South America

Local Venezuelans Hope Lots of Toilet Paper Will Wipe Away Problems in Their Homeland

You think it's irritating when you use the toilet and find out after the fact that there's no toilet paper? Try relieving yourself in Venezuela. The oil-rich and corrupt country of Venezuela has added a new problem to their shopping list of crises: no more toilet paper. To help out, local Venezu ... More >>

Local DJ Adnan Sharif on 11 Years of Forward SF and Getting a Ph.D in Nightlife

Language barriers and cultural differences haven't stopped Brazilian-born Palestinian DJ Adnan Sharif from realizing his dreams as a house producer and underground party promoter in S.F. and around the globe. As founder of house music collective Forward SF, which celebrates its 11th anniversary this ... More >>

"No": Out-Advertising a Dictatorship

ZZK Records' El G on the Rise of Argentina's Dance Music Underground

ZZK Records co-founder and international DJ Grant C. Dull, aka El G, has spent the past eight years in Argentina curating projects that capture the spirit and sound of the country's art scene. The ZZK empire all began with the experimental cumbia party Zizek Club, with DJs Nim and Villa Diamante, an ... More >>

Gift Guide: Buy Framed Vintage Menus From Classic S.F. Spots

All through December, SFoodie is bringing you local gift ideas for the food obsessives in your life. We've been fans of Cool Culinara, the online shop that sells framed and unframed prints of vintage menus, since it opened earlier in the summer -- along with the menus, the site gives some backgroun ... More >>

Work Downtown? You Have an Hour to Order Lunch from Pal's Takeaway or Green Chile Kitchen

Get out of your FiDi lunch rut with LuckyBolt, a new startup that picks up meals from restaurants all over town via bike courier and delivers them to a pickup spot at Market and Beale. Past restaurants featured have included Ike's Place, Nopalito, Lucca Delicatessan, Pica Pica, and more -- today you ... More >>

Kika's Treats: The Brazilian Cheese Bread That Comes But Once A Year

Cristina "Kika" Arantes instructs me to hold my nose as I repeat after her: "pao de queijo." The nasel tone of the Portuguese word for Brazilian cheese bread may be difficult for Americans to master, but the love for this Brazilian snack is easy to acquire. It looks like a small bread roll, but brea ... More >>

Pop-Up Arepas: Maite Catering Expands Its Reach

Maite Catering Bringing Colombian Arepas and More to the Bay

Constanza Ortiz of Maite Catering pretended to glare at me when I liken arepas to pupusas. She is quick to distinguish between the arepas of her home country, Colombia, and the similar Salvadorean snack which she assures me are heavier and -- jokingly-- just not as good. Some claim that arepas are i ... More >>

Lima Peruvian Pop Up Will Have You Licking Your Fingers

This San Francisco pop up is big news in Peru. Gracing the front page of Peru's biggest newspaper, El Comercio, Lima Peruvian is bringing Peruvian street food to San Francisco just like it's done on the streets of Lima -- filling in a gap in San Francisco's food scene with a yin to La Mar's high end ... More >>

Drink of the Week: La Mar's Vamos Pa' Chicha

Top Sommelier Tips with Gabriele Originario of La Mar

Sommeliers spend all day with wine, and are a great resource for new finds. They're the "friend on the inside" that can help you suss out the best values on their wine lists. With that in mind, we've come up with a short suite of questions that we're posing to some of our favorite area sommeliers to ... More >>

The World In 50 Takes

Santa Julia Torrontes: Like Drinking Fresh Flowers

​Argentina is working hard on marketing Malbec as its signature grape, but I prefer Torrontes. For one thing, unlike Malbec, which was imported from France, Torrontes may actually be indigenous to Argentina. People used to believe it was the same as a grape of the same name in Spain's Galicia ... More >>

Steak, Pies, Raider Fans, and Burritos

The past 24 hours in gossip, innuendo, and cold hard facts about the San Francisco food scene. Steak and pie: The kitschy Palace Family Steak House (3047 Mission at Capp) we mentioned earlier, the one that has its own theme song, is set to open next week, according to Bernalwood. Meanwhile, Blackbo ... More >>

My Lawyer, My Vulture

Uruguayan Press Gaga Over Ross Mirkarimi

Ross Mirkarimi -- and his signature vest -- were warmly received in South America​El Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi spread the San Francisco no-plastic-bag gospel to Uruguay this week, and the local press apparently went gaga for San Francisco's good-looking ambassador of green.Okay, check y ... More >>

