Kimberly Sandie

San Francisco's Top Ten Cocktail Bars

Lou BustamanteBar Agricole's moonraker: Now that's a beaut.​In the last few years, finding a bad drink in San Francisco has become harder than finding a good one. In nearly every neighborhood you'll find a bar filled with fresh juices, high-quality spirits, and a talented bartender conducting ... More >>

The New Lers Ros: Twice as Stylish, Just as Spicy

Kimberly SandieLers Ros's quail with fried garlic and black pepper: Goes with ganache.​ Despite our proximity to Los Angeles, whose Thai restaurants are the best in the Americas, San Francisco's history with Thai restaurants is a spotty one. Little restaurants spring up, impress the locals, then g ... More >>

It's Now Fried Chicken Night Almost Every Night of the Week

Kimberly SandieThe glory of Magnolia's Thursday night fried chicken is its boned-out thigh.​There are restaurants that specialize in fried chicken and restaurants known for their fried chicken specials. Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc may be the most famous of the latter -- his chicken has become so renown ... More >>

Bug Me: San Francisco Helps Pioneer Insect Cuisine

Bug Cuisine: How Tasty Are Insects?

Photo by Kimberly SandieBay Area entomophagist Daniella Martin tucks into a scorpion​In this week's cover story, "Bug Me," SF Weekly takes a look at the new generation of entomophagists, or insect-eaters, who are based in and around San Francisco. Much has been made in the press of entomophagists' ... More >>

Eating Insects with San Francisco's New Mavens of Bug Cuisine

Photo by Kimberly SandieBay Area entomophagist Daniella Martin tucks into a scorpion​In this week's cover story, "Bug Me," SF Weekly takes a look at the new generation of entomophagists, or insect-eaters, who are based in and around San Francisco. Much has been made in the press of entomophagists' ... More >>

Five Best Thai Restaurants in San Francisco

Kimberly SandieChabaa's gaeng som, or sour orange curry. ​Thai restaurants began popping up all over San Francisco in the 1980s, and within a decade, Thai food had become a staple for first dates and Thursday-night takeouts. San Franciscan children eat almost as much pad Thai as they do organic ba ... More >>

Fall Arts: Nato Green Brings S.F. Truth to Red-State America

Tacko, the WASPiest Taco Shop in Town (Maybe Even the Country)

Kimberly SandieThe Nantucket-style Baja taco from Tacko. Ahoy, mate! (Do Nantucketers say that?)​People love the idea of comfortable authenticity, exploring another culture without the prickle of disorientation. Fancy banh mi, served in restaurants where the sandwich makers don't bark at you and y ... More >>

Fifth Floor: Keeping the Hotel Restaurant Fresh

 Kimberly SandieFifth Floor's pork shoulder (left) and pork belly with peaches, bourbon foam, and, well, a whole lot of stuff.​Most of the news about hotel restaurants in San Francisco these days isn't gushy. The Ritz-Carlton is reformulating its high-end restaurant, Michael Mina moved his fl ... More >>

Txoko Has a Lot of Good Ideas, But Could Use an Editor

Kimberly SandieTxoko's halibut with summer beans and sweet onion sauce, one of the restaurant's best dishes.​For this week's full-length restaurant review, I wrote about Txoko, the much-awaited restaurant from Naked Lunch owners Ian Beggs and Ryan Maxey, who are translating their quirky, imaginati ... More >>

Butter Love Bakeshop's Esa Yonn-Brown Takes After Her Mom

Kimberly SandieButter Love Bakeshop's apricot-cherry and butter pies.​Butter Love Bakeshop's Esa Yonn-Brown is a San Francisco native who left the restaurant industry after her first child was born, but when she took a job doing data processing, she began selling pies out of her home to keep herse ... More >>

This Week's Review: Pie on the Run

Kimberly SandieButter Love Bakeshop's apricot-cherry pie, pretty much my favorite.​ I grew up in a pie-baking family in the heart of pie country. So while my feelings about fermented shrimp paste, liquid nitrogen, and tripe have changed drastically since childhood, no amount of exposure to the wid ... More >>

