Iso Rabins

Mark Your Calendar for the Last-Ever Underground Market on December 22

Saturday, December 22 will be the last iteration of the not-always-above-ground food market thrown by Forage SF. Iso Rabins started the Underground Market in December 2009 as a place to bring home cooks and culinary entrepreneurs together to sell their food without all the usual red tape and permit ... More >>

ForageSF: Expanding the Wild Empire

Forage Kitchen Well on Its Way to Becoming Reality

While it is still in the early stages of planning, Iso Rabins' "Forage Kitchen" project seems to be moving right along. Rabins, founder of the Underground Market , Wild Kitchen, and Forage SF, expects the shared-use kitchen and event space to be built out within four to five months, and operational ... More >>

The Wild Kitchen Pops Up for Several Dinners Before Hiatus

The Wild Kitchen, the pop-up that makes San Franciscans' pants pop up, is back for several nights of dinner service before going on hiatus. Iso Rabins, the foraging mastermind behind it all, is teaming up with co-chef Thomas Martinez, formerly of Bar Tartine and Mission Beach, to create a menu that' ... More >>

Nothing's Free: S.F. DPH Cracks Down on Foraged Dinners

Announcing the 2011 SF Weekly Web Awards!

​We're very excited to announce nominations for the 2011 SF Weekly Web Awards are now open. We're asking you -- the very smart, very savvy, and very awesome readers of SF Weekly -- to help us find the best San Francisco has to offer online. Whether that's the Twitter feed you can't stop check ... More >>

Announcing the 2011 SF Weekly Web Awards!

​We're very excited to announce nominations for the 2011 SF Weekly Web Awards are now open. We're asking you -- the very smart, very savvy, and very awesome readers of SF Weekly -- to help us find the best San Francisco has to offer online. Whether that's the Twitter feed you can't stop check ... More >>

Announcing the 2011 SF Weekly Web Awards!

​We're very excited to announce nominations for the 2011 SF Weekly Web Awards are now open. We're asking you -- the very smart, very savvy, and very awesome readers of SF Weekly -- to help us find the best San Francisco has to offer online. Whether that's the Twitter feed you can't stop check ... More >>

Going Legit, Part 6: Iso Rabins and the City on the Future of the Underground Market

kewzoo/FlickrThe Underground Market may be gone. But, says Iso Rabins, something else might take its place.​Part six of a series in which SFoodie asks the question: With the Underground Market now shut down, what would it take for San Francisco's aspiring food microventures to go legit?Here's wh ... More >>

Going Legit, Part 1: With the Underground Market Shut Down, How Do You Start a Food Business?

Albert LawScene's from the SF Underground Market (RIP, for now).​ After the Health Department shut down the ForageSF Underground Market last month, a victim of its own national-news-making success, SFoodie spoke to organizer Iso Rabins about the vendors who had debuted their jams, bibimbap bowls, ... More >>

ForageSF Tries to Stay Alive with Mystery Dinners

​Wild Kitchen Mystery Dinner Where: It's a mystery! When: July 24 - 26 Cost: $90 With its underground market shut down by the San Francisco Health Departmentn last month, ForageSF has returned to its other venture: staging pop-up mystery dinners. The site of these dinners is only sent to ... More >>

Underground Market Remains Closed; ForageSF to Make Case to City Attorney

slowpoke_sf/FlickrThe underground market​Health inspectors are holding the line on their decision to shut down the popular ForageSF underground food market, insisting in a meeting yesterday with ForageSF founder Iso Rabins that vendors obtain necessary licenses before the market can reopen.Rabins ... More >>

Underground Market Remains Closed; ForageSF to Make Case to City Attorney

slowpoke_sf/FlickrThe underground market​Health inspectors are holding the line on their decision to shut down the popular ForageSF underground food market, insisting in a meeting yesterday with ForageSF founder Iso Rabins that vendors obtain necessary licenses before the market can reopen.Rabins ... More >>

Classy Des Jardins and Butter-Bomb Desserts: This Week in Food Bloggery

Jeffrey-Anthony/SF Weekly Flickr pool​ Highlights from the blog this week: 1. Peter Jamison talked to Iso Rabins about the Health Department's shut-down of the Underground Market, which may be permanent. But the market attracted New York Times coverage! And thousands of people! Uh... 2. Carina O ... More >>

Forage S.F. Underground Market Shut Down by Health Department

Jake PoehlsIso Rabins​San Francisco health inspectors abruptly shut down the "underground" market run by wild-foods cooperative ForageSF last weekend, calling the future of the event into question as its popularity continues to grow.ForageSF founder Iso Rabins told SF Weekly that he was issued a c ... More >>

