Cocktails

Appetite: More Upper highs and Valley loves

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Appetite: More Upper highs and Valley loves

In this week’s Appetite column in the paper, I ran down my picks for the best spots to eat a quality meal (without the expense of other areas) in the Upper Haight and Cole Valley region. Below are more of my favorites from my home ‘hood, including picks for coffee, brunch, and cocktails — including delicious sangria, a cheese gem, and a woeful tale of a hot dog scramble to avoid.

COFFEE: Coffee has long been rough in the Haight. Until Haight Street Market opened a Blue Bottle kiosk in their store, one couldn’t get a proper cup. While appealing cafes like Reverie boast a welcome back patio, and the La Boulange chain on Cole serves substantial pastries, none offers a cappuccino or espresso to satisfy coffee snobs. But just in the last week or so, there’s a quiet coffee revolution afoot with two new cafes. Flywheel Coffee Roasters looks like a hipster Mission coffee spot with a handful of laptops and industrial-stark interior. Though they aren’t going the foam art/microfoam route at this point and they have not begun roasting their own beans in-house as they plan to, initial cups are promising. The other new spot is Stanza in the Coco Luxe space. They’ll be doing coffee cuppings on the first Thursday of each month (7pm) and have their coffee roasted by Augies in Southern California. They DO have foam art and proper cappuccinos. A welcome neighborhood addition.

BRUNCH: I’ve never gotten Zazie‘s endless brunch waits. Sure, it’s a charming, little Parisian space, though I’ve had better luck with non-brunch meals. But for 1-2 hour waits (they do have a nice system now that alerts you when your table is ready), it’s amazingly mediocre. Personally, I wouldn’t wait any amount of time for mediocre. There are so many delicious brunches in the city, I am flummoxed as to why, after all these years, this remains many locals’ favorite. The original Pork Store Cafe likewise has waits (though not as painful as Zazie’s) which I likewise don’t find worth it. I once had a “sausage” scramble here that was hot dog slices. What it does have is quirky, old school diner charm and clientele. My brunch recommend in the ‘hood, though, is always Magnolia. Arriving before noon, I’ve never had a wait and the food is quality (plus there’s Blue Bottle coffee and beers).

FOOD: Kezar Bar (the one on Cole, not the pub on Stanyan) can occasionally surprise with above-average bar food, like giant potato pancakes with Andouille sausage, applesauce, sour cream – in a cozy, pub atmosphere. Despite the crowds and its faded glory, there’s still something appealing about the original Cha Cha Cha. Maybe it’s Mother Mary presiding over the bar, plants surrounding tables for that tropical effect, the festive atmosphere, plantains and black beans, or that damn tasty sangria. Citrus Club‘s food is pretty hit and miss – downright average, really (who has time for that in this city?) – but many adore it because it’s cheap and easy Asian “fusion” (they mix and match Asian cuisines with abandon).

For burgers, if you’re not eating Magnolia’s fab burger, local chain Burgermeister is the best bet as Burger Urge just doesn’t cut it. Since the ’70s, Say Cheese is a tiny Cole Valley gem of a market. Their small selection of cheeses, meats, wines, chocolates, is well curated, the staff are responsive and they make worthy deli sandwiches (like Cajun turkey, creole mustard, pepperoncini, pepper havarti), ideal to take to nearby parks.

DRINK: Us spirits and cocktail lovers have a soft spot for Aub Zam Zam. This is not cutting edge cocktails. It’s a slice of SF history, with a strong spirits selection and older, seasoned bartenders who are knowledgeable and sweet (since lovably cantankerous Bruno passed away, God rest his soul, there’s no kicking people out on a whim anymore). They make a mean gin martini, boozy and bright. The space evokes the Art Deco era with an exotic, Moroccan slant. Divey and dingy, it’s a classic I hope we’ll never lose.

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

Taste of Potrero: Fundraiser for Daniel Webster Elementary

Maria Poblet
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Taste of Potrero: Fundraiser for Daniel Webster Elementary

All of San Francisco’s top restaurants and bars in one room at the same time?

That is exactly what Taste of Potrero is offering with a lineup including Ame, Local Mission Eatery, Nojo and Skool to just name a few. Pair that with cocktails from the Homestead and Comstock and wines from Urbanite Cellars, and you’ll have a truly fantastic event.

An added bonus is the fact that all proceeds go to Daniel Webster Elementary (DWE) School. DWE is a struggling public school in potrero hill slated for closure just five years ago. The reason DWE still here today is because of the strong local community rallying together to save it, and then maintaining that support with fundraisers like Taste of Potrero. We look forward to seeing you on May 10th!

Buy your tickets HERE!

Upper highs, Valley loves

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Upper highs, Valley loves

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE I’m constantly asked what my favorite restaurant is. It’s an impossible question. Inquire about my favorite taqueria, German spot, tea house, French bistro, and I’m ready to talk. There’s a favorite for every style and mood in a metropolitan city such as ours. My current home is on the cusp of Haight-Ashbury and Cole Valley, which, like every neighborhood in our food-rich city, has its treasures. We’ll breeze past the touristy swill and explore its best here. Find more of my picks in this neighborhood, from coffee to cocktails, here.

 

ALEMBIC

Thank God for The Alembic. The bar has been one of SF’s best since it opened, thanks to bar manager Daniel Hyatt, whose expertise in American whiskeys equals an ahead-of-the-curve selection. Alembic claims many gifted bartenders, like Danny Louie and Janiece Gonzalez, and I’m never disappointed when asking for an off-menu cocktail creation. The food is destination-worthy in its own right — maybe the best in the Haight. Whether at the bar with jerk-spiced duck hearts and a bowl of shishito peppers, or dining on caramelized scallops and sweetbreads over kabocha squash spaetzle, I continue to be satisfied.

1725 Haight, SF. (415) 666-0822, www.alembicbar.com

 

MAGNOLIA PUB AND BREWERY

Owner and brewmaster Dave McLean opened Magnolia Brewery more than 14 years ago, brewing the best beers in SF (in my humble opinion). Magnolia’s space has Old World, gastropub charm in black leather and wood booths and antique floor tiles. It serves the best brunch in the area — sorry, Zazie and Pork Store — which includes BBQ belly over Anson Mills cheddar grits, or quinoa hash and eggs if you want to cut down the fat quotient. For lunch and dinner, house sausages delight (rabbit currywurst!) as does savory mushroom bread pudding or a near-perfect Magnolia pub burger.

1398 Haight, SF. (415) 864-7468, www.magnoliapub.com

 

GIOVANNI’S PIZZA AT CLUB DELUXE

Upper Haight’s best hidden gem is Giovanni’s, a pizza kitchen in the back of Club Deluxe (eat in the bar or take-out). Giovanni’s pies aren’t so much Neapolitan perfection as a mix between Italian and East Coast styles, with a classic margherita and spicy Diavola, laden with pepperoncini, salami, Parmigiano, and a Belizean hot sauce. Save room for a West Coast rarity: a fresh cannoli, sweet ricotta stuffing brightened with orange blossom oil. Club Deluxe’s drinks are of the mojito, greyhound kind. Not exactly a cocktailian destination. What makes Deluxe special? Nightly live jazz in a well-loved bar that thankfully hasn’t changed decor for decades, with a 1950s, cozy bar feel. Bands rotate: trios, duos, quartets, even organ acts, providing some of the best jazz in the city, usually free. If only, like New Orleans, our neighborhoods were lined with such clubs.

1511 Haight, SF. (415) 552-6948, www.sfclubdeluxe.com

 

ICE CREAM BAR AND SODA FOUNTAIN

I wrote much of Ice Cream Bar back in February, so I’ll send you to the review detailing my fascination with this one-of-a-kind, 1930s-era soda fountain. It’s my top pick for dessert.

815 Cole, SF. (415) 742-4932, www.theicecreambarsf.com

 

PARADA 22

Parada 22 is a vibrant little space with aquamarine walls and vintage South American food products lining the shelves. The casual eatery feels vacation-like, offering Puerto Rican food. My favorite dish here is camarones a la Criolla: sauteed shrimp, tomato and onions in a dreamy-light cream sauce. Sides like plantains and red or white beans in sofrito-based sauces, are fresh and appealing. The restaurant has recently joined forces with sister restaurant Boogaloos (www.boogaloossf.com) in the Mission, serving Boogaloos’ brunch menu every weekend.

1805 Haight, SF. (415) 750-1111, www.parada22.com

 

THAI DUO: PLOY II AND SIAM LOTUS

Haight-Ashbury has two unexpectedly strong Thai spots serving authentic dishes. Ploy II is upstairs in an old Victorian space, with weathered carpet and decor (elephants, tapestries) straight out of Chang Mai’s Night Bazaar. It does standards well, and I crave the mango panang curry: spicy, creamy with coconut milk and peanut sauce. Siam Lotus also is reliable on Thai classics, though it’s the daily changing chef’s special board that sets it apart. Thankfully on the permanent menu, the Thai tacos are a must. Though the paper thin crepes fall apart at the touch, a filling of ground chicken, shredded coconut, mini-shrimp, and peanuts makes for one of the more fun Thai dishes anywhere.

Ploy II: 1770 Haight, SF. (415) 387-9224, www.ployii.com

Siam Lotus: 1705 Haight, SF. www.siamlotussf.com

 

HAMA-KO

Hama-Ko husband-and-wife owners Tetsuo and Junko Kashiyama open only when they feel ready and usually treat regulars best, service is slow, and certainly there are no California rolls. But this nearly 30-year-old classic is one of those neighborhood secrets that locals return to and sushi devotees enjoy. It’s straightforward sushi: silky scallops, bright-as-the-sea tai (red snapper), melt-in-your-mouth unagi avocado maki. You won’t find the variety of rare fish found at Zushi Puzzle (www.zushipuzzle.com), but you will find impeccable freshness — Tetsuo sources his fish from the same place The French Laundry and Chez Panisse gets theirs, he proudly tells me — from a couple who cares.

108 Carl, SF. (415) 753-6808

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com 

 

3 spring cocktail trends

Andrew Lam
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3 spring cocktail trends

Spring imparts new life and lush green after winter rains. It also ushers in a glut of new cocktail menus, emphasizing the best produce of the season and exciting new trends.

BOTTLED COCKTAILS

These are sprouting up everywhere, including at the newest addition to the Bourbon & Branch family, the 1950s-styled Local Edition (691 Market, SF. www.localeditionsf.com), which opened April 12. There is no carbonation in these blends, just sophisticated, straightforward bottlings that utilize house syrups to drive flavor profile. Instead of individual-sized bottles, bar manager Ian Scalzo opts for 750-milliliter bottles that he corks and seals in-house. Order a large bottle of rum infused with house made yerba maté syrup — some come with a shot of sparkling wine, or soda — or avail yourself to tableside decanter service as you enjoy live music in this spacious, underground bar.

At Harry Denton’s Starlight Room (450 Powell, SF. (415) 395-8595, www.harrydenton.com) bar manager Joel Teitelbaum created a carbonated line-up at $12 per bottle, with even more in the works. Clear spirits dominate this bottled cocktail menu, which just launched April 10, but don’t be surprised if brown liqueur shows up too. Teitelbaum is already working on a Bulleit Rye cocktail for bottling. Try a carbonated Negroni made lively with Campari, Plymouth gin, and sweet vermouth, or a Phizzed Phosphate daiquiri of white rum perked up with cane sugar, phosphate, citric acid, and distilled lime juice.

You read that right, distilled juice. Citrus can easily turn bitter and pungent during distillation, but with lots of experimentation (and failed batches) using various juices, Teitelbaum has cornered a subtle lime aroma that blends seamlessly into his bottled daiquiri, mojito, and Brokers gin-based gin and tonic — my favorite of the bunch. His homemade tonic is a light brown, a natural result from leaving in the cinchona bark filtered out of most tonics. The drink gives off a floral, cardamom aroma, and the distilled lime juice tastes here of kaffir lime. Cutting-edge bars like The Aviary in Chicago are also experimenting with high concept bottled cocktails, but Teitelbaum is going for approachable, crowd-pleasing classics — with a twist.

PIMM’S CUP REVIVAL

Pimm’s Cups are on the rise. For those unfamiliar, the English brand Pimm’s has a full lineup of spirits, but its most-popular Pimm’s No. 1 is a gin-based, rosy red liqueur with notes of citrus and spice. In addition to Pimm’s, the famous cocktail made from the spirit can include lemon and cucumber, even gin, ginger ale, 7-Up, soda water, or mint. It’s a boozy cucumber lemonade for grown-ups that typically comes generously garnished — a drink that is as visually pleasing as it is to taste.

