Local

Whew! What a Best of Party last night!

-
2

What a splendid Best of Party last night at Club Six down in the inner Mission in San Francisco. Almost all of this year’s Best of winners were there, more than 300 of them, to pick up their Best of certificate, and to pose in a group photo that will stand as one of the year’s most eclectic gatherings in San Francisco and certainly the Best San Francisco photograph of 2006. (We will publish the photo in next week’s Guardian).

There was Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry from the Rock Bottom Remainders, Chris Middlestadt of the Fruit Guys, the best beer-soaked bingo brigade, local heroes Tony Kelly of thick Description Theater, Barry Hermanson and the Greenaction Gang of closing-down-the-Hunters-Point-power-plant fame, (Marie Harrison and Bradley Angel), the best drag queen who plays the accordion, Breda Courtney of the Best Bloomin’ Thespians, Robin and Joe Talmadge and Cinder Ernst from World Gym, the Primitive Screwheads (best goofy gore), Press Secretary Peter Ragone and other reps from the mayor’s office (yes, Mayor Gavin Newsom did win an award, the best mayor we love to hate), best neighborhood newspaper publisher (Ruth Passen of the Potrero View), and scores more of the city’s best and brightest and most diverse.

The Keeping it Real with Will and Willie gang were there from the Quake (Comedian Will Durst, Ex-Mayor Willie Brown, producer Paul Wells) to accept their award as the “Best Herb Caen column on the radio.”
They exemplified the spirit of Caen by being “visible” at the party (a key Caen quality in his man about town role at the old Chronicle) and by talking genially to everyone who came in range in the massed crowd, including some who have tilted politically with Willie through the years. Caen had to do that, whether he liked it or not, because he was a target and a celebrity wherever he went. One key difference is that Will and Willie, out on the town regularly, can comment and do their reviews the next morning. Caen’s nocturnal adventures were always in his column a day later in the morning Chronicle. Caen also had l,000 word columns. Will and Willie have three hours every week day morning, from 7 to l0 a.m. in prime time, and can handle lots of live interviews in the studio or on the phone. Most important, Caen could only hint at his political proclivities, but Will and Willie announce they are Democrats and go after Bush and the war and local sacred cows with great glee.

This morning, Will and Willie led off their show on 960 the Quake with a report on the event, which they obviously enjoyed. My journalistic point: There will most likely never be another Herb Caen in San Francisco, or probably on any other daily paper, because he was a creature of another era, the hell-for-leather competitive newspaper wars in San Francisco, which were some of the most colorful in the country. Once the old Hearst Examiner and the old Chronicle formed a JOA in l965, they had no more real use for Caen but the Chronicle kept him on because of his ability and reputation. The Chronicle family owners were always nervous and often agitated about Caen and his enormous influence but they really couldn’t do much about him. Now, with the new Hearst Chronicle as the dominant daily here, with the coming of Singletonland in the Bay Area, no publisher has any use for a powerful independent talent such as Caen, particularly a strong union voice. Al’as.

The Caen formula lives

Will and Willie demonstrated the point again in this morning’s show with a snapshot of Caen’s San Francisco with a nostalgic interview of Mort Sahl, who Caen helped make a celebrated fixture at Enrique Banducci’s Hungry I. They were making the most of the fact that Sahl was reemerging in San Francisco and opening tonight at the Empire Plush Room (Willie said he would in the front row). And Sahl responded with some good political jokes: The Democrats are proving they can defeat Democats, he said of the Lieberman race. But can they defeat Republicans? Jerry Brown is putting Oakland “up for adoption.” On the Mel Gibson incident, Sahl said there was talk in Hollywood that he would now be boycotted. But Sahl quoted Jack Warner of Warner Brothers about an earlier star: “He’ll never work in this town again– until we need him.” And Sahl mused at one point, “Just how many wars are we fighting today.”

Sahl also had some news. Banducci was alive and well in Hayward, sharp as ever. Sahl lived in San Francisco and Sausalito for many years and is now living in LA and working regularly. The I in Hungri I stood for Intellectual. ON and on, making the point on the show that Sahl is back. Hurray!

Back on the monopoly journalism front

Just in: story from the Mercury News by Pete Carey with the arresting head: “Area’s new media king is having fun, industry leader started with one small paper at age 20.”

He quoted Singleton as telling a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Seattle in April, on a podium he shared with McClatchy’s Gary Pruitt,
“We do a lot of things because they’re fun.” Impertinent questions: who else is having fun as Singletonland comes to town? Is there no way that any of the reporters covering Singleton on any of his papers can utter a discouraging or realistic word about his form of discount journalism, or find someone who can do? (Carey, incidentally, a veteran reporter, has done the best job of covering the sale of Knight-Ridder and subsequent developments).

The newspaper unions have been quiet and have not even commented on what happened to their offer to buy the Merc and the other McClatchy castoffs. And the few statements they have issued took the line of the Hearst unions in San Francisco in dealing with its monopolizing issues: lay low and wait till negotiations on the next contract (when, from my point of view, it may be too late.) The Merc employees are working without union contracts. The crunch will come when Singleton starts “consolidating” and making the deep cuts in production and newsrooms and quality that he must do, sooner or later, probably sooner, with his mountains of debt, his unmanageable forest of papers and presses, and his “lean Dean” cost-cutting modus operandi. Stay tuned. B3

Wage slaves

-
0

By Steven T. Jones
Just when San Francisco starts setting an example on justice for workers, the evil corporate bastards in DC or Sacto find ways to knock us back a few notches. Have you caught the debate over the legislation to increase the federal minimum wage? This thing is a poison pill mess that will do more harm than good. Well, as the Examiner discovered the other day, it also has particularly heinous impacts on San Francisco and other states and cities that have their own minimum wage standards, striking them down in favor of the paltry fed minimum (which, for tipped employees would actually drop to the downright criminal level of just a couple bucks an hour). I was over at the Young Workers United office yesterday (they rent space for the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union Local 2), which was all abuzz with concern about this. And they say even the usually greedy and anti-worker Golden Gate Restaurant Association is opposed to this. Yes, it’s just that bad.

Voto por voto!

-
0

Act One: The Middle Class

MEXICO CITY (August 4th) — Jacinto Guzman, an 80 year-old retired oilworker from Veracruz state, plants himself in front of the headquarters of the Halliburton Corporation on the skyscraper-lined Paseo de Reforma here and recalls the great strikes of the 1930s that culminated in the expropriation and nationalization of Mexico’s petroleum reserves.

Dressed in a wrinkled suit and a hard hat, the old worker laments the creeping privatization of PEMEX, the national oil corporation, by non-Mexican subcontractors like Halliburton, which is installing natural gas infrastructure in Chiapas. But he is less agitated about the penetration of the transnationals in the Mexican oil industry, or even Halliburton’s craven role in the obscene Bush-Cheney Iraq war, than he is about the fraud-marred July 2nd presidential election here.

The sign he holds reads “No A Pinche Fraude” (No to Fucking Fraud!), referring to Halliburton’s membership in a business confederation that financed a vicious TV ad campaign against leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), who insists that he won the July 2nd election from right-winger Felipe Calderon, to whom the nation’s tarnished electoral authority, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) awarded a razor-thin and much questioned “victory.”

Mr. Guzman’s appearance at Halliburton on a Friday at the end of last month was one of myriad acts of civil resistance invoked by Lopez Obrador at a July 16th Mexico City assembly that drew more than a million participants. The campaign is designed to pressure a seven-judge panel (the “TRIFE”), which must determine a winner by the first week in September, into opening up the ballot boxes and counting out the votes contained therein — “voto por voto.”

Zeroing in on U.S. transnationals that purportedly backed Calderon, AMLO’s people have invaded Wal-Mart, picketed Pepsico (its Sabritas snack brand was a big contributor to the right-winger’s campaign), rented rooms in big chain hotels (Fiesta Americana) and dropped banners from the windows decrying the “pinche fraude,” and blocking all eleven doors at the palatial headquarters of Banamex, once Mexico’s oldest bank and now a wholly owned subsidiary of Citygroup.

“Voto por Voto!” demonstrators chanted as the bankers smoked and fumed and threatened to call the police.

Demonstrators also blocked the doors at the Mexican stock exchange and surrounded the studios of Televisa, the major head of the nation’s two-headed television monopoly, both heads of which shamelessly tilted to Calderon before, during, and after the ballots were cast.

“!Voto por Voto! Casilla por Casilla!” (Vote by Vote, Precinct by Precinct.)

Seated on a tiny folding chair outside of Banamex, Elena Poniatowska, one of Mexico’s most luminous writers and the recent winner of Spain’s coveted Cervantes Prize, reflected on the civil resistance: “We have always seen the workers demonstrate here in the Zocalo, but this is all very new for our middle class. The middle class protests too, but in the privacy of their own homes. Now we are out of the closet.”

Ironically, the concept of peaceful civil resistance by the middle class was pioneered by Felipe Calderon’s own party, the PAN, after it had been cheated out of elections in the 1980s by the then-ruling PRI. The PANistas uncharacteristically blocked highways and went on hunger strikes, and even imported Philippine trainers, veterans of Corazon Aquino’s civil resistance campaign against Ferdinand Marcos, to teach their supporters new tricks.

Recently AMLO’s party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution or PRD, stole a page from the PANista bible by holding a rally at a Mexico City statue of the right-wingers’ father figure, Manuel Clouthier. During the stolen 1988 presidential election, Clouthier demanded a ballot-by-ballot recount and coined the now ubiquitous phrase “voto por voto.” The PRD gathering around the statue of “Saint Maquio” left Calderon and the PAN speechless for once.

The PRD crusade could be labeled “civil resistance lite.” Led by Poniatowska, opera singer Regina Orozco, and comic actress Jesusa Rodriguez, public demonstrations have been more showbiz than eruptions of mass outrage. Nonetheless, Televisa and TV Azteca, Calderon and the PAN relentlessly rag Lopez Obrador for “fomenting violence,” purposefully ignoring the real daily violence that grips Mexico’s cities as brutal narco gangs behead rivals and massacre their enemies in plain public view.

Act Two: Bad Gas

Hundreds of steaming AMLO supporters pack the cavernous Club de Periodistas in the old quarter of the capital, where computer gurus will diagnosis the complexities of the cybernetic fraud Lopez Obrador is positive was perpetrated by IFE technicians this past July 2nd and 5th during both the preliminary count (PREP) and the actual tally of 130,000 precincts in the nation’s 300 electoral districts.

The experts are as convinced as the audience that the vote was stolen on the IFE terminals, but have many theories as to how. They speak of arcane algorithms and corrupted software. Juan Gurria, a computer programmer who has dropped in on his lunch hour to audit the experts, recalls the 1988 election which was stolen from leftist Cuauhtemoc Cardenas by the long-ruling (71 years) PRI in the nation’s first cybernetic computer fraud. “In 1988, they had to shut down the computers and say the system had crashed to fix the vote – but in 2006, the IFE kept the system running and we watched them steal it right before our eyes” Gurria contends, “the difference is they have better computers now.”

18 years ago, with computer fraud still in its infancy, the PRI had to resort to hit men to carry out its larceny. Three nights before the election, Cardenas’s closest aide, Francisco Xavier Ovando, and his assistant, Ramon Gil, were executed blocks away from the Congress of the country after reportedly obtaining the password to the PRI computer system, upon which the results were being cooked in favor of its candidates, the now universally reviled Carlos Salinas de Gortari. So far, Computer Fraud 2006 has been less messy.

Although the subject is dry and technical – at one point excerpts of an abstruse Guardian of London analysis by University of Texas economist James Galbreath (son of John Kenneth) was read into the record in English – AMLO’s supporters mutter and grumble and nod their heads vigorously. “Asi es!” – that’s just the way it happened! “Voto por Voto” they rumble, “Casilla por Casilla!” after each expert scores a point. Whether or not the fix is in, they are convinced that they have been had.

The PRD is trying to keep a lid on the bad gas seeping from down below. A few days after July 2nd, Felipe Calderon, who AMLO’s people have derisively dubbed “Fe-Cal,” came to this same Club de Periodistas to receive the adulation of a gaggle of union bosses. When he tried to leave the club, he was assailed by street venders howling “Voto por Voto!”

Calderon was quickly hustled into a bullet-proof SUV by his military escort, but the angry crowd kept pounding on the tinted windows. One young man obscenely thrust his middle finger at the would-be president, The scene is replayed over and over again on Televisa and Azteca, sometimes five times in a single news broadcast, graphic footage of the kind of violence AMLO is supposed to be inciting.

Act Three: In Defense of the Voto

Lopez Obrador fervently believes he has won the presidency of the United States of Mexico. He says it often on television just to needle Calderon. The proof, he is convinced, is inside 130,000 ballot boxes that he wants recounted, voto por voto.

The ballot boxes are now stored in the Federal Electoral Institute’s 300 district offices under the protection of the Mexican army. Nonetheless, in Veracruz, Tabasco, and Jalisco among other states, IFE operators have broken into the ballot boxes under the pretext of recovering lost electoral documentation. AMLO is suspicious that the officials are monkeying with the ballots, adding and subtracting the number of votos to make them conform to the IFE’s incredible computer count. Hundreds of ballot boxes contain more votes than voters on the registration lists, and more ballots have been judged null and void than the 243,000 margin of Calderon’s as-yet unconfirmed victory.

To this end, Lopez Obrador has strengthened encampments of his supporters outside the 300 electoral districts. In Monterrey, a PANista stronghold, thugs attack the encampment, beating on AMLO’s people and tearing down their tent city. Rocks are thrown at his supporters in Sinaloa; drivers speed by hurling curses and spitting on them.

Outside the Mexico City headquarters of the TRIFE, the seven-judge panel that will have the ultimate word as to whether or not the votos are going to be counted out one by one, a hunger strike has been ongoing since the PRD submitted documentation of anomalies in 53,000 out of the nation’s 130,000 polling places. Each night a different show business personality joins the fasters, eschews dinner and camps out in the guest pup tent overnight.

From Carlos Fuentes and Elena Poniatowska to painters like Jose Luis Cuevas and master designer Vicente Rojo, the arts and entertainment world has lined up behind Lopez Obrador. An exhibition by Cuevas and 50 other top line graphic artists and writers has been installed on the Alameda green strip adjacent to the Palace of Fine Arts here. After midnight, Calderon supporters slash and savage the art work, leaving a broken jumble behind.

The next day brigades of AMLO’s people from the surrounding neighborhoods rescue what they can of the exhibit, reassemble the broken shards, sew the torn art back together, and prop up the display panels. This is what democracy looks like in Mexico in the summer of 2006.

Act Four: Se Busca Por Fraude Electoral

The integrity of the Federal Electoral Commission is in the eye of Hurricane AMLO. Lopez Obrador accuses the IFE of fixing the election for Felipe Calderon and then defending his false victory. The PRD has filed criminal charges against the nine members of the IFE’s ruling council, most prominently its chairman, the gray-faced bureaucrat Luis Carlos Ugalde, for grievous acts of bias against Lopez Obrador, including refusing to halt Calderon’s hate spots in the run-up to July 2nd.

The IFE is mortally offended by the allegations that it has committed fraud and is using its enormously extravagant budget (larger than all of the government’s anti-poverty programs combined) to run spots protesting the slurs on its integrity that are every bit as virulent and ubiquitous as Calderon’s toxic hit pieces. Actors have been hired to impersonate irate citizens who allegedly were chosen at random as polling place workers July 2nd. “The votes have already been counted” they scoff. “We did not commit fraud” they insist. The idea is preposterous, an insult to their patriotism and to one of the pillars of Mexican “democracy,” the IFE.

Luis Carlos Ugalde, the president of the IFE council, has not been seen in public for several weeks except in large Wanted posters pasted to the walls of the inner city – SE BUSCA POR FRAUDE ELECTORAL! Ugalde and two other IFE counselors are protégés of powerful teachers union czar Elba Esther Gordillo, who joined forces with the PAN to take revenge on failed PRI presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo, a mortal enemy. The nine-member council is composed entirely of PRI and PAN nominees – the PRD is, of course, excluded.

Despite rumors that he had fled the country, Ugalde shows up July 27th at the first IFE meeting since the district tallies three weeks previous where he is confronted by the PRD delegate to the Institute (each party has one delegate.) During an acrimonious seven-hour meeting, Horacio Duarte keeps waving 30 partially burnt ballots, most of them marked for AMLO, that he has just been handed by an anonymous source. Duarte wants to know where Ugalde lives so he can nail one of the ballots to his front door to expose the “shame” of the fraud-marred election. The gray-faced bureaucrat grows even grayer and threatens to suspend the session. OK, OK, Duarte concedes, I’ll just hang it on your office door.

Just then a score of protestors push their way past the IFE guards at the auditorium’s portals – the meeting is a public one. They are chanting “Voto por Voto” and carrying bouquets of yellow flowers, AMLO’s colors. A PRD deputy tries to hand one to Luis Carlos Ugalde who turns away in horror. A bodyguard snatches up the blossoms as if they were a terrorist bomb, and disposes of them post-haste.

Act Five: We Shall Not Be Moved

The clock is ticking. The TRIFE must declare a new president by September 5th. The seven judges, all in the final year of their ten-year terms (three will move up to the Supreme Court in the next administration) have just begun to dig their way into the slagheap of legal challenges that impugn the results in about half of the 130,000 polling places in the land, the ham-handed bias of the IFE prior to the election, and the strange behavior of the Federal Electoral Institute’s computers on election day and thereafter.

The TRIFE, which has sometimes struck down corrupted state and local elections and ordered recounts in a handful of electoral districts, can either determine that the legal challenges would not affect enough votes to overturn the IFE’s determination that Calderon won the election, annul the entire election if it adjudges that it was illegitimately conducted, or order a recount. If the judges determine that annulment is the only way to fix the inequities, a new election would be scheduled 18 months down the pike.

In the meantime, the Mexican Congress would name an interim president, an unprecedented resolution in modern political history here – just the fact it is being discussed is, in itself, unprecedented.

Among those mentioned for the post are National Autonomous University rector Juan Ramon de la Fuente, former IFE director Jose Woldenberg, and three-time presidential loser Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, son of beloved depression-era president Lazaro Cardenas. For Cuauhtemoc, who was defrauded out of the presidency in 1988 by the same kind of flimflam with which the PAN and the IFE seek to despoil Lopez Obrador of victory in 2006, an interim presidency would be a perfect solution. Fixated on fulfilling the destiny of following in his father’s footsteps, moving back into his boyhood home Los Pinos – the Mexican White House – would be sweet revenge against his former protégé and now bitter rival on the left, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

But AMLO does not want the election annulled and an interim appointed. He is obsessed with proving his triumph at the polls and is not going to sit on his hands waiting for the TRIFE to reach its learned conclusions. A gifted leader of street protest, he has summoned his people to the capitol’s Tiananmens-sized Zocalo square three times since July 2nd, each time doubling the numbers of the masses who march through the city: 500,000 on July 8th, 1.1 million on July 16th, and 2.4 million this past Sunday, July 30th (police estimates) – Sunday’s gathering was the largest political demonstration in the nation’s history.

The “informative assemblies” as AMLO tags them, have been festive occasions but underneath there is palpable anger. Lopez Obrador’s people come in family, arm babies and grandpas, often in wheelchairs are on canes. Some come costumed as clowns and pirates. dangling grotesque marionettes, lopsided home-made heads of Fe-Cal, or pushing a replica of the Trojan Horse (“El Cabellito Trojanito.”) They look like they are having fun but their frustrations can well up to the surface in a flash, say when the hated Televisa and TV Azteca appear on the scene. “QUE SE MUERE TELEVISA!” (THAT TELEVISA SHOULD DIE!), the people the color of the earth snarl and scream, pounding fiercely on the television conglomerate’s vehicles.