Health Department Shuts Down ForageSF Underground Market

Jake PoehlsIso Rabins​San Francisco health inspectors abruptly shut down the "underground" market run by wild-foods cooperative ForageSF last weekend, calling the future of the event into question as its popularity continues to grow.ForageSF founder Iso Rabins told SF Weekly that he was issued a c ... More >>

Waste Not, Want Not: Three Roadkill Cooking Videos

​We've eaten some strange things before -- see: Rocky Mountain Oysters -- but it takes a certain type of gustatory gusto to chomp down on something you've found lying by the side of the road. Witness: three videos of those who really, really believe the maxim of "waste not, want not."

Underground Market Gets National Exposure, a Seasonal Produce Chart for the Detail-Obsessed

​Today's notes on national stories, local trends, random tastes, and other bycatch dredged up from the food media. 1. The New York Times Discovers the Underground. Times Bay Area correspondent Patricia Leigh Brown visits the Underground Market, which she calls a "crave." (Mmm ... not buying it. ... More >>

Zimmern's S.F. Bizarre Foods Episode Doesn't Look So Bizarre

Is this extortion? Last summer, Andrew Zimmern checked into town to tape an episode of Bizarre Foods. In June, SFoodie's Tamara Palmer reported on speculation that producers for the shiny-domed Travel Channel host had reached out to forageSF's Iso Rabins to find gross stuff. Did Shirley Fong-Tor ... More >>

Commonwealth Club Takes Another Bite of Street Food

Tamara PalmerOff the Grid at Fort Mason.​Venerable public affairs forum The Commonwealth Club is revisiting the topic of street food after its tremendous growth over the past year. Moderator Matt Cohen has been the catalyst for much of that via his Off the Grid mobile food events; he'll provid ... More >>

Stag Dining Group: Current and Former Alembic Chefs Organize Underground Dinners

Jordan Grosser/TwitterStag Dining Group organizers choose plates for next week's dinners.​Two chefs with ties to the Alembic are launching an underground eatery next week in Cole Valley. Jordan Grosser and Ted Fleury ― once co-chefs at the Alembic (Fleury's still there, actually) ― come to ... More >>

Last Chance Thanksgiving Gifts at Underground (Mini) Market

Tamara PalmerRoger Feely of Soul Cocina plans to be there with Thanksgiving sides and desserts.​Iso Rabins' forageSF is hosting a smaller version of its popular Underground Market tomorrow in the Mission. Wednesday's edition will focus on pre-packaged last-minute gift ideas like jams and cooki ... More >>

Oakland Underground Market Launches This Saturday

slowpoke_sf/FlickrIn Oakland, expect a scene like this one from an earlier SF Underground Market.​After a slight hiccup, Iso Rabins' Underground Market is expanding eastward. Saturday evening marks the Oakland debut of the monthly food-hawking party. And, since the East Bay sees at least occas ... More >>

Should the Underground Market Move to a Bigger Venue?

kewzoo/FlickrSmall and packed or trade-show sprawling?​Should the SF Underground Market go huge? The monthly phenomenon that's drawn thousands of locals interested in scoring artisan edibles from small, home-based vendors is suffering from growing pains. Last week, organizer Iso Rabins posted ... More >>

Next SF Underground Market is July 24 at SomArts

Roseline55/FlickrVendor at May's Underground Market.​They seem to come around quick as rent statements, S.F.'s Underground Markets. No sooner than everybody got their jams and kombucha stowed safely away in pantries and fridges from the last market on June 4 than organizer Iso Rabins is announ ... More >>

Andrew Zimmern to Film Bizarre Foods in San Francisco

Scott L. Ehrisman​Andrew Zimmern is shooting an episode of his eat-anything Travel Channel series Bizarre Foods in San Francisco, according to a blog post from forageSF's Iso Rabins, who's been asked to participate. A commenter to Rabins' blog stated that Shirley Fong-Torres of Wok Wiz tours h ... More >>

Underground Market Spawning East Bay Offspring; Next S.F. Bash is June 4

kewzoo/FlickrLast month's Underground Market? A mob scene.​Maybe you live in the East Bay, and on the ride home after the last SF Underground Market, your jar of sauerkraut experienced seepage all over your Tercel's upholstery, or worse, on BART carpeting, admittedly hard to detect, but still, ... More >>