June's Best Food Photos: Marginally SFW

Kimberly SandieSalmon with spring vegetables and XVOO sauce from Locanda.​ Web editor Jake Swearingen just put up a slideshow of some of the best dishes SF Weekly has photographed this month, including hand pies, tea-smoked duck, pan con chicharron. Why? Because it's lunchtime, and the work week ... More >>

Locanda Serves Roman-Californian Food with Brains

Kimberly SandieLocanda's rigatoni alla carbonara.​Rigatoni alla carbonara. Jewish-style artichokes. Butcher's style oxtails. This week's full-length restaurant review is of Locanda, which is engaged in a delicate dance between classic Roman cuisine and California style. By and large, Anthony Stron ... More >>

Tomorrow: Free Cooking Class From Dominique Crenn

Kimberly SandieAn example of Dominique Crenn's "poetic culinaria."​Dominique Crenn at Macy's Where: Macy's Union Square, 170 O'Farrell (at Powell), 397-3333 When: Sat., June 25, 2 p.m. Cost: Free The rundown: Dominique Crenn is the popular kid who managed to be friends with everybody with ... More >>

Private Cocktails at The Wilson: Ridiculous or Great?

Kimberly SandieThe Wilson: Not quite a detective agency. Or a secret.​At the end of my last visit to The Wilson -- the subject of this week's full review -- my friend and I were about to exit when someone pounded on the bar's front door. Except it's not the door you enter. To get to The Wilson, yo ... More >>

Secrecy, Detectives, and Tinctures: The Wilson Owner Brian Sheehy Talks

Kimberly SandieThis is not Brian Sheehy. But it is one of The Wilson's bartenders.​Brian Sheehy is co-owner with Doug Dalton of Bourbon & Branch, Mr. Lew's Win-Win Room, and The Wilson, which I reviewed this week. Just before finishing my review, I called Sheehy to ask him about the private ey ... More >>

Why Are All You Guys Reviewing the Same Place at Once?

Kimberly SandieDid all you critics need to gush over Nojo's tempura this week? ​Today's question comes from B.T.: Why did you, Michael Bauer, and Patricia Unterman review Nojo in the same week? Did you all go to the restaurant together?In the days when I read restaurant reviews rather than writin ... More >>

Dinner at Brenda's: The Shock of the New

Kimberly SandieThe trout: one of Brenda's new specials. ​ For this week's SF Weekly review, I visited Brenda's French Soul Food, a brunch-lunch restaurant that became a phenomenon during the four years I was away from the Bay Area, with lines that are as legendary as the food. Brenda Buenviaje has ... More >>

Wings. Just Wings. And Lots of Them

Kimberly SandieRed Wings' yani wings, front; K-pop wings, back. Combo, with beer: $26.90.​ This week's restaurant review started off as an ambitious project: I was going to cruise around the city in search of its greatest chicken wings, afloat on fryer oil and pitchers of beer. Then two things hap ... More >>

Kim Alter's Plate Shop: A New New-American Cuisine

Kimberly SandiePlate Shop's warm winter salad.​For this week's review, I visited Plate Shop in Sausalito, Kim Alter's first restaurant, where the veteran of Aqua, Manresa, and Ubuntu ― not to mention sometime waiter at Acquerello ― is unfurling her own sensibility.

No. 36: Seven Hills' Raviolo Uovo

Kimberly SandieSeven Hills' raviolo uovo, $8.50.​SFoodie's countdown of our 92 favorite things to eat and drink in San Francisco, 2011 edition. During his internship at San Domenico restaurant in Northern Italy, Alexander Alioto fell in love with a raviolo dish he learned to make. so he put the d ... More >>

Atelier Crenn Makes Artful Food

Kimberly SandieAtelier Crenn's jardin d'hiver: one of its best realized dishes.​ This week's review is of Atelier Crenn, ex-Luce chef Dominique Crenn's small, personal restaurant in Cow Hollow. It is a restaurant that perplexes as much as it enchants. Where a thousand chefs call their food "local ... More >>

