the tablehopper | 1:11 pm | January 28, 2009 | Foodie 411 | Add a comment
Strong Beer Month and SF Beer Week are coming up in February. Strong Beer Month begins February 1st, and SF Beer Week, a new event celebrating local craft beer history and the artisan beer culture here in SF and around the Bay, will run from February 6th–15th. SF Beer Week has more than 150 beer-related activities, and over 100 San Francisco breweries and pubs participating. There will be festivals, beer dinners, cheese-and-beer pairing events, gourmet food events, special releases, meet-the-brewer evenings, home-brewing demonstrations, music, films, and even a museum exhibition exploring the history of Bay Area brewing, from Monterey to Sacramento and beyond.
There are numerous events all over the Bay Area, but here are a couple highlights:
Strong Beer Month
February 1st–28th
Free (samples may be purchased separately)
February 1st marks the start of the 7th Annual Strong Beer Month. The brewers of the 21st Amendment and Magnolia Pub and Brewery once again bring you an astounding range of memorable brews to lift the winter doldrums. Visit both breweries, try all twelve beers and keep the special commemorative glass. Commemorative t-shirts are also available. The festivities begin February 1st, but check back often as special kegs and casks of vintage and barrel-aged beers will appear throughout the month and runs the entire month. These special beers and glasses will be available from February 1st until they run out.
Magnolia Brewery
1398 Haight St.
San Francisco, CA
415-864-7468
21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant
563 2nd St.
San Francisco, CA
415-369-0900
Brewer’s Sunday Tea
Sunday, February 8th, noon–3pm
This event is a Strong Beer Month Festival at the 21st Amendment with Taylor Boetticher of Fatted Calf and beers from Magnolia and the 21st Amendment with a few special surprises. Enjoy Fatted Calf’s delicious handcrafted sausages grilled outside in the 21A’s beer garden while enjoying great tasting strong beers. The $30 price includes 10 tasting tickets and a yummy sausage with all the fixings, yes fixings. You can purchase tickets in advance at the 21st Amendment for what will surely be a popular event.
Call the 21st Amendment at 415-369-0900 for details.
21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant
563 2nd St.
San Francisco, CA
415-369-0900
The Beer & Nosh Dinner
Wednesday February 11th, 6:30pm–10pm
Hosted by Scala’s Bistro, with a five-course meal prepared by chef Jen Biesty, formerly of Coco500 and Top Chef Season Four. Menu coming soon, check this link for updated posts.
Paired with beers from these generous breweries:
Firestone Walker Brewing Company
Triple Rock Brewery
Drake’s Brewing Company
Sacramento Brewing Company
Shmaltz Brewing
Oskar Blues
All profits for the dinner are being donated to the San Francisco Food Bank. $100: all-inclusive for dinner, beer, tax, gratuity, and donation. Please send questions or reservation requests to rsvp@beerandnosh.com.
Marcia Gagliardi writes a popular weekly e-column about the SF dining scene, “the tablehopper.” Subscribe for free at www.tablehopper.com and get it in your inbox every Tuesday. Got news? Email Marcia at taste@sanfrancisco.travel.
the tablehopper | 10:42 am | January 27, 2009 | Foodie 411 | Add a comment
Things are happening at the Jack London Square project; here’s the latest on what’s coming.
First, Daniel Patterson (Coi) and Lauren Kiino (formerly chef de cuisine at Delfina) will be collaborating on Bracina, an 80-seat 3,000-square-foot project on the ground floor of the soon-to-be-complete Jack London Market (she will be the chef, while Patterson will “provide organizational oversight and consult on the menu”). Bracina, Latin for “kitchen,” will feature an open kitchen and rotisserie as well as a full bar, plus outdoor seating that will look out over the waterfront. The menu will be casual, “a brand of rustic-refined California cuisine highlighting the best local and seasonal ingredients.”
Then there’s BOCANOVA from the husband-and-wife team of Rick Hackett (MarketBar) and Meredith Melville. BOCANOVA will feature a Pan-American grill menu, with dishes from South, Central, and North America that will use local ingredients when possible; Hackett is collaborating with local farmers in planting South and Central American produce that isn’t readily available in the Bay Area. There will be dishes like Argentine cuts of beef, whole fish with Peruvian peppers and spices from the rotisserie, and regional South and Central American slow braises and bean pots from the open kitchen. There will also be ceviche from the raw bar, salads, seafood tacos, and more, including desserts from the bakery. BOCANOVA is opening in the 6,500-square-foot 66 Franklin Street Building, an historic ice warehouse from 1926. Michael Guthrie & Company is designing the contemporary yet rustic space, and will be using recycled and sustainably harvested materials.