Pimm’s Cups are staples in London, even offered as a morning imbibement at farmers markets. In New Orleans, the drink is a tradition at 1700s bar Napoleon House (even if the version served is less than exemplary), a welcome treat in muggy Nola heat.

I wouldn’t mind seeing more Pimm’s traditions in our own city, but it seems we’re on our way. I’ve long gotten my Pimm’s Cup fix at 15 Romolo (15 Romolo, SF. (415) 398-1359, www.15romolo.com), which makes a lovely version with your choice of liquor (“anything but scotch,” reads the menu), plus Pimm’s, cucumber, mint, lemon, house ginger syrup, bitters, and soda water. Get the from-scratch treatment at Heaven’s Dog (1148 Mission, SF. (415) 863-6008, www.heavensdog.com) next month when new bar manager Trevor Easter makes a fresh batch of gin-based, housemade Pimm’s liqueur from bar director Erik Adkins’ recipe. With this base, the two craft a gorgeous drink, lively with cucumber and lemon.

Jasper’s Corner Tap (401 Taylor, SF. (415) 775-7979, www.jasperscornertap.com) bar manager Kevin Diedrich just started bottling his own Pimm’s Cup. A vivid orange, it goes down bright and bold with cucumber, ginger, lemon, Pimm’s, soda, and the no-longer-secret ingredient: a hint of fresh strawberry. Diedrich’s little bottled beauties border on addictive. I wish I could stock them at home.

WINE COCKTAILS

Sampling through spring menus I’ve noticed this old trend getting fresh life. At Wo Hing (584 Valencia, SF. (415) 552-2510, www.wohinggeneralstore.com), bar manager Brooke Arthur’s new spring cocktails include a Cynar spritzer made from the Italian artichoke liqueur and Plymouth Gin, alongside Punt e Mes vermouth, cava, orange bitters, lemon peel, and a pinch of salt. This dark, earthy, red refresher is blissfully bitter, bright, and invigorating. The salt enhances flavors, the bubbles impart texture.

Kevin Diedrich at Jasper’s Corner Tap created a St. Helena fizz served tall in a Collins glass. This wine-based cocktail is blessedly light on the alcohol — perfect for a mid-day imbibing. It uses Newton Chardonnay, St. Germain elderflower, Benedictine, Peychaud’s bitters, Bitter Truth grapefruit bitters, and soda. It’s like a mini-escape to wine country.

Kate Bolton of Maven (598 Haight, SF. (415) 829-7982, www.maven-sf.com) created a unique wine aperitif in Global Warming. Dry riesling features, but also sake, even a splash of Ransom’s Old Tom gin. Tart with lemon, a little scoop of absinthe sorbet permeates the drink as it melts. Who says vino and hard alcohol don’t mix?

Attention: Tiny book in your newspaper (Feast is here!)

Andrew Lam
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Our bi-yearly Feast food and drink magazine hit newsstands today, so strap up your sneaks and step out because you have a lot of dining around to do. Marke B. went on a tapas tour of the city’s sabrosos Spanish spots, Virginia Miller did a neat breakdown (sauce-by-sauce, no less!) of authentic Southern barbecue spots in the Bay Area, and surprising spring cocktail trends. Emily Savage makes it easy for limited-diet types with her exploration of tasty vegan and gluten-free dishes, and I took advantage of flu season to discover the many styles of the city’s tea houses. And special web-only bonus: Ali Lane gets bowled over by the best dishes… in bowls. 

And click here to see the mag in all its printed glory. And bon appetit, of course.

 

 

Appetite: Jazzy 1950s-era bar in former newspaper printing room? Believe it

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Bourbon and Branch, Wilson and Wilson, Rickhouse… I’ve frequented (and written about) each since they opened. Though some tire of the speakeasy concept, Bourbon and Branch led that trend, remaining one of the more transporting places to drink anywhere. I value owner Future Bars‘ emphasis on setting and will always adore a setting from another era or place, whether you call it speakeasy or not. Taste and quality is crucial, but I’m grateful for that rare bar I can escape to, to feel as if I’m in another time or world, preferably with an excellent drink.

Future Bars’ brand new bar, Local Edition, opened yesterday off bustling Market Street near Third (in what was the Manhattan Lounge), full of retro spirit. I visited a couple days before opening to check out the space, and again opening day for drinks, when the line to get in wrapped around the block (hopefully not a sign of things to come?) The underground space has a 1950s-era jazz club feel and is surprisingly large (over 5000 square feet), so even after the throngs entered, it was not full. The bar is sexy and candlit with a stage, restored vintage chairs surrounding low tables, and red bench seats lining the walls.

Heading downstairs at the entrance of the historic Hearst Building, a key theme becomes apparent: classic newspapers and printing operations. The space was once The Examiner and The Call’s printing floor. The first part of the room feels like a museum, an ode to historical SF newspapers. Pre-1970s papers, from The Chronicle to an early 1966 issue of my own employer, the Guardian, line cases and walls, with a range of vintage typewriters scattered around the room.

Owners Brian Sheehy and Doug Dalton (reporters run in Dalton’s family: father and grandfather) honor history in countless details — even the marble on the bar top and some of the tables is from Hearst Castle, thanks to  Steve Hearst who has been involved in this project from the beginning (it’s in the Hearst Building, after all).

Behind the bar, you might recognize general manager Joe Alessandroni, who has been the GM at Rickhouse, while Ian Scalzo (GM at Bourbon and Branch) is Opening GM here, creating the menu. Scalzo is slight twists of ’50s/’60s era cocktail classics like the Gibson or a Bloody Mary, and their version of bottle service: decanter service, delivering bottles on a silver platter with a bucket of ice and soda. It’s expensive ($88-$200 per bottle) but the choices are the likes of Del Maguey Chichicapa and George T. Stagg. Tableside cart service should soon be in play, and there’s a handful of beers like Napa Smith Bonfire and Mission Kolsch.

Scalzo is also bottling cocktails (a rising trend I write about in the Guardian’s Spring FEAST issue, on stands next Wednesday). Unlike many, however, he is not carbonating them, rather utilizing house syrups to drive flavor profiles. Instead of individual-sized bottles, Scalzo opts for 750-ml bottles they cork and seal in-house. At $48 per bottle, it serves a glass to 5-6 people. The two current offers are The Evening Journal (rye, orangue curacao, lime, house yerba maté syrup with sparkling wine on the side) and The Daily News (Rhum Clement VSOP, orange peel syrup, mezcal, Cheery Heering, Benedictine, lime with soda water on the side).

Opening night I tasted five of the 11 cocktails listed on the front of the menu (ideally printed like a newspaper). Granted, the place was slammed though I was the first in with bar industry friends and we got our order in right away, but my initial disappointment was that cocktails were not keeping step with the sexy space. The Enchanted Hill ($9) intrigued most with pisco, lemon, aji pepper syrup, Firelit Coffee Liqueur, egg white and aromatic bitters. Coffee notes add a fascinating layer to the bright drink and aji pepper finishes pleasingly hot, but the egg white was a little flat and full of air pockets (not fully shaken or frothed?), while overall the separate elements seemed unintegrated, each ingredient standing out on its own rather than harmonizing together.

Yellow Kid ($9) arrived looking like merely soda water in a tall glass: despite gin, lemon, dill syrup, Velvet Falernum, and Vya Dry Vermouth, it tasted almost entirely of its other ingredient, ginger beer. Dill was barely a whisper – an intense dose of dill and more texture from nutty, spiced falernum could make this one interesting.

In the end, both drinks on the rocks I tasted (the other is The Eagle: bourbon, house root beer syrup, soda water), seemed watered down and one-note. This could easily be opening night execution issues and hopefully is, but even with obnoxious crowds at Rickhouse, or lack of bartender interaction at Bourbon and Branch, drinks tend to be consistently strong – I’m hoping Local Edition’s drinks will match its special space. The best integrated sip of the night was Rosebud: resposado tequila, lemon, Cocchi, vanilla syrup, black pepper, sea salt, and a bit of basil. All elements were subtle but melded into an elegant whole.

Brian Sheehy tells me that as the bar get its entertainment permit in the next couple months, there will be 5-8pm and 9pm-to-close music sets. A mellow spirit (possibly jazz and other styles) will take hold early evenings, while later evenings will be bands like The Silent Comedy and Fierce Creatures, which they hope to have perform regularly. Best of all, this is a bar first and foremost, not a club or music venue, so there won’t be any cover charge.

Reservations are up and running on the site, but walk-ins are welcome. Hopefully lines will die down but this is a space that can actually accommodate a crowd and groups of friends.

LOCAL EDITION 691 Market, (415) 795-1375, www.localeditionsf.com

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

 

Oh high!

Andrew Lam
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Oh high!

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE Say “cannabis,” not “weed.” Couch discussion in the language of medicine, not intoxication. There are a lot of rules when it comes to talking about marijuana — and the country’s most beloved cannabis publication breaks most of them.

That’s because at High Times magazine, the general take is that herb should be legal across the board, not just for consumption by the verifiably sick. “Until it’s legal for all adults, medical marijuana patients are going to be regarded as second class citizens,” said Elise McDonough, who besides having worked as a graphic designer with the magazine for 10 years is the author of the brand-new-for-420 Official High Times Cannabis Cookbook (Chronicle Books, 160pp, $18.95).

>>Join the Guardian and a stellar lineup this Friday 4/20 at El Rio for the Stoned Soul Picnic party!

In her Guardian phone interview, McDonough pointed out that eating may be the first way human beings consumed cannabis. She’s certainly done her part to give us options beyond the basic brownie — the book includes recipes for “psychedelic” spanikopita, tamales, cocktails, holiday feasts, and a host of canna-bases, from dosed butter to olive oil. McDonough wrote many, but also gets help from other High Times luminaries, like the dearly departed Chef Ra, who contributed to the rag’s recipe column for 15 years.

Interest, ahem, sparked? The following recipes from the book will make a stellar foundation for next week’s holiday festivities, medicinal or not. 

 

SIMPLE CANNABUTTER

Makes 1/2 cup

1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter*

1/4 ounce cannabis buds, finely ground

*To make cannamargarine, simply substitute margarine for butter in this recipe

1. Melt the butter on low heat in a saucepan. Add the ground buds, and simmer on low heat for 45 minutes, stirring frequently.

2. Strain the butter into a glass dish with a tight-fitting lid. Push the back of a spoon against the plant matter and smash it against the strainer to squeeze out every drop of butter available. When you’re done, discard the plant matter.

3. Use your cannabutter immediately, or refrigerate or freeze until it is time to use. You can easily scale this recipe up for larger batches of cannabutter. One pound of butter (4 sticks) can absorb 1 ounce of cannabis, but you may want to simmer for up to 60 minutes.

Drizzle this cannabutter over freshly cooked pasta or popcorn for instant satisfaction. Reserve large batches in the fridge or freezer for use in recipes.

 

GREEN GANJA GARLIC SMASHED POTATOES

Stones 4

1 1/2 pounds potatoes, unpeeled and cut into chunks (Yukon Gold potatoes are great)

1 pound parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks

1 head garlic, cloves separated and peeled

1 1/2 tablespoons salt, plus more as needed

4 tablespoons Simple Cannabutter

Black pepper

1. Put the potatoes, parsnips, and garlic in a large pot and cover them with water. Bring to a boil over high heat and then add the salt. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes. The potatoes, parsnips and garlic should be tender and easy to smash. Drain the vegetables and reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the cannabutter.

3. Return the vegetables to the pot or a large serving bowl, and begin to smash them with a potato masher, slowly adding the melted cannabutter a little at a time. Use spoonfuls of the reserved cooking water to thin the mixture if the smashed veggies are too thick. Season with black pepper and more salt and serve.

 

Two on the rise

Andrew Lam
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Two on the rise

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE Age is good thing: for wine, whiskey, cheese, wisdom, sense of self… Age deepens, fills out, matures. In the scheme of things, these two restaurants are youngsters — Bar Tartine has been successful since opening in 2005, Txoko was the new kid on the block in 2011. But they’ve steadily improved: what was exceptional at times last year is now more consistently so. 

BAR TARTINE

Bar Tartine has long been notable. Now it has become exciting. Last year I wrote of new chef Nick Balla, fresh from Nombe, who launched a Hungarian-influenced menu acknowledging his roots. Eastern European touches render the food unique yet exude down-home goodness.

Tripe strikes fear in the hearts of many. I don’t mind it, but only at Oliveto’s 2010 Whole Hog dinner had I found it delicious. Balla’s grilled tripe ($12) stands as the best tripe dish I’ve ever tasted. Silky (not slimy) strips of tripe fill a bowl aromatically entwined with fennel, cabbage and paprika. Beets, an ingredient we’ve been inundated with in recent years, are electrifying in an ensalada rusa ($12) with celery root, dill, chili, peppercress, and plenty of lime. This invigorating expression stands above the best beet dishes. An entree winner is Hungarian farmer’s cheese dumplings, nokedli ($17). Sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke) and wild onion meld with doughy, slightly cheesy, dumplings: sheer comfort.

