Subject: Jen Siska

• Early Bird Special: The Broken Record

  Jen SiskaHoodies and ball caps allowedIf you've ever wondered what the hell a gastropub is, get the ultimate schooling by reading SF Weekly food critic Matthew Stafford's review of the Broken Record (1166 Geneva at Edinburgh) in the Excelsior. Think bar food done by serious chefs who actually love the genre, without a whisker of the attitude that'd make you think twice about dressing in your favorite broken-in black skinnylegs and scuffed-up Vans. Stafford plows through house-smoked pigmeat samm

  June 2, 2009

• LastNight: Feist at the Fillmore

  June 28, 2007

• Letters to the Editor

  July 18, 2007

• Early Bird Special: Contigo

  Jen SiskaContigoAfter scarfing pork-belly bocaditos and octopus salad at Contigo in Noe Valley, SF Weekly food critic Matthew Stafford gets all dreamy thinking about the vacay he took in Barcelona. Stafford thinks chef-owner Brett Emerson gets all the details right in this local simulacrum of the Catalan tapas bar. Drool over the full review later today at sfweekly.com. Meantime, here's a taste: The similarities between the Bay Area and Catalonia are striking. Both regions have a fierce independ

  May 5, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Nopalito

  Jen SiskaFebruary's launch of Nopalito, the regional Mexican spin-off of Laurence Jossel's swarming Nopa, was the city's most fervently-awaited restaurant event so far this year (just sayin', Michael Mina). SF Weekly food critic Meredith Brody braved the crowds to sample fungus antojitos, sturgeon tacos, and stewed goat, and for the most part emerged smiling. Read the full review here. Itching for a spoiler? Here's a tease: The best dish was the carnitas, a singularly succulent chunk of pork br

  May 12, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Gary Danko

  It had to happen -- SF Weekly food critic lost her virginity, and to a hunk of foie gras, no less. Brody experiences her gastro rite de passage at überluxe Gary Danko, which opened in 1999 and still has a way with a cheese cart. And in case you think a place not accustomed to skimping on the lobster and caviar has to be Prada-shoe fancy, think again.Jen Siska Brody found casually dressed Texans at the bar, and waiters too well trained to get all sniffy when you pick up the wrong fork. Read the

  May 26, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Bund Shanghai

  Jen SiskaNote to aspiring restaurateurs: The fiercest Chinese eateries are in diaspora neighborhoods, places like the Outer Richmond or northern Peninsula, where second- and third-generation Asian Americans actually live. Seems like nobody told the owners of Bund Shanghai (640 Jackson at Kearny), a restaurant in the heart of Chinatown that SF Weekly critic Meredith Brody says is pumping out some of the best Chinese food in the city. Start planning where you're gonna park the Prius, even as you b

  June 16, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Little Skillet

  Jen SiskaAh, summer, when a young man's fancy turns to chicken 'n' waffles. What is it about the Harlem classic -- an inter-meal mashup of homely comforts -- that's poised for revival? In the Tenderloin, Gussie's Chicken and Waffles is due to drop any day now. And halfway between AT&T and South Park, techies and others escape office cubes to line up for chicken 'n' waffles (plus neo-Southern favorites) at takeout-only Little Skillet (360 Ritch at Townsend). Weekly restaurant critic Matthew Staff

  June 30, 2009

• Early Bird Special: The Tipsy Pig

  Jen SiskaThe mac 'n' cheese most definitely did not suck.You've been to that party, the one where you feel uncomfortably dickish. Everybody else is hammered and sweaty, screaming into their phones and busting cheesy moves to Lady Gaga, while you're, well, wondering if anyone'd notice if you booked. That's how Weekly food maven Meredith Brody felt on her second visit to The Tipsy Pig (2231 Chestnut at Pierce), the Marina comfort-food phenom that calls itself a "gastrotavern" (you know, like gastr

  July 7, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Flour Water

  Jen SiskaThey'll make you forget the wait.Like children of the corn, San Franciscans have lined up practically since day one at Flour Water (2401 Harrison at 20th St.), the Mission's newest locus of blistery thin-crust grandeur, juxtaposing clunky schoolhouse chic with graceful cooking. Call the restaurant's acolytes children of the locally grown silver corn, cut off the cob and scattered over heirloom tomato salads. In this week's restaurant review, SF Weekly critic Meredith Brody discovers t