Citizen Cake III: A Work in Progress

Kimberly SandieThe verrines at Citizen Cake are great. The savory stuff: hit and miss.​This week's review is of Citizen Cake ― or rather, Citizen Cake III, daughter of the Hayes Valley restaurant, granddaughter of Elizabeth Falkner's original pastry shop. As much as I've loved Falkner's imaginat ... More >>

This Week's Review: Seven Hills, a Classic, Classical Neighborhood Bistro

Kimberly SandieThe duck at Seven Hills.​This week, I reviewed Seven Hills in Russian Hill, which is a neighborhood designed to become an instant classic. The owners are Alexander Alioto and brother-in-law Alexis Solomou, who belong to the Alioto clan.Alioto interned in kitchens in Italy and German ... More >>

Beijing Restaurant: The Winteriest of Cuisines

Kimberly SandieBeijing-style roast duck at Beijing Restaurant.​It seems fitting that this week's review of Beijing Restaurant's new Outer Sunset branch should come out on a week when snowy patches have appeared in 49 of 50 states. (Are you as envious as I am?) To a German American guy from the ver ... More >>

Soul Cocina's Spanish Suppers at La Victoria

Kimberly SandieWholesome Bakery's Mandy Harper with La Victoria's Jaime Maldonado (center) and Soul Cocina's Roger Feely.​Soul Cocina chef Roger Feely brings his Soul Supper pop-up to La Victoria tonight and tomorrow night. This week's menu skews Spanish, or at least the language is bilingual ... More >>

This Week's Review: Rethinking Americana

Kimberly SandieThe bacon and eggs at Citizen's Band: You're not in Waffle House, my friend.​In a year of new restaurants telling the most interesting of tales ― dozens of chefs breaking away from the French- and Italian-influenced California cuisines they'd been trained in ― it was fascina ... More >>

Behind the Cover Shoot: Castro Nudists (VIDEO)

​This week, Lauren Smiley's cover story, "Overexposed," tells the tale of a group of Castro nudists who have met opposition from neighborhood residents displeased with their very public nudity. SF Weekly art director Andrew Nilsen assembled three of the men in a studio for a photoshoot with p ... More >>

Saturday: Bake Sale and Street Food Party Benefits Nick Harper's Recovery

Kimberly SandieWholesome Bakery's Mandy Harper, La Victoria's Jaime Maldonado, and Soul Cocina's Roger Feely.​Wholesome Bakery proprietor Mandy Harper has organized a bakesale and street food party this Saturday to raise money to help her brother Nick defray medical costs in his fight against ... More >>

Micropatisseries, the Recession, and You: This Week's Review

Kimberly SandieThe mini pound cake from Pinkie's Bakery.​A while back, I started noticing that each new pastry shop that opened in San Francisco ― and there have been a lot of them since January, when I arrived back in town ― was smaller than the last. And also, that despite their size, most o ... More >>

Wholesome Bakery's Mandy Harper Rolls Out Big Dreams

Kimberly Sandie​Mandy Harper's foray into the street-cart scene may have felt like a detour at first, but she has parlayed Wholesome Bakery into a stall at  331 Cortland, the new artisan-foods marketplace in Bernal Heights, and has much, much bigger goals. Here are a few extracts from the int ... More >>

Jaime Maldonado: La Victoria and the Changing of the Mission

Kimberly Sandie​Jaime Maldonado is the owner of La Victoria Bakery, a 60-year-old panaderia on 24th Street that is reinventing itself by  renting out kitchen space to street-cart vendors and hosting weekly street-cart events. When I interviewed Maldonado for yesterday's food lead, I was intri ... More >>

Soul Cocina's Roger Feely Talks About Why He Works Legit

Kimberly Sandie​Roger Feely, aka Soul Cocina, is one of the senior street cart vendors I interviewed for today's "Eat" column. Feely has cooked professionally for more than a decade, so he's far more familiar with the world of communal kitchens and restaurant inspections than many of people he wor ... More >>

Don't Sound Like a Tool: How to Pronounce Common Filipino Dishes

​Don't Sound Like a Tool is SFoodie's series of audio pronunciation guides to sort-of-common-but-not-obvious words we keep encountering on wine lists and menus. No more shame, no more pointing, no more godawful imitations of a language you don't speak.As an extra to last week's review of Patio ... More >>