Puffy, fried Hungarian potato bread, langos ($10), remains the must-order menu item upon every visit, drizzled with sour cream and dill — it is blissfully garlicky. Not since my travels through the Hungarian countryside have I seen this addictive bread. Here’s hoping when cherry season hits, we’ll witness the return of Balla’s fantastic version of Hungarian chilled sour cherry soup, meggyleves.

The wine list persists in quality, a recent example being two Riesling beauties set in contrast: a dry, elegant, German 2009 Keller Von der Fels Trocken Riesling alongside a lively, unusual-but-refined Santa Barbara 2008 Tatomer Vandenberg Riesling.

Balla’s proven addition to Bar Tartine’s expanded, inviting, glowing space, confirms the restaurant as a personal favorite — and one of the best in town.

8561 Valencia, SF. (415) 487-1600, www.bartartine.com

TXOKO

With so little Basque cuisine in our city, I was delighted when Txoko (pronounced “choko”) opened in the spacious space that was once home to Enrico’s, promising Basque influence. (See Paul Reidinger’s August 2011 review.) Lots of small plates and just a few larger ones appealed with an opportunity to try more. Early visits last year yielded delectable small bites, while I found larger plates less exciting. When the menu recently changed to a more traditional appetizer and entree format, I feared it would lose its uniqueness. Pleasingly, however, Txoko’s menu has been rounded out, entrees keeping pace with starters. I do sense the Basque influence is looser than it was before, however, and would rather not see that aspect fade.

Txoko’s Wednesday night, four-course foie gras dinners ($55) are arguably the best way to ride out the remaining months until June when the California foie gras ban takes effect (Txoko owner Ryan Maxey is a foie defender.) The menu varies weekly though typically finishes with buttery foie gras ice cream. One week I savored silky foie gras torchon on a flaky puff pastry, in a lavender golden raisin sauce redolent with thyme. My main was a gorgeous foie gras a la plancha (grilled), savory and meaty on a mound of beluga lentils, mirepoix, and chorizo, surrounded by strips of duck jamon, topped with crispy chicharrones.

On the regular menu, two dishes left an impression. Warm lamb’s tongue salad ($11) is a surprisingly light salad of lamb mixed with poached potatoes, manchego cheese, shishito peppers and frisee, surrounded by smoked tomatoes. Different and delightful. A heartwarming dish of grilled venison Denver leg ($29) is served medium rare, draped over mashed yams in blood orange endive marmelata, dotted with crispy sage leaves and pine nuts. Each dish is artfully presented and generously portioned.

Drink options are vibrantly varied, with choices like a bone dry 2009 Isastegi Basque cider ($6) and wines like an earthy, plum and berry-inflected 2001 Senorio de P. Pecina Reserva Rioja. Txoko has a full bar with commendable cocktails ($10), such as a playful, refreshing Cool Hand Luke Fizz utilizing Fighting Cock bourbon, Peychaud’s bitters, and egg whites for froth, made vivacious with Mexican Coke.

Finishing the evening with moist, Spanish-style bread pudding ($8), sweetened with prunes, olive caramel, and candied marcona almonds is a pleasure. I look forward to Txoko’s continued evolution, keeping up its refreshing change of pace in North Beach, and, indeed, the city.

504 Broadway, SF. (415) 500-2744, www.txokosf.com

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Restaurant 1833

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Restaurant 1833

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE There’s nothing quite like Monterey’s Restaurant 1833 in San Francisco. Yes, we boast fantastic food, cocktails, wine and beer lists that are competitive with the best in the world. But 1833’s magical setting sets it apart, truly the whole package. Housed in an adobe structure from 1833 (hence the name), I was captivated from the moment I stood on the patio lined with firepits, beneath a sprawling oak. A giant palm tree and redwoods tower over an expansive side deck. 1833 evokes New Orleans or haunted Savannah in Spanish-influenced California architecture.

A broad wood door opens onto a series of enchanting rooms. Red velvet antique couches sit in front of a roaring library fireplace, an absinthe bar is tucked away upstairs, dining rooms are presided over by ghosts that have haunted the house over a century (note Hattie’s Room upstairs). There’s an intimate, one-table dining room, Gallitan’s Room, with a boar’s head guarding relics from the restaurant’s former incarnation as Gallatin’s, a restaurant where presidents and movie stars dined in decades past. The bar is mesmerizing — an illuminated white onyx top glows under slanted roof rafters, imbibers perched in coveted raised booths gaze down at the scene.

But what about the food? This no style-over-substance scenario. Chef Levi Mezick’s menu wanders from whole-roasted meats to pizzas and pastas. There’s bone-in ribeye for two ($75) or a real splurge (temporary until the foie ban kicks in this June) of whole roasted lobe of foie gras ($150). Whole truffle chicken ($38) is blissfully decadent. The chicken is brined for two days with truffle butter injected under the skin. Pizzas ($16-17) are topped with Dungeness crab and leeks or pineapple and sopressatta, while dense, pillowy gnocchi ($22) rest in Parmesan cream with Swiss chard, chanterelles, pickled onions, and crispy croutons.

Appetizers shine, like a delicate beet salad ($12) accented with Greek yogurt and hazelnuts, or a heartwarming helping of bone marrow ($16) with horseradish crust. Bites offer more gourmet delights, particularly fresh, raw hamachi ($6) dotted with pickled jalapenos, avocado, oranges. Among the best items on the entire menu are $4 biscuits: sundried tomato feta biscuits with roasted garlic basil butter or a bacon cheddar biscuit with maple chili butter. Both are flaky, dreamy delights, warm and soft under a smear of butter.

Generous portions leave you fat and contented, while drink offerings threaten to outshine the food. Wine director Ted Glennon curates a playful, sophisticated wine list highlighting the best of the Central Coast and the world. His passion and palate have deservedly led to accolades such as being named one of 2012’s Food and Wine’s top 10 sommeliers. Glennon’s wine list is whimsically annotated with comments such as this one about Chardonnay: “The blonde bombshell has taken the hearts of so many…”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKY1F0jQank

There’s no slacker in any of his pairings. I was absolutely smitten with 2000 López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Rosé ($50 bottle). This stunning rosé is unlike any I’ve ever had, crisp and acidic, yes, but also funky, earthy, with notes of mushroom and ripe cheese. As it sits it sweetens, evoking sherry while maintaining its crispness.

Local highlights were 2006 Caraccioli Cellars Santa Lucia Highlands Brut Rosé, a dry, floral, sparkling beauty, and 2007 Pelerin Wines Rosella’s Vineyard Pinot Noir, from a Santa Lucia micro-winery producing age-worthy California Pinot. With acidity and body, green tea and licorice notes play with cranberry and dark cherry — lovely with the truffled chicken.

As a cocktail destination, 1833 has no equal in the entire area. Bar manager Michael Lay oversees aging cocktails in barrels with colonial names like Betsy and Abigail. Lay’s talent is apparent in a range of classically influenced cocktails like Commander in Chief ($11), Bulleit Rye whiskey, Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, Campari, Cherry Heering, and orange bitters with a peaty Laphroaig Scotch rinse.

Besides a tableside absinthe cart (brilliant), offering some of my favorites like Duplais or Vieux Pontarlier, Lay makes a mean Hot Buttered Rum prepared tableside. His recipe is perked up with pumpkin pie spice and lemon peel. My favorite cocktail here is a twist on the Penicillin, a Penicillin No. 2 ($11). Instead of Scotch, Lay uses Tres Agaves Reposado Tequila and tops the drink with smoky mezcal, alongside the usual lemon and candied ginger. Further fun is had comparing barrel-aged Negronis, a nine-week-aged Abigail ($12) using Tanqueray gin, Campari, Amaro Nonino, Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, and Ruth-Anne, a more gin-forward Negroni.

We’ve seen each of these parts, yes, but not this exact whole. I long for more settings in my own city as bewitching and multifaceted as 1833. Thankfully, Monterey is not too far away. *

RESTAURANT 1833

500 Hartnell, Monterey

(831) 643-1833

www.restaurant1833.com

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Appetite: New bar manager, superb cocktails at Heaven’s Dog

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: New bar manager, superb cocktails at Heaven’s Dog

Heaven’s Dog has been a haven for superb cocktails since it opened, with excellent bartenders like Erik Ellestad (Savoy Stomp) and pre-Prohibition era cocktails ($10 each) from Charles H. Baker’s The Gentleman’s Companion, aka “Jigger, Beaker, and Glass.” The bar still serves Baker classics, and with new bar manager Trevor Easter on board, receives a fresh infusion while keeping to its roots. Easter came from some of our city’s best bars (like 15 Romolo and Wilson & Wilson inside Bourbon & Branch), and used to trek up from San Diego where he lived prior to SF for cocktails at Heaven’s Dog by bar director Erik Adkins.


Technique is Easter’s drive, generally keeping to ingredients used 100 years ago. One housemade item that I’d recommend highly, though it is only occasionally on the menu (should be back by May), is Erik Adkins’ gin-based Pimm’s recipe. It makes a beautiful Pimm’s Cup, one of my favorites here, bright with cucumber and lemon. I was delighted with Easter’s off-menu twist on a low alcohol Americano, a Salted Americano with a couple drops of saline solution added to open it up and offer a brilliant layer of saltiness amidst sweet bitterness.

Oaxacan Firing Squad is based on the Mexican Firing Squad cocktail in Charles Baker’s book, using Del Maguey Mezcal Vida alongside tequila instead of merely tequila as the original does. Lime, Small Hands excellent grenadine, and Angostura bitters round out this refresher.

Elks Own is a classic from 1901, prepared beautifully here with a late bottled 2006 vintage Quinta De La Rosa Porta. Don’t let the soft pink color fool you. It’s robust with Rittenhouse Rye, bright with lemon, silky with sugar and egg whites. The tart, tannic berry of the port gives the cocktail a lush, sexy texture while remaining refreshing.

An off-menu twist on the Brooklyn cocktail, Wall Street (originally served at Rickhouse) is another luxuriant pleaser using Old Bardstown bourbon instead of rye whiskey, Punt e Mes vermouth, Luxardo maraschino, winter bitters (house made allspice and mole bitters) and Della Christina Nocino walnut liqueur instead of Amer Picon, adding a nutty layer.

There are a couple Easter creations on the menu (Chantilly Lace: Plymouth gin, lime, Small Hands Pineapple Gum, apricot brandy, bitters, mint; and Yankee Clipper: Beefeater gin, Carpano Antica, Luxardo Maraschino, Bitter Truth orange bitters, Duplais Absinthe Verte), but the menu sticks mostly to classics. The bartenders know their classics so feel comfortable opting for Freedom from Choice and let them create something for you.

For those who find the warm shumai dumplings and spicy wontons expensive compared to cheap Sunset or Richmond district dim sum, both are $6 during happy hour (Monday-Friday, 5-6:30pm).

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Southern obsession

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Southern obsession

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE Southern food has a profound hold on me. No, I’m not a Southerner — but few cuisines the world over elicit in me such yearning and comfort. Finding the real deal in the Bay Area is tricky, although a recent Southern trend has helped. Aside from my beloved Brenda’s and delightful Boxing Room, the following spots fulfill cravings.

 

HOPS AND HOMINY

Recently opened downtown, Hops and Hominy has the charm of being tucked away at the end of an alley off bustling Grant Ave. I must admit, when I saw packed crowds and a neon maraschino cherry (versus a quality brandied one) in my cocktail, I doubted H&H, opened by three Florida natives. But in this early stage, it shows promise.

Despite the cherry and too much ice, a Smoked Bacon Old Fashioned was more balanced than I expected. Using Bulleit bourbon infused with bacon, the drink is thankfully light on maple syrup. This is not exactly a cocktailian’s destination but you can get a decent beverage. Better to go with the beer menu: Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA and Ommegang Hennepin Saison are examples of the greats they have on tap.

In terms of food, a couple dishes jump out. The most unusual for this setting is espresso-cured chocolate duck ($12). Rare duck is perched on a potato pancake with mascarpone drizzled on top. Chocolate and coffee notes are subtle, adding an unexpected seductiveness to the dish. While the potato pancake doesn’t exactly fit, it doesn’t detract either. Mac ‘n cheese is so common, but here, served piping hot in a skillet ($8), it’s oozing with cheddar goodness and typical house cured bacon. Crispy sage leaves elevate it.

Buttermilk battered chicken ($19) is not the best in town, but free-range chicken is tender and generously portioned. This dish is an ideal way to also try the mac and cheese, a companion along with Brussels sprouts. Deep water shrimp and cheesy Southern grits ($19) work but don’t recall the best of the South.