At the July 30th “informative assembly,” Lopez Obrador ups the ante considerably in his high stakes poker game to pry open the ballot boxes. Now instead of calling for yet another monster gathering in the Zocalo (4.8 million?), he asks all those who had come from the provinces and the lost cities that line this megalopolis to stay where they sre in permanent assembly until the TRIFE renders a decision. 47 encampments will be convened extending from the great plaza, through the old quarter, all the way to the ring road that circles the capital, snarling Mexico City’s already impenetrable traffic, raising the level of greenhouse gases and urban tempers to the point of combustion.

When Lopez Obrador calls for a vote on his proposal, 2,000,000 or so “SI’s” soared from the throats of the gargantuan throng, followed by the now obligatory roars of “No Estas Solo” (“you are not alone”) and “Voto by Voto, Casilla by Casilla.” As if on cue, AMLO’s people began assembling the encampments state by state and Mexico City neighborhood by neighborhood.

For a correspondent who once wrote a novel fictionalizing the stealing of the 1988 election (“Tonatiuh’s People,” Cinco Puntos Press, El Paso, 1999), in which the people the color of the earth march on Mexico City and vote to stay in permanent assembly in the Zocalo, fantasy has turned into the actualities of daily reporting. I am not surprised by this startling turn of events.

When I first arrived here in the old quarter days after the 8.2 earthquake that devastated this capital, the “damnificados” (refugees) were encamped in the streets, demanding relief and replacement housing and liberation from the ruling PRI and their movement from the bottom reinvigorated a civil society that today infuses AMLO’s struggle for electoral democracy. This morning, the damnificados of the PAN and the IFE, Calderon and the fat cats, are again living on these same streets.

On the first evening of the taking of Mexico City, AMLO spoke to thousands crowded into the Zocalo in a driving downpour and invoked Gandhi: “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they beat you, and then you win.” And then Gabino Palomares, a troublemaking troubadour who has been up there on the stage at every watershed event in recent Mexican history from the slaughter of striking students at Tlatelolco (1968) to the Zapatistas’ March of the Those the Color of the Earth (2001) took the mic to lead the mob in that old labor anthem, “We Shall Not Be Moved” and AMLO’s people thundered back in a roar that drowned out the weeping sky, “NO NOS MOVERAN!”

To be continued.

John Ross’s “ZAPATISTAS! Making Another World Possible – Chronicles 2000-2006” will be published by Nation Books this October and Ross is hunting possible venues for presentations. All suggestions will be cheerfully accepted at johnross@igc.org

Feds let Singleton off the hook

-
0

› tredmond@sfbg.com

The United States Department of Justice has refused to intervene in the largest media merger in Bay Area history.

In a brief press release, the DOJ said that the deal under which Denver billionaire Dean Singleton will buy almost every daily newspaper in the Bay Area “is not likely to reduce competition substantially.” That, of course, is crazy (see the Bruce Blog).

But the deal is by no means done yet.

Although the local news media have played up the fact that real-estate investor Clint Reilly was unable to block the merger deal, Reilly’s lawyer, Joe Alioto, says the case has only begun.

“We are requesting all of the Justice Departments documents, and we want to make them public,” Alioto told me. “We’re going to notice the depositions of the CEOs and ask for a trial date.”

Alioto said that the judge, Susan Illston, refused to issue a restraining order — but said in court that the case rasied serious questions. She also said that if she finds a violation of law in the merger, she will order the parties to undo it, Alioto said.

The judge — along with the Department of Justice — also acknowledged that there’s another potentially problematic element here: Hearst Corp, which owns the San Francisco Chronicle, is slated to enter into a financial deal with SIngleton that would give Hearst a stake in one of Singleton’s operations. That offers serious competitive problems, since the Chron would be the only remaining competitor to Singleton after the merger.

“She said that when the agreement with Hearst is finalized, we can come back and file for another injunction, which is exactly what we will do,” Alioto said.

WEDNESDAY

-
0

AUG 2

Californian campaigns

Come to a campaign finance reform panel with Kris Greenlee of California Common Cause; Maria Guillen of SEIU Local 790; and Dan Purnell of the City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission. The panel – moderated by Tony West, a UC Hastings College of the Law board member – will discuss how to take reforms to the state level. (Deborah Giattina)

Noon-1 p.m.
Commonwealth Club of California
595 Market, second floor, SF
Free, advance registration required
(415) 597-6700

Music

International Youth Music Festival

Musical whiz kids from around the United States and Europe converge on San Francisco for a run of orchestral shows at SF landmarks St. Mary’s Cathedral (Wed/2), Mission Dolores (Mon/7), and Grace Cathedral (Tues/8). The chamber orchestra will perform music by Dvořák, Brahms, Shostakovitch, and others. With performers ranging in age from 12 to 21, prepare to be blown away by the level of play and prodigious talent. (Joseph DeFranceschi)

7:30 p.m.
St. Mary’s Cathedral
1111 Gough
$10-$16
(510) 595-9378
www.youthmusicinternational.com

Feds let Singleton off the hook

-
0

› tredmond@sfbg.com

The United States Department of Justice has refused to intervene in the largest media merger in Bay Area history.

In a brief press release, the DOJ said that the deal under which Denver billionaire Dean Singleton will buy almost every daily newspaper in the Bay Area “is not likely to reduce competition substantially.” That, of course, is crazy (see the Bruce Blog).

But the deal is by no means done yet.

Although the local news media have played up the fact that real-estate investor Clint Reilly was unable to block the merger deal, Reilly’s lawyer, Joe Alioto, says the case has only begun.

“We are requesting all of the Justice Departments documents, and we want to make them public,” Alioto told me. “We’re going to notice the depositions of the CEOs and ask for a trial date.”

Alioto said that the judge, Susan Illston, refused to issue a restraining order — but said in court that the case rasied serious questions. She also said that if she finds a violation of law in the merger, she will order the parties to undo it, Alioto said.

The judge — along with the Department of Justice — also acknowledged that there’s another potentially problematic element here: Hearst Corp, which owns the San Francisco Chronicle, is slated to enter into a financial deal with SIngleton that would give Hearst a stake in one of Singleton’s operations. That offers serious competitive problems, since the Chron would be the only remaining competitor to Singleton after the merger.

“She said that when the agreement with Hearst is finalized, we can come back and file for another injunction, which is exactly what we will do,” Alioto said.

Bitch’s brew

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com
San Francisco is full of a bunch of pussies. I’m sorry, it’s not that I want to say these things. I feel strongly that a woman’s vagina should never be used to describe something weak or negative. In fact I tend to correct people who use that word in such a way, being that I am shamelessly p.c. San Francisco is the only city in the world where I would have to spend more time defending the use of a single word in a single sentence than the overall meaning of that sentence.
But seriously, San Francisco is made up of a bunch of pussies and nothing could exemplify that more than its long and flamboyant rock history. If you held up the Bay’s rock résumé next to your average Midwestern state’s — Ohio’s, for example — you’d start to get the picture. No one is going to argue that San Francisco doesn’t deliver the goods when it comes to art-damaged, high-concept, performance-focused freak music, made by freaks for freaks, but let’s ask anyone who’s ever heard the Pagans, the Dead Boys, or Rocket from the Tombs if Californians can deliver the kind of ugly-faced raw violence that litters any Ohio rock comp. No, we can’t. Not counting Blue Cheer or Death Angel.
I’m not trying to start a turf war here or even a debate over whether Midwestern ugly rock is better than West Coast weirdo jams, but I am trying to help you understand why an unknown band from Columbus, Ohio, is the most exciting thing to happen to the local music underbelly in a long while. Would a trio of educated and liberated women from Berkeley call their band 16 Bitch Pile-Up? Or would any band from the Yay Area list a cache of instruments that includes a “PVC pipe,” a homemade “vile in,” “television feedback,” “a bag of beer bottles with a mic thrown in,” and “your face”? There is a reason why bands like Comets on Fire, XBXRX, and other non-noise locals are itching to gig with this band. Frankly, the Pile-Up is a needed shock to the system, bringing the kind of attitude, fierceness, and work ethic that grow in places where the rivers are flammable and national elections are stolen in plain sight.
HUNGRY LIKE A WOLF EYE
16BPU achieved a bit of cult status well before descending on the Bay. For the last four years they made Columbus a choice destination on any tour, running the art and music space BLD and offering floor space for all manner of riffraff. What began as studio spaces for fellow art schoolers, dropouts, and friends fast became an epicenter of East-meets-Midwest noise happenings. Yet in spite of their notoriety and a Wolf Eyes–style mile-long discography, there is little recorded evidence of their work readily available — although the long-out-of-print BFF (Gameboy, 2003) and Come Here, Sandy (Gameboy/Cephia’s Treat, 2004), their split 12-inch with brothers in cave-stomp Sword Heaven, are worth seeking out. It was their powerful live performances that engendered such reverence. Early on, one witnessed rituals of unique intuition and deep communal spirit — a group of women truly listening to one another and at the same time losing themselves in the fuck-it-all physicality of harsh electronic mayhem.
The Pile-Up is a satisfyingly lean Moirae-like triad, made up of Parkside sound person Sarah Bernat, Sarah Cathers, and Shannon Walters. The group — which previously existed as a five-piece in Columbus and as a four-piece featuring Angela Edwards of Tarantism for a brief and brutal West Coast tour — has never quite achieved its titular namesake’s size to form what Walters envisioned as a “symphony of terror.” Instead, the women have honed in and formed a unique power trio, capable of pulling off creepy junkyard jams à la the aforementioned Wolf Eyes, subtle vocal exhortations, and beautiful walls of searing white noise.
“It’s alchemy. In our case, the girls and I spend so many living minutes together,” explains Walters over coffee only minutes after having our guts reorganized by Damion Romero at a recent Noise Pancake performance. “We take care of each other. We often want to murder each other. We share virtually all aspects of our lives and with that comes a very developed sense of communication.”
Bernat elaborates, “We share a slightly twisted sense of humor that is fundamental to almost all of what we do and make.” Which is one way to understand a band that has released an album titled Make Like a Fetus and Abort.
When asked over e-mail how she’d respond to an easily offended West Coaster like me, Cathers offers, “I welcome any conversation on the use of language. It is one of my great joys — as I look for sounds that will make the greatest impact, that will send a chill up the collective spine and put your flesh and your psyche in the same presence. I love words that have that impact as well.”
MORE UTOPIA
What makes 16BPU fascinating is that beneath the intellectual muscle and blue-collar brawn is a group that is deeply sensitive, passionate, and emotional in their playing. Beyond the obvious (tough) love that they share with each other as friends, there is a seriousness to their music that stares right in the face of pain, anger, and fear with an absolute solidarity of purpose.
“I think what I try to convey through playing can only be expressed as a feeling of mortality,” says Walters. “Being very close to death and vitality simultaneously.”
“I can say we have seen a lot of nasty shit in our lives that can either make you want to leave the planet or create your own utopia out of dysfunction,” Cathers writes.
“All those themes are present,” Bernat concludes, “but they are present alongside equally positive feelings about strength, love, and perceptions of beauty.”
All of which makes me think that perhaps they fit into the Golden State after all. SFBG
16 BITCH PILE-UP
With Hogotogisu and Skaters
Aug. 12, 9:30 p.m.
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
$7
(415) 923-0923
With Comets on Fire and Kid 606 and Friends
Aug. 16, 9 p.m.
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
$13
(415) 885-0750
Gabriel Mindel is in Yellow Swans.

Getting School-ed

-
0

› kimberly@sfbg.com
SONIC REDUCER OK, I’ll fess up: one of my favorite 2005 musical moments revolved around an acoustic solo Six Organs of Admittance performance, some frozen fungal artifacts harvested from a local park, and Big Sur’s big, fat, chocolaty-looking redwoods. So gotta thank Six Organs’ Ben Chasny for providing the perfect score to my hallucinatory little escapade at Fernwood lodge, though I don’t think you can simply slot the Comets on Fire guitarist, Badgerlore founder, and Current 93 collaborator’s dirgy matter into the “sounds great when you’re stoned but it’s a lame excuse for rock-out tunes when stone-cold sober” file.
That year’s School of the Flower (Drag City) was one of the loveliest, most underrated recordings to come out of this area’s cross-disciplinary school of meditative guitar drone and freed-up textural percussion — and this year’s The Sun Awakens is its worthy evolutionary follow-up, scurrying out of the clearer jazz-psych waters of School, spouting legs, clambering out into dusty, soulful desert expanses of electric guitar and bass, tone generator, ney, and organ, and finding some sort of apotheosis in the ghostly reverberations of “River of Transfiguration.”
So why does a guy who makes such sublime, high-minded sounds have to give me such a hard time? How many Buddhist cycles of suffering must I enter to get a straight answer about Sun? “It sounds a lot like New Order. I don’t know if you caught that,” deadpans Chasny from the very start, yakking in the car making its way toward Mount Shasta through the forest on the way to Portland. “We were going for New Order without the ’80s or the drum beat.”
Ah yes, and my toilet is full of gold bullion. A Comets on Fire bandmate recently told me that Chasny claimed that a sense of threat made all the difference in the music he makes — and lo, the song titles (“Torn by Wolves,” “Bless Your Blood”) do lend a sense of menace to Sun. And there’s a simple explanation for that, Chasny says. “I don’t listen to folk music. Y’know, I don’t go in my room and turn on fucking Incredible String Band or some bullshit. I listen to other stuff.”
That includes the Melvins, who inspired Chasny’s current lyrical approach, just as the Talking Heads’ layered jams on Remain in Light informed his music. “You know, it’s gibberish,” he clarifies. “I’m actually telling the truth. Lyrically, I really liked the way [Melvins vocalist Buzz Osbourne] constructs the words on a phonetic basis. ‘Bless Your Blood’ — it’s not goth or Christian. Actually it’s a fairly personal song.”
About your vampirism?
“Uh, no. But the rest of the record is,” says Chasny. “That’s the one reversal. But I’m glad you got that. I’m glad that someone finally got that.”
But seriously, folks — or rather, out-folk, a genre that Chasny seems to be distancing himself from with the current Six Organs touring transfiguration. Live, he currently plays Telecaster, with Comets kin Noel Von Harmonson on drums and Six Organs cover artist Steve Quenell on second guitar. “It’s a lot more noisy and, yeah, less tranquil,” says Chasny, eager to fall out of the “wispy” pretty-guitar lockstep. “That’s why I did that Compathia cover of that dumb picture of me on the bed. Just to destroy the myth of this forest folk bullshit — like ‘Mr. Mystical’ and stuff. It’s, like, no! That’s not it at all. I just want stuff to be taken on its own terms.”
The terms this time around included recording in Frisky with Fucking Champs’ Tim Green and lassoing in guests like Om’s Al Cisneros and Yellow Swans’ Pete Swanson. “I’m not exactly breaking new ground with every single record. I kind of have my style, and as other people have noted, probably, uh, have played out all of my cards,” Chasny declares loud enough for that “other” person, driver and bandmate Von Harmonson, to hear. “So it’s good to have friends come in and spice things up a little bit.”
Like Pharrell Williams tapping Kanye and Snoop?
“Yeah, definitely. But more Wu-Tang, really.”
Shasta comes around the bend — a dead ringer of sorts for the cover of Sun. “This was something I didn’t think about till today because we were going by Mount Shasta,” explains Chasny, at last finding a new anecdote that is safe to divulge. “Last time I saw Mount Shasta, I was driving Ghost back from Portland to play a show, and we stopped to get gas right in the shadow of Mount Shasta and the sun was just coming up behind it and all of Ghost were groggy and got out of the van and I was, like, “Look, look,” and they were, like, “Oh yeah, ‘Mountain God Te Deum’ [one of their early songs]. I think part of that day burned into my brain for the record cover.
“That’s a juicy bit of information for you.”
So now that I have something to chew on, I wonder about the insider dope on the new Comets on Fire album, Avatar (Sub Pop). “That title came because more than half the band members have been frequenting chat rooms for the last year and half,” Chasny says, gaining steam. “And I got so mad I called up Sub Pop and told them that’s the name of the album. By the time everyone found out, it was too late. That’s why I’m not allowed to do Comets on Fire interviews.”
Should Chasny be allowed to do any interviews? Sure, he’s far from being an airy-headed cutesy-folk elf — just don’t promise him complete admittance.
“Yeah,” he says, before hanging up. “I look forward to reading your article before you submit it and doing some editing. I think we can really come up with something good here.” SFBG
SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE
Sat/5, 10 p.m.
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St., SF
$10
(415) 621-4455
BADGERLORE
Aug. 12, 8:30 p.m.
Hotel Utah Saloon
500 Fourth St., SF
$7
(415) 546-6300

Pup culture

-
0

› deborah@sfbg.com
Move over, onesie makers. San Franciscans are more likely in need of a dog collar than a baby outfit.
According to San Francisco Animal Care and Control, based on 2000 census reports, there are just under 118,000 canines in the city. The same census report tallied 112,812 locals 18 or younger.
Not surprisingly, pet product manufacturing is a growing cottage industry among Bay Area crafters. Shea Pet, a Santa Cruz company, helps keep Fifi’s coat shiny with its shampoos made from fair-trade shea butter; Berkeley’s Dorothy Bauer makes sparkling crystal bling in your pet’s first initial, if you like; and Red Rover in Marin bakes homemade biscuits in a variety of animal and Louis Vuitton handbag shapes.
Furthermore, a host of vendors will be present at the SF Dog Owners Group’s Dog Days of August picnic and celebration, an arts and craft fair for canines and their owners to be held in Dolores Park on Aug. 26 from 3 to 6 p.m. Helping to fill the pet accessories niche, at the fair and in general, is Ana Poe, the brains and beauty behind Paco Collars.
“Dogs are the new kids!” exclaims the lithe and garrulous designer during a visit to her subterranean Oakland studio. Upon my arrival, Poe, her handy assistant Jack, and three rather affectionate pit bulls, one of which had an unfortunate case of the runs, greeted me. The lean and handsome brown pit is Paco himself.
As a self-described “tool whore,” Poe became passionate about craft and animals while growing up in Sonoma County. She raised pygmy goats in the 4-H program for years and learned sewing from her mom. Paco Collars was born four years ago while she was working at Every Dog Has Its Day Care in Emeryville. She wanted a tough-looking collar for Paco, but, as she explains, “The only leather collars I could find had three-inch spikes — and people cross the street when they see him as it is.” Which seems unfair, considering Paco was a perfect angel in my presence.
The eye candy alone on the Paco Collars Web site is enough to make any doggy or kitty owner browse and shop online at length. Mushy-faced bull dogs, newborn pups, and the beckoning Siamese known as Pirate all don the 100 percent handmade leather collars that are Poe’s trade. And the animal handlers aren’t too shabby either.
But I digress. As the story goes, Poe decided to make a collar for her pit that looked cool but nonthreatening. She ended up studding a leather strip with Paco’s name, and her boss at the dog care facility liked it so much, she asked Poe to make one for her dog. She also encouraged the budding leather worker to put a few on display for customers. Eventually Poe decided to go full-time with her hobby, put together a Web site, and hired a handful of part-time employees, mostly other local artists. In the last year, her business has increased threefold.
All of the collars are made from Latigo leather, which is what pros use for horse saddling and is very strong. Paco’s been wearing his sheriff’s collar, sporting gold stars on silver conchos, for more than two years straight. Each collar is named after the animal it was originally designed for. Thus, the Celtic-design-inspired Gunther ($82.99) was made for a pit-lab mix while the Chickie ($45) was crafted especially for a Chihuahua, so that even little dogs can look badass. Harnesses and braided leashes are also for sale, as are special leash add-ons for training purposes. Humans can purchase a variety of wristbands and belts. Custom-designed collars go for about the same price as a comparable collar.
Meet Poe and check out her Paco Collars line at the dog fair or see the goods at George (2411 California, SF; 415-441-0564) and Pawtrero (199 Mississippi, SF; 415-863-7297) pet stores in San Francisco. Also, help raise money for Bad Rap (www.badrap.org), the nonprofit that tries to foster a better understanding of pit bull terriers, by attending the Living Room Gallery art show (3230 Adeline, Berk; 510-601-5774, www.thelivingroomgallery.com) — curated by the very busy Poe — and buying some pit bull–related art at the gallery’s black-tie gala Aug. 19. SFBG
PACO COLLARS
www.pacocollars.com
SHEA PET
www.sheapet.com
DOROTHY BAUER DESIGNS
www.dorothybauer.com
ROLL OVER RED ROVER
www.rolloverredrover.com
SF DOG
www.sfdog.org

