Tag Archives: san francisco

Citizen’s Band

Citizen's Band Interior

I’m not sure when I would have finally gotten around to looking into Citizen’s Band had not a couple of my good friends (also enthusiastic connoisseurs of good food and drink), K plus D, checked into it recently and given it a thumbs-up.  As it happens, we would be in the neighborhood attending the Almanac Beer inaugural bottle release party of their first-ever brew: a Summer Belgian with Blackberries aged in oak.  The party was at City Beer Store, a few storefronts away from Citizen’s Band.

So after we had managed to consume one of the last few glasses of Almanac’s Summer 2007 sour brew, we trotted over to the corner of Folsom and 8th.  Narrow, dominated by a long 12-seat old-school soda fountain-like counter on one side, and a series of two-and-four tops on the other, the restaurant (CB) looked small but bright and cheery, the walls plastered with postcards, vintage photographs and old prints.

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Toyose – Outer Sunset

Toyose Chicken Sign

Toyose is way out in the Outer Sunset, Noriega and 45th to be exact.  So close is it to the beach I wonder whether folks have taken their orders of Korean Fried Chicken down to the coast, perfect for an evening picnic or twilight bonfire.  It didn’t hit my radar until the New York Times ran a story on late night eats in San Francisco, focusing on where folks from the restaurant industry tend to congregate after work.  We live in the Inner Sunset, but it still took us 10 minutes or so – even late at night on a Sunday – to make it out to the outer avenues.  It’s a Korean restaurant located in the garage of a residential building and its only distinguishing sign is the one above of a winking chicken.  Cheeky and appropriate.

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Nopalito

Nopalito Signage

You’ve got to respect and honor a chef who, so entranced by the offerings of his sous for family dinners, opens up another restaurant just to highlight their cooking. Nopa’s been a favourite of ours for some time, serving great, well-executed, responsibly-sourced and sustainable food, fantastic cocktails; a bright and airy convivial space that boasts a gorgeous mural by local artist Brian Barneclo… my personal favourite is their hefty pork chop, brined just so, about an inch thick, well-marbled, hugely taking up the size of the serving platter… but that’s for another post. Continue reading →

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Incanto: Il Quinto Quarto (1)

Incanto Interior

I grew up eating offal and love it to this day.  DD will be the first to tell you that if I see organ meats featured on a menu, they’re quickly registered on the mental shortlist of items to order.  Back in the Philippines, we never referred to offal as such, no “nasty bits” references, no euphemisms about “eating nose to tail.”  We simply ate what our kitchen, or the restaurants we frequented, produced, whether it was a platter of kidneys, a sautee of chicken liver, or simmered calfs’ brains floating in a chinese herb soup.  I grew up learning how to ask for the pigeon head for the pleasure of cracking its skull open to get at the creamy goodness within. Continue reading →

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Smith@Saison

Saison

Of late, I’ve been able to resist temporary temptations.  For over a year since it opened, I made scant little effort to get to Plum until I heard visiting Southern chef Sean Brock was coming to town and would be cooking special dinners at Coi and Daniel Patterson’s outpost in the East Bay… I hastily made sure we had a spot then.  The same applied for Saison.  In all fairness, we had been trying to get here since Chef Josh Skenes was only doing 2 dinners a week in the Stable Cafe space – we’d make reservations and then have to cancel them.  But this week, we stuck to our Wednesday 9pm timeslot for Smith@Saison – Chef Jeremy Fox’s 4-day installment while Skenes is off accepting his shiny Best New Chef award at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. Continue reading →

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Bar Agricole Brunch

Bar Agricole Interior

Bar Agricole is on 11th street, in a somewhat seedy area largely known for its nightlife and late-night post-drunk binging from the mobile crepe truck rather than farm-to-table dining and craft cocktails.  But it’s there, hidden cleverly behind a blocky slate wall, blue lettering on black hiding its identity in a smart understated industrial camouflage.  If you didn’t know where to look, you’d easily miss it, and one might think Bar Agricole actually doesn’t want to be known or found.  But once you step inside, you’re confronted with a lovely oasis (a bit incongruous for this area) of exposed wood, high ceilings, and striking light fixtures which hang down like cascades of frozen water.  It’s a restauarant that doesn’t quite match the immediate neighbourhood. Continue reading →

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Nojo – Hayes Valley

Nojo interior

To my delight, and cautious anticipation, we returned from Japan to a number of Izakayas opening in San Francisco.  We loved these establishments in Japan, known for providing beer, sake and small noshing plates to their patrons.  Roughly translated, the kanji for Izakaya 居酒屋 indicates sake-selling establishment (酒 – sake-ya).  We already have Nombe in the Mission, Bushi-Tei Bistro and O Izakaya in Japantown, Halu in the Inner Richmond and Izakaya Sozai in our neighborhood, the Inner Sunset.*  And perhaps because Izakayas are the New Big Thing, there appear to be a number of these bar-and-small-plates restaurants opening in our area over a fairly short span of time.  And I of course want to check them all out.  Kasumi is in the Outer Sunset on Ocean and has, thus far, received some somewhat tepid reviews.  Chotto, in the Marina, is in a part of the city we don’t much like to frequent.   So Nojo — in our old stomping grounds of Hayes Valley — won out.  Chef Greg Dunmore reached the Bay Area by way of Atlanta, a graduate of the CIA in Hyde Park, NY.  Dubbed a rising star chef in 2006 by the SF Chronicle, he first worked at the Michelin-starred Terra with Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani who mentored  him in Japanese cuisine.  Sone soon asked him to become executive chef of Ame (Asian fusion at the St. Regis Hotel), where he stayed for 4 years and also earned a Michelin.   After realizing he had a passion for Japanese yakitori and izakaya-style cooking, he’s now opened his own Izakaya-style establishment.  Nōjō, the japanese word for farm (農場), brings together this passion and reflects his commitment to small farms and seasonal ingredients.  It’s important to note however, that the food at Nojo seems to be distinctly Californian and heavily influenced by Japan, not the other way around.  Continue reading →

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We love the Alembic

The Southern Exposure

We interrupt this stream of Japan-related posts to bring you this note from a much-beloved cocktail bar in the Upper Haight.  We returned from our 3 weeks in Japan to somewhat stressful workplaces; then just as we were about to leave work for the weekend on Friday afternoon, we received emails from DD’s grandmother reporting that DD’s dad and stepmom had been in a car accident in Florida.  (They were both injured but are recuperating.)

After DD was able to get as much information as he could from family members, he decided he needed a drink.  I met him at the Alembic and we ended up having dinner there.

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Cha-Cha-Cha

Looby and Brian - Cha Cha Cha

Cha-Cha-Cha in the Haight has always been a favourite of mine. It’s loud, both in sound and decor — and it serves up some of the best fingerfood in the city — Caribbean-style tapas. As you can see from the picture above, these are my friends Looby and Brian having a marvelous good time. As usual, I am late in posting — the last time I was at CCC was on the MLK Day Holiday, nearly a month ago.

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Destino

Chile Relleno

My dearest darling friends Nora & Brian chose Destino on Market at Valencia, for a belated birthday dinner on the 20th. Secrets are indeed hard to keep when dealing with large groups… I had initially thought it was a dinner between Snores, Brian & I, but by Friday night knew that the Capoeiristas had been invited as well. It was a funny little comedy of errors as a couple of people called me and wished me a happy birthday, or mentioned something about “your party on Sunday.” Continue reading →

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