1 Tillman Pl., SF. (415) 373-6341, www.hopsandhominy.com

 

HOG AND ROCKS

Hog and Rocks has grown into one of our great casual gathering spots, with better-than-ever cocktails and food, and a winning American whiskey selection. I’ve been a huge fan of the ham platters (the hog) and oyster selection (the rocks) since they opened, particularly when H&R offer such incredible Southern hams as one from Tennessee’s G&W Hamery, lightly drizzled with sweet Fresno chili syrup.

The impetus for recent visits was a new Scott Beattie-designed cocktail menu and new bar manager Michael Lazar. There are longtime Beattie favorites on the menu, like the fall-influenced, whiskey-apple-ginger lushness of his John Chapman. (Oh, that Thai coconut foam!)

Two original drinks are Lazar’s bright Calabria ($11) — Old Grandad 114 bourbon, bergamot, honey, and Averna, bright with ginger beer — and Beattie’s Coastal Collins ($10.50) which stood out with St. George’s fabulous Terroir gin, lemon, soda, bay laurel and huckleberries. It’s a refreshing, herbaceous sipper. Ask Lazar to make you a Hanky Panky, a classic London Savoy cocktail. Lazar tweaks the measurements of gin, sweet vermouth, and Fernet Branca for a more complex, sexy whole.

Foodwise, I’ve long found the pimento cheese in a jar ($7.50) the best in town — bordering on addictive. Recent enjoyments include hefty meatballs ($12.50) in whiskey barbecue sauce over cheddar cheese grits and white cabbage, and fat cheddar beer sausages ($13.50). Standout dish: a Berkshire pork cutlet ($16), prepared like German schnitzel (pounded flat, breaded), in a smoky maple syrup and hot pepper relish alongside Red Russian kale evoking collard greens. Here’s to chef Scott Youkilis’ upcoming BBQ venture across the street, Hi-Lo, due to open this Summer.

3431 19th St., SF. (415) 550-8627, www.hogandrocks.com

 

THE FRONT PORCH

The Front Porch’s garage sale, drafty charm still works. Over the years, it’s been a consistent source of quality, quirky Southern eats in cozy, worn red booths beneath pressed tin ceilings.

Crab fritters ($9) won me over immediately, packed with fresh, flaky crab meat, dipped in remoulade. Discounting Brenda’s incomparable take and 1300 on Fillmore’s refined twist, Front Porch serves the best shrimp n’ grits in town ($18.50). Bacon and less traditional wild mushrooms add heft to white wine-doused arbuckle grits. The Porch does right by fried chicken ($17 for 3 pieces, $34 for 9 pieces). Though it’s not the ultimate version, tender Rocky Jr. organic chicken satisfies alongside garlic mashed potatoes and collard greens.

You could do worse than finishing with an Abita root beer float — add in bourbon, if you like. Then head across to the street to new sister location, the comfy, divey Rock Bar for a nightcap.

65A 29th St., SF. (415) 695-7800, www.thefrontporchsf.com *

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Appetite: The very latest in LA cocktails

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After years of hunting, the day finally came when I could find proper cocktails in LA, even if the scene itselfwas years behind NYC or SF. I’ve covered LA cocktail bars in recent years as the quality has rapidly grown, with my latest visit yielding the most consistent drinks yet. The LA cocktail renaissance is indeed coming into its own.

There have still been a few hyped-up letdowns, like Next Door Lounge in Hollywood, which is a fantastic space: roomy, mellow, old world, with comfy leather couches, friendly service, and classic Powell and Loy movies playing on a big screen. I absolutely loved the environment which it made it even more disappointing in sampling four expensive drinks ($12-14) to find them unbalanced and generally unappetizing.

Perhaps Next Door’s execution will improve to match the interior. In the meantime, here are some spots worth checking out down south.

Italian and Peruvian pleasures:
SOTTO, Culver City

My favorite drinks this visit were served by my favorite bartender Kate Grutman at Sotto restaurant. She exudes style and panache, while keeping customer service and comfort foremost. In a spacious building housing Picca Peruvian Cantina upstairs, Sotto’s low ceilings and buzzy vibe are the backdrop for Neapolitan pizzas and Italian pleasures like sardines or house lardo on toast.

Both restaurants opened just under a year ago with menus created and bars managed by Julian Cox, well known for his cocktail menu at Rivera in downtown LA. He poured rare Italian amari from Sotto’s vibrant collection, while Kate served cocktails exhibiting restraint, balance, and sheer drinkability. At Sotto, amaro is king and in cocktails is given a range of interpretations.

I particularly adored Kate’s off-menu creation of Junipero gin, Suze, house sage and parsley bitters, Angostura bitters, and vermouth infused with pineapple and thyme. The drink hit all the right herbaceous, bitter, aromatic notes, shining as an aperitif or dinner accompaniment.

More amaro fun was had with a Carroll Gardens, typically made with rye, amaro, and maraschino liqueur. Instead, Kate used Averna, maraschino liqueur, and Cocchi for a bitter brightness. Menu stand-outs include a spiced Amaro Daiquiri: Fall Redux (rhum agricole, lime, Averna, allspice dram), a subtle, soft Smart & Fennel (London dry gin, lemon, house bitter orange marmalade, fennel-scented egg, fennel frond), a boozy but elegant Bicycle Thief (Scotch, Holland gin, vermouth, West Indian orange bitters), and a vivid Il Cavallo Bianco (reposado tequila, pineapple/thyme-infused dry vermouth, Cocchi, grapefruit peel).

PICCA, Culver City

Upstairs from Sotto is the aforementioned bustling Picca. While impeccable Peruvian food is reason to visit, the bar is a destination on its own for South of the Border spirits. Mezcal, tequila, pisco and cachaca are showcased here. There are infusion shots ($6), like pisco with coconut, pineapple or Concord grapes, or mezcal with rocoto pepper.

Cocktails are once again by Julian Cox, while the friendly bartending crew exhibit a love for the spirits they work with. After two visits, my top drink is Zarate’s Tomahawk # 15 ($12). It utilizes my beloved mezcal, infusing it with rocoto peppers, shaken with lemon juice, agave, and huacatay (Peruvian black mint), topping it with a soft cucumber foam. Heat, citrus tart, pepper, smoke and silky sweet weave into a balanced whole.

Boots with Fur ($12) shows off Italia-varietal pisco in a Tiki-inspired drink. Brightly spiced with bonded apple brandy, lime, and ginger, orgeat and falernum offer texture and nuttiness. It’s served over crushed ice in a copper mug, the most playful presentation on the menu. Texture rules in Avocado Project ($12), blending fresh avocado with the excellent Banks 5 Island white rum, lime, agave, ascorbic acid for balance, and a bit of salt for a sweet, salty, vegetal imbibement.

A bartender said actress Frida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) was just in days before and they served her their Slumdog Chamomillionaire ($11). Subtle Quebranta pisco earthiness  marries well with red grape cardamom black pepper coulis, balanced by lemon and evaporated cane sugar. Picca’s bar menu is as lively and vivid as its food.

Rum and cigar havens:
CANA RUM BAR, Downtown

Cana Rum Bar transports. Yes, you need a membership to enter, but it’s merely $20 for a whole year. I find this seemingly pretentious charge at the door actually keeps out “riff raff” (allow me to digress for a moment and explain my apparent snobbery. By riff raff, I mean vodka tonic partiers who ruin the setting at some of the more craft cocktail bars. There’s nothing more frustrating for those of us who really care about quality and a relaxed space to imbibe than to have that space overrun by those uninterested in craft and there to get drunk – they can do so at any of the hundreds of bars and clubs around that cater to exactly that crowd. There’s far less quality cocktail havens than party dens, so even more reason we pine for a few civilized spots in which to savor a well-made drink and conversation.)

Don’t worry: the place is sans attitude. Mellow on my visit with roaring patio fireplace, embracing glow, and cozy booths, Cana makes many a night a party with funky DJs and celebrations like Bob Marley’s birthday.

General Manager Allan Katz knows his rum… and his cocktails. Though not as encyclopedic as our own Smuggler’s Cove menu, rum geeks will delight in a well-curated menu grouped by island and continent. There are also tasting flights and cigar pairings.

I’m delighted with cocktails like Tennessee Isle ($12) made with Prichard’s Fine Rum, overripe mango-infused absinthe (subtle), and coconut Peychaud’s bitters. The menu describes it best: “This is what a sazerac would taste like if the wicked witch of the west overtook Kansas and sent Tennessee to the Caribbean via flying monkey.”

On the low alcohol front is a Trader Vic recipe adapted by bartender Danielle, an Angostura Fizz ($13): a full shot of bitters with house pomegranate reduction, lemon, cream. It’s a bitter, frothy, elegant beauty. An Actual Apple Martini ($12) changes the game for a typically dreadful drink using apple-infused Plymouth and Death’s Door gins, Pommeau de Normandie (a marriage of Calvados and fresh apple juice), Dolin Dry Vermouth, and Bitter Truth Creole Bitters. No fake green apple pucker here.

In keeping with Cana’s vibe, the drinks are refined yet entirely approachable.

LA DESCARGA, Hollywood

La Descarga is mobbed when live burlesque and Cuban jazz are scheduled, while bartenders in the main bar seemed disinterested and “too cool” to engage. But in an open air back room (appears to be closed but is vented around the ceiling), I encountered two delightful bartenders who knew their rum. Only a couple basic cocktails are served in this room, otherwise, it’s straight rum and cigars. I truly appreciate that you can bring your own cigar or purchase one from their selection. In the main bar, I made my usual off-menu request and was served a Mr. Boston classic, the Chet Baker cocktail (named after the swoony musician), using Zacapa 23 rum, Punt e Mes, Angostura bitters, honey.

Though I slipped away for live jazz in the body-to-body main room, Renaissance Man and I were more than content to linger in the smooking room over rum and a cigars, savoring La Descarga’s musty, Old World ambiance.

I was delighted with each rum pour selected by back room bartenders:

– A light brown Martinique agricole (French West Indies rhum made from sugar cane juice vs. molasses): lovely Clement Rhum Vieux http://www.ministryofrum.com/rumdetails.php?r=755 exudes minerality with apple brandy and fig notes.
– Vascaya 21yr Cuban-style rum http://www.vizcayarum.com/ from Dominican Republic has whispers of vanilla cream soda.
– Pot-stilled beauty Plantation 1990 https://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1058663 from Guyana is earthy, even slightly smoky, alongside vanilla and soft spice.

La Descarga evokes Old World Havana: divey, dim, a little run down. Despite the beautiful Hollywood crowd, this is not merely a hipster haven but a true rum bar.

Note: make a reservation (email via the website).

Along Hollywood Blvd.:
LIBRARY BAR, Hollywood

Returning to Library Bar in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel confirms thoughts in my review last year: creative, farmers market cocktails remain impeccable, some of the best LA has to offer, but I missed the higher level of service given by Matt Biancaniello in prior visits. Clientele was as frustrating as before, asking for basic, vodka tonic-type cocktails or coffee, packing out the intimate, chic bar the longer we were there, turning it into a pick-up scene.

Despite these downsides, a full farmers market spread and bartender creations (be aware: there is no menu) resulted in more winning drinks. Simple and sweet, Barsol Pisco was perky with mint, agave, lime, and grapefruit.

Mezcal mixed happily with jalapeno heat, herbaceous thyme, and agave for gentle sweetness. Another creation of Basil Hayden bourbon with plump cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and lemon, defined “garden fresh.”

The best cocktail of the night was bartender Chris Hughes’ Controlada (he also provided best service of the night). Hughes blends five chiles with two of my top agave spirits: Del Maguey’s Chichicapa mezcal and Fortaleza Blanco tequila. Additionally, he adds ginger lemon honey, arbol chile-infused St. Germain elderflower liqueur, red and yellow peppers. It may sound like too many ingredients but balance is spot on. Spice, color and brightness shine, while the overall effect is vivacious and refreshing.

Just be ready for a NYC-priced bill of about $16 per cocktail at the end.

WOOD & VINE, Hollywood

Packed crowds mar the scene at Wood & Vine – I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way for it. But if you’re in the area and on a mild LA night, Wood & Vine’s back patio and laid back staff are inviting.

Late night happy hours keep prices low and though there are only a few cocktails, there’s a solid spirits and beer selection and classic drinks like a Bee’s Knees or classic Daiquiri.

Their own creations vary in quality, from a Millennium, surprisingly delightful with softly bitter Cocchi, gin, and white creme de cacao, to a Kentucky Cashmere, with dominant spice from chai vanilla-infused bourbon, Jelinek Fernet, and chocolate chili bitters, which ultimately felt off balance.