The judge misses the point

-
0

EDITORIAL The federal judge who allowed the largest media merger in Northern California history to go forward unimpeded did what far too many judges do in cases like this: she ruled narrowly on the tightest definition of the law and missed the overall point entirely. Judge Susan Illston rejected a bid by San Francisco real estate investor Clint Reilly to block Denver billionaire Dean Singleton’s effort to buy virtually every daily newspaper in the Bay Area and set up an unprecedented media monopoly. Reilly had sought an injunction against the deal, arguing that once it’s approved there will be no way to halt the obvious damage. Illston noted that Reilly had raised “serious questions” and agreed that there’s “a need to examine the proposed sale to ensure that no long-term harm will come to Bay Area residents.” But she insisted in a 16-page opinion that the deal posed no “pressing and imminent danger.” Wait: no imminent danger? One person could soon control every single significant news media outlet in the entire Bay Area save for the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle — which also has a financial partnership with Singleton. What does Illston expect? That a year or two down the road, when residents of the region find themselves without any credible local newspapers and advertisers find nothing but high monopoly rates, someone can reexamine this and find that it was a bad idea? That’s silly. The time to put the deal on hold and address Illston’s “serious questions” is now, before it’s too late. Nobody will be able to unscramble this egg. But Illston didn’t get that at all. Instead, she ruled that the real threat of great harm was to the defendants — the billionaire publisher and his business associates. Actually, they face no risk of harm at all — except for the threat to their ability to make obscene profits by gutting newsrooms, combining operations, and tearing the heart out of Bay Area journalism. This is how Singleton, known (for good reason) as “Lean Dean,” operates. He likes what he calls “clusters” of papers — groups of newspapers in adjoining geographic areas. He centralizes as many functions as possible, reduces staff to the minimum necessary, then sits back and watches the cash roll in. In the Bay Area, that will probably mean that the big, expensive newsrooms of papers like the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times will be pared down, perhaps merged into a single operating center. The various papers will share stories, so there won’t be much difference (or competition) between them. Old-fashioned concepts like investigative and enterprise reporting, which require time and resources, will disappear. None of this requires a law degree and a judicial robe to comprehend. It’s been happening all over the country; Singleton’s record is clear. Of course, it didn’t help that Reilly was all alone on this, a single local businessperson trying to block a massive media merger that the state and federal governments are apparently ready to approve with only cursory examination. The outcome might have been very different if Attorney General Bill Lockyer had appeared before Illston representing the state of California. But Lockyer is sitting on his hands — and the US Justice Department just announced that it won’t pursue the matter and is going to allow the merger to proceed (see www.sfbg.com). This doesn’t have to be the end of the case, by any means. Reilly can and should go forward with his suit as aggressively as possible. And Lockyer, who is running for state controller, and Jerry Brown, who is running for attorney general, need to stop ducking this issue and take a firm stand against the merger. SFBG PS All of the papers involved in the merger covered the ruling, but none of them quoted outside experts critical of Illston’s decision or critical of the merger itself. Bruce B. Brugmann, Guardian editor and publisher, posted some key questions for the publishers on his Bruce Blog at www.sfbg.com; here are some of them: Why, if Hearst and the publisher participants feel they can’t cover themselves, don’t they get quotes from journalism or law professors at nearby UC Berkeley, Cal State Hayward, Stanford, San Jose State, SF State, USF? Why don’t they check with other independent experts such as Ben Bagdikian of The Media Monopoly fame, who is living in Berkeley? Why don’t they quote union representatives at the Chronicle and Merc? Why don’t they quote the congressional delegation that called on the Department of Justice and the attorney general to carefully scrutinize the sale? Why don’t they call on Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who introduced a local resolution opposing the sale, or any of the other supervisors who approved it unanimously? Why is it left to the handful of remaining independent voices to raise these critical questions? PPS Now that the investigation is closed, we’ve asked the Justice Department to release its full investigative file. We hope all the local daily publishers, who love to talk about open government, will support our request. Read the Alioto Legal Documents: Complaint.pdf Gannett-Stephens_Opp_to_ TRO.pdf Hearst_Opp_to_TRO.pdf McClatchy_opp_to_TRO.pdf MediaNews-Calif_Newspaper_Partnership_Opp_to_TRO.pdf Memo-Supp_of_Mtn_for_TRO.pdf Order_denying_TRO.pdf Plaintiff’s_Reply_to_Mtn_for_TRO.pdf

After oil

-
0

OPINION Every day a river of cars flows across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, bringing workers, tourists, and visitors to the city. Nearly all run on petroleum fuels. Every day a staccato procession of planes lands at SFO, bringing tourists, conventioneers, and returning residents. All fly on petroleum fuels. Every day a phalanx of trucks delivers food to grocery stores, restaurants, and corner markets. All run on petroleum fuels. Every day roads are paved, potholes are filled, roofs are tarred, machinery is lubricated, and tires are replaced. All are done with petroleum-derived products. Every day hundreds of thousands of purchases take place, every one enabled by petroleum.
What will happen when the petroleum behind all these activities costs $100 a barrel? $200 a barrel? Or more? San Francisco’s viability as a major West Coast city is based on cheap petroleum. But the century of cheap petroleum is quickly coming to an end, and an era of expensive, scarce oil is dawning. Just as US production of oil peaked in 1970, production of oil from an increasing number of other countries has peaked as well. Currently, 33 of the top 48 major oil producers in the world are in irreversible decline, among them the United Kingdom, Norway, Mexico, and Indonesia. Within a few years — and indeed some claim it has already happened — global oil production will peak, then begin a protracted decline. The consequences are unthinkable. A world — and a city — built on cheap petroleum faces the largest challenge of modern times.
Nothing exists that can seamlessly replace petroleum. For transport, ethanol and biodiesel have been touted but both require tremendously higher levels of energy inputs for production compared to petroleum, and the competition with food production is already apparent with the rising price of corn in the Midwest. For other uses — lubrication, paving, plastics, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, paints, inks, solvents, detergents, rubber, and thousands more — no drop-in substitute is remotely ready. Alternate sources — such as the tar sands of Canada — produce in net only a half barrel of oil for every barrel of energy consumed. As petroleum production reaches its peak, every aspect of our lives will be profoundly impacted.
What can be done? First, it’s important to understand the phenomenon. Peak oil is not an oil company conspiracy, nor is it the result of OPEC’s actions — this is the result of a century and a half of ever-rising exploitation of a finite energy source. Second, we need to examine how we use energy in San Francisco to determine ways to either reduce consumption or find nonfossil alternatives to supply it. We need to examine our food supply — completely dependent on petroleum for planting, harvesting, processing, and transporting — along with city operations and residential, commercial, and transportation requirements to assess their vulnerability in an era of rising energy prices.
In April, San Francisco became the first major city in the United States to pass a peak-oil resolution, and on July 28 the San Francisco Local Agency Formation Commission held the first in a series of hearings on the issue of peak oil. Over the next year the commission will hold additional public hearings to educate and inform the citizenry of San Francisco on peak oil and will be launching a study to identify the possible responses we can take. SFBG
Ross Mirkarimi
Sup. Ross Mirkarimi represents San Francisco District 5.

SF Badpublicity

-
0

› gwschulz@sfbg.com
At a July 21 event recognizing the passage of one full year since the popular Castro bar the Pendulum closed, a group of about 25 concerned citizens, including several City Hall heavyweights, asked why embattled Pendulum owner Les Natali has done nothing with the space for so long.
Sup. Bevan Dufty, who represents the Castro, was nowhere to be seen.
The Pendulum was known in Dufty’s district as a popular spot for African American gay men, and rumors abounded as to why Natali was allowing it to sit empty. Natali, who owns at least $6 million worth of property around the city according to public records, had kept the bar open for over a year after he bought it in 2004, then abruptly shut it down.
Natali has since taken out numerous construction permits for the place, city records show. But progressive supervisors, including Tom Ammiano and Chris Daly along with board candidate Alix Rosenthal (who’s running against Dufty), all showed up for the small rally saying nothing was happening and they wanted to make sure there was somewhere in the Castro for gay black men to go.
Confusion about the status of the Pendulum has been replaced with speculation, due in part to an April 2005 city report that alleged that Natali discriminated against African Americans, Latinos, and women at his establishments, which include the Detour on Market Street and SF Badlands, located just across the street from the Pendulum at 4121 18th St.
At the time, Dufty waved the report and declared that he wouldn’t tolerate business establishments in his district that discriminated against any of their employees or patrons. So where is he now?
“At this point I have a larger objective: that I want to work with Mr. Natali and the broader community so that when the Pendulum reopens, it will be open to all,” Dufty said in a phone interview with the Guardian. “Sometimes I work behind the scenes and sometimes I work out in front,” he responded when asked about his silence on the Pendulum issue. “This time I worked behind the scenes.”
But Calvin Gipson, a past president of the SF Pride Parade Committee and a self-described close friend of Dufty’s, says he doesn’t know how Dufty intends to handle the political powder keg that is Les Natali or how the Castro can again create a new home for gay black men.
“Bevan confuses me,” Gipson said. “He says all of the right things, but he has not put forth a plan.”
The controversy, for its part, has clearly left a fissure in the community.
In the summer of 2004, customers and former employees of other Natali-owned Castro bars alleged to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission that the proprietor systematically attempted to screen out African Americans, Latinos, and women from his venues.
The HRC conducted an investigation and eventually issued a report summarizing the complaints and finding that Badlands had indeed violated the city’s antidiscrimination ordinances. Some Natali critics accepted the report as gospel and declared that it made official rumors about the club impresario that had persisted for years. Dufty and the complainants from Badlands, who eventually formed a group called And Castro for All, demanded that the place be shut down by city and state officials.
The report, however, was technically preliminary, as the HRC now sees it, and the agency chose not to issue its “final determination” after the complainants later worked out a settlement with Natali, according to a letter from HRC director Virginia Harmon obtained by the Guardian last week.
Natali sued the HRC last month to have its findings voided, and that’s what the legalese in Harmon’s July 21 letter appears to attempt to do — without establishing that the claims made in the report are patently untrue.
“The April 26, 2005, finding is no longer operative and does not represent a final legal determination of the HRC director or the commission,” the letter states.
After interviewing several customers and former Badlands and Detour employees, the HRC originally found that Natali’s bars required multiple IDs from some African American customers, selectively applied a dress code, and generally discouraged “non-Badlands customers” — what the complainants insisted meant black folks — from patronizing the bars. According to the report, Natali prohibited VJs from playing hip-hop and mostly hired only “cute, young, white guys.”
Natali eventually asked that the HRC reconsider its findings, which it did. He responded to the allegations by stating that he didn’t want his bars to air music that promoted drug use, violence, or homophobia, and he charged that the claims against him were either outdated or leveled by embittered former employees.
An attorney who helped Natali formulate the response, Stephen Goldstein, said the HRC’s investigation was “superficial and already headed toward a foregone conclusion.”
“They had a certain agenda they wanted to substantiate…. They could have had a more careful study of the events, which didn’t add up to much,” Goldstein said. He said Natali wasn’t given a chance to have his case “aired and tried.” Attempts to reach Natali through his attorneys failed.
Instead of issuing a “final determination,” which would have included an account of Natali’s retort, the HRC encouraged the parties to go into the mediation that eventually led to a settlement. The settlement allowed the HRC to avoid issuing a final conclusion.
After the release of the HRC’s early finding, meanwhile, Dufty had called for Badlands to be shut down and urged the Alcoholic Beverage Commission to take into account the report before determining whether Natali would receive a liquor license transfer for the Pendulum.
After a months-long investigation that included state officials going into Badlands undercover, the ABC chose not to punish Natali.
“After reviewing all the findings of its investigation and the HRC report, the ABC has determined there is not enough evidence to support a license denial in an administrative proceeding,” the agency announced last year.
Nonetheless, queer progressive activists and organizers from the National Black Justice Coalition held protests outside Badlands every week for about four months last summer. After the January settlement, according to local LGBT paper Bay Area Reporter, the parties agreed not to discuss any of the terms publicly, but they did announce to the press that all grievances were handled.
The settlement’s undisclosed terms have obviously left unanswered questions, however, because Natali’s lawsuit against the HRC appeared to reopen wounds and startle nearly everyone. The settlement had presumably meant the complaints were withdrawn, but the HRC had initially denied a request by Natali in April 2005, around the time the report was released, to reconsider its own findings, Natali’s suit insists.
“It just seemed like everything had been put at rest and now it’s all being dredged up again,” said longtime queer activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca, who went to last summer’s protests. “It just seemed so strange for someone who was trying to put all this behind him.”
Natali’s suit declared he’d been “falsely labeled a racist by San Francisco’s official civil rights agency” and essentially asked that the report’s findings be very clearly and publicly deleted.
But the still-empty Pendulum has allowed criticism of Natali to continue. Another Natali-owned space called the Patio Café has been closed now for years.
“The tone [of the July 21 rally] was that people don’t trust Les Natali, nor do they feel that he has the best interests of the community in mind,” Gipson said. “Being that the Patio has been closed for that long, it’s difficult to trust that Pendulum will be open soon, and it’s difficult to trust that it will be a welcoming place for African Americans.” SFBG
Editor’s note: Alix Rosenthal is the domestic partner of Guardian city editor Steven T. Jones. Jones did not participate in the assigning, writing, or editing of this story.

Lebanon calling

-
0

› news@sfbg.com
About 300 people gathered in front of Sen. Diane Feinstein’s office in downtown San Francisco on July 27 to protest her support for what they — and the citizens of most countries around the world — criticize as unjustified aggression by the Israeli military against Lebanese civilians.
Organizers with the recently formed Break the Siege Coalition had Lebanese and Palestinian experts and eyewitnesses on the telephone lines, hoping to broadcast them to protesters over a sound system, but they were prevented by technical difficulties.
Instead, after listening to a series of speakers — including Todd Chretien, a Green Party candidate challenging Feinstein, and Krissy Keefer, another Green who’s vying for Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat — demonstrators marched to Union Square and then the Chronicle — whose coverage the protesters criticize as biased toward Israel. Eight were arrested there for blocking traffic.
Paralleling the organizers’ efforts, the Guardian reached out to civilians still in Lebanon to get unfiltered perspectives directly from the ground. What we encountered was profound outrage and unprecedented support for Hezbollah. They say the international community has turned its back on them again.
“The level of destruction is incomprehensible,” said Ghassan Mankarem, a pro-democracy and LGBT rights activist experienced in humanitarian relief efforts who is now volunteering with the grassroots Sanayeh Relief Centre in Beirut. “What’s happening here is a systematic act of ethnic cleansing.”
As of July 30, 620 Lebanese — mostly civilians — had been killed since Israel began its onslaught July 12, according to official Lebanese government figures. That’s 12 Lebanese dead for each Israeli killed by Hezbollah rockets and gunfire.
The number of internal refugees was expected to reach one million before this issue of the Guardian went to print, according to Mankarem. Another 220,000 have fled to neighboring countries. Thousands more are trapped in their homes or nearby shelters, too afraid to flee.
The Israelis “are hitting anything they see,” reported Mankarem, including caravans of fleeing civilians and even “Red Cross ambulances and UN observers.” They’ve bombed the airport, reduced whole neighborhoods to rubble, targeted seaports, destroyed most major highways, and obliterated power plants — in one case causing an oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea that local environmental groups say is the worst ecological disaster in Lebanon’s history.
“On the radio, doctors are warning there is no more medicine, no more water, no more space in the hospitals,” wrote Raida Hatoum, an organizer with Najdeh, a women’s nongovernmental organization that works in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, in a July 24 e-mail to the Guardian. (Hatoum has no access to a phone). “Burnt and shredded bodies are still on the roads” in southern Lebanon.
The same day Hatoum typed those words, Human Rights Watch condemned Israel for using American “cluster munitions in populated areas.” Aid workers on the ground report seeing evidence that Israel has also been using bombs (again, provided or funded by the United States) containing white phosphorus — a chemical agent that burns through the skin, sometimes to the bone, as well as “vacuum” bombs and “bunker busting” bombs containing depleted uranium.
For the first time since World War I, “there’s a real fear of people dying of hunger,” Mankarem said. Israel has been blocking food and other basic necessities from entering the country and has bombed grain silos as well as Lebanon’s main milk production plant, he said.
While Sanayeh struggles to provide food, water, blankets, and medical care to an ever-growing number of refugees, it’s also scrambling to address the profound trauma suffered by Lebanese children.
“Ten percent of the refugees are under five years old,” Mankarem said, speaking to us by phone from the relief center. “Some of them have seen family members decapitated in front of them. Unfortunately, the position of the United States has been to send more missiles,” while vetoing United Nations Security Council calls for an immediate cease-fire. “People here are looking to the rest of the world and asking, why aren’t they doing anything about this?”
It’s the kind of scenario that gave rise to Hezbollah in the first place. And today it’s resulting in a widespread surge of support for the group. A whopping 87 percent of Lebanese — including, significantly, 80 percent of the Christians and Druze — support the resistance to Israel (synonymous with Hezbollah), according to a nationwide poll conducted by the Beirut Center for Research and Information. And that was before an Israeli bomb killed more than 60 civilians — including 37 children — as they slept in a bomb shelter in Qana.
“Had Israel not invaded Lebanon in 1982, there would be no Hezbollah,” said academic Rania Masri, a blogger and regular contributor to www.electroniclebanon.net. “Had the international community enforced UN resolution 425 [demanding Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon], there’d be no Hezbollah. Had the international community [acted more decisively during] Israel’s massive assaults on Lebanon in 1993 and 1996, there would be no Hezbollah…. This is the history that people need to understand. It didn’t begin on July 12 with Hezbollah’s capture of the two Israeli soldiers.”
Another fact not widely understood in the United States is that Hezbollah isn’t simply a militia or terrorist group: in many impoverished, largely Shiite areas — particularly in southern Lebanon and in the eastern Lebanese Bekaa valley — Hezbollah has provided schools, health care, and basic necessities where the central government failed to do so.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to draw clear distinctions between Hezbollah and Lebanon’s “legitimate” government early in the conflict. But Hezbollah members are part of that government, and the two entities have each sought a cease-fire that the United States and Israel have rejected, claiming that Hezbollah must disarm.
“We get lectured all the time about democracy,” Mankarem said. “But whenever we make a democratic choice, we get punished.”
Many Lebanese insist they too have the right to defend themselves. And they view American collaboration as the result of a deep-seated racism that presumes that Arabs simply aren’t as valuable as Israelis.
Regardless of the reasons for the assault, one thing is certain: it is resulting in a sharp spike in anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment, which isn’t making either country safer.
“Even if Israel and the US were to kill every member of Hezbollah, there’d be people to replace them,” Masri warned. “You cannot stop a movement for liberation.” SFBG

The press censors the press

-
0

Well, well. Today’s Chronicle/Hearst had some big stories on its front page, including a story by its City Hall reporter headed “SF Residents asked to volunteer for a day.” The lead: “Mayor Gavin Newsom today will call on all San Francisco residents to take time out and give a day to their city.” And there were at the top of the page some teaser heads, “After 25 years-still want your MTV? C. W. Nevius on Mel Gibson’s tirade. Bruce Jenkins on baseball’s busy day.” And a big across- the- front – page story, framed in yellow with a white sun, saying, “If you thought last week was hot…More heat, rising ocean, loss of snowpack forecast by the state for 2l00.” Nifty. All legitimate stories.

