kiwi, lychee, cantaloupe, watermelon, honeydew -- and you can order with our without coconut mil

  October 2, 2009

• Feds Swoop In to Nail Bay Area Sandwich-Maker Accused of Serving Bacteria On White

  ​Say it's lunchtime and you're at the local gas station trying to choose between the chili cheese dog withering away under the heat lamp or the pre-packaged chicken salad sandwich -- which is going to be healthier? Your instincts might say: Sterile-looking, triangle-shaped sandwich. But the Department of Justice says: If it's a REL's sandwich, go with the cheese dog. The DOJ filed a federal suit yesterday in San Francisco District Court against Oakland-based REL's Food, Inc. -- which makes the

  October 6, 2009

• Castro's Starbelly dishes out a truly memorable meal

  October 7, 2009

• This Italian Beef Sandwich Might Be Da Best A Homesick Chicagoan Could Hope For

  J. BirdsallFor Chicagoans, a big old whiff of home.​In Chicago, where, outside of restaurants with $30 entrees, the quality of lunch is calculated partly by its girth, the Italian beef sandwich draws epic love. Soft-cooked, thinly sliced pot roast meat -- chuck, maybe -- packed into rolls just as soft, especially ordered "wet," which means soaked in the meat's jus. Comes with a scatter of giardiniera; ask for it "hot," and it comes with pickled chiles. There's no way to eat without getting

  October 8, 2009

• Beijing Restaurant, Yao Ming's favorite S.F. spot, offers unusual delights

  October 14, 2009

• Blue Bottle Oakland is Due Tomorrow. You'll Have to Wait for the Bookmaker's Sandwiches

  cscotta/FlickrA traditional letterpress: Good for wedding invitations, and also sandwiches.​It looks like tomorrow will see the dawn of primo caffeine in Oakland, as Blue Bottle's new roasting facility (with attached retail café) is slated to open at 300 Webster (at Third St.), a circa-1923 warehouse blocks from Jack London Square. The site will also house Blue Bottle's production kitchen (they've been renting kitchen space in Hunter's Point). Late last week, Blue Bottle was in the proces

  October 19, 2009

• DeLise Dessert Café Brings New Life to Bay Street

  T. PalmerEloise and Dennis Leung: A sweet couple.​DeLise Dessert Café (327 Bay at Powell), which opened Oct. 16., is a new venture from Dennis and Eloise Leung, pastry chefs for the shuttered Bong Su."They let us create whatever we wanted," Dennis Leung told SFoodie of the couple's former employer. "It was a really great place to work." But the Leungs have a lot to celebrate these days. Besides opening their first café, they're also expecting their first child next month.T. PalmerChocolate a

  October 19, 2009

• Pal's Takeaway, Rhea's Deli, and Mission Burger offer handheld delights

  October 21, 2009

• Sans Cart

  October 21, 2009

• Cali Cheeses Rack Up Awards, But the Real Winners Might Be Ones You've Never Heard Of

  Gordonzola.netGordon Edgar, Rainbow's cheesemonger: New California artisans are making magic.​A half dozen California cow's milk cheeses snagged more than a dozen awards at the 2009 World Cheese Awards earlier this month in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. The annual event is a slugfest of more than 2,000 entries and dozens of countries. California winners included Le Petit Dejeuner from Marin French Cheese in Petaluma, Bellwether Farms' Carmody, and smoked mozzarella from West Berkeley's Belfior

  October 22, 2009

• Muguboka offers homey Korean fare that goes beyond meat

  October 28, 2009

• Burger Bar Sort of Sucks, But the Dessert Burgers are Adorable

  M. BrodyThe 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. M. B

  October 28, 2009

• 'Free Murat': Vendors Urge Show of Support for Amuse Bouche at Tonight's Street-Food Party

  Feel free to customize.​This afternoon, Steven Gdula of Gobba Gobba Hey was urging fellow street-food vendors to show support for Amuse Bouche vendor Murat Celebi-Ariner at tonight's post-Commonwealth Club street food party at 111 Minna Gallery by wearing t-shirts that read "Free Murat." Murat was reportedly picked up by Homeland Secutiry for a visa violation, though SFoodie hasn't been able to confirm the information. Gdula told SFoodie the idea came from Curtis Kimball of Crème Brûlée

  October 29, 2009

• Snacktion: Edamame & Chocolate

  T. Palmer​Name: Edamame & Chocolate Brand: Jade Chocolates Origin: San Francisco Found at: Chocolate Covered (4069 24th St. at Noe) Cost: $12 Ingredients: Bittersweet chocolate, dry roasted edamame, sea salt. Calories per serving: Not listed The word: Local independent confectioner Jade Chocolates packages these party-sized treats in Chinese take-out boxes. Edamame, the green soybeans that are a staple at sushi joints, are roasted, dipped in dark chocolate and dusted with cocoa powder. T

  November 2, 2009

• Yu-Zen and the art of sushi

  November 4, 2009

• Morning, noon, and night, Ironside wants to be the SOMA spot

  November 11, 2009