Drinks with a view:
HOTEL WILSHIRE ROOFTOP BAR, Mid-City West

Staying at the new boutique Hotel Wilshire was a welcome respite from busy LA streets. Spending each sunset on their rooftop bar by the pool was a pleasure. Surrounded by LA hills and high rises, it’s a gorgeous urban view and peaceful place from which to take in rosy-pink LA sunsets.

The drinks menu is fairly basic but there is care in the details. They make their own ginger beer, which is delicious on its own or makes a vivid Dark & Stormy, garnished with candied ginger. Also of note, the hotel’s restaurant chef is Eric Greenspan of Next Iron Chef fame.

And you can’t beat that view.

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CLIFT Sessions 2012: Matthew Dear

Maria Poblet
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CLIFT Sessions 2012: Matthew Dear

CLIFT San Francisco is pleased to invite all music fiends to CLIFT Sessions, a series of special musical performances in a unique intimate setting. Originally from Brooklyn, Matthew Dear is an experimental pop artist and music producer with remixes commissioned by The XX, Spoon, Hot Chip Charlotte Gainsbourg and The Postal Service. Matthew Dear’s well-known single “Dog Days” was voted among Pitchfork’s Top 100 Songs of the Decade and Rolling Stone gave the artist four-stars. Currently on tour with upcoming shows in Los Angeles and Miami, Matthew Dear will showcase his distinct experimental sound at CLIFT. The exclusive Redwood Room and recently revamped Velvet Room at CLIFT will continue to play host to some of the most talked about new names on the music circuit, while hotel guests and locals alike can enjoy cocktails in an invitingly warm ambiance. Hear Matthew Dear at CLIFT on Thursday, March 29th. Upcoming acts include Daedelus on April 7th. 

 

To RSVP, visit this link.  

Thursday, March 29 at 9pm @ Clift Hotel, 495 Geary, SF | Free with RSVP

 

 

Nite Trax: The fabulous creatures of Gaultier’s opening gala

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Hyperproductive fashion designer and revered fantasy engineer Jean Paul Gaultier was in town last week for the opening of a (very cool) retrospective of his work at the de Young. His nightlife stops included the Some Thing drag show at the Stud on Friday, a cruisy interlude at the Powerhouse on Saturday — and of course a lavish opening gala celebration at the de Young itself on Friday evening.

The fantastic function included an exposed “backstage” area where models were fitted into Gaultier pret-a-porter, primped, temporary-tattooed, and hairdressed with amazing sculptural headpieces by SF’s Glama-Rama salon, before trotting out onto a makeshift runway. Attendees — not all of them our city’s social page elite, btw — wore their most unusual outfits. (There were a lot of sailor stripes, man-skirts, and Gaultier looks from the past three decades.) Even the servers were decked out in handmade kaleidoscopic Krylon smocks by graffiti gallery 1:AM. Tunes from the gorgeous, killer-bobbed DJ started out retro-cute and fun, including JPG’s own 1990 dancefloor hit, “How To Do That” before devolving into the standard party jams of today, which certainly got the singles (cougars) in the crowd “puttin’ their hands up.” It was a blast.  

Soon the raucous and always riveting Extra Action Marching Band took over, the flowing cocktails kicked in, and we drifted down to the exhibit itself, which includes eerie singing mannequins with projected faces beamed in directly from Uncanny Valley. (There’s even an interactive one of Gaultier himself, which supposedly answers questions, although I think the ambient noise levelof the gala confused it.)

The amassed collection of clothing and concepts, of course, was overwhelming in its creativity and development — although I could have done with a few more iconic items from the “Chic Rabbis” 1993 collection (personal preference!) and some more recent work, and perhaps a wee bit less emphasis on the infamous Madonna-cone bra connection. But I did tear up at the site of Gaultier’s childhood teddy bear preserved in a vitrine wearing, yes, a miniature cone bra prototype.

I think the most touching thing in the show, however, was a Polaroid by Andy Warhol, taken of the young and not quite hatched Gaultier at New York’s Area club in 1986. Gaultier is caught in a stairwell, a bit Joker-like in what looks to be a purple silk suit with a gold lozenge pattern and his trademark bleached blonde hair. It’s accompanied by Warhol’s famous quote, ““I think the way people dress today is a form of artistic expression. Saint Laurent, for instance, has made great art. Art lies in the way the whole outfit is put together. Take Jean Paul Gaultier. What he does is really art.”                

New Penthouse Club opens, gets everybody drunk

Andrew Lam
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Last night’s opening of North Beach’s brand spanking new Penthouse Club and Steakhouse (formerly Show Girls, before that Boy Toys) was glittery enough and did have a two-story pole for the women to play on, but – and I will only say this once – ladies, when you are being introduced onstage in the first moments of a strip club officially being open and you are next to a two-story stripper’s pole, and you are a stripper, you better get up there and show the crowd what they’re going to be getting for its rumpled, sweaty single bills.

Like, wrap your calf around its and spin. Blow it air kisses. Something. 

Other than that, North Beach has another, very serviceable strip club. Gone is the cramped upper floor of Showgirls, annihilated in favor of a clear view to the main (there are four total) stage below and a round Lucite dais on which platform stilettos can twinkle about, their owners’ rear ends winking attractively for the up-gazers in the nightclub’s round tables on the first floor. 

The club is touting its seasonal, locally-sourced menu hard. Last night at the press preview (thanks to the open bar during this segment of the evening, my hangover from the stripper/porn star-themed cocktails made me want to stab myself with a seven inch glitter shoe this morning) there were roast beef sliders, spoonfuls of tuna tartare topped with “mango jelly,” and salmon on toast from executive chef Michael Ellis’ menu. Ellis has a Michelin star earned from his time at Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg.

I hope to god the Michelin people come to dine at the Penthouse Club. Might I suggest the all-white circular booths, or perhaps the seats separated by shimmery silver fringe on the second floor? For more casual dining, take your slider over to the lap dance station, a circular seat providentially perched within swiping distance of the ATM. I’d be interested to see what the service was like for sit-down diners – the waitstaff was hotter than the strippers onstage. 

Dancers Samira and Ivy had found a quiet moment during the press preview portion of the evening to snack a slider and a martini at a table marked ‘reserved’ when I started harassing them about their thoughts on the big opening. 

“It looks a lot better than it did,” said Samira. Samira was wearing an ass crack-displaying tight blue dress. This is a style, I’ve noticed, that’s been spreading like wildfire among the more trend-forward sex workers (as evidenced by my onsite reporting from this year’s AVN Awards in Vegas). Other vivid entries on the sartorial stage included one young lady’s forest green velvet, off-shoulder frock, and a be-fringed number whose owner told me people were insulting for not being stripper-y enough. Some people have no taste. 

But I digress. Ivy, who has been working at the club for three years, told me that business continued as usual throughout the entire renovation process. “It used to be real crazy,” she reflected. Surely the tips will improve now that the dust has settled, I ventured. “I hope so!” said Samira. “But tonight it’s more about getting our name out.” Anything I can do to help ladies! The women were all carrying Clueless-style glitter cube purses available in pink, purple, and green. They use them to carry their cash and, I made up in my head, their lipstick for quick touch ups. One of them in a tight, translucent floor-length dress told me that I could purchase one for myself at Target. Also, that she used to work at an underground Asian coffeeshop in San Jose. 

And then the gladiator music started and it was time to stop pole dancing on the structurally unsound glitter tubes lining one of the strip platforms and sit pretty for the introduction of the club’s full lineup, who vamped one by one across the stage. Here we come to the disappointing part of the evening, wherein roughly two of the 1,000 strippers on stage worked the pole in a satisfactory manner.

When the actual performances began, the first few ladies to take their solo turns on the fresh new stage were a little lethargic, but then that thrilling moment came when the first one scaled the full height of the pole, and spun down to the floor with an accompanying shower of dollars and the full, back-breaking explosion that comes mid-break in “We Found Love.” Rihanna, you must make your songs for ladies to take their clothing off to them. 

And so: go to the Penthouse Club for Lucite, slutwear fashion, and if you like your lap dance with a side of $3 ATM fees. Also, the top floor bar has ice on it, so your drinks will stay cold if you are the kind of person who takes a long time to pick up your stripper-themed cocktail after you bartender makes it. 

Penthouse Club and Steakhouse

412 Broadway, SF

(415) 391-2800

www.penthousesf.com

Outerlands: Serving sunshine by the seashore

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Speaking with surfing-baking co-owner Dave Mueller about the Outer Sunset hotspot

I’m on the southeast corner of Judah Street and 45th Avenue—roughly five blocks from the cold, churning sea—on a bright winter morning. Outerlands will open for lunch in an hour, and the restaurant’s chef and a couple of employees are swiftly making preparations. Dave Muller offers me a cappuccino, which he whips up seamlessly, and asks if we can chat outside in the sun.

Muller co-owns this cozy Outer Sunset eating space known for its savory soups and sandwiches, handcrafted bread, and earthy atmosphere with his wife, Lana Porcello. Muller and Porcello had teamed up on visual art and music projects before Outerlands, but Muller calls the restaurant their most 50/50 artistic collaboration.

Noticing a need for food in this remote San Francisco neighborhood pressed up against the Pacific, Muller and Porcello set out in 2008 to design and build a soup kitchen of sorts. “We planned on serving a few soups a day and fresh-baked bread,” Muller says, smiling. “Simple.”

Muller is the man behind Outerlands’ thick, delicious slabs of levain bread. He originally considered buying bread instead of baking it, but Tartine’s bread-maker Chad Robertson, whom Muller met through surfing, encouraged him not to. “You can just make your own bread,” Robertson said. “I can show you how to do it. It’s not that hard.” 

Since Outerlands opened its doors in 2009, the intimate sea dwellers’ escape has evolved into a destination for foodies traveling from east of Golden Gate Park, New York, and Sweden alike. Muller designs and mixes cocktails in addition to making his bread, and the couple employs a full-time chef (Brett Cooper) and a pastry chef (Zoe Dering). Despite the buzz, simplicity remains at the heart of their enterprise.

“We find the best ingredients and cook them as simply as possible to bring out their natural flavors,” explains Muller. Outerlands sources its ingredients locally and is currently operating at 98 to 99 percent organic.

Keeping prices as low as possible—a grilled cheese sandwich brushed with garlic oil goes for $5—Muller is committed to serving the Sunset wholesome, handcrafted food you’d probably have to pay more for across town. “I love having a connection to my community and having something to contribute that I believe in—food that’s healthy, stimulating, and sustainable,” says Muller.

Muller’s background in art, farmers’ markets, and surfing helped inform the concept behind this eight-table restaurant built from wood. Although Muller says he didn’t do much research when he was building Outerlands and simply “did what made sense,” he considers Big Sur an aesthetic influence, as well as things his friends have built.

Outerlands seems to have been born out of a desire to build a sanctuary: the perfect place to share a meal. Muller says they wanted to create “a healing environment—a place you could go to and feel nourished.”

I think they’ve succeeded. Eating at Outerlands sort of feels like your mom has made you your favorite dish and is serving it to you—along with an expertly mixed antifogmatic—while you’re warming your feet by a fire after a four-hour surf session and conversing with the most compelling person in the world; or something to that effect.

Outerlands serves lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday and brunch on Sunday. The dinner menu features savory meat dishes, e.g. cumin crusted pork tenderloin and braised shank with cranberry beans, smoked dates, cabbage, and juniper, as well as mouth-watering vegetarian options like the fresh cavatelli with wild mushrooms, winter squash, rapini, and parmesan. Brunch favorites include the bacon-stuffed dutch pancake outfitted with organic maple syrup drizzle, along with lemon ginger apple cider.

The wait for one of the eight tables can be long on the weekends, but the expansion that’s in the works may make it a bit easier to get in. They’re knocking down the wall between Outerlands and what was formerly Wo’s Restaurant, building a bar, and adding over 20 seats this summer.

I thank Muller for his time, and wander into Outerlands to snap a couple of photos. It’s 11 a.m. on a Thursday, and the place is already starting to fill up. Muller quickly disappears into the restaurant’s treehouse loft to continue putting in the hours he calls “excruciating, but worth it.”

OUTERLANDS

Tues.-Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. (lunch); 6-10 p.m. (dinner);

Sun. 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. (brunch)

4001 Judah, SF

(415) 661-6140

www.outerlandssf.com

 

 

Gitane

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Gitane

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE While I miss the sophisticated, out-of-the-box cocktails of former bar managers Carlo Splendorini and Alex Smith (they both continue to craft excellent drinks, Splendorini at Michael Mina, Smith at Honor Bar), I am pleased to say Gitane, one of the sexiest spots in all of SF, is still a drink-worthy location. I’d be remiss not to likewise return to the Moroccan and Spanish-influenced menu that chef Bridget Batson has been rocking for years.