But way inside on the business page was the hottest local story for San Francisco, the region, and the newspaper business. It was Hearst’s joyful policy announcement story headlined “Bay Area papers cleared for sale to MediaNews, Federal agency’s antitrust review ends with approval.” Our earlier two blogs pointing out the lousy Hearst coverage (and lousy coverage by the other papers involved in the deal) must have done a bit of good. I emailed the obvious questions in my blog to Hearst, but Hearst didn’t reply and Hearst and the other participating papers didn’t answer the questions in their stories, but they did do a bit better with the DOJ story. At least, after I chided them for leaving out a key point in their minimalist stories reporting how a federal judge refused to grant a temporary restraining order in the Clint Reilly/Joe Alioto suit, they asked Alioto if he and Reilly were going to press on with their suit. They are, as I reported exclusively on my blogs. Finally, Hearst et al did publish this fact in their stories. The Mercury-News put it as the last paragraph to its story.

However, the stories by Hearst and the other participant papers read as if nobody ever bothered to check the court documents in the case or at least the Alioto reply memorandum in support of his motion for a temporary restraining order.
What Alioto argued is that Hearst and MediaNews (Singleton), and the other billionaire partners (Gannett and Stephens), have no use for facts nor principles in their move to regional monopoly. Case in point: Back in 2000, when Reilly tried to block Hearst from buying the family-owned Chronicle and shutting down its own Examiner and establish a morning monopoly, Hearst argued that there was no reason to fear a newspaper monopoly in San Francisco because competitors from other Bay Area cities, such as the San Jose Mercury-News and Contra Costa Times, would provide serious competition.

“Specifically,” Alioto stated, “Hearst argued that all of the Bay Area newspapers compete with each other in the Greater Bay Area, and that this competition, both actual and potential, has a tempering effect on the behavior of the competing papers.”

Now, of course, Hearst is arguing the opposite-that these outlying papers are not competitors with the Chronicle and never will be. Alioto pointed out that Federal Judge Vaughn Walker, in ruling against Reilly and for Hearst in that case, agreed with Hearst’s argument and quoted extensively from Walker’s decision. Alioto continued that, “at the very least, this court ought to hold a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction, if not a trial, to find out why Hearst and the other defendants are now ignoring and running away from the position taken by Hearst in the prior lawsuit.”

Alioto also pointed out why the contention of Hearst et al that there will be no allocation of markets and anti-competitive behavior is “ludicrous on its face.” Let me give you the precise quote that ought to have been in every honest story on this case:

“Although defendants disclaim the existence of their agreement to allocate markets, and Hearst professes that it will have no role in the combination’s subsequent stewardship of Bay Area newspapers, the claim is ludicrous on it face. Hearst cannot expect this court or anyone else to believe that it is shelling out $263,200,000 simply to buy and deliver the Monterey Herald to its Bay Area competitors to gain an interest in its competitors’ markets outside the Bay Area, without receiving any assurance or reaching any understanding that it will be protected against future competition in the Bay Area from its new partners. Such a claim strains credibility to say the least. Indeed, the role of Hearst in this combination, coming to the aid of its competitor MediaNews, can be explained most logically and cogently only by Hearst’s participation in the combination alleged in the complaint. Otherwise, Hearst’s motivation is truly mystyifying and Byzantine. If ever Occam’s razor ought to be applied, it is here.”

Let’s have a show of hands. Has anyone seen this quote and point, or a summary thereof, in any Chronicle, Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News, Monterey Herald or Associated Press story, or any other Hearst/Singleton/Gannett/Stephens/McClatchy paper anywhere in the country? The larger question: will you ever see this quote as the suit plays out and the messy facts begin to emerge about one of the sorriest chapters in American journalism?

Today, John Simerman of the Contra Costa Times reported breathlessly, in a story headlined “MediaNews looks to set standard for papers online,” that Media News “hopes to harness its newfound Bay Area newspaper dominance on the internet into a regional website that aims to be a model for how old guard newspapers can work and make money online.” He also reported that MediaNews was in “very preliminary” talks with Hearst “about a joint Internet venture that could be run under the BayArea.com name.”

I suggest they first learn to cover local news.

Repeating: one city monopoly is now becoming regional monopoly and the monopolizing powers are now censoring the news toward that end. Alas, that is a terrible harbinger for Bay Area communities, for journalism, and for the free press provisions of the First Amendment. Let us all hoist a Potrero Hill martini for Clint Reilly and Attorneys Joe Alioto and Daniel Shulman.
Check the story yourself and in particular the Alioto/Shulman filings. Click here. B3

Stop the presses

-
0

July 31, 2006

Here are the developments following my “monopolies are forever” blog of last Friday:

1. Today, Monday, July 31, The Department of Justice decided, “to close its investigation” into the Singleton/Hearst monopoly deal. It said, in a terse two-page press release, “the Antitrust Division determined that the transaction is not likely to reduce competition substantially.” How in the world could the DOJ—even the DOJ of Bush and Gonzales— make such a finding on a transaction that in effect destroys daily competition in the Bay Area and establishes a Denver billionaire as the Baron on the Crag for the duration? It is obvious to anyone who knows anything about the history of local journalism just how bad this deal will be for the public, readers, advertisers, and the free press provision of the First Amendment.

2. Hearst has in effect thrown in the towel and says it doesn’t want to compete with Singleton—by announcing it is facilitating the deal by investing undisclosed millions of dollars in Singleton properties outside the Bay Area. Singleton is widely known as hating competition and doing everything he can to eliminate or coopt it. Justice did not even address this crucial point but did state: “The division’s investigation did not address the effects of potential future transactions involving MediaNews (Singleton) and Hearst. The Division is aware that Hearst has announced plans to invest in MediaNews—ostensibly limited to its non-California newspapers—and may be considering other collaborative arrangements with MediaNews involving San Francisco area newspapers. If and when any such arrangements is proposed, the Division will investigate whether it would adversely affect competition.” This crucial statement, wimpy as it is, was omitted from the Hearst coverage in its minimalist story on SF Gate on Monday—and omitted from the Contra Costa Times story.

3. The DOJ said that it did a “careful investigation” and interviewed more than 80 people, “including newspaper advertisers, subscribers, labor leaders, and industry experts.” Guess what? They didn’t interview anybody from the Bay Guardian or anybody from any other competitive papers to my knowledge. If anybody was interviewed, or knows of anybody who was interviewed, please let me know.

4. As you will remember, I sent my story of last Friday and a batch of obvious unanswered questions to the Hearst executives and staff, asking for answers or a statement or asking that they be answered in subsequent stories. They weren’t. Saturday’s Chronicle story, reporting that a federal judge denied a temporary restraining order in the Clint Reilly antitrust case, was again buried, this time on page 3 in the Bay Area section. There was nothing in the Sunday Chronicle. And, on Monday, when DOJ made its announcement, the story on SF Gate was again minimalist and didn’t even get in the key public interest points from the DOJ statement.

5. To make my point crystal clear: the Chronicle didn’t even report the critical point: were Reilly and his attorney Joe Alioto going to continue on with the case? Or was it all over, as their coverage tried to show. Reilly and Alioto plan to continue on with their case, as Alioto told us this afternoon.

6. Meanwhile, the Guardian has demanded that Justice, since it has closed its investigation, open its investigative files to the Guardian and the public. We are asking the publishers, who often bellow loudly for government to release documents, to support this proposal publicly. Alioto says he, too, has asked for the files and that he plans to start a website and perform the ultimate journalistic and public service: make everything public that he comes up with through the suit as quickly as possible. The Guardian will do so as well on this site at sfbg.com. Stay tuned. B3

Hidden in the Chron

-
0

It was the lead item on the widely-read Romanesko media news column, but you had to dig deep into the Bay Area section of the San Francisco Chronicle to find it: There’s breaking news in the deal that would give Dean Singleton’s Media News Group near-monopoly control of daily newspapers in the Bay Area.

Clint Reilly, a former mayoral candidate, is the only one doing what the U.S. and California Justice Departments should be doing: Going to court to block the deal. But yesterday, a judge moved to deny Reilly’s request for a preliminary injunction to put the deal on hold until the court could determine how it would damage the local journalistic and economic landscape.

All of the local papers that are a part of the deal covered it; read the Contra Costa Times story here and the San Jose Mercury News story here.

But none of the stories quoted outside sources on the problems with the deal, and none of them pointed out the essential flaw in the judge’s argument: Judge Susan Illston claimed that Reilly hadn’t shown “imminent, irreparable damage” – although she did see irreparable damage to the Denver billionaire who is working overtime to corner the Bay Area news market and impose a chokehold on it for the duration. What she missed is that Reilly is representing not just his own economic interest here, but the public interest – which will of course be damaged, irreparably, now and forever.

Monopolies are forever

-
0

July 28, 2006

By Bruce B. Brugmann
(henceforth to be known as B3 in this Bruce blog)

Earlier this week I dropped by Christopher’s Books on Potrero Hill, my favorite neighborhood bookstore, and was delighted to find a new grassroots newspaper that is published, written, edited, and distributed by a l3-year-old young lady.

Oona Robertson calls her paper “The hill, a Potrero Hill Kids newspaper.” She writes that she has “lived on Potrero Hill all my life. I like to read, write, fence, play sports and be in nature. I live with my mom, dad, sister, brother, fish and cats. I hope you enjoy my newspaper.”

She says her paper is “for kids of all ages.” The current issue has a poem titled
”Ode to my cat,” an essay headlined “The benefits of not owning a car,” part two of a serial about l5-year-old kids spying on a rich man in a mansion in Napa, four “fun summer recipes,” a synopsis of two kids movies (“Cars” and “Garfield, a Tale of Two Kitties”), a review of “The Alex Rider series,” a “Corn Cake Monster” comic strip, advice for bored kids during the summer (“try the ultimate water fight: invite all your friends and kids from your block to come to your house for the ultimate water fight…bring water balloons, water guns, water bottles, buckets, soakers, anything they can think of…Then go into your backyard or out front and either organize teams or have a free for all.”

The monthly paper is sold for $l at Christopher’s Books, but Oona says for an extra $3 she will hand-deliver her paper, but only to the houses of Potrero Hill kids. She will also take ads for $l. And she will take editorial submissions from kids. (Send ads and submissions to the hill, %Christopher’s Books, 1400 l8th St., SF 94l07.)

The hill is an amazing bit of entrepreneurial journalism, which I was reading as an email came in from my source in Contra Costa County, a news junkie and First Amendment warrior, who regularly alerts me to news in the Contra Costa Times that doesn’t appear in the San Francisco Chronicle. Did you see that the judge is going against Clint Reilly on his antitrust suit, he asked. No, I replied, I didn’t see the story. So I checked and sure enough, buried on page 9 in the Bay Area section, with a wimpy little head “Early ruling denies bid to halt big media sale,” was a story in the classic Chronicle tradition of minimalist and pock-holed media and power structure reporting. For attentive Guardian readers, you know our competitive-paper line. But this story had major whoppers and raised in 96 point Tempo Bold a new flurry of unanswered questions about a media monopoly move that will (a) allow Denver billionaire Dean Singleton to buy the Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury-News and Monterey Herald, plus a batch of weeklies and free dailies, and pile them up in his existing stable of papers that ring the bay, and (b) thereby gain a chokehold on Bay Area journalism for the duration, and (c) destroy the last remaining daily competition in the Bay Area–with the Chronicle– by getting Chronicle owner Hearst to assist and invest in the deal with undisclosed multi-million dollar stakes in other Singleton properties outside the Bay Area.

Whopper No. l: “In issuing the preliminary ruling (against Riley and for the Hearst/Singleton consortium), U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said the defendants faced greater harm than Riley if the sale of the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times was halted. ’I don’t see imminent irreparable harm to the plaintiffs,’ she said.”

Whopper No. 2: “Alan Marx, an attorney for MediaNews (Singleton), said there will be no cooperation between Hearst and MediaNews after the transaction. He said serious delays to the sale could force MediaNews to incur interest rate penalties of at least $22 million on loans that MediaNews has arranged to finance the purchase.”

Pow! Pow! Pow! If this single ownership chokehold on the Bay Area is not “irreparable damage,” then what is? Why is the federal judge worried about “irreparable damage” to billionaires in New York (Hearst) and Denver (Singleton), as well as the other billionaire partners to the deal in Sacramento (McClatchy) and MClean, Va. (Gannett) and Las Vegas (Stephens), and not worried about “irreparable damage” to the public, to readers, to advertisers, to competitive papers, to the health and welfare of their local communities, and to the marketplace of ideas principle underlying the First Amendment?

Some other key questions that the Chronicle and the other participants in the deal aren’t raising and answering: How can the publishers proceed before the Justice Department and the Attorney Generals approve and sign off on the deal? Why don’t they ask Attorney General Bill Lockyer about the status of his investigation? Lockyer, after all, is running for state treasurer and is on the campaign trail, as is Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, who is running for Attorney General. Lockyer appeared on the Will and Willie show on the Quake last week and left the room, just before Guardian executive editor Tim Redmond came on. Redmond opened up his remarks by saying that he wished he had known Lockyer was on the show, because he would have asked him about his investigation. And then Tim and Will Durst and Willie Brown discussed the impact of the Hearst/Singleton issues in an open and lively way almost never done in the mainstream media. Why are Lockyer and Brown on the lam, and allowed to be on the lam, when they are once again running for major statewide offices? Let me note that they refuse to answer our repeated questions on the deal.

More questions: why, if Hearst and the other publishers feel they can’t cover themselves, don’t they get comments and op ed pieces from journalism or law professors at nearby UC-Berkeley, Cal-State Hayward, Stanford, San Jose State, SF State, USF? Why don’t they check with other independent experts such as Ben Bagdikian of “Media Monopoly” fame, who is living in Berkeley? Why don’t they quote Norman Solomon, a local media critic who writes a nationally syndicated column? Or Jeff Perlstein, executive director of Media Alliance or the Grade the News media reporting operation housed at San Jose State University? Why don’t they quote union representatives at the Chronicle and Merc? Why don’t they quote any one of the six U.S. representatives from the Bay Area that called on Justice and the AG to carefully scrutinize the sale? Why don’t they call on Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who introduced a local resolution opposing the sale, or any of the other supervisors who approved it unanimously? (Note: the Chronicle refused to run the Mirkarimi resolution even though I personally hand-carried it to the Chronicle City Hall reporters in the City Hall pressroom.) Why is it left to the handful of remaining independent voices to raise these critical questions?

I’m sending these questions to the local publishers, and I’ll let you know what they say.

Hearst has never been much good on local power structure issues (witness its blackout of the PG&E-Raker Act scandal), but things will only get worse when it is comfied and liquored up with Singleton and there is no real daily competition in the Bay Area. The way Hearst and the other billionaire publishers blacked out and minimalized this critical story–a story critical to their future credibility and influence–is a harbinger of the future of journalism in the Bay Area and beyond. Alas. Alas.

I sometimes think that Oona Robertson and the hill can do better.

This is my first blog, so please be kind until I get the hang of it and get safely out of my Royal typewriter past. I have much to say, in a journalism career that started at age 12 on the famous Lyon County Reporter in my hometown of Rock Rapids, Iowa. I wrote a rousing story about catching a trout in the Black Hills on a vacation with my parents. I wrote a column for four years during high school, wrote off and on through the years and even worked a summer as the only reporter on the paper. I learned a couple of key things in the College of Community Journalism in Rock Rapids: that it is important to be accurate, and good spirited, because the locals know the story and read the paper to see if you got it right. And that, when you write about somebody, you write knowing you may seeing them later that day at the Grill Cafe or Brower’s Pool Hall or the golf club.