When Following the Chile Lindo Saga, Don't Forget How Important the ADA Is

​Lauren Smiley's coverage of Chile Lindo's closing in the face of an acrimonious lawsuit regarding wheelchair access makes me prickle in discomfort, torn between feeling for owner Paula Tejada and worrying that readers will excoriate the defendant, glossing over the importance of the Americans wit ... More >>

Disabled Proxy Suing Landlord of Chile Lindo, Other Mission Mom and Pops

Nicholas F./YelpThe owner of Chile Lindo says the place is designed for takeout.​The wheelchair-using man who is suing the landlord of Chile Lindo, Paula Tejeda's empanada shop on 16th Street, for disabled-access violations returned this week ― to buy some meat pies. Litigious diner Craig Yates ... More >>

The Week in Gay: Argentina! Clay Aiken! Toilet Water!

In Argentina, homosexuals can now tango and marry​This week Argentina's senate voted 33 to 27 in support of marriage equality and now it's legal down there. Frankly, I don't know a lot about Argentina. Apparently, it's winter there now. Isn't that fascinating?

Bye Bye Brazil: World Cup Loss Leaves Nation Numb

No longer as perky...​At some point, every serious American sports fan brooding over a bitter loss has been cheerfully told "Hey, it's just a game!" What a terrible thing to say. Here's a hint: We know it's just a game. Don't patronize us.  But in Brazil, no one says "it's just a game" when t ... More >>

Show preview: Kronos Quartet

Don't Sound Like a Tool: How to Pronounce Coffee Regions

​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.Five years ago, when buying coffee all you ... More >>

Support the Troops ― Send Them French Army Rations

Our favorite morsels from the Web. Baby killers, freedom fighters: Don's ask us to figure out the morality of soldiering. What we do know is that armies run on their stomachs, and that stomachs from different armies have different expectations about how to fill them. For this Memorial Day, we thoug ... More >>

What to Have for Lunch: Green Chile Kitchen's Christmas Burrito (in May)

Jonathan KauffmanIf you want a star on that, you'll have to bring your own.​ Weds., May 19, 2010nchoz/Flickr​No matter how ginormous, no matter how loosely wrapped, there is only one circumstance under which San Francisco etiquette permits a diner to eat her burrito with knife and fork: when it ... More >>

Foodzie Test Kitchen Puts Our Chile Crunch Dependency on Ice

FoodzieEZ Gaspacho Granita with Chile Colonial's Chile Crunch.​We bumped into Chile Colonial's Chile Crunch at the Fancy Food Show earlier this year, where it was one of the most memorable local products we found. We've barely stopped eating it since. At the show, Chile Colonial proprietor Sus ... More >>

Street Work

Brazil's Tropicalia 'n' Soul Boys Garotas Suecas (playing SF tonight!)

Garotas Suecas - "Bugalu" from AAM on Vimeo. Latin rhythms mixed with rock attitude can make a wildly potent sonic cocktail. And the music of Brazil's Garotas Suecas infuses the stripped-down structures of '60s soul and garage with a sultry tropical swing straight outta Sao Paolo, intoxicating ... More >>

Chile Pies and Ice Cream ― Treats with the Flavor of New Mexico

J. KauffmanThe pie shop is opening in the former home of Green Chile Kitchen.​Wednesday looks likely for the launch of Chile Pies and Ice Cream, a place devoted to, well, pie and ice cream. The owner? Trevor Logan, the guy behind Green Chile Kitchen. In fact, Chile Pies and Ice Cream's 20-seat ... More >>

Step Dance

The Blank Tapes: Big With the Brazilian Bonbon Crowd

Nothing says romance in Brazil like bonbons...well, bonbons and the Blank Tapes. A tune from the local indie pop act was placed in a recent commercial for Brazil's Sonha de Valsa, according to White Noise. The South American chocolatier's sweets were a delicious match for "Listen to the One," a cru ... More >>

Tropicália’s Swedish Stars

Oblivion

SOMA Samba

Take a trip down to Rio for a taste of Carnaval.

Bless This Dump

Indiewood North

Cumbia Cumbia!

Bike Kitchen Anniversary Party

Cumbia, My Lord, Cumbia

Soiled

Lunchtime in Havana

Paladar brings to S.F. the real flavors of Cuba

Make Your Mama Cry

Peruvian Mingle

Waves of immigrants added spice and sophistication

Guinea pigs are the new buffalo wings

Funny Business

Week 2 of the 47th San Francisco International Film Festival

Malambo

A celebration of the passionate dances of Argentina

Heart's Content

Mi Lindo Peru

Quest for the True Peru

Fresca

Blame It on the Bossa Nova