Sitting at Gitane’s bar under massive chandeliers and deep red tapestries, in a narrow, high-ceilinged space, one feels tucked away in some secret European bordello. The tiny, upstairs dining room is equally seductive and intimate, with a view over the bar. Perched on velvety bar stool, I find an ideal locale for drinks, food and chatting with fellow diners.

Batson’s grilled calamari ($16) stuffed with bacon and onion, and her unparalleled lamb tartare ($18) with three spreads remain top dishes on the menu. Bastilla ($13) and chicken breast tajine ($22) are still Moroccan highlights. Bright and wintery, a citrics salad ($12) is tangerines, cara cara and blood oranges vivid on chicories with Serrano ham in a pumpkin seed pesto.

On the entrée front, Caille ($28) is a hearty quail overflowing with chorizo apple stuffing over celery root gratin in pool of cider jus. I can’t imagine doing much better for a simple meal than a coca (Catalan flatbread, $15–$16) and a cocktail. The coca bread bubbles not unlike a blistered Neapolitan pizza crust. Go the vegetarian route topped with wild mushroom, drunken goat cheese, and oregano, or with my favorite, layered with Serrano ham, Bosc pears, manchego cheese, and thyme.

Keeping food pairing ever in mind, the current bar menu focuses on low alcohol cocktails. The bar is now helmed by Ramon Garcia who worked with both former bar managers. He maintains Gitane’s ethos, its continued sherry focus, its gypsy spirit (Gitane means gypsy, after all). Ramon assembled a new menu with spirits expert and Yamazaki Japanese whiskey brand ambassador Neyah White, who, even after all this time, I still miss behind the bar at Nopa.

There’s a lovely nod to cocktails created here in the past: two classic Gitane recipes are rotated regularly on the menu. The bulk of the new menu goes global, wandering Romany-like with various bartenders from around the world, featuring their best sherry cocktails. In keeping with the gypsy theme, the bar will feature a different spirit every couple months from their extensive collection, showcasing cocktails and traditional serving preparations, like Italian amaro on the rocks in the summer.

From the cocktail list, one of Neyah’s Nopa greats, a Sherry Shrub, is a mix of merely two ingredients: barbadillo manzanilla sherry and a seasonal fruit based shrub (a vinegar-based syrup): sour, vibrant, and palate-cleansing. I’m taken with the Bamboo, by Tokyo bartending legend Hidetsugu Ueno, of Bar High Five: dry and refined, combining dry vermouth, amontillado sherry, and two 1890s bitters recipes created by Louis Eppinger at the Yokohoma Grand Hotel.

On a warmer day, I’d gravitate toward the Caipirinha Con Moras by David Nepove, formerly of Enrico’s, and US Bartenders Guild national president. Fruit will change seasonally, but his take on Brazil’s national cocktail mixes Pedro Ximenez sherry and shaved nutmeg with cachaca (sugar cane rum). Another refresher is the Jenibre Smash from Chris Hannah of New Orleans’ French 75 Bar: Dry Sack sherry, Canton ginger liqueur, lemon, sugar, and mint are served over crushed ice. It’s delicately bright and minty, going down all too easy.

Gitane boasts an Iberian (Spain, Portugal, France) heavy wine list, although California is nicely represented. The sherry list is impressive, with plenty of Madeira, Port, brandies, and after dinner sips. An interesting companion to the hearty quail and chorizo entrée is a 2008 Domaine des Ouled Thaleb Benslimane Zenata ($12 glass, $35 carafe, $48 bottle), a 100 percent Syrah from Morocco. It’s big and bold in keeping with warm Moroccan temperatures, but maintains just enough acidity to pair with food. It’s welcome given the strong Moroccan food influence. After dinner pleasures were strongest in an earthy Charleston Sercial Madeira ($15 glass) from Rare Wine Co., and Gutierrez Colosia Moscatel Soleado Sherry from El Puerto ($10 glass).

My favorite cocktail on the new menu is the oldest recipe from 1800’s San Francisco bartending legend, Cocktail Bill Boothby, after whom our local educational spirits hub, The Boothby Center, is named. The Boothby is essentially a Manhattan (bourbon, sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters) topped with sparkling wine. It’s lush, sexy, and full bodied… not at all unlike Gitane. 

GITANE

6 Claude Lane, SF

(415) 788-6686

www.gitanerestaurant.com

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

 

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Soojin Chang. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 7

San Francisco Green Film Festival closing night film and party San Francisco Film Society Cinema, 1746 Post, SF. (415) 742-1394, www.sfgreenfilmfest.org. 5:30 p.m., $12 per film. Whether you’ve had the chance to check out the second annual Green Film Fest’s activist-making movie screenings, make sure to check out its final night celebrating sustainable living and the fight to save our environment. The closing film Just Do It is a tale of modern-day outlaws and illegal activism in England.

THURSDAY 8

International Women’s Day March sign-making party New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk, SF. (415) 864-1278, www.radicalwomen.org. 7 p.m., $7.50 suggested donation for dinner. Sisters United Front is having a rally on March 10 to oppose budget cuts that have hit poor women the hardest. In anticipation of the march, Radical Women is hosting this evening of food and sign-making.

FRIDAY 9

Make Do! recycling exhibit and fashion show K Gallery at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding, Alameda. (510) 865-5060, www.rhythmix.org. 6 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Recycling is not only something that happens when sorting out your garbage, but is also when finding creative ways to create functional treasures out of seemingly useless trash. The opening night of Make Do! will feature vintage vendors, delicious treats, and an upcycle-oriented fashion show.

SF Beer Olympics Impala Bar and Ultra Lounge, 501 Broadway, SF. (415) 982-5299, www.impalasf.com. 8:30 p.m., free to play; $10 to drink. Are you a lover of beer games with friends who hate them? Come make a mess with like-minded individuals who are more than ready to ditch the overpriced cocktails for a duel over brew.

Avant-garde sound and visual night with Edmund Campion Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Gallery B, 2626 Bancroft, Berk. (510) 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. 7 p.m., $7. Edmund Campion is a pioneer of computer-enhanced performance practice and is the special guest for this week’s BAM/PFA Friday Late Night event. He promises to deliver a truly tripped-out experience through a mix of video projections, a choir scattered throughout Gallery B, and his unique take on electronic tunes.

SATURDAY 10

Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Out of Chaos opening reception Kala Gallery, 2990 San Pablo, Berk. (510) 841-7000, www.kala.org. 4 p.m.-6 p.m., free. The friend and publisher of many Beat writers, Ferlinghetti drew from his well of experiences when working on his poetry and art. Come meet the one-time poet laureate of San Francisco as he launches Out of Chaos, a portfolio that showcases his original artwork and poetry.

“Sweeping of Giants” abstract ink artwork opening reception Old Crow Tattoo and Gallery, 362 Grand, Oakl. (510) 834-2769, www.oldcrowtattoo.com. Through April 9. 8 p.m., free. There are always samples of previously inked designs in the albums and on the walls of tattoo shops, but they’re usually small renderings or unsatisfying snapshots. Come see how visually orgasmic it is when detail-attentive ink artists really let loose in a surrealist painting, design-oriented composition, or a geometric field of color.

World Naked Bike Ride San Francisco edition Northeast corner of Justin Herman Plaza, 1 Market, SF. www.sfbikeride.org. 11 a.m.-4 p.m., free. Take a naked stance against our society’s global dependency on oil cartels in this mobile protest. Feel the liberating breeze as you ride as bare as you please through San Francisco’s favorite spots. Fingers are crossed for outstanding weather.

“Reflecting on his Politics, Music, Fighting Capitalism, and Cancer” jazz performance and panel discussion Multicultural Community Center in the Associated Student Union Center Building at UC Berkeley, Bancroft and Telegraph, Berkeley. (510) 548-2350, www.asiabookcenter.com. 2 p.m., free. Fred Ho is a saxophonist and social activist who underwent intense surgery and chemotherapy and came out of the battle with a new understanding of what “true healing” means. Join Ho as he discusses health, sustainability, raw foodism, and of course, indulges us with a little jazz.

Kiteboarding party and benefit event Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com. 6 p.m.-9 p.m., $10 donation. San Francisco is kind of the perfect place for kiteboarding because of the ever-present wind and the beautiful scenery. Help keep our city beautiful by supporting nonprofit Baykeeper’s work in preventing pollution in the Bay Area — you might even win some cool kite gear in the process.

SUNDAY 11

“Lazy Sunday Shopping Day”: Opening weekend of Chronicle Books at the Metreon Chronicle Books, 165 4th St., SF. (415) 369-6271, www.chroniclebooks.com. 10:30 a.m., free. Sunday should be for strolling and snacking, and Chronicle Books is honoring this sacred ritual with coffee and Top Pot doughnuts at its shop opening in downtown’s Metreon.

MONDAY 12

Bargain Basement Concert Night Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455, www.bottomofthehill.com. 8:30 p.m., free. The weekend might have drained your pockets but there’s not reason you can still dance. Local bands and DJs totally understand — they are hosting a cover-free night of surprisingly eclectic music. Think how delicious your moves will feel when you’re rocking them to Arms and Legs, Jackal Fleece, Surf Shit, and Junkdrawer sans financial damage.

15 lipsmacking cocktails for $5 and under

Andrew Lam
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Screw on your drinking hats, cheapos — we tracked down 15 watering holes that’ll leave you toasted, in a financially stable kind of way. 

1. Tempest Bar’s $5 boilermaker

A shot of Jim Beam in a pint of PBR. Is this a terrible idea? Yes. Should you do it anyways? Yes. 

431 Natoma. (415) 495-1863

2. Phone Booth’s $4 tequila sunrise 

It’s a small place, but is embellished with awesome décor, cute bartenders, an eclectic mix of people, and really strong, cheap drinks. Their jukebox will have you coming back for more.  

1398 S. Van Ness, SF. (415) 648-4683


3. Moby Dick’s $6 2-for-1 margaritas 

Put both straws in your mouth, ease in to your brain freeze, and distract yourself with any of the three music videos playing on the screen overhead — a flawless solution for the worst of dates. 

4049 18th St., SF. (415) 861-1199, www.mobydicksf.com


4. Edinburgh Castle Pub’s $5 Jameson and coke 

It kind of looks like a barn — and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s a dive bar with a second floor, and is a fun place to go with a big group of friends.  

950 Geary, SF. (415) 885-4074, www.castlenews.com

 

5. Gold Cane Cocktail Lounge’s $4 bloody mary

The back patio here makes you forget you’re in a bar and feel like you’re in someone else’s backyard. The bartenders are sweet, the regulars always have a crazy story or four to share, and there’s free books in the back. 

1569 Haight, SF. (415) 626-1112


6. Butter’s $5 trailer tea 

Trailer tea, for those who were wondering, is sweet tea vodka. Butter also serves Prom Night punch in mason jars and has deep-fried Twinkies and SpaghettiOs. 

354 11th St., SF. (415) 863-5964, www.smoothasbutter.com 


7. You See Sushi’s $2.75 hot sake 

Now you see it, now you don’t. Your third round of sake will bring a whole new meaning to the restaurant’s name. 

94 Judah, SF. (415) 681-4010, www.youseesushi.com 


8. The Blue Light’s $3 SF Giant’s shot 

There’s not as much blue light as you think there would be, which is kind of disappointing. But their SF Giant’s shot — Harlem liqueur mixed with orange soda — will make you forget all of that anyway. 

1979 Union, SF. (415) 922-5510, www.thebluelightsf.com 


9. Delaney’s $4 vodka cranberry

A wonderful breath of dive bar air away from the typical Marina bars. Fully quipped with a jukebox, popcorn machine, and a Galaga/Pacman sit-down video game. 

2241 Chestnut, SF. (415) 931-8529 


10. Tornado’s $5 pomegranate cider 

This is a no-nonsense kind of bar. Know what you’re going to order, grab your drink, and gulp it down with a sausage from Rosamunde next door. 

547 Haight. (415) 863-2276, www.tornado.com


11. Lucky 13’s $4 whiskey sour

This dimly lit bar has cheap drinks, a good looking juke box, and free movie-grade popcorn (think butter). And the cutest dogs show up too.  

2140 Market, SF. (415) 487-1313 


12. Mission Bar’s $4 Manhattan

The red “BAR” sign that hangs outside lets you know this place gets straight to the point. Forget about names, just drink your drink. 

2695 Mission, SF. (415) 647-2300 


13. Specs’ Twelve Adler Museum Cafe’s $5 dirty vodka martini 

Postcards from around the world adorn the walls, a bluesy pianist playing in the corner, and an old school vibe that will take you back. 