In Rock Rapids, I always felt I was having an ongoing conversation with the the people in town and on the farms. And, for the past 40 years at the Guardian, I have felt that the Guardian staff and I were conversing with our readers and the people of San Francisco. So now, with the magic of the internet and the blog, I hope to converse even more directly with our readers. Join the conversation. Join the fun. B3

{Empty title}

-
0

Welcome to our dining listings, a detailed guide by neighborhood of some great places to grab a bite, hang out with friends, or impress the ones you love with thorough knowledge of this delectable city. Restaurants are reviewed by Paul Reidinger (PR) or staff. All area codes are 415, and all restaurants are wheelchair accessible, except where noted.
B Breakfast
BR Saturday and/or Sunday brunch
L Lunch
D Dinner
AE American Express
DC Diners Club
DISC Discover
MC MasterCard
V Visa
¢ less than $7 per entrée
$ $7–$12
$$ $13–$20
$$$ more than $20
DOWNTOWN/EMBARCADERO
Acme Chophouse brings Traci des Jardins’s high-end meat-and-potatoes menu right into the confines of Pac Bell Park. Good enough to be a destination, though stranguutf8g traffic is an issue on game days. (Staff) 24 Willie Mays Plaza, SF. 644-0240. American, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Ana Mandara looks and feels like a soundstage, but the menu offers what is probably the best high-end Vietnamese-style food in town. (Staff) 891 Beach, SF. 771-6800. Vietnamese, L/D, $$$, AE/MC/V.
Anjou is the other restaurant on Campton Place — a lovely little warren of brick and brass serving an unpretentious, and sometimes inventive, French bistro menu. (Staff) 44 Campton Place, SF. 392-5373. French, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
B44 brings Daniel Olivella’s Catalan cooking to al fresco-friendly Belden Place. The salt cod-studded menu is stronger in first than main dishes. Frenchy desserts. (Staff) 44 Belden Place, SF. 986-6287. Catalan, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Bix radiates an unmistakable aura of American power and luxury, Jazz Age style. The food is simply splendid. (Staff) 56 Gold, SF. 433-6300. American, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Bocadillos serves bocadillos — little Spanish-style sandwiches on little round buns — but the menu ranges more widely, through a variety of Spanish and Basque delights. Decor is handsome, though a little too stark-modern to be quite cozy. (PR, 8/04) 710 Montgomery, SF. Spanish/Basque, L/D, $, MC/V.
Boulevard runs with ethereal smoothness — you are cosseted as if at a chic private party — but despite much fame the place retains its brasserie trappings and joyous energy. (Staff) 1 Mission, SF. 543-6084. American, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Brindisi Cucina di Mare cooks seafood the south Italian way, and that means many, many ways, with many, many sorts of seafood. (PR, 4/04) 88 Belden Place, SF. 593-8000. Italian/seafood, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Chaya Brasserie brings a taste of LA’s preen-and-be-seen culture to the waterfront. The Japanese-influenced food is mostly French, and very expensive. (Staff) 132 Embarcadero, SF. 777-8688. Fusion, D, $$$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Cortez has a Scandinavian Designs-on-acid look — lots of heavy, weird multicolored mobiles — but Pascal Rigo’s Mediterranean-influenced small plates will quickly make you forget you’re eating in a hotel. (Staff) 550 Geary (in the Hotel Adagio), SF. 292-6360. Mediterranean, B/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Cosmopolitan Cafe seems like a huge Pullman car. The New American menu emphasizes heartiness. (Staff) 121 Spear, SF. 543-4001. American, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Fleur de Lys gives its haute French cuisine a certain California whimsy in a setting that could be the world’s most luxurious tent. There is a vegetarian tasting menu and an extensive, remarkably pricey wine list. (PR, 2/05) 777 Sutter, SF. 673-7779. French, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Fog City Diner still doesn’t take American Express but does still serve a tasty polyglot menu in a romantically dining car-like setting. (Staff) 1300 Battery, SF. 982-2000. Eclectic/American, B/L/D, $$, DISC/MC/V.
Il Fornaio offers a spectacular setting (complete with terrace and tinkling fountain), simple and elegant Italian cooking, first-rate breads, and spotty service. (Staff) 1265 Battery, SF. 986-0100. Italian, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
*Gary Danko is an exercise in symmetries, with food, ambience, and service in a fine balance. Danko’s California cooking is distinctive, but the real closer is the cheese cart, laden with the exquisite and the rare. (Staff) 800 North Point, SF. 749-2060. California, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Jeanty at Jack’s introduces Philippe Jeanty’s earthy French cooking into the vertiginous old Jack’s space, and the result is leisurely fabulousness, at least at dinnertime. At lunch, the pace is more harried, the prices too high. (Staff) 615 Sacramento, SF. 693-0941. French, L/D, $$$, AE/MC/V.
Kyo-Ya may not be the best Japanese restaurant in the city, but it’s certainly one of them. Elegantly padded surroundings, sublime sushi, and a wide selection of cooked dishes attract an international mercantile class. (Staff) 2 New Montgomery, SF. 512-1111. Japanese, L/D, $$$, AE/MC/V.
MacArthur Park still occupies a gorgeous brick cavern in the Barbary Coast, but the restaurant these days is more a neighborhood spot than a destination, and the emphasis seems to be on takeout. (Staff) 607 Front, SF. 398-5700. Barbecue, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Mandarin, though a Gen Xer by birth and a longtime resident of touristy Ghirardelli Square, still offers a matchlessly elegant experience in Chinese fine dining: a surprising number of genuinely spicy dishes, superior service, and wine emphasized over beer. (PR, 9/04) 900 North Point (in Ghirardelli Square), SF. Chinese, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
*Mijita shows that Traci des Jardins can go down-market with the best of them. The Mexican street food is convincingly lusty, but in keeping with the Ferry Building setting, it’s also made mostly with organic, high-quality ingredients. (PR, 4/05) 1 Ferry Bldg, Suite 44, SF. 399-0814. Mexican, B/L/D, ¢, AE/MC/V.
MoMo’s San Francisco Grill The New American food at MoMo’s is surprisingly excellent, and the interior decoration is opulent, with prairie-style furniture, wood trim, dark green carpeting, and dimpled leather upholstery on the banquettes. (PR, 11/98) 760 Second St, SF. 227-8660. American, BR/L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Paragon has left behind its fratty Marina incarnation to become, near the Giants’ new ballpark, a stylish haven of gastronomic Americana. Something for everyone in a strikingly vertical space. (Staff) 701 Second St, SF. 537-9020. American, L/D, $$, MC/V.
Plouf Mussels 10 ways — need we say more? Plouf knows its turf, and that’s surf. All the seafood sparkles at this chic spot tucked away on pedestrians-only Belden Place, though mussels are a house specialty, impeccably fresh and served in brimming bowlfuls. Lots of outdoor seating reinforces the French-café feel. (Staff) 40 Belden Place, SF. 986-6491. French, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Ponzu opened early in 2000 but is likely to be remembered as one of that year’s best new restaurants. The decor manages to be warm, bright, and modern without going over the top. (Staff) 401 Taylor, SF. 775-7979. Asian, B/D, $$, MC/V.
*Postrio might be the last place on earth where you can still get a taste of the elegantly lusty cooking that made Wolfgang Puck and his first Spago famous. (Staff) 545 Post, SF. 776-7825. California, B/BR/L/D, $$$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Puccini and Pinetti practically shouts festivity: bright, primary-colors decor (with an emphasis on yellow and blue), plenty of noise, and solidly rendered Italian-American comfort food. (Staff) 129 Ellis, SF. 392-5500. Italian, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Shanghai 1930 resembles a cross between a speakeasy and one of Saddam Hussein’s famous bunkers. The high-end Chinese menu is a marvel of freshness and priciness. (Staff) 133 Steuart, SF. 896-5600. Chinese, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Tadich Grill is the city’s oldest restaurant (150 years and counting), and it still packs ’em in, specializing in seafood and most anything grilled. (Staff) 240 California, SF. 391-1849. Grill, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Tlaloc rises like a multistory loft on its Financial District lane, the better to accommodate the hordes of suits crowding in for a noontime burrito-and-salsa fix. They serve a mean pipián burrito and decent fish tacos. (Staff) 525 Commercial, SF. 981-7800. Mexican, L/D, ¢, AE/MC/V.
Tommy Toy’s Haute Cuisine Chinois is a cross between a steak house and The Last Emperor. The food is rich and fatty and only occasionally good. (Staff) 655 Montgomery, SF. 397-4888. Chinese, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Town’s End Restaurant and Bakery enjoys a reputation for a fabulous weekend brunch (getting in can be a trick), but the restaurant serves a polished California menu at dinner too. (Staff) 2 Townsend, SF. 512-0749. California, B/BR/L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Tu Lan has few luxuries except the food, which is a luxury to the wealthiest palate. Raw foods converge in salads and stir-fries that’ll leave you wondering why your own cooking doesn’t look as easy and taste as good. (Staff) 8 Sixth St, SF. 626-0927. Vietnamese, L/D, ¢.
NORTH BEACH/CHINATOWN
Da Flora advertises Venetian specialties, but notes from Central Europe (veal in paprika cream sauce) and points east (whiffs of nutmeg) creep into other fine dishes. (Staff) 701 Columbus, SF. 981-4664. Italian, D, $$, MC/V.
Dalla Torre is one of the most inaccessible restaurants in the city. The multilevel dining room — a cross between an Italian country inn and a Frank Lloyd Wright house — offers memorable bay views, but the pricey food is erratic. (Staff) 1349 Montgomery, SF. 296-1111. Italian, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Enrico’s Sidewalk Cafe remains a classic see-and-be-seen part of the North Beach scene. The full bar and extensive menu of tapas, pizzas, pastas, and grills make dropping in at any hour a real treat. (Staff) 504 Broadway, SF. 982-6223. Mediterranean, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Gondola captures the varied flavors of Venice and the Veneto in charmingly low-key style. The main theme is the classic one of simplicity, while service strikes just the right balance between efficiency and warmth. (Staff) 15 Columbus, SF. 956-5528. Italian, L/D, $, MC/V.
House of Nanking never fails to garner raves from restaurant reviewers and Guardian readers alike. Chinatown ambience, great food, good prices. (Best Ofs, 1994) 919 Kearny, SF. 421-1429. Chinese, L/D, ¢.
Maykadeh Persian Cuisine is a great date restaurant, classy but not too pricey, and there are lots of veggie options both for appetizers and entrées. Khoresht bademjan was a delectable, deep red stew of tomato and eggplant with a rich, sweet, almost chocolatey undertone. (Staff) 470 Green, SF. 362-8286. Persian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Michelangelo Cafe There’s always a line outside this quintessential North Beach restaurant, but it’s well worth the sidewalk time for Michelangelo’s excellent Italian, served in a bustling, family-style atmosphere. The seafood dishes are recommended; approach the postprandial Gummi Bears at your own risk. (Staff) 597 Columbus, SF. 986-4058. Italian, D, $$.
Moose’s is famous for the Mooseburger, but the rest of the menu is comfortably sophisticated. The crowd is moneyed but not showy and definitely not nouveau. (Staff) 1652 Stockton, SF. 989-7800. American, BR/L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Pena Pacha Mama offers organic Bolivian cuisine as well as weekly performances of Andean song and dance. Dine on crusted lamb and yucca frita while watching a genuine flamenco performance in this intimate setting. (Staff) 1630 Powell, SF. 646-0018. Bolivian, BR/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Rico’s touts its salsas, and they are good, but so is almost everything else on the mainstream Mexican menu. (Staff) 943 Columbus, SF. 928-5404. Mexican, L/D, ¢, AE/MC/V.
Rose Pistola cooks it up in the style of Liguria, and that means lots of seafood, olive oil, and lemons — along with a wealth of first-rate flat breads (pizzas, focaccias, farinatas) baked in the wood-burning oven. (PR, 7/05) 532 Columbus, SF. 399-0499. Italian, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Washington Square Bar and Grill offers stylish Cal-Ital food at reasonable prices in a storied setting. (Staff) 1707 Powell, SF. 982-8123. Italian, $$, L/D, MC/V.
SOMA
AsiaSF Priscilla, Queen of the Desert meets Asian-influenced tapas at this amusingly surreal lounge. The drag queen burlesque spectacle draws a varied audience that’s a show in itself. (Staff) 201 Ninth St, SF. 255-2742. Fusion, D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Bacar means “wine goblet,” and its wine menu is extensive — and affordable. Chef Arnold Wong’s eclectic American-global food plays along nicely. (Staff) 448 Brannan, SF. 904-4100. American, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Basil A serene, upscale oasis amid the industrial supply warehouses, Basil offers California-influenced Thai cuisine that’s lively and creative. (Staff) 1175 Folsom, SF. 552-8999. Thai, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Big Nate’s Barbecue is pretty stark inside — mostly linoleum arranged around a pair of massive brick ovens. But the hot sauce will make you sneeze. (Staff) 1665 Folsom, SF. 861-4242. Barbecue, L/D, $, MC/V.
Butler and the Chef brings a taste of Parisian café society — complete with pâtés, cornichons, and croques monsieurs — to sunny South Park. (PR, 5/04) 155A South Park, SF. French, B/L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Le Charm is the perfect spot to settle into a padded banquette and order wine and lamb chops and lovely little crèmes caramels. (Staff) 315 Fifth St, SF. 546-6128. French, L/D, $$, MC/V.
Chez Spencer brings Laurent Katgely’s precise French cooking into the rustic-industrial urban cathedral that once housed Citizen Cake. Get something from the wood-burning oven. (Staff) 82 14th St, SF. 864-2191. French, BR/L/D, $$, MC/V.
Fly Trap Restaurant captures a bit of that old-time San Francisco feel, from the intricate plaster ceiling to the straightforward menu: celery Victor, grilled salmon filet with beurre blanc. A good lunchtime spot. (Staff) 606 Folsom, SF. 243-0580. American, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
*Fringale still satisfies the urge to eat in true French bistro style, with Basque flourishes. The paella roll is a small masterpiece of food narrative; the frites are superior. (PR, 7/04) 570 Fourth St, SF. 543-0573. French/Basque, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Hawthorne Lane comes about as close to restaurant perfection as is possible in this world. The California cooking shows marked Asian influences; the mutedly elegant decor is welcoming, not stuffy. Sublime service. (Staff) 22 Hawthorne Lane (between Second St and Third St at Howard), SF. 777-9779. California, L/D, $$$, MC/V.
India Garden indeed has a lovely garden and an excellent lunch buffet that does credit to South Asian standards. (Staff) 1261 Folsom, SF. 626-2798. Indian, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Jack Falstaff pays homage to the slow-food movement: there are emphases on the organic, the housemade, the local, and the healthful — and at the same time it’s all tasty and served in voluptuous, supper-club-style surroundings. (PR, 4/05) 598 Second St, SF. 836-9239. American, L/D, $$$, AE/MC/V.
Julie’s Kitchen offers a lunchtime buffet with, literally, a bit of everything, from roast turkey to sushi, with plenty of interesting items in between. (Staff) 680 Eighth St, SF. 431-1255. Eclectic, B/L, $, DC/MC/V.
Left Coast Cafe brings a breath of California freshness to the otherwise slightly antiseptic atrium of the Dolby Building. Healthy sandwiches (tuna, hummus), a decent Caesar, good mom-style cookies and brownies. (Staff) 999 Brannan, SF. 522-0232. California, B/L, ¢, cash only.
LJ’s Martini Bar and Grill sits on the second floor of the urban mall we know as Metreon, but its menu of American favorites and international alternatives is stylishly executed and reasonably priced in a sophisticated environment. For lunch, sit on the sunny terrace. (PR, 9/04) 101 Fourth St, SF. 369-6114. American, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
LuLu defines the modern California restaurant. Many dishes acquire a heart-swelling smokiness from the oven — a plate of portobello mushrooms, say, with soft polenta and mascarpone butter. (Staff) 816 Folsom, SF. 495-5775. Mediterranean, L/D, $$$, AE/MC/V.
Maya is like a good French restaurant serving elegant food that tastes Mexican. There are unforgettable flavors here: corn kernels steeped in vanilla, lovely grilled pork tenderloin served with a pipian sauce of pumpkin seed and tamarind. And for those weekday take-out lunches, there’s Maya (Next Door), a taquería that operates to the left of the host’s podium. (PR, 8/04) 303 Second St, SF. 543-6709. Mexican, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
*Mochica serves quite possibly the best Peruvian food in the city, at extremely reasonable prices. The location is iffy, mostly because of speeding traffic. Jaywalk with care. (PR, 6/04) 937 Harrison, SF. 278-0480. Peruvian, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Moshi Moshi serves a full palette of Japanese standards, from sushi to tempura to immense bowls of udon and near-udon. An ideal spot for neighborhood watching. (Staff) 2092 Third St, SF. Japanese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Nova still serves infused vodkas (remember Infusion?), but its orientation is less toward South Park than toward Pac Bell Park: sports on the TV above the bar, solid New American food, sleek pubbish looks. (Staff) 555 Second St, SF. 543-2282. American, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Oola gives Ola Fendert his own platform at last, and the result is a modern, golden SoMa restaurant with a menu that mixes playful opulence with local standards. (PR, 10/04) 860 Folsom, SF. 995-2061. California, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Public brings a Tuscan-tinged, Delfina-ish menu to a splendid multilevel space in a grand old brick building. Youthful but well-informed staff, incomparable chocolate bread pudding. (Staff) 1489 Folsom, SF. 552-3065. California/Mediterranean, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
[TK]Sneaky Tiki redoes the old Hamburger Mary’s space with a Polynesian flair, though you can still get a decent burger. Many dishes for two, including a huge, multitiered pupu platter. The human tone is sleek, with some echoes of the disco past. (PR, 10/05) 1582 Folsom, SF. 701-TIKI. Polynesian, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Sushi Groove South continues the westward march of hipsterdom through SoMa. The food — traditional sushi augmented by quietly stylish fusion dishes — is spectacular. The setting — a candlelit grotto abrim with black-clad young — is charged with high romance. (Staff) 1516 Folsom, SF. 503-1950. Japanese/sushi, L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.
Tamal offers inventive Mexican-influenced small plates, including a selection of namesake tamales, in a lonely corner of southwest SoMa. The food can be inconsistent, but the best dishes are wonderful. (PR, 4/05) 1599 Howard, SF. 864-2446. Nuevo Latino/tapas, D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Town Hall offers the lusty American cooking of the Rosenthal brothers in an elegantly spare New England-ish setting. There is a large communal table for seat-of-the-pants types and those who like their conviviality to have a faintly medieval air. (Staff) 342 Howard, SF. 908-3900. American, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Vino e Cucina offers a pleasantly oasislike setting and solid Italian food — with the occasional pleasant surprise — on a gritty stretch of Third Street. (Staff) 489 Third St, SF. 543-6962. Italian, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
XYZ joins the pantheon of fabulous restaurants in the city’s hotels. Lusty California cooking glows like a campfire in a cool (if slightly deracinated) urban setting. (Staff) 181 Third St, SF. 817-7836. California, B/BR/L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
NOB HILL/RUSSIAN HILL