  July 21, 2009

• Early Bird Special: S.F.'s Street-Food Scene

  Jen SiskaCreme Brulee Guy in Linda Street: Stafford likes his culinary showbiz.​We've hogged major bandwidth in blog posts about the city's underground, Twitter-stoked street-food scene, treating the phenomenon more as news than the subject of serious parsing from the POV of gastronomy. In tomorrow's Eat column, SF Weekly restaurant critic Matthew Stafford considers S.F.'s flotilla of carts from an eater's perspective, mingling with the crowds in Dolores Park and elsewhere to clock calorie

  July 28, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Mercury Lounge

  Jen Siska The honey-walnut prawns at Mercury Lounge. An early taste of SF Weekly's Wednesday food review.  A bridge-and-tunnel bar in SOMA is probably the last place you'd expect to taste well-made food, but that's just what SF Weekly food critic found this week at Mercury Lounge (1582 Folsom at 12th St.). Brody worked her way through a merienda of Filipino-tinged Asian dishes from a chef who spent time in the kitchens of Betelnut and Poleng Lounge. Go before the clubbers in their av

  August 4, 2009

• Early Bird Special: 54 Mint

  Jen Siska54 Mint's caprese salad.​An early taste of SF Weekly's Wednesday food review. This may be a city whose obsession with thin-crust shows no sign of cooling, but newcomer 54 Mint (16 Mint at Jessie) isn't exactly willing to pander. No, the still-new Italian restaurant in Mint Plaza's sleek Euroscape has a very Sicily-meets-Manhattan sense of itself, one that doesn't include Cali-style pies. Not surprising, since one of the owners here is co-owner of Il Buco in New York City. SF Wee

  August 11, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Wexler's

  Jen SiskaMore downtown than down-home?​An early taste of SF Weekly's Wednesday food review. Forget the kind of barbecue you find yourself licking off your forearm an hour after lunch, the kind you feel no remorse in toothpicking from your molars on a crowded bus in plain view. Wexler's (568 Sacramento at Montgomery) fuses barbecue tradition with New American ambition, resulting in some very refined smoke-touched dishes that -- the best ones, anyway -- deliver much of the satisfaction of

  August 18, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Aicha

  Jen SiskaAicha's kefta tagine (right).​An early nibble from the Weekly's Wednesday food review. Little Aicha (1303 Polk at Bush) showed up in Polk Gulch last June, in the space where De Afghanan Kabob House once ruled. SF Weekly restaurant critic showed up, too, working her way through a series of Moroccan dishes at the modest mom 'n' pop that busts out small (an medium-size) dishes, with prices to match. Vegetables shiny with olive oil. Cinnamon-y chicken baked in the phyllo-like pastry

  September 15, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Starbelly

  An early nibble from the Weekly's Wednesday food review. Jen Siska​It's merely the latest eatery to embody the übercasual, thin-crust pie, salumi sandwich, and beer ethos of the moment, the way Beretta, its restaurant sib, embodied the artisanal cocktail spirit of mid-2008. Crown the ownership duo geniuses, then, and not just for getting Starbelly's menu right. They're also gastro pioneers in a neighborhood better known for restaurants that lay down post-party calorie bombs or gently tw

  October 6, 2009

• Have You Noticed? S.F. Bars and Restaurants Are Sporting Major Wood

  Jen SiskaStarbelly: Epic lumber fetish​What does say about this particular moment in S.F. that the current cliché of restaurant design is wood? Horizontal planks, vertical boards, new wood, reclaimed lumber. Sanded and varnished or -- more often -- left gray and raw, bristling like three-day stubble. Are they the design equivalent of the sandwich and the beer, of thrift-store flannel and the untrimmed, pube-scraggle beard? Call this new anti-paneling a signifier of anti-artifice, the slig

  October 19, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Ironside

  Jen SiskaIronside's cuban sandwich​An early nibble from the Weekly's Wednesday food review. Point your finger at the jobless rate or the housing bubble's bust: We're living through a moment of intense repurposing. And while we may not be at the point of sock darning, we're seriously digging restaurants that manage to remake the familiar into something convincingly modern. The SOMA restaurant Ironside (680 Second St. at Townsend) scores a double hit in that regard, rehabbing both a former

  November 10, 2009

• Do Not Piss Off the Lunch Gods: A SFoodie Lunch Planner

  Jen SiskaNo sense tempting fate.​Friday, November 13, 2009 We're not saying we didn't pull on our lucky undies this morning, but still: Friday the 13th doesn't necessarily freak us out. Then again, there's no sense giving fate an excuse to kick your ass by mindlessly scarfing a sandwich, or polishing off a Spa Cuisine Classic at your desk while surfing Zappos.com -- the mealtime equivalents of walking under a ladder. Our advice? Honor the lunch gods by seeking out something with the aur

  November 13, 2009