12 William Saroyan, SF. (415) 421-4112 

 

14. Pittsburgh’s Pub’s $4 Ketel One and tonic 

If you ever fall asleep on the N-Judah and end up at the end of the Muni line, pick yourself up with any of the many cheap drinks at Pittsburgh’s Pub. 

4207 Judah, SF. (415) 664-3926 

 

15. Lexington Club’s $1 Margarita Fridays 

The only time it is perfectly okay to drink five margaritas in one sitting is at Lexington before 10 p.m. on Fridays. 

3464 19th St., SF. (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com

Maven

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Maven

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE Enter through a corner door into a restaurant lined with high communal tables, upstairs seating area, and a redwood bar backed by a stone wall overflowing with plant life. Formerly RNM, Maven is a sleek new cocktail haven in Lower Haight. I knew the drinks would be good, but I was pleasantly surprised at how strong the food is. Maven opened as a “drink with food pairing” concept venue: the menu lists three pairing columns. In the middle are generously-sized “small” plates, a couple entrées and dessert. To the left is a “distilled” column of cocktails, to the right, “fermented” beer and wine offerings.

While co-owners Jay Bordeleau and David Kurtz (Kurtz is also executive chef) have worked in numerous fine dining and popular establishments like Michael Mina, Saison, Beretta, in keeping with the times, Maven is decidedly casual yet chic, focused on quality over pomp. Sous chef Matt Brimer, formerly of Maverick, works with Kurtz on dishes more interesting than they read on paper.

Wise they were to bring on Kate Bolton to oversee the cocktail menu. Elegant restraint is something she honed during her days at Michael Mina. Working my way through each of her balanced drinks, there was little down time.

Jamie Pait, who worked in pastry at Slanted Door, made the slew of house syrups, like ginger and five spice, which Bolton uses in her recipes. Pait’s hazelnut orgeat simply rocks. Orgeat is a creamy, nutty almond syrup. With hazelnuts instead of almonds it is equally silky — fantastic even on its own. In Nauti’ Mermaid ($10), it adds sexy layers of nuttiness to Jamaican rum, lime, orange and coconut juices. Thai spirit shines in the cocktail’s vacation-like smoothness as it cools a dish of Monterey Calamari ($9) laden with Thai chilies, ginger, coriander. The calamari cleverly comes two ways: fried and grilled.

Another happy match occurs in braised fennel and watercress ($9), again far more satisfying than it sounds. Grilled fennel works beautifully with creamy burrata cheese and charred cherry tomatoes — a twist on a Caprese — over grilled toast. Its cocktail match is International Mistress ($11), a soft but powerful mix of Nonino amaro and Sombra mezcal, luxurious with orgeat and grapefruit, with just a hint of mezcal smoke. Also more exciting than the overwrought sliders category would suggest are Chinatown duck sliders ($9), like a gourmet Chinatown sandwich with tender duck, shiitake mushrooms, bitter greens and a smack of bacon. Its cocktail pairing is the 5 Spot ($10), a bright blend of La Favorite rhum agricole, lime, maple, and house ginger and five spice syrups, crowned with a Thai basil leaf.

Lush and subtle co-exist on the menu — and Bolton generally keeps cocktails light enough on alcohol so as not to overwhelm the food. Global Warming ($11) is a unique aperitif. Not only do you get dry riesling, but sake, even a splash of Ransom’s Old Tom Gin. Tart with lemon, a little scoop of absinthe sorbet permeates the drink as it melts. Brilliant. Its food spouse is a superior scallop crudo ($12), silken paired with hazelnut, shiso, and tart apple.

Contrast raw scallop freshness with rich broccoli agnolotti ($11/$18), a pasta meaty with southern Tasso ham, savory with orange-hued mimolette cheese and cipollini onions. Its drink mate is a full-bodied, but not overwhelming, Hometown Vixen ($9). Bolton infused black pepper in Four Roses bourbon, mixing it with lemon and two house syrups: gomme and a luxurious roasted pistachio.

The only dish I wasn’t as taken with is still well-executed: seared arctic char ($23) swimming in smoked fume broth with carrots and turnips. There’s nothing wrong with the soft white fish — it just lacked the flavor punch found in its accompanying pickled PEI mussels. Its match was one of the best cocktails on the menu, Hibiki Highball ($12), showcasing Japanese whisky — Hibiki 12-year in this case — with a giant ice cube, house ginger syrup, bitters, and soda water. Wine and beer pairings are likewise thoughtful: Hennepin, Ommegang’s farmhouse saison beer, with a mushroom tart, or Poco a Poco’s funky, fun Chardonnay with the arctic char.

Dessert could easily be Beach & Hyde, an off-menu cocktail named after the cross streets of legendary bar Buena Vista. Inspired by Buena Vista’s famed Irish coffees, the drink is Evan Williams bourbon, coffee brewed with cocoa nibs and vanilla, plus egg white and orange zest. If you want to actually eat dessert, you won’t suffer with dark Mayan chocolate in brownie-reminiscent slices, accented by black cardamom ice cream.

In fact, you won’t suffer here at all.

MAVEN

598 Haight, SF.

415-829-7982

www.maven-sf.com

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

 

Dame good fun

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Dame good fun

arts@sfbg.com

FILM What with the internet, the paparazzi, Rupert Murdoch’s CIA-level spy techniques, and the general displacement of actual news by “celebrity news,” it’s pretty hard these days for a star of any sort to keep their debauchery private. Not like the good old days, when Hollywood carefully stage-managed publicity and only those who’d become a real liability risked having their peccadilloes exposed.

Such rare windfalls aside, the public were mostly restricted to watching beautiful people behave badly onscreen — a pastime that took a big blow once the censorious Production Code was instituted in 1934. Elliot Lavine’s latest Roxie retrospective of movies from that golden-shower period of post-silents, pre-Nannywood licentiousness — this time entitled “Hollywood Before the Code: Nasty-Ass Films for a Nasty-Ass World!” — provides plentiful early talkie titillation. Now that the bodies involved are long buried, we also know a few tales of their stars’ off-screen misadventures, too.

The week-long series of double bills sports its share of familiar titles, notably Howard Hawks’ terrific original Scarface (1934); Edgar G. Ulmer’s Karloff vs. Lugosi smackdown The Black Cat (1934); and the first, probably best version of H.G. Welles’ prescient biotech fable Island of Lost Souls (1932). There are women in prison (1931’s Ladies of the Big House), women in Faulkner (1933’s The Story of Temple Drake, a watered-down adaptation of W.F.’s then-notorious Sanctuary), women in everything else (1932’s Three On a Match, whose Depression-era Valley of the Dolls-esque trio includes a very young Bette Davis), and just plain Joan Blondell (1933’s Blondie Johnson).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzxnEDEY2Hs

It’s a few choice dames in lesser-remembered pictures that provide the biggest “nasty-ass” discoveries this go-round, however. March 4 offers a shocking double dose of pure white femininity finding themselves in, ahem, “Yellow Peril” — miscegenation being something Hollywood could only begin to embrace a few decades later. Frank Capra’s atypically erotic The Bitter Tea of General Yen, with Barbara Stanwyck alllllmost surrendering the white flag to a “charismatic Chinese warlord” (Swede Nils Asther, eyes narrowed), has become a minor classic since flopping in 1933.

No such luck for The Cheat (1931), a remake of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1915 shocker that was part of Paramount’s brief, failed attempt to make stage sensation Tallulah Bankhead a movie star. Her gambling-addicted socialite gets branded (literally) in lieu of repayment not by the original’s Far East businessman (dashing Sessue Hayakawa) but by a mere rich Caucasian perv with Sinophile pretensions (Irving Pichel). The big courtroom climax is a notable howler.

Bankhead remained a Broadway star and a popular “personality,” her throaty voice hinting at a semi-private life that included a great deal of bourbon, a fondness for unexpected nudity, and sexual appetites all along the Kinsey scale. After two decades off screen she arguably found her camp métier as a berserk Bible-clutching hag terrorizing Stefanie Powers in 1965’s Die! Die! My Darling.

Much less of a survivor was poor Clara Bow, who was beloved when she played the wild thing yet unduly punished when it turned out that role had relevance in real life. The quintessential flapper and “It Girl” (“it” meaning sex appeal) was never much of an actress, but an incandescent, live-wire screen presence.

Call Her Savage (1932) is a pre-Code jaw-dropper that was supposedly her personal favorite. Running an A-to-Z gamut of emotions (and hairstyles), her Texas heiress heroine Nasa “Dynamite” Springer is “never two minutes the same” — a nice way of saying she’s nuts. In 88 minutes she rides a horse like it’s something else, plays with her mastiff likewise, is near-raped by an estranged husband, turns streetwalker, causes a brawl in Greenwich Village café catering to “wild poets and anarchists,” gets in two catfights, hits the bottle, and finds peace upon discovering she’s a part Indian “half-breed,” which apparently explains all.

Emotionally unstable, due in part to a pretty horrific upbringing, Bow must have related. At the time she was enduring myriad problems, notably some embarrassing public revelations spilled by a blackmailing secretary. Savage would be her next-to-last film, after which she retired into a deep and troubled seclusion.

Heading thataway as well was Juanita Hansen, a silent star who’d gone down in flames a decade earlier thanks to a “Queen of Thrills” image that unfortunately she enacted a little too enthusiastically in real life. She quit cocaine, got hooked on morphine, quit that, and became an anti-drug crusader — but nothing re-ignited her career. Certainly not lone comeback vehicle Sensation Hunters, a 1933 Poverty Row exploiter in which she was fifth-billed as “Trixie Snell,” manager-slash-madam to a troupe of “Hot-Cha Girls” who kinda dance, kinda sing, but mostly roll customers at Panama City’s “Bull Ring Club.” It was a sad exit. Puffy and peroxided, Hansen is all too convincing as a woman with too many hard miles on her to go anywhere but further downhill.

Waaaay uptown — glittering Broadway via glossy Paramount — 1934’s Murder at the Vanities offered the last hurrah for pre-Code naughtiness. And what a hurrah: chorus girls in pasties and less (at one point they simply clutch boobs as if on a latter-day Vanity Fair cover); production numbers like “The Rape of the Rhapsody” (the “rape” being Duke Ellington’s “colored” jazz musicians and dancers invading a classical orchestra with something called “Ebony Rhapsody” — until a white gangster jokingly machine-guns them all down); plus sexual humor so blunt that Jack Oakie ends the film telling a giggly blonde “Come on, let’s do it,” meaning exactly what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCoj855Vdo8

On the side of the angels — definitely for losers here — there are numerous horrible songs (excepting standard “Cocktails for Two”), gag-inducingly sweet romantic leads, and kitschy-great ideas like having stage impresario Earl Carroll’s patented “Most Beautiful Girls in the World” pose en masse as tropical waves and cosmetics products. Representing Satan and evening gown-wearing pot smokers everywhere is villainous Gertrude Michael, who infamously sings torch song “Sweet Marijuana.” Michael was an elegant stage and radio star whose own recreational taste leaned more toward cocktails for one. Indeed, she was fictionalized as the hard-drinking love object in one-time lover Paul Cain’s 1932 novel Fast One, an early classic of hard boiled American pulp.

Saving the sleaziest for last, the series will truly flabber your gast with its closer. Normally prim MGM found itself reviled in early 1932 with the fleeting release of Tod Browning’s Freaks (playing the Roxie March 3), a much-misunderstood, now celebrated fable starring actual circus sideshow performers. It was considered so grotesque and unsettling that Freaks was banned in many areas — Britain didn’t see it until 1963.

Yet there’s no evidence of any similar backlash to the infinitely scuzzier Kongo, unleashed by Metro a few months later. A remake of Browning’s 1928 Lon Chaney vehicle West of Zanzibar, it stars Walter Huston as wheelchair-bound “Deadlegs” Flint. He’s used cheap magic tricks to appoint himself fearsome white-man “god” amongst spear-carrying tribesmen in a “dunghill” African outpost, all part of an elaborate, insidious plan to wreak vengeance on the rival who stole his wife and health long ago.

What this revenge eventually encompasses reads like a list of nearly everything the Production Code would soon bar from the screen: depicted or suggested drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, rape, sadism, and a convent-bred ingénue (Virginia Bruce) recalling “hot hairy hands pawing and mauling” her unwilling virginal body. Not to mention human sacrifice and a unique substance abuse “cure” using leeches.

One can almost hear the censuring voice of Will Hays, the Code’s original enforcer, when one character tells Deadlegs “The swamp’s wholesome compared to you!” It would arguably be 40 years before MGM distributed another movie so flagrantly perverse — and even then the studio was so ashamed they put it (Paul Bartel’s 1972 Private Parts) out under a fake subsidiary’s auspices.