Acquerello reminds us that the Italians, like the French, have a high cuisine — sophisticated and earthy and offered in a onetime chapel with exposed rafters and sumptuous fabrics on the banquettes. Service is as knowledgeable and civilized as at any restaurant in the city. (PR, 3/05) 1722 Sacramento, SF. 567-5432. Italian, $$$, D, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Alborz looks more like a hotel restaurant than a den of Persian cuisine, but there are flavors here — of barberry and dried lime, among others — you won’t easily find elsewhere. (Staff) 1245 Van Ness, SF. 440-4321. Persian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Bacio offers homey, traditional Italian dishes in a charmingly cozy rustic space. Service can be slow. (PR, 1/05) 835 Hyde, SF. 292-7999. Italian, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Cordon Bleu has huge portions, tiny prices, and a hoppin’ location right next to the Lumiere Theatre. (Staff) 1574 California, SF. 673-5637. Vietnamese, L/D, ¢.
Crustacean is famous for its roast Dungeness crab; the rest of the “Euro/Asian” menu is refreshingly Asian in emphasis. (Staff) 1475 Polk, SF. 776-2722. Fusion, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
East Coast West Delicatessen doesn’t look like a New York deli (too much space, air, light), but the huge, fattily satisfying Reubens, platters of meat loaf, black-and-white cookies, and all the other standards compare commendably to their East Coast cousins. (Staff) 1725 Polk, SF. 563-3542. Deli, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.
[TK]La Folie could be a neighborhood spot or a destination or both, but either way or both ways it is sensational: an exercise in haute cuisine leavened with a West Coast sense of informality and playfulness. There is a full vegetarian menu and an ample selection of wines by the half bottle. (PR, 2/06) 2316 Polk, SF. 776-5577. French, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Grubstake might look like your typical Polk Gulch diner — sandwiches and burgers, open very late — but the kitchen also turns out some good mom-style Portuguese dishes, replete with olives, salt cod, and linguica. If you crave caldo verde at 3 a.m., this is the place. (Staff) 1525 Pine, SF. 673-8268. Portuguese/American, B/L/D, ¢, cash only.
*Matterhorn Restaurant offers dishes that aren’t fondue, but fondue (especially with beef) is the big deal and the answer to big appetites. For dessert: chocolate fondue! (Staff) 2323 Van Ness, SF. 885-6116. Swiss, $$, D, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
O’Reilly’s Holy Grail, a redo of the old Maye’s Oyster House that strikes harmonious notes of chapel and lounge, serves a sophisticated and contemporary Cal-Irish menu. (PR, 10/05) 1233 Polk, SF. 928-1233. California/Irish, BR/L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Persimmon offers a tasty, fairly priced Middle Eastern menu to tourists, theatergoers, and neighbors alike. Excellent hummus. (PR, 9/05) 582 Sutter, SF. 433-5525. Middle Eastern, B/L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Le Petit Robert offers classy French cooking as a wealth of small plates, along with a few larger ones, in a setting that’s at once spacious and warm. Not cheap, but good value. (Staff) 2300 Polk, SF. 922-8100. French, L/D, $$, MC/V.
Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse brings on the lipids in a big, big way — even the salads are well marbled — but if you’re not worried about fat, you’ll find the food to be quite tasty, the mood soothingly refined. (Staff) 1601 Van Ness, SF. 673-0557. Steak, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Wasabi and Ginger looks to become a popular neighborhood spot. The sushi is first rate, but the great stuff on the menu is cooked: buttery-tender beef short ribs and a seafood-miso soup served in a teapot. (Staff) 2299 Van Ness, SF. 345-1368. Japanese, L/D, $, MC/V.
Yabbies Coastal Kitchen There’s lots to shuck and swallow at the raw bar, but don’t miss tropical seafood cocktails (like the crab with mango and lemongrass) piled glamorously into martini glasses. (Staff) 2237 Polk, SF. 474-4088. California, D, $$, MC/V.
Zarzuela’s rich selection of truly delicious tapas and full meals makes it a neighborhood favorite. (Staff) 2000 Hyde, SF. 346-0800. Tapas, D, $$, DISC/MC/V.
CIVIC CENTER/TENDERLOIN
A la Turca is a surprisingly stylish spot on a not particularly stylish block. Excellent pides and Turkish beer. (PR, 3/04) 869 Geary, SF. 345-1011. Turkish, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Ananda Fuara serves a distinctly Indian-influenced vegetarian menu in the sort of calm surroundings that are increasingly the exception to the rule. (Staff) 1298 Market, SF. 621-1994. Vegetarian, L/D, ¢, cash only.
[TK]*Bodega Bistro has a certain colonial formality — much of the menu is given in French — and it does attract a tony expat crowd. The food is elegant but not fancy (lobster, rack of lamb, both simply presented); if even those are too much, look to the “Hanoi Street Cuisine” items. (PR, 11/05) 607 Larkin, SF. 921-1218. Vietnamese, L/D, $$, DC/DISC/MC/V.
Canto do Brasil The draw here is lusty yeoman cooking, Brazilian style, at beguilingly low prices. The tropically cerulean interior design enhances the illusion of sitting at a beach café. (Staff) 41 Franklin, SF. 626-8727. Brazilian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Chutney combines elements of college-town haunt and California bistro. The Pakistani-Indian food is fresh, bright, spicy, and cheap. (Staff) 511 Jones, SF. 931-5541. Indian/Pakistani, L/D, ¢.
Gyro Kebab adds to the Turkish presence in the Tenderloin. The signature dish, swordfish kebab, is estimable, but almost everything else on the menu is crisply prepared too. (PR, 4/05) 637 Larkin, SF. 775-5526. Turkish, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Gyro King has that Istanbul feeling: lots of kebabs and gyros, hummus, dolma, eggplant salad, and of course baklava fistikli for dessert. It’s all cheap, and it makes for a good, quick Civic Center lunch. (Staff) 25 Grove, SF. 621-8313. Turkish/Mediterranean, B/L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Indigo serves up good California cuisine in a pleasantly stylish setting. A great presymphony choice. (Staff) 687 McAllister, SF. 673-9353. California, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Jardinière combines an aggressively elegant Pat Kuleto design with the calm confidence of Traci Des Jardins’s cooking. The best dishes are unforgettable. (Staff) 300 Grove, SF. 861-5555. California, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
[TK]Mangosteen radiates lime green good cheer from its corner perch in the Tenderloin. Inexpensive Vietnamese standards are rendered with thoughtful little touches and an emphasis on the freshest ingredients. (PR, 11/05) 601 Larkin, SF. 776-3999. Vietnamese, L/D, $, cash only.
Max’s Opera Cafe Huge food is the theme here, from softball-size matzo balls to towering desserts. Your basic Jewish deli. (Staff) 601 Van Ness, SF. 771-7300. American, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
[TK]Mekong Restaurant serves the foods of the Mekong River basin. There is a distinct Thai presence but also dishes with Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and even Chinese accents. (PR, 1/06) 791 O’Farrell, SF. 928-2772. Pan-Asian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Olive might look like a tapas bar, but what you want are the thin-crust pizzas, the simpler the toppings the better. The small plates offer eclectic pleasures, especially the Tuscan pâté and beef satay with peanut sauce. (Staff) 743 Larkin, SF. 776-9814. Pizza/eclectic, D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Pagolac For $10.95 a person you and two or more of your favorite beef eaters can dive into Pagolac’s specialty: seven-flavor beef. Less carnivorous types can try the cold spring rolls, shrimp on sugarcane, or lemongrass tofu. (Staff) 655 Larkin, SF. 776-3234. Vietnamese, L/D, ¢.
*Saha serves “Arabic fusion cuisine” — a blend of the Middle East and California — in a cool, spare setting behind the concierge’s desk at the Hotel Carlton. One senses the imminence of young rock stars, drawn perhaps by the lovely chocolate fondue. (PR, 9/04) 1075 Sutter, SF. 345-9547. Arabic/fusion, B/BR/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
HAYES VALLEY
Absinthe restyles the rustic foods of southern France into sleek urban classics. No absinthe; have a pastis instead. (Staff) 398 Hayes, SF. 551-1590. Southern French, B/BR/L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Arlequin offers light Provençal and Mediterranean food for takeout, but the best place to take your stuff is to the sunny, tranquil garden in the rear. (Staff) 384B Hayes, SF. 863-0926. Mediterranean, B/L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Destino reweaves traditional Peruvian flavors into a tapestry of extraordinary vividness and style, and the storefront interior has been given a golden glow that would have satisfied the most restless conquistador. (Staff) 1815 Market, SF. 552-4451. Peruvian, D, $$, MC/V.
Espetus means “skewer” in Portuguese, and since the place is a Brazilian grill, the (huge) skewers are laden with a variety of meat, poultry, and seafood. The giant buffet at the rear assures that you will not — you cannot — leave hungry. (PR, 3/04) 1686 Market, SF. 552-8792. Brazilian, L/D, $$$, MC/V.
Frjtz serves first-rate Belgian fries, beer, crepes, and sandwiches in an art-house atmosphere. If the noise overwhelms, take refuge in the lovely rear garden. (Staff) 579 Hayes, SF. 864-7654; also at Ghirardelli Square, SF. 928-3886. Belgian, B/L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Hayes Street Grill still offers a workable formula: the best fish, prepared with conservative expertise and offered with a choice of sauce and excellent pommes frites. An old, reliable friend. (Staff) 320 Hayes, SF. 863-5545. Seafood, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Sauce enjoys the services of chef Ben Paula, whose uninhibited California cooking is as easy to like as a good pop song. (PR, 5/05) 131 Gough, SF. 252-1369. California, D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Suppenküche has a Busvan for Bargains, butcher-block look that gives context to its German cuisine. If you like schnitzel, brats, roasted potatoes, eggs, cheese, cucumber salad, cold cuts, and cold beer, you’ll love it here. (Staff) 601 Hayes, SF. 252-9289. German, BR/D, $, AE/MC/V.
*Zuni Cafe is one of the most celebrated — and durable — restaurants in town, perhaps because its kitchen has honored the rustic country cooking of France and Italy for the better part of two decades. (PR, 2/05) 1658 Market, SF. 552-2522. California, B/L/D, $$$, AE/MC/V.
CASTRO/NOE VALLEY/GLEN PARK
Alice’s sits on an obscure corner of outer Noe Valley, but the Chinese food is reliably fresh, tasty, and cheap. The decor is surprisingly elegant too: Wedgwood place settings and displays of blown glass. (Staff) 1599 Sanchez, SF. 282-8999. Chinese, L/D, $, MC/V.
Amberjack Sushi is like a miniature version of Blowfish or Tokyo Go Go. The more complex dishes, such as a tuna-sashimi tartare with lemon olive oil, are better than the simple, traditional stuff, which can be overchilled. (Staff) 1497 Church, SF. 920-1797. Japanese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Bacco breathes north Italian authenticity, from the terra-cotta-colored walls to the traditional but vivid veal preparations. One of the best neighborhood Italian restaurants in town. (Staff) 737 Diamond, SF. 282-4969. Italian, D, $$, MC/V.
Blue dishes up home cooking as good as any mom’s, in a downtown New York environment — of mirrors, gray-blue walls, and spotlights — that would blow most moms away. (Staff) 2337 Market, SF. 863-2583. American, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.
Burgermeister uses top-grade Niman Ranch beef for its burgers, but nonetheless they’re splendid, with soft buns and crisp, well-salted fries. Foofy California wrinkles are available if you want them, but why would you? (PR, 5/04) 138 Church, SF. 437-2874. Burgers, L/D, $.
Catch offers some excellent seafood pastas and a fabulous dish of mussels in Pernod over frites, while the atmosphere is full of Castro festivity. (Staff) 2362 Market, SF. 431-5000. Seafood, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Chenery Park is the restaurant Glen Park has been waiting for all these years: a calm, understated setting and an eclectic American menu with plenty of sly twists. (Staff) 683 Chenery, SF. 337-8537. American, D, $$, MC/V.
Chow serves up an easy Californian blend of American and Italian favorites, with a few Asian elements thrown into the mix. (Staff) 215 Church, SF. 552-2469. California, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Côté Sud brings a stylish breath of Provence to the Castro. The cooking reflects an unfussy elegance; service is as crisp as a neatly folded linen napkin. Nota bene: you must climb a set of steps to reach the place. (Staff) 4238 18th St, SF. 255-6565. French, D, $$, MC/V.
Eric’s Dig into the likes of mango shrimp, hoisin green beans, and spicy eggplant with chicken in this bright, airy space. (Staff) 1500 Church, SF. 282-0919. Chinese, L/D, $, MC/V.
*Firefly remains an exemplar of the neighborhood restaurant in San Francisco: it is homey and classy, hip and friendly, serving an American menu — deftly inflected with ethnic and vegetarian touches — that’s the match of any in the city. (PR, 9/04) 4288 24th St, SF. 821-7652. American, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Firewood Cafe serves up delicious thin chewy-crusted pizzas, four kinds of tortellini, rotisserie-roasted chicken, and big bowls of salad. (Staff) 4248 18th St, SF. 252-0999. Italian, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Los Flamingos mingles Cuban and Mexican specialties in a relaxed, leafy, walk-oriented neighborhood setting. Lots of pink on the walls; even more starch on the plates. (PR, 11/04) 151 Noe, SF. 252-7450. Cuban/Mexican, BR/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Fresca raises the already high bar a little higher for Peruvian restaurants in town. Many of the dishes are complex assemblies of unusual and distinctive ingredients, but some of the best are among the simplest. The skylighted barrel-ceiling setting is quietly spectacular. (PR, 7/05) 3945 24th St, SF. 695-0549. Peruvian, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Hamano Sushi packs them in despite a slightly dowdy setting and food of variable appeal. The best stuff is as good as it gets, though, and prices aren’t bad. (Staff) 1332 Castro, SF. 826-0825. Japanese, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Home sounds homey, and it is, at least foodwise: first-rate pot roast, macaroni and cheese, broccoli with white cheddar cheese sauce; the occasional dressier dish. The crowd has a strong clubland look. (Staff) 2100 Market, SF. 503-0333. New American, D, $, AE/MC/V.
Incanto sets the bar a bit higher for neighborhood Italian restaurants. Gorgeous stonework, a chapel-like wine room, and skillful cooking that ranges confidently from pastas to braised lamb shanks. (Staff) 1550 Church, SF. 641-4500. Italian, D, $$, MC/V.
Long Island Restaurant dishes up reliable Chinese standards in a space that’s been considerably brightened since the passing of the previous occupant. (PR, 3/04) 1689 Church, SF. 695-7678/79. Chinese, L/D, $, MC/V.
Lucky Time drifts happily between the foods of Vietnam and China. Low prices, fast service, reasonably nice decor, location vastly convenient to public transport. (PR, 3/05) 708 14th St, SF. 861-2682. Vietnamese/Chinese, L/D, $, MC/V.
Lupa, in the old Noi-Little Italy space, serves a strong pan-Italian menu with Roman accents. Service is knowledgeable and familial, the food competitive in a competitive neighborhood. (Staff) 4109 24th St, SF. 282-5872. Italian, D, $$, MC/V.
[TK]Malacca serves the foods of the Strait of Malacca region, and the sophisticated mix is unmistakably Singaporean, from Portuguese noodles (with basil, tomato, garlic, and ginger) to beef rendang. Wine is emphasized over beer, and the decor of unduutf8g bamboo is quietly striking. (PR, 11/05) 4039 18th St, SF. 863-0679. Pan-Asian, D, $$, MC/V.
Nirvana offers a peaceful respite from busy Castro streets. Although noodles make up the bulk of the menu, there’s also a list of entrées that range from stir-fried jicama to grilled lemongrass chicken. (Staff) 544 Castro, SF. 861-2226. Pan-Asian, L/D, $, MC/V.
La Provence bestows a welcome dash of south-of-France sunshine to an often befogged city. Many fine Provençal standards, including a memorable tarte tropézienne. (PR, 9/05) 1001 Guerrero, SF. 643-4333. French, D, $$, MC/V.
Samovar Tea Lounge has tea — of course, and of many, many kinds — but also food to go with your tea and a gorgeous setting of fluttering fabrics to enjoy it all in. A world of tea culture. (Staff) 498 Sanchez, SF. 626-4700. Eclectic, B/L/D, ¢, AE/MC/V.
Savor has transformed the old Courtyard Cafe into a fantasy of a Mediterranean country inn. Pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, et al, occur in various permutations throughout the menu’s crepes, omelets, frittatas, sandwiches, and salads. (Staff) 3913 24th St, SF. 282-0344. Mediterranean, B/L/D, $, MC/V.
Tangerine occupies one of the lovelier and more tree-lined corners in the Castro, and the “fusion” cooking is really more of a potpourri, ably ranging from gumbo to deep-fried calamari to sea bass edamame. (Staff) 3499 16th St, SF. 626-1700. Fusion, L/D, $, MC/V.
Tao Cafe exudes rich atmosphere — a beautiful two-tone green paint scheme, ceiling fans, bronze fittings — and the attractively brief menu has some smart French touches, including a Vietnamese-style beef bourguignon. Quite cheap considering the high style. (Staff) 1000 Guerrero, SF. 641-9955. Vietnamese, D, $, AE/MC/V.
*Tapeo at Metro City Bar has a leg up on most of the city’s tapas places, since it is part of an actual bar (and a gay bar!) in the true tapas tradition. It has a second leg up because the food is both innovative and authentically Iberian. An excellent locale for street surveillance. (PR, 8/04) 3600 16th St, SF. 703-9750. Spanish/tapas, D, $, MC/V.
Thai Chef joins the ranks of top-tier Thai restaurants in the city. Virtually every dish with meat, fish, or poultry is available in meatless guise. (PR, 3/05) 4133 18th St, SF. 551-CHEF. Thai, L/D, $, MC/V.
Tita’s Hale Aina Traditional dishes include a tasty lomi lomi scramble chock-full of scallions, tomatoes, and salmon, and refreshing cold green tea soba noodles. (Staff) 3870 17th St, SF. 626-2477. Hawaiian, B/L/D, ¢.
2223 could easily be a happening queer bar, what with all that male energy. But the American menu joins familiarity with high style, and the ambience is that of a great party where you’re bound to meet somebody hot. (Staff) 2223 Market, SF. 431-0692. American, BR/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Yianni’s brings a bit of Greek sunshine to outer Church Street. All the standards — saganaki and pastitsio, among others — are here, as well as “Greek” pizzas and fries. (Staff) 1708 Church, SF. 647-3200. Greek, BR/D, $$, MC/V.
Le Zinc brings a French bistro presence to 24th Street. The setting is lovely, the food and service uneven and not cheap. But the possibility for something spectacularly good persists. (Staff) 4063 24th St, SF. 647-9400. French, B/BR/L/D, $$$, AE/MC/V.
HAIGHT/COLE VALLEY/WESTERN ADDITION
Alamo Square is an archetype for the “good little place around the corner.” Five different kinds of fish are offered next to three cooking techniques and five sauces. (Staff) 803 Fillmore, SF. 440-2828. Seafood, D, $, MC/V.
Ali Baba’s Cave Veggie shish kebabs are grilled fresh to order; the hummus and baba ghanoush are subtly seasoned and delicious. (Staff) 531 Haight (at Fillmore), SF. 255-7820; 799 Valencia, SF. 863-3054. Middle Eastern, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
All You Knead emphasizes the wonderful world of yeast — sandwiches, pizzas, etc. — in a space reminiscent of beer halls near Big 10 campuses. (Staff) 1466 Haight, SF. 552-4550. American, B/L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Asqew Grill reinvents the world of fine fast food on a budget with skewers, served in under 10 minutes for under 10 bucks. (Staff) 1607 Haight, SF. 701-9301. California, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Bia’s Restaurant and Wine Bar proves hippies know what’s what in matters of food and wine. An excellent menu of homey items with Middle Eastern and Persian accents; a tight, widely varied wine list. (PR, 11/04) 1640 Haight, SF. 861-8868. California/Middle Eastern, L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.
Blue Jay Cafe has the Mayberry, RFD, look and giant platters of Southernish food, including a good catfish po’boy and crispy fried chicken. Everything is under $10. (PR, 4/04) 919 Divisadero, SF. 447-6066. American/soul, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.
Brother-in-Laws Bar-B-Cue always wins the “Best Barbecue” prize in our annual Best of the Bay edition: the ribs, chickens, links, and brisket are smoky and succulent; the aroma sucks you in like a tractor beam. (Staff) 705 Divisadero, SF. 931-7427. Barbecue, L/D, $.