SF Underground Market Rolls Out Friday in SOMA

Jeff Tidwell/FlickrNearly three dozen mostly food vendors will offer homemade wares.​Iso Rabins is the P.T. Barnum of the local homestead food community. On Friday, Rabins hoists the tent for the April installment of the SF Underground Market, this time at SOMArts. Demos include sourdough brea ... More >>

Kitchen Table Talks Ponders S.F.'s Food Underground

sogoodblog.comThe taste of underground.​The underground food scene has exploded. With social networking and no shortage of media hoopla, many informal operations have morphed into serious businesses capable of shaping society and making real money. A week from Monday, Kitchen Table Talks, a jo ... More >>

Saturday Wild Food Walks: Unearthing Urban Edibles

forageSFThe city's bounty.​Walk on the wild side: Yes, that was the lead you were waiting for, the obvious one you expected us to plink out. On Saturdays, starting tomorrow until Feb. 27, forageSF's Iso Rabins -- our local sultan of sea beans, the maestro of morels -- is curating hunts through ... More >>

Underground Farmers' Market Finds 'Warehouse-y Art Space' for Next Week

Philip Clark​Next week's Underground Farmers' Market announced a venue today, a place organizer Iso Rabins is calling a warehouse-y Mission art space that's also a residence. This is the second UFM (the first featured some buzzkill crashers), this time with workshops (sauerkraut- and soap-maki ... More >>

Despite Health Dept. Threat, Underground Farmers' Market Plans to Do It Again

SF Public Press/FlickrLast month's market was in a private home in the Outer Mission.​A buzz-chilling visit by the Health Department to last month's Underground Farmers' Market isn't deterring organizer Iso Rabins from trying it again. Rabins told SFoodie he's scoping locations for another UFM ... More >>

Tomorrow Night (Hopefully): Wild Boar Holidays by forageSF

onderer.com​If forageSF gets enough interest by this morning, it will go ahead with plans for an underground dinner called Wild Boar Holidays tomorrow night, Tuesday, Dec. 22. The menu is being kept under wraps, but organizer Iso Rabins says to expect wild boar, acorn bread, wild radish, and wild ... More >>

Thursday's Underground Farmers' Market Promises a Taste of the Wild and the Crafty

forageSFLemon meringue pie from the Golden Crust, one of Thursday's vendors.​Looks like Thursday's Underground Farmers' Market finally has a venue, a private residence in the Mission at 2755 Bryant (at 26th St.). Earlier this month, we reported that Iso Rabins of forageSF was trying to organiz ... More >>

First-Ever Underground Farmers' Market Drops in Two Weeks -- If It Can Find a Venue

forageSFRabins hawked sea beans at the Eat Real Festival in August.​Grocery shopping and a good party rarely happen in concert, but Iso Rabins of forageSF wants to change that. He's organizing an underground farmers market to take place in two weeks, on Friday, Dec. 18 -- at night, with fresh ... More >>

forageSF is Offering a Twist on the CSA: Subscription Boxes of Locally Foraged Foods

Gene Lee/forageSFPhilosophically potent: A forage box.​About a year ago, ambling through an exceptional meal at La Ciccia, we could not help but overhear a wine-soaked windbag over at the next table brag to his dining companions about his superior eating habits. "Why, I eat as my ancestors did ... More >>

SF Weekly Cover Story Lands in Food Writing Anthology

ForageSFRabins, subject of our anthology-worthy feature story.​Local forage guru Iso Rabins is up for more exposure than he got at Eat Real in Oakland last Saturday, where he was hawking sea beans for three bucks a box. "Out of the Wild," a March cover story about Rabins by SF Weekly staff wri ... More >>

Eat Real Fest, Day Two: Cupcakes, Adios to Eeyore, and Butchery

M. Brody The Good to Go market at Jack London Square.SF Weekly restaurant critic Meredith Brody risked sunburn and serious bloating at the three-day Eat Real Festival in Oakland this weekend. Behold the second of Brody's three reports on the street-food orgy. Saturday was hot again, but not ... More >>

Glasswort (Not a Harry Potter Character)

.imelda/FlickrSea beans (aka glasswort) for sale at Ferry Plaza.​This weekend, August 28 through 30, San Francisco resident Iso Rabins, founder of forageSF, will roll across the bridge to sling locally foraged sea beans at Oakland's Eat Real Festival. Sea beans are not a kind of seaweed, a wei ... More >>

Artists, farmers, and crafters dig deep at "Land. Liberty. Sunshine. Stamina."

SF Weekly Letters

Out of the Wild

Iso Rabins' foraged food is the toast of San Francisco's gourmet set. Health inspectors and environmentalists aren't so thrilled.