 

HOLLYWOOD BEFORE THE CODE: NASTY-ASS FILMS FOR A NASTY-ASS WORLD!

March 2-8, $11

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.roxie.com

Our Weekly Picks: February 29-March 6

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 29

Jacques Lu Cont

Stuart Price is a mixmaster of mystery. The British producer-DJ goes by many aliases, including Paper Faces, Thin White Duke, Jacques Lu Cont, and Les Rythmes Digitales. How could a Brit use French pseudonyms? Well, after you’ve won three Grammy Awards and worked with an entire spectrum of musicians ranging from Madonna to Miike Snow, from the Killers to Kylie Minogue, from Seal to the Scissor Sisters, then you’re off the hook for that faux pas. Price, the son of two classically trained pianists, developed his version of French electro house after hearing the sounds of the Human League. Expect Price and his trusty synthesizers to give guilty-pleasure makeovers to familiar songs and vocals (Kevin Lee).

With Robb Green

10 p.m., $5

Vessel

85 Campton, SF

(415) 433-8585

www.vesselsf.com

 

Nellie McKay in “I Want To Live!”

From the get-go, Nellie McKay has bucked against the typical musical confines: releasing her first album in 2004 as a double CD when it might have fit in one, calling it Get Away From Me in a jab at Norah Jones and to avoid being lumped in as just another female jazz singer. One listen to her actual music then and since, a maddening blend of pop, calypso, hip-hop, rock, reggae and (yes) vocal jazz, with maddening humor and reassuring warmth, assured that one label would simply never work. “I Want To Live!” showcases all McKay’s uncaged skill as performer as she reinvents the story of San Quentin death row inmate Barbara Graham as noir cabaret. (Ryan Prendiville)

8 p.m., $30

Rrazz Room

222 Mason, SF

(415) 394-1189

www.therrazzroom.com


THURSDAY 1

It Came From Hangar 18 book party

Two men, one brand-new sci-fi epic: It Came From Hangar 18 touches down from Planet Pulp this week at the Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge, which is actually one of the book’s settings, and serves a mighty tasty array of exotic cocktails to boot. Written by noted B-movie film programmer and author Will Viharo (A Mermaid Drowns in the Midnight Lounge) and software-engineer-with-a-dark-side Scott Fulks, Hangar 18 is self-described as “the most action-packed, erotic science fiction epic since the Bible — but with even more sex and violence!” Also: vampires, mobsters, and (I’m guessing) umbrella drinks galore. The release party features live surf music by retro-futurists Tomorrowmen. Whatever you do, keep watching the skies! (Cheryl Eddy)

7 p.m., free

Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge

1304 Lincoln, Alameda

(510) 749-0332

www.forbiddenislandalameda.com

 

RED BULL Thre3STYLE DJ COMPETITION

Every year, Red Bull pops in to provide a swell showcase of our current nightlife scene, inviting a variety of local disc jocks to compete for the chance to advance to national and international levels — and possibly win an enormous golden calf that squirts endless supplies of energy drink from its nipples. KIDDING. I’m sure they win something, but the real reward is ours, watching fine hometown talent display some flexibility on the decks. (The “Thre3style” part means competitors must include three different genres of music in their 15-minute sets.) This year’s amped qualifiers are KingMost, Zita, Theory, Just, Miles Medina, and John Beaver, as well as Seattle winner Four Color Zack and Portland winner Playtime. If last year’s wonderfully diverse crowd and hyper energy are anything to go by, this will be the party.

9 p.m. (show at 9:30 p.m.), $12, 18+

Ruby Skye

420 Mason, SF.

(415) 693-0777

www.redbullusa.com/thre3style

 

Zola Jesus

Russian-American Nika Roza Danilova grew up in Wisconsin, which is pretty much as close to Russia, climate-wise, as you’re going to get in the continental U.S. In the bitter cold of the Midwest, young Danilova sang opera before transitioning into rock, nabbing a keyboard here and a drum machine there. A few EPs, studio albums, and a critically acclaimed LP later, Danilova’s Zola Jesus is preaching to the masses, belting and wailing while electronic glitch samples and piano chords crash against each other. Most recent release Conatus (Sacred Bones Records) is something akin to industrial sprinkled with a pinch of classical, culled together by Danilova’s haunting, resonant voice. (Lee)

With Wymond Miles of the Fresh & Onlys, Talk Normal

9 p.m., $21

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com


FRIDAY 2

O’ Brother

A brutally captivating four-piece out of Atlanta, O’ Brother combines industrial, screaming metal, and the hard edge of Southern rock. A barrage of guitars —grounded by drummer Michael Martens, with shifting vocals by Tanner Merritt —results in a sound that’s syrupy and sludgy one moment, airy the next. Released in late 2011, O’ Brother’s first full length album, Garden Window, recalls the drive of Queens of the Stone Age, the atmosphere of Sigur Ros, and the march of Tool, without being too heavily indebted to any one part. (Prendiville)

With Junius, Happy Body Slow Brain

9 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Prizehog

Don’t let the lack of a bassist fool you — Prizehog gets heavy. The San Francisco trio deploys a keyboard alongside large-gauge drums and down-tuned guitar to create music that veers effortlessly between tectonic post-rock, thundering doom blues, and Hawkwind-style, spaceship-launch psychedelia. Patience and an open mind are two necessary virtues; they’ll prepare you for the band’s shuddering builds, non-traditional arrangements, and sudden stylistic shifts. Concertgoers looking for a potent dose of local, experimental volume should look to get high on the ‘Hog. (Ben Richardson)

With Bobb Saggeth, Hell Ship

9 p.m., $8

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415)-252-1330

www.theeparkside.com

 

Ty Segall

Ty Segall has managed to produce ecstatic, psychedelic lo-fi garage punk rock that retains the catchiest elements of rock’n’roll — seductive drumbeats, wailing guitars, and arresting lyrics — really quickly. Last year he released full-length album Goodbye Bread, along with three EPs. This spring he’s touring with Tim Presley of White Fence to promote their collaborative LP, Hair, out April 28. Hair features Segall’s brand of bright and fuzzy electric doo-wop and Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Diamonds-inspired melodic distortion. Segall rocked the Great American Music Hall last year with his curly blonde head-banging antics and returns this week to shake it out some more. (Mia Sullivan)

With White Fence, Mikal Cronin, the Feeling of Love

8:30 p.m., $15

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com


SATURDAY 3

Bad Weather California

Let’s start a new religion. Let’s start a cult. Let’s go to bed. Let’s get high. Let’s get fucked up. Let’s start a band. Let’s get a van. Let’s make some music. Whatever its problems may be, Denver-based freaked out rocker band Bad Weather California offers a lot of simple solutions, without falling into the typical pratfalls of musical contrivance. It’s a rebellious rock streak without being punk, hippy utopian idealism without being a jam band, spiritual fervor without preachy religiosity. The Akron/Family label-mates have a sunny optimism in the face of bad shit and a sound that might have you going along. Maybe even that cult part. (Ryan Prendiville)

With He’s My Brother She’s My Sister

9 p.m., $8–$11

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com


SUNDAY 4

“Balboa Birthday Bash”

Hey, jazz baby: between 2011 hits The Artist, Hugo, and Midnight in Paris, the 1920s are the cinematic decade du jour. What better way to re-live the flapper era than at a movie theater that’s been around since 1926? Cheer the Balboa’s 86th birthday — yep, it’s older than the Oscars — at a fiesta co-presented by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. On tap are a screening of Harold Lloyd classic Safety Last! (1923) on 35mm with piano accompaniment by Frederick Hodges; a screening of shorts by Georges Méliès (a.k.a. Ben Kingsley’s character in Hugo); a live vaudeville show; an illustrated lecture by author and Safety Last! expert John Bengtson; birthday cake; and more. As they said in the ’20s (or at least, they always say in movies set in the ’20s), it’ll be the cat’s pajamas. (Eddy)

7 p.m., $7.50–$10

Balboa Theatre

3630 Balboa, SF

(415) 221-8184

www.balboamovies.com


MONDAY 5

The Driftwood Singers

Listening to the Driftwood Singers makes you feel like you’re ambling down a dusty country road toward something that might not exist anymore. This lo-fi folk duo of Pearl Charles and Kris Hutson writes foreboding, bluesy love ballads laden with longing nostalgia. Charles’ warm, milky vocals blend seamlessly with Hutson’s slightly twangy voice as Charles picks her autoharp and Hutson strums his guitar (or mandolin/banjo, depending on the number). This pair hails from LA (no, really) and recorded their debut EP, Look!, with a Sony Walkman. Their upcoming seven-inch, out March 27, was recorded a bit more expertly, but channels the same raw honesty. (Sullivan)

With Birdhouse, Lauren Shera, and Infantree

8:30 p.m., $12

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com


TUESDAY 6

Mia Doi Todd

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Mia Doi Todd’s latest offering, Cosmic Ocean Ship (City Zen Records), was inspired by journeys into Cuba, Brazil, France, Mexico, and India. Her lilting, reflective vocals relay tones of nostalgia, affection, and optimism. Opening track “Paraty” refers to a Brazilian coastal town and brings in some lighthearted samba, while “Under the Sun” sees Todd turn tropical island chanteuse; her romantic crooning bringing to mind a couple taking a post-luau stroll on the beach. The take-away message might best be encapsulated by Cosmic‘s last track, a touching cover of Chilean Folk artist Violeta Parra’s “Gracias a la vida.” (Lee)

With Bells

8 p.m., $16–$26

Yoshi’s

1330 Fillmore

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

 

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is the only 20th century ballet that can give a run to the 19th century biggies Nutcracker and Swan Lake. No matter who choreographs, it will find an audience. Fortunately, you have to be really good to keep control of the subject matter’s complexity, not to speak of an audience’s expectation about a beloved story and, of course, the music. Helgi Tómasson has the chops. His 1994 version is gorgeous, sumptuously choreographed and designed. The depth of the company is such that it has any number of first-rate dancers to fill the roles, not just the major ones of the lovers, but minor characters — the villain and the best friend, the gypsy girls and the rejected suitor. (Rita Felciano)

Through March 11, 8 p.m., $36–$285

War Memorial Opera House

301 Van Ness, SF

(415) 865-2000

www.sfballet.org

 

 

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Ice Cream Bar’s soda fountain revives the ’30s jerk

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Ice Cream Bar’s soda fountain revives the ’30s jerk

In this week’s Appetite food and drink column in the paper, I relished the opportunity to return to a time of delicious handmade fountain drinks at Cole Valley’s new Ice Cream Bar (albeit with some innovative contemporary flavor twists). In between sips of wild cherry phosphate, I got to talk to Russell Davis, the bartender who developed the fantastic soda fountain program, about the soda jerk revival — and got him to share some of his sassafras secrets.

SFBG Why is Ice Cream Bar different from other soda fountain revival spots in the US?

Russell Davis There are a few spots in the country supporting the “revival” of the soda fountain and its lost drinks, but none take it to the extent and level that we do at Ice Cream Bar. From top to bottom, our menu is not just based on using quality ingredients and refined processes, but also on its inherent historical value. Our syrups are all fresh, cold agitated and our ice is all hand cut. Even our floats are built to the same specifications as they would have made them in 1894 Chicago. We are not playing around.

SFBG What connection do you see between classic and creative cocktails, the world you come from, and old fashioned soda fountain drinks?

RD Many bartenders who didn’t flee the country during Prohibition to practice their craft became soda jerks. There was a beautiful way of mixing that was refined during this period. Also, the techniques that we apply to soda fountain drinks can, and I believe will, be used in the crafting of a refined cocktail.  What I’ve noticed as the biggest difference between mixology and soda jerking is that whereas bartenders focus on using fresh fruits and other seasonal ingredients, soda jerks try to capture flavors (in a tincture or extract)….

SFBG Tell me about the sassafras root beer featured at ice Cream Bar. How is this different from other homemade root beers?

RD First, it’s made using fresh sassafras and a house built sassafras extract, something that you do not find in mass-produced root beer because, by USDA standards, it is illegal due to its slightly carcinogenic properties. But, there is nothing to be afraid of: it’s about as dangerous as cinnamon or nutmeg.  Most people use wintergreen, spearmint, and licorice or anise to replicate that sassafras flavor that was in the original old school recipes of root beer, but nothing compares to the flavor of the true stuff. Next, I use black and jasmine tea as a base combined with a variety of other herbs, then cold brew it with ground marshmallow root to create a thick creamy texture and give it head. Lastly, I add a little bit of St John’s Wort in so, hopefully, it will put you in a good mood as well.

SFBG Given more than 75 tincture options and house-made extracts, what crazy concoction would you order if you wanted something unusual?

RD [Laughs] You’ll just have to wait and see when the next menu comes out!

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

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