Burgermeister uses top-grade Niman Ranch beef for its burgers, but nonetheless they’re splendid, with soft buns and crisp, well-salted fries. Foofy California wrinkles are available if you want them, but why would you? (PR, 5/04) 86 Carl, SF. 566-1274. Burgers, L/D, $.
Eos serves one of the best fusion menus in town, but be prepared for scads of yuppies and lots of noise. (Staff) 901 Cole, SF. 566-3063. Fusion, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Fly could easily host séances, but if your only interest is food and drink, you’ll be happy too. Good pizzas and small plates; plenty for omnivores and vegetarians alike. Tons of sake drinks to wash it all down. (Staff) 762 Divisadero, SF. 931-4359. Mediterranean, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
*Frankie’s Bohemian Cafe has Pilsener Urquell, a Bohemian beer, on tap for a touch of Czech authenticity, but the crowd is young, exuberant, Pacific Heights, het. Follow the crowd and stick with the burgers. (PR, 2/05) 1682 Divisadero, SF. 921-4725. Czech/American, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Grandeho’s Kamekyo Sushi Bar Always packed, Grandeho serves up excellent sushi along with a full Japanese menu. (Staff) 943 Cole, SF. 759-5693. Japanese, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Hukilau brings a dash of Big Island conviviality — and Big Island (i.e., big) portions — to a wind- and traffic-swept corner of the big city. Spam too, if you want it. (Staff) 5 Masonic, SF. 921-6242. Hawaiian/American, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.
Kate’s Kitchen dishes up the best scallion-cheese biscuits out west. The lines on the weekends can be long. (Staff) 471 Haight, SF. 626-3984. American, B/L, ¢.
Magnolia Pub and Brewery A mellow atmosphere and beers that taste distinctly hand crafted make great accompaniments to burgers, chicken wings, ale-steamed mussels, and pizzas, along with some unexpected Cali fusion like grilled soy-sesame eggplant. (Staff) 1398 Haight, SF. 864-PINT. Brew pub, BR/L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Metro Cafe brings the earthy chic of Paris’s 11th arrondissement to the Lower Haight, prix fixe and all. (Staff) 311 Divisadero, SF. 552-0903. French, B/BR/L/D, $, MC/V.
New Ganges Restaurant is short on style — it is as if the upmarket revolution in vegetarian restaurants never happened — but there is a homemade freshness to the food you won’t find at many other places. (Staff) 775 Frederick, SF. 681-4355. Vegetarian/Indian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Raja Cuisine of India serves up decent renditions of Indian standards in an unassuming, even spare, setting. Low prices. (Staff) 500 Haight, SF. 255-6000. Indian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Rotee isn’t the fanciest south Asian restaurant in the neighborhood, but it is certainly one of the most fragrant, and its bright oranges and yellows (food, walls) do bring good cheer. Excellent tandoori fish. (PR, 12/04) 400 Haight, SF. 552-8309. Indian/Pakistani, L/D, $, MC/V.
Tsunami Sushi and Sake Bar brings hip Japanese-style seafood to the already hip Café Abir complex. Skull-capped sushi chefs, hefty and innovative rolls. (Staff) 1306 Fulton, SF. 567-7664. Japanese/sushi, D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Winterland borrows the nostalgic name of the onetime ice-skating rink cum music venue that once stood on the spot, but the food is pure — and foamy — Euro avant-garde, served to a glam crowd dressed in shades of SoMa black. For a less vertiginous experience, enjoy the bar menu. (PR, 6/05) 2101 Sutter, SF. 563-5025. International, D, $$$, AE/MC/V.
[TK]Zoya takes some finding — it is in the little turret of the Days Inn Motor Lodge at Grove and Gough — but the view over the street’s treetops is bucolic, and the cooking is simple, seasonal, direct, and ingredient driven. (PR, 12/05) 465 Grove, SF. 626-9692. California, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
MISSION/BERNAL HEIGHTS/POTRERO HILL
Al’s Cafe Good Food Al’s is the best dang diner in town. Everything here is great, from the home fries and eggs to the chili and burgers, and even the toast in between. (Staff) 3286 Mission, SF. 641-8445. American, B/L, ¢.
Amira melds virtuosic belly dancing shows with veggie kebabs; smoky, delicate walnut dip with pita chips; and the star choice, Turkish eggplant, a handsome portion of unbelievably tender sautéed aubergine in a marinara sauce. (Staff) 590 Valencia, SF. 621-6213. Middle Eastern, D, $, MC/V.
Angkor Borei Nicely presented smallish portions of really good food, friendly service, and excellent atmosphere way down on Mission Street. (Staff) 3471 Mission, SF. 550-8417. Cambodian, L/D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.
[TK]*Baku de Thai unites the elegant cuisines of Thailand and France with memorable — and affordable — results. The dinnertime prix fixe, available earlyish, is an especially appealing deal. (PR, 11/05) 400 Valencia, SF. 437-4788. Thai/fusion, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Baobab Bar and Grill serves great-tasting West African specialties like couscous, fried plantains, and savory rice dishes for a reasonable price. (Staff) 3388 19th St, SF. 643-3558. African, BR/D, ¢.
Baraka takes the French-Spanish tapas concept, gives it a beguiling Moroccan accent — harissa, preserved lemons, merguez sausage — and the result is astonishingly good food. (Staff) 288 Connecticut, SF. 255-0370. Moroccan/Mediterranean, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Bistro Annex occupies a narrow space like a glorified broom closet and serves a French-inflected, west-Med menu at very low prices. (PR, 5/05) 1136 Valencia, SF. 648-9020. French, D, $, MC/V.
Blowfish glows red and inviting on an otherwise industrial and residential stretch of Bryant Street. Sushi — in pristine fingers of nigiri or in a half dozen inventive hand rolls — is a marvel. (Staff) 2170 Bryant, SF. 285-3848. Sushi, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Blue Plate has a diner aura — bustle, clatter — but the Mediterranean food is stylishly flavorful. A great value. (Staff) 3218 Mission, SF. 282-6777. Mediterranean, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Bombay Ice Cream and Chaat Stop in for some Indian chaat — cheap, delicious fast food such as samosas and curries. (Staff) 552 Valencia, SF. 431-1103. Indian takeout, L/D, ¢.
Burger Joint makes hamburgers like you remember from your childhood, with lettuce, onion, tomato, and mayonnaise. (Staff) 807 Valencia, SF. 824-3494. American, L/D, ¢.
Cafe Bella Vista brings a stylish touch of Catalonia to the Inner Mission. Excellent gazpacho and tortilla española. The interior decor is sleek and modern, though the space itself seems slightly squashed by the apartment building overhead. (PR, 6/04) 2598 Harrison, SF. 641-6195. Spanish, B/BR/L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Cafe Ethiopia It’s basically a coffeehouse, serving all the same coffees and teas and Toranis as anyone else. It’s just that they also have great, cheap Ethiopian food. (Staff) 878 Valencia, SF. 285-2728. Ethiopian, B/L/D, ¢.
Cafe Gratitude specializes in surprisingly delicious, painstakingly prepared raw and vegan cuisine with a hippie attitude. For less than $10, you will be full and healthy from buckwheat and Brazil nut cheese pizza, mock tuna salad and other herbaceous nut-based spreads, and sumptuous date-based smoothies. (Staff) 2400 Harrison, SF. 824-4652. Vegan, B/BR/L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Cafe Phoenix looks like a junior-high cafeteria, but the California-deli food is fresh, tasty, and honest, and the people making it are part of a program to help the emotionally troubled return to employability. (Staff) 1234 Indiana, SF. 282-9675, ext. 239. California, B/L, ¢, MC/V.
Caffe Cozzolino Get it to go: everything’s about two to four bucks more if you eat it there. (Staff) 300 Precita, SF. 285-6005. Italian, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Caffe d’Melanio is the place to go if you want your pound of coffee beans roasted while you enjoy an Argentine-Italian dinner of pasta, milanesa, and chimichurri sauce. During the day the café offers a more typically Cal-American menu of better-than-average quality. First-rate coffee beans. (PR, 10/04) 1314 Ocean, SF. 333-3665. Italian/Argentine, B/L/D, $, MC/V.
Il Cantuccio strikingly evokes that little trattoria you found near the Ponte Vecchio on your last trip to Florence. (Staff) 3228 16th St, SF. 861-3899. Italian, D, $, MC/V.
Chez Papa Bistrot sits like a beret atop Potrero Hill. The food is good, the staff’s French accents authentic, the crowd a lively cross section, but the place needs a few more scuffs and quirks before it can start feeling real. (Staff) 1401 18th St, SF. 824-8210. French, BR/L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Circolo Restaurant and Lounge brings Peruvian- and Asian-influenced cooking into a stylishly barnlike urban space where dot-commers gathered of old. Some of the dishes are overwrought, but the food is splendid on the whole. (PR, 6/04) 500 Florida, SF. 553-8560. Nuevo Latino/Asian, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
[TK]Couleur Café reminds us that French food need be neither fancy nor insular. The kitchen playfully deploys a world of influences — the duck-confit quesadilla is fabulous — and service is precise and attentive despite the modest setting at the foot of Potrero Hill. (PR, 2/06) 300 De Haro, SF. 255-1021. French, BR/L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.
*Delfina has grown from a neighborhood restaurant to an event, but an expanded dining room has brought the noise under control, and as always, the food — intense variations on a theme of Tuscany — could not be better. (PR, 2/04) 3621 18th St, SF. 552-4055. California, D, $$, MC/V.
[TK]Dosa serves dosas, the south Indian crepes, along with a wealth of other, and generally quite spicy, dishes from the south of the subcontinent. The cooking tends toward a natural meatlessness; the crowds are intense, like hordes of passengers inquiring about a delayed international flight. (PR, 1/06) 995 Valencia, SF. 642-3672. South Indian, BR/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Double Play sits across the street from what once was Seals Stadium, but while the field and team are gone, the restaurant persists as an authentic sports bar with a solidly masculine aura — mitts on the walls, lots of dark wood, et cetera. The all-American food (soups, sandwiches, pastas, meat dishes, lots of fries) is outstanding. (Staff) 2401 16th St, SF. 621-9859. American, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack offers a tasty, inexpensive, late-night alternative to Pasta Pomodoro. The touch of human hands is everywhere evident. (Staff) 18 Virginia, SF. 206-2086. Italian, D, $, cash only.
Foreign Cinema serves some fine New American food in a spare setting of concrete and glass that warms up romantically once the sun goes down. (Staff) 2534 Mission, SF. 648-7600. California, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Geranium occupies an old butcher shop and serves vegetarian comfort food that, in its meatless meatiness, manages to honor both past and present in a way that should make everyone happy. (PR, 8/04) 615 Cortland, SF. 647-0118. Vegetarian, BR/D, $$, MC/V.
Herbivore is adorned in the immaculate-architect style: angular blond-wood surfaces and precise cubbyholes abound. (Staff) 983 Valencia, SF. 826-5657; 531 Divisadero (at Fell), SF. 885-7133. Vegetarian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Jasmine Tea House feels vaguely Italian, with its pastel pink walls and peals of opera floating from the kitchen, but the classic Chinese cooking is bright and crisp. Avoid the deep-fried stuff. (Staff) 3253 Mission, SF. 826-6288. Chinese, L/D, $, MC/V.
Joe’s Cable Car is the place where “Joe grinds his own fresh meat daily,” and it shows. Fill up with a thick milkshake on the side, but skip the disappointing fries. (Staff) 4320 Mission, SF. 334-6699. American, L/D, $, MC/V.
[TK]Kiji announces itself with red lanterns, one above the door, the rest inside. The food is hipster sushi, immaculate and imaginative, with some interesting cooked dishes thrown in. (PR, 1/06) 1009 Guerrero, SF. 282-0400. Japanese, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Last Supper Club is really a trattoria, and an impressive one, from its half-lit reddish-gold interior to its always tasty and sometimes astounding food. Don’t miss the Sicilian-style ahi tartare on house-made potato chips. (Staff) 1199 Valencia, SF. 695-1199. Italian, BR/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Liberties reinvents the Irish pub for digital times. The food has an unmistakably masculine cast. (Staff) 998 Guerrero, SF. Irish, BR/L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Liberty Cafe specializes in simple, perfect food: a Caesar salad that outshines all others, the best chicken potpie in the city, and down-home desserts even a bake sale in Iowa couldn’t beat. (Staff) 410 Cortland, SF. 695-8777. American, BR/L/D, $-$$, AE/MC/V.
Little Baobab reminds us that creole cooking isn’t just from New Orleans; the excellent (and inexpensive) food takes its influences from French island culture in the Caribbean Sea and Indian Ocean. (Staff) 3388 19th St, SF. 643-3558. Creole, D, $, MC/V.
*Little Nepal assembles a wealth of sensory cues (sauna-style blond wood, brass table services) and an Indian-influenced Himalayan cuisine into a singular experience that appeals to all of Bernal Heights and beyond, including tots in their strollers. (Staff) 925 Cortland, SF. 643-3881. Nepalese, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
La Luna gives its fine nuevo Latino cuisine a distinctly Argentine spin. The parrillada (for two) is more than enough to sate even incorrigible carnivores, and the Mediterranean-blue color scheme is agreeably muted. (Staff) 3126 24th St, SF. 282-7110. Nuevo Latino, D, $$, MC/V.
Luna Park bubbles over with the new Mission’s nouveau riche, but even so, the food is exceptionally satisfying and not too expensive. (Staff) 694 Valencia, SF. 553-8584. Californian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Maharaja offers romantically half-lit pastels and great spicy food, including a fine chicken tikka masala and a dish of lamb chunks in dal. Lunch forswears the usual steam-table buffet in favor of set specials, as in a Chinese place. (Staff) 525 Valencia, SF. 552-7901. Indian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Mariachi’s serves up its fare in a cheery pastel-painted space, and its chalkboard menu features ingredients like sautéed mushrooms, pineapple, and pesto. (Staff) 508 Valencia, SF. 621-4358. Mexican, L/D, ¢.
Maverick holds several winning cards, including a menu of first-rate New American food, a clutch of interesting wines by the glass and half glass, and a handsome, spare Mission District setting discreetly cushioned for sound control. (PR, 9/05) 3316 17th St, SF. 863-3061. American, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Medjool doesn’t offer much by way of its namesake date, food of the ancient pharaohs, but the pan-Mediterranean menu (which emphasizes small plates) is mostly tasty, and the setting is appealingly layered, from a sidewalk terrace to a moody dining room behind a set of big carved-wood doors. (PR, 11/04) 2522 Mission, SF. 550-9055. Mediterranean, B/L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Mi Lindo Perú dishes up mom-style cooking, Peruvian style, in illimitable portions. The shrimp chowder is astounding. Lots of tapas too. (Staff) 3226 Mission, SF. 642-4897. Peruvian, L/D, $, MC/V.
Mi Lindo Yucatán looks a bit tatty inside, but the regional Mexican cooking is cheap and full of pleasant surprises. (PR, 3/04) 401 Valencia, SF. 861-4935. Mexican, L/D, ¢, cash only.
Moki’s Sushi and Pacific Grill serves imaginative specialty makis along with items from a pan-Asian grill in a small, bustling neighborhood spot. (Staff) 830 Cortland, SF. 970-9336. Japanese, D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Napper Tandy serves good Irish pub-grub standards of immeasurable scale. Little-known Irish beers on tap make a good match with the food. (PR, 5/04) 3200 24th St, SF. 550-7510. Irish, L/D, $, MC/V.
New Central Restaurant serves Mexican comfort food, while ambience flows from the jukebox near the door. (Staff) 399 S Van Ness, SF. 255-8247, 621-9608. Mexican, B/L, ¢, cash only.
Pakwan has a little secret: a secluded garden out back. It’s the perfect place to enjoy the fiery foods of India and Pakistan. (Staff) 3180 16th St, SF. 255-2440. Indian/Pakistani, L/D, ¢, cash only.
Panchita’s No. 3 plays a much-needed role, as a kind of Salvadoran-Mexican bistro or taverna. The food is straightforward and strong and presented with just a bit of flair; the setting shows small touches of elegance. (Staff) 3115 22nd St, SF. 821-6660. Salvadoran/Mexican, L/D, $, MC/V.
Pancho Villa The best word for this 16th Street taquería is big, from the large space to the jumbo-size burritos to the grand dinner plates of grilled shrimp. The only small thing is the price. (Staff) 3071 16th St, SF. 864-8840. Mexican, BR/L/D, ¢.
Papalote Mexican Grill relieves our Mexican favorites of much of their fat and calories without sacrificing flavor. Surprisingly excellent soyrizo and aguas frescas; sexily varied crowd. (Staff) 3409 24th St, SF. 970-8815. Mexican, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Parkside serves a decent affordable California menu — under the stars, if you like, in a spacious walled garden at the rear. (Staff) 1600 17th St, SF. 503-0393. California, BR/L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Phoenix is a little of this, a little of that — bar, nightclub, restaurant — but the accent of the place is unmistakably Celtic. Order anything with Irish bacon. Gut-swelling pasta dishes, the occasional weirdly successful soup. (Staff) 811 Valencia, SF. 695-1811. Irish, BR/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Platanos joins the Mission’s Roller Derby of freshened Latino cooking with a potpourri menu of dishes from throughout the Spanish-speaking Americas. Good seviche, an excellent chile relleno, and of course plantains every which way. (Staff) 598 Guerrero, SF. 252-9281. Pan-Latino, D, $, AE/MC/V.
Ramblas resists the globalized-tapa trend by serving up Spanish classics. And they are good, from grilled black sausage to calamares a la plancha to crisp potato cubes bathed in a vivid red-pepper sauce. (Staff) 557 Valencia, SF. 565-0207. Spanish/tapas, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Range recaptures the dot-com spirit of 1999 with its generically edgy postmodern look, but the food at its best is honest and spirited. The coffee-rubbed pork shoulder, a variation on mole, is a one-in-a-million dish. (PR, 9/05) 842 Valencia, SF. 282-8283. California, D, $$, MC/V.
Rasoi The food here is milder than the fiery south Indian curries, and it’s very vegetarian friendly. Slowly revolving ceiling fans give a pleasant illusion of heat even when it’s freezing outside. (Staff) 1037 Valencia, SF. 695-0599. Indian, D, $, AE/MC/V.
Restaurant YoYo joins the food maelstrom at Valencia and 16th Street bearing a powerful tool: sushi, good and cheap. The Mel’s-diner interior, on the other hand, is pure Americana. (Staff) 3092 16th St, SF. 255-9181. Japanese/sushi, L/D, $, MC/V.
Sally’s serves mainly lunch — lots of people work around the northern foot of Potrero Hill — but there’s breakfast too, and even early dinner, if you can live with sandwiches, salads, burritos, and chili. There’s also a bakery. (Staff) 300 De Haro, SF. 626-6006. Deli, B/L/D, ¢, MC/V.
*Slow Club still has a speakeasy charm, and the California cooking that emerges from the tiny, clamorous kitchen is still the class of the northeast Mission. (PR, 1/05) 2501 Mariposa, SF. 241-9390. California, BR/L/D, $$, MC/V.
Sunflower strikes all the right notes of today’s Mission: good inexpensive Vietnamese food in a modish California ambience, with friendly, casual service. (Staff) 506 Valencia, SF. 626-5023. Vietnamese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Taquería Can-Cun serves up one of the best veggie burritos in town — delicious, juicy, and huge. (Staff) 2288 Mission (at 19th St), SF. 252-9560; 1003 Market, SF. 864-6773; 3211 Mission (at Valencia), SF. 550-1414. Mexican, L/D, ¢.
Ti Couz’s menu of entrées consists exclusively of crepes — from light snacks to full meals, from sweet to savory — served up in a bright, boisterous café environment. (Staff) 3108 16th St, SF. 252-7373. Crepes, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.
Tokyo Go Go’s simplest dishes are the best. Given the location and the thick crowds of people dressed in black, the noise level is surprisingly moderate. (Staff) 3174 16th St, SF. 864-2288. Japanese, D, $$, MC/V.
[TK]Universal Café does California cooking the way it’s meant to be done. The mingled influences of Italy, France, and the Pacific Coast result in such unforgettable dishes as split-pea soup freshened with mint and a grilled flatbread with melted leeks and salume. (PR, 1/06) 2814 19th St, SF. 821-4608. California, BR/L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