Meg Ray, the founder of Miette Patisserie, is opening Wren Bakery, a small retail storefront, spacious production facility, and baking school. The state-of-the-art kitchen will feature 17-foot ceilings and enormous plate-glass windows. The professional cooking course will focus on cake and pastry production, with instruction in both American and European techniques. Non-professional class topics will include baking, decorating, marzipan-rose modeling, petit fours, chocolate work, and candy making, taught by acclaimed pastry chefs from New York, Paris, and Vienna. A course on bread will be added in the coming years, and there will also be classes for children.
Many of these projects are hoping to open in the spring and summer. All the restaurants will benefit from the proximity of the 70,000-square-foot Jack London Market, the largest of its kind on the West Coast, scheduled to open in the summer. It will house small businesses selling fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, cheeses, and specialty products with an emphasis on local and sustainable practices.
Marcia Gagliardi writes a popular weekly e-column about the SF dining scene, “the tablehopper.” Subscribe for free at www.tablehopper.com and get it in your inbox every Tuesday. Got news? Email Marcia at taste@sanfrancisco.travel.
the tablehopper | 10:59 am | January 26, 2009 | Foodie 411 | Add a comment
Chef George Morrone was recently brought on at Sutro’s at the Cliff House. Now that that holiday season has wrapped up, his contemporary-American menu is almost entirely in place, offering a “twist on classics, with contemporary flair.” Some dishes include citrus-cured gravlax with pickled beets and Fuji apples; lobster-ricotta-mascarpone ravioli with blood orange-tarragon butter; and salt-crusted prime rib of veal with parsnip-horseradish puree. By the end of the month, Morrone’s final menu will feature local seafood offerings like petrale sole, Dungeness crab, sand dabs, and shellfish. He is working closely with executive sous chef Brian O’Connor. Some of “George’s favorites” will be on the menu, including his well-known tuna-tartare dish.
Marcia Gagliardi writes a popular weekly e-column about the SF dining scene, “the tablehopper.” Subscribe for free at www.tablehopper.com and get it in your inbox every Tuesday. Got news? Email Marcia at taste@sanfrancisco.travel.
the tablehopper | 3:49 pm | January 23, 2009 | Foodie 411 | Add a comment
There’s nothing quite like some good burger specials. Fans of the Spruce burger (it’s meaty magic) and Burgundy will be happy to know the restaurant has decided to run the Burgers & Burgundy program indefinitely. On Sunday nights, you can take your pick from a selection of boutique red Burgundies, including varietals not regularly available by the bottle. The burger is $14, along with three different selections of Burgundy available at $12, $25, and $50. (A flight of all three is also available for $40.) Feeling decadent? Guests may choose to “spruce” up their burger by adding house-made pancetta for $3, or seared foie gras for $13.
Epic is offering a $20 Burger, Beer, and Brownie prix-fixe lunch in the upstairs Quiver Bar, which is available Monday through Friday from 11:30am–5pm. The burger is half a pound and ground daily, with your choice of a 12 oz. Anchor Steam or Trumer Pils draft beer, and yes, a house-made brownie. Plus there’s that gorg view.
Across the Golden Gate Bridge, Poggio is doing a porchetta supper every Monday night. Chef Peter McNee will be preparing the porchetta exactly as he learned to do it in Italy: deboning a small pig and stuffing it with herbed sausage before sewing it back up and roasting it in the wood-burning rotisserie. Porchetta will be available on Monday nights until March 30th. You’ll be able to enjoy it with another Tuscan classic, fagioli all’uccelletto, all for only $16 per person. Add a quartino of Chianti for $6.
Also across the bridge, The Lark Creek Inn is celebrating the start of its 20th anniversary year by offering guests half-off on all wines on Friday evenings throughout January and February. And you can now get chef Erica Holland-Toll’s Southern-fried chicken prix-fixe spread whenever you want! It was previously offered only on Sundays, but is now available seven nights a week ($19.95 per person). Slow-roasted prime rib has also been added to the menu on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights for $28.95, and includes a baked potato, Yorkshire pudding, and horseradish cream.
Marcia Gagliardi writes a popular weekly e-column about the SF dining scene, “the tablehopper.” Subscribe for free at www.tablehopper.com and get it in your inbox every Tuesday. Got news? Email Marcia at taste@sanfrancisco.travel.
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