[TK]Velvet Cantina has the feel of a Nogales brothel and carefree food to match, though the kitchen has some pedigree and upscale aspirations. The mood is one of raucous conviviality, moving to the heartbeat thump of techno music. (PR, 2/06) 3349 23rd St, SF. 648-4142. Mexican, D, $$, MC/V.
Vogalonga Trattoria continues a tradition of excellent rustic cooking in a setting of cozy warmth. Despite the gondolier etched on the front window, the menu includes standards from all regions of Italy. (Staff) 3234 22nd St, SF. 642-0298. Italian, D, $, MC/V.
Walzwerk bills itself as an “East German” restaurant, but don’t be frightened: the food is fresh, clever, tasty, and surprisingly light. The decor has a definite Cabaret edge. (Staff) 381 S Van Ness, SF. 551-7181. German, D, $, MC/V.
Watercress succeeds Watergate — the space is still handsome and the food is still French-Indo-Chinese fusion, but the prices are lower and the prix fixe option is so generous as to be irresistible. One of the best values in town. (Staff) 1152 Valencia, SF. 648-6000. Fusion, D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.
[tk: closed?]Wilde Oscar’s slings decent Irish pub food — burgers, curries, plenty of fries — in a comfortably homo-inflected environment. Wilde witticisms adorn the walls. (Staff) 1900 Folsom, SF. 621-7145. Irish/pub, L/D, $, MC/V.
*Woodward’s Garden defies its under-the-freeway setting with a seasonal, reasonably priced California-cuisine menu that explains how a restaurant has managed to thrive for more than a decade in a seemingly unpromising location. Dim lighting can make reading the menu a chore. (PR, 3/05) 1700 Mission, SF. 621-7122. California, D, $$, MC/V.
Zante Pizza and Indian Cuisine is that famous Indian pizza place. Meaning it’s got Indian food, it’s got pizza, and it’s got Indian pizza. (Staff) 3489 Mission, SF. 821-3949. Indian, L/D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.
MARINA/PACIFIC HEIGHTS/LAUREL HEIGHTS
L’Amour dans le Four gives a nice local boho twist to classic French bistro style. Many dishes from the oven. Tiny, noisy, intimate. (Staff) 1602 Lombard, SF. 775-2134. French, D, $, AE/MC/V.
Annie’s Bistro is a small jewel that offers stylish downtown cooking at neighborhood prices, with an extensive California wine list available by the glass and half glass. (Staff) 2819 California, SF. 922-9669. California, D, $$, MC/V.
*A16 refers to an Italian highway near Naples, and the food (in the old Zinzino space) is stylishly Neapolitan — lots of interesting pizzas, along with other treats from the wood-burning oven. (PR, 3/04) 2355 Chestnut, SF. Italian, L/BR/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Betelnut Peiju Wu is a pan-Asian version of a tapas bar, drawing a sleek postcollegiate crowd with its wide assortment of dumplings, noodles, soups, and snacks. (Staff) 2030 Union, SF. 929-8855. Asian, L/D, $$, MC/V.
Bistro Yoffi offers a homey California menu in a paradise of potted plants. Splendid al fresco dining (under heat lamps) in the rear. (Staff) 2231 Chestnut, SF. 885-5133. California, L/D, $$, MC/V.
Cafe Maritime captures something of the feel of a New England seafood restaurant. Despite the touristy location, the food is honest and good. (PR, 7/04) 2417 Lombard, SF. 885-2530. Seafood, D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Chez Nous fills the French slot in our town’s tapas derby, and it does so with imagination, panache, and surprising economy. The menu features touches from around the Mediterranean, but much of the best stuff is unmistakably Gallic. (Staff) 1911 Fillmore, SF. 441-8044. French, L/D, $, MC/V.
Chouquet’s gives stylish little spins to all sorts of French bistro standards and some nonstandards. The general look and tone is sleek and Parisian. (PR, 6/05) 2500 Washington, SF. 359-0075. French, BR/L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Curbside Too, younger sibling to the Curbside Cafe, looks like a roadside greasy spoon. But come dinnertime the Mexican brunch influences melt into a sublime French saucefest. (Staff) 2769 Lombard, SF. 921-4442. French, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Dragon Well looks like an annex of the cavernous Pottery Barn down the street, but its traditional Chinese menu is radiant with fresh ingredients and careful preparation. Prices are modest, the service swift and professional. (Staff) 2142 Chestnut, SF. 474-6888. Chinese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Eastside West fits right into the Cow Hollow scene. It’s comfortably upscale, with first-rate service and stylishly relaxed Cal-American food. (Staff) 3154 Fillmore, SF. 885-4000. California/American, BR/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Elite Cafe A welcoming place. The menu has plenty of familiar Creole and Cajun favorites along with more typical California fare. (Staff) 2049 Fillmore, SF. 346-8668. Cajun, BR/D, $$, MC/V.
Ella’s serves breakfast, lunch, and supper, but brunch is the real destination at this friendly corner eatery. (Staff) 500 Presidio, SF. 441-5669. American, B/BR/L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Eunice’s Cafe is the place to go when you’d rather have a conversation than make a big entrance. Good soups, sandwiches, pizzas, and quiches, with a world of influences. (Staff) 3336 Sacramento, SF. 440-3330. Brazilian/eclectic, B/L, ¢, MC/V.
Greens All the elements that made it famous are still intact: pristine produce, an emphasis on luxury rather than health, that gorgeous view. (Staff) Fort Mason Center, Bldg A, Marina at Laguna, SF. 771-6222. Vegetarian, L/D, $$, DISC/MC/V.
*Harris’ Restaurant is a timeless temple to beef, which appears most memorably as slices of rib roast, but in other ways too. Uncheap. (PR, 5/04) 2100 Van Ness, SF. 673-1888. Steakhouse/American, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Kiss is tiny, industrial, not particularly Anglophonic — and serves some of the best sushi in the city. Warning: the very best stuff (from the specials menu) can be very pricey. (Staff) 1700 Laguna, SF. 474-2866. Japanese, D, $$$, MC/V.
Letitia’s has claimed the old Alta Plaza space and dispensed with the huge cruise mirror. The Mexican standards are pretty good and still pricey, though they don’t seem quite as dear in Pacific Heights as they did in the Castro. (PR, 6/04) 2301 Fillmore, SF. 922-1722. Mexican, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Mezes glows with sunny Greek hospitality, and the plates coming off the grill are terrific, though not huge. Bulk up with a fine Greek salad. (Staff) 2373 Chestnut, SF. 409-7111. Greek, D, $, MC/V.
Plump Jack Café If you had to take your parents to dinner in the Marina, this would be the place. A small but authentic jewel. (Staff) 3127 Fillmore, SF. 563-4755. California, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
*Quince doesn’t much resemble its precursor, the Meetinghouse: the setting is more overtly luxurious, the food a pristine Franco-Cal-Ital variant rather than hearty New American. Still, it’s an appealing place to meet. (PR, 7/04) 1701 Octavia, SF. 775-8500. California, D, $$$, AE/MC/V.
Rigolo combines the best of Pascal Rigo’s boulangeries — including the spectacular breads — with some of the simpler elements (such as roast chicken) of his higher-end places. The result is excellent value in a bustling setting. (PR, 1/05) 3465 California, SF. 876-7777. California/Mediterranean, B/L/D, $, MC/V.
Rose’s Cafe has a flexible, all-day menu that starts with breakfast sandwiches; moves into bruschettas, salads, and pizzas; and finishes with grilled dinner specials such as salmon, chicken, and flat-iron steak. (Staff) 2298 Union, SF. 775-2200. California, B/L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Rosti Getting half a chicken along with roasted potatoes and an assortment of vegetables for $7.95 in the Marina is cause for celebration in itself. (Staff) 2060 Chestnut, SF. 929-9300. Italian, L/D, $, AE/DISC/V.
Saji Japanese Cuisine Sit at the sushi bar and ask the resident sushi makers what’s particularly good that day. As for the hot dishes, seafood yosenabe, served in a clay pot, is a virtual Discovery Channel of finned and scaly beasts, all tasty and fresh. (Staff) 3232 Scott, SF. 931-0563. Japanese, D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.
Sociale serves first-rate Cal-Ital food in bewitching surroundings — a heated courtyard, a beautifully upholstered interior — that will remind you of some hidden square in some city of Mediterranean Europe. (Staff) 3665 Sacramento, SF. 921-3200. Mediterranean, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Sushi Groove is easily as cool as its name. Behind wasabi green velvet curtains, salads can be inconsistent, but the sushi is impeccable, especially the silky salmon and special white tuna nigiri. (Staff) 1916 Hyde, SF. 440-1905. Japanese, D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Takara The menu offers plenty of sushi and sashimi, as well as udon, broiled items, and the occasional curiosity, such as grated yam. (Staff) 22 Peace Plaza, Suite 202 (Japan Center), SF. 921-2000. Japanese, L/D, $, MC/V.
Taste of the Himalayas is primarily Nepalese, but the Indian influences on the food are many, and there are a few Tibetan items. Spicing is vivid, value excellent. (PR, 10/04) 2420 Lombard, SF. 674-9898. Nepalese/Tibetan, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
*YaYa deals in Mesopotamian cuisine, and that means unusual and haunting combinations of sweet, sour, and salty. The halogen-lit setting of blue and gold includes a trompe l’oeil mural of an ancient Babylonian city. (PR, 6/05) 2424 Van Ness, SF. 440-0455. Mesopotamian, D, $$, MC/V.
ZAO Noodle Bar manages the seemingly impossible: the food’s good, cheap, and fresh; the service is friendly; and there’s an inexpensive parking lot half a block away. (Staff) 2406 California, SF. 345-8088. Asian, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
SUNSET
Bursa Kebabs brings a taste of Turkey to West Portal. The elegant pistachio-colored decor suggests a California bistro, but the carefully prepared food is traditional. (PR, 3/04) 60 West Portal (at Vicente), SF. 564-4006. Turkish, L/D, $, MC/V.
Cafe for All Seasons reflects the friendly vibrancy of its West Portal neighborhood. The California comfort food doesn’t set off fireworks, but it’s reliably good and fresh. (Staff) 150 West Portal, SF. 665-0900. California, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Chouchou Patisserie Artisanale and French Bistro is the place to go for pastry, whether you like it as an edible cap on your potpies or as a crust beneath your fruit or chocolate tarts. French standards — charcuterie, onion soup — are executed with verve. (Staff) 400 Dewey, SF. 242-0960. French, L/D, $$, MC/V.
*Dragonfly serves the best contemporary Vietnamese food in town, in a calmer environment and at a fraction of the cost of better-known places. (PR, 8/05) 420 Judah, SF. 661-7755. Vietnamese, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Eldos is a cross between a brew pub and a taquería, with a few standard American items thrown in. Fabulous chicken posole. (Staff) 1326 Ninth Ave, SF. 564-0425. Mexican/brew pub, L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.
Fresca has gone upscale, and its Peruvian menu has been expanded beyond burritos. Still excellent roast chicken, seviche, enchiladas. (Staff) 24 West Portal, SF. 759-8087. Peruvian, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
[TK]Gold Mirror tells a tale of old San Francisco west of Twin Peaks, where the servers are in black tie and the menu is rich in veal, from saltimbocca to piccata and beyond. Baroque decor; large weekend dinner crowds. (PR, 11/05) 800 Taraval, SF. 564-0401. Italian, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Hotei is a marvel of great Japanese fare combined with efficient, accommodating service. Four types of noodles are the foundation around which swirl lively broths. (Staff) 1290 Ninth Ave, SF. 753-6045. Japanese, L/D, ¢, AE/DC/MC/V.
Ichi-ban Kan Cafe serves sushi, sandwiches, burgers, teriyaki, an all-you-can-eat buffet — are you getting the picture? The winning neighborhood tone is reminiscent of Mayberry, RFD. (Staff) 1500 Irving, SF. 566-1696. Japanese/American, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Jimisan brings a stylish and value-conscious sushi option to the Ninth Avenue restaurant row. Good cooked stuff too. (PR, 8/05) 1380 Ninth Ave, SF. 564-8989. Japanese/sushi, L/D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Jitra Thai Cuisine serves up creditable Thai standards in a pink dollhouse setting. (Staff) 2545 Ocean, SF. 585-7251. Thai, L/D, $, MC/V.
Ladda’s Seaview Thai Cuisine gazes upon the mists and surfers of Ocean Beach. The kitchen divides its attentions between Thai and American standards. Free parking in the always near-empty lot. (PR, 5/05) 1225 La Playa, SF. 665-0185. Thai/American, B/L/D, ¢, AE/MC/V.
Marnee Thai A friendly, low-key neighborhood restaurant — now in two neighborhoods — that just happens to serve some of the best Thai food in town. (PR, 1/04) 2225 Irving, SF. 665-9500; 1243 Ninth Ave (at Lincoln), SF. 731-9999. Thai, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Masala means “spice mixture,” and spices aplenty you will find in the South Asian menu. Be sure to order plenty of naan to sop up the sauce with. (Staff) 1220 Ninth Ave, SF. 566-6976. Indian/Pakistani, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Nan King Road Bistro laces its mostly Chinese menu with little touches from around Asia (sake sauces, Korean noodles), and the result is a spectacular saucefest. Spare, cool environment. (Staff) 1360 Ninth Ave, SF. 753-2900. Pan-Asian, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Park Chow could probably thrive on its basic dishes, such as the burger royale with cheese ($6.95), but if you’re willing to spend an extra five bucks or so, the kitchen can really flash you some thigh. (Staff) 1240 Ninth Ave, SF. 665-9912. California, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.
P.J.’s Oyster Bed Of all the US regional cultures, southern Louisiana’s may be the most beloved, and at P.J.’s you can taste why. (Staff) 737 Irving, SF. 566-7775. Seafood, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Pomelo Big portions of Asian- and Italian-inspired noodle dishes. If you need something quick, cheap, and fresh, pop in here. (Staff) 92 Judah, SF. 731-6175. Noodles, L/D, $, cash only.
Sabella’s carries a famous seafood name into the heart of West Portal. Good nonseafood stuff too. (Staff) 53 West Portal, SF. 753-3130. Italian/seafood, $, L/D, MC/V.
Sea Breeze Cafe looks like a dive, but the California cooking is elevated, literally and figuratively. Lots of witty salads, a rum-rich crème brûlée. (Staff) 3940 Judah, SF. 242-6022. California, BR/L/D, $$, MC/V.
Tasty Curry still shows traces of an earlier life as a Korean hibachi restaurant (i.e., venting hoods above most of the tables), but the South Asian food is cheap, fresh, and packs a strong kick. (PR, 1/04) 1375 Ninth Ave, SF. 753-5122. Indian/Pakistani, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Tennessee Grill could as easily be called the Topeka Grill, since its atmosphere is redolent of Middle America. Belly up to the salad bar for huge helpings of the basics to accompany your meat loaf or calf’s liver. (Staff) 1128 Taraval, SF. 664-7834. American, B/L/D, $, MC/V.
Thai Cottage isn’t really a cottage, but it is small in the homey way, and its Thai menu is sharp and vivid in the home-cooking way. Cheap, and the N train stops practically at the front door. (PR, 8/04) 4041 Judah, SF. 566-5311. Thai, L/D, $, MC/V.
*Xiao Loong elevates the neighborhood Chinese restaurant experience to one of fine dining, with immaculate ingredients and skillful preparation in a calm architectural setting. (PR, 8/05) 250 West Portal, SF. 753-5678. Chinese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Yum Yum Fish is basically a fish store: three or four little tables with fish-print tablecloths under glass, fish-chart art along the wall, and fish-price signs all over the place. (Staff) 2181 Irving, SF. 566-6433. Sushi, L/D, ¢.
RICHMOND
Angkor Wat still serves tasty Cambodian food for not much money in a setting of Zenlike calm. (Staff) 4217 Geary, SF. 221-7887. Cambodian, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Assab dishes up unforgettably spicy Eritrean food, family style, in a comfortable space near the University of San Francisco. Honey wine, for those so inclined. (PR, 9/05) 2845 Geary, SF. 441-7083. Eritrean, L/D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.
*Aziza shimmers with Moroccan grace, from the pewter ewer and basin that circulate for the washing of hands to the profusion of preserved Meyer lemons in the splendid cooking. (Staff) 5800 Geary, SF. 752-2222. Moroccan, D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Bamboo Village serves excellent Indonesian food in a comfortably modest setting for not much money. Take-out orders can slow the kitchen down considerably. (Staff) 3015 Geary, SF. 751-8006. Indonesian, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Bella might make you feel as if you’ve ended up inside a piece of tiramisu, but the classic Italian cooking will definitely make you happy. (Staff) 3854 Geary, SF. 221-0305. Italian, L/D, $$, MC/V.
Blue Fin Sushi does indeed have a blue-finned sport fish mounted over the bar and, more interesting, an attached sports bar, Prime Time, where you can enjoy nigiri and cheeseburgers. Lots of imaginative Japanese-style cooked dishes. (PR, 3/05) 1814 Clement, SF. 387-2441. Sushi/American, D, $$, MC/V.
*Chapeau! serves some of the best food in the city — at shockingly reasonable prices. The French cooking reflects as much style and imagination as any California menu. (Staff) 1408 Clement, SF. 750-9787. French, D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Clement Street Bar and Grill The high-backed booths spell romance at this always crowded spot. Grilled fish dishes snap with flavor, and there are always a couple of delicious-sounding vegetarian options. (Staff) 708 Clement, SF. 386-2200. American, L/D, $-$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Clémentine offers comfortable sophistication at a fair price. Free valet parking. (Staff) 126 Clement, SF. 387-0408. French, BR/D, $$, MC/V.
Katia’s, a Russian Tea Room evokes the bourgeois romance of old Russia, and the classic Slavic food is carefully prepared and presented. Silken Crimean port is served in a tiny glass shaped like a Cossack boot. (PR, 12/04) 600 Fifth Ave, SF. 668-9292. Russian, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Kitaro This Japanese restaurant, unlike many others, has a lot of options for vegetarians. (Staff) 5850 Geary, SF. 386-2777. Japanese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Lucky Fortune serves up a wide variety of Chinese-style seafood in a cheerfully blah setting. Prices are astoundingly low, portions large. (Staff) 5715 Geary, SF. 751-2888. Chinese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Mai’s Restaurant On the basis of the hot-and-sour shrimp soup with pineapple alone, Mai’s deserves a line out the door. (Staff) 316 Clement, SF. 221-3046. Vietnamese, L/D, ¢, AE/DC/MC/V.
Mandalay Restaurant still packs them in after 21 years with moderate prices, a handsomely understated decor, and confidently seasoned food of considerable Burmese and Mandarin variety. (PR, 5/05) 4348 California, SF. 386-3896. Burmese, L/D, $, MC/V.
Al-Masri suggests, in food and ambience, the many influences that have swept across the Nile delta: feta cheese and olives from Greece or a quasi-Indian stew of peas and tomatoes, served with basmati rice. (Staff) 4031 Balboa, SF. 876-2300. Egyptian, D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Melisa’s deals in spicy Chinese food, and if that’s what you’re after, you won’t mind the brutally bleak decor. Dishes bearing Melisa’s name are especially tasty. (Staff) 450 Balboa, SF. 387-1680. Chinese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Pachi’s brings sophisticated Peruvian cooking to outer Clement. The menu includes a few Spanish dishes, such as paella, but the food in the main emphasizes those longtime Peruvian staples seafood and the potato, each in a variety of guises and subtly spiced. The setting is handsome, though on the spare side of spare. (PR, 2/05) 1801 Clement, SF. 422-0502. Peruvian, BR/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Pacific Cafe serves simple, reliable seafood in an atmosphere redolent of 1974, when it opened. Lots of dark wood and faintly psychedelic glass in the windows. (Staff) 7000 Geary, SF. 387-7091. Seafood, D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Pera combines elements of Istanbul café and college-town hangout. The Turkish food is vividly flavored, cheap, and served in big portions. Excellent street-gazing possibilities. (PR, 6/05) 349 Clement, SF. 666-3839. Turkish, B/L/D, $, DISC/MC/V.
*Pizzetta 211 practices the art of the pizza in a glowing little storefront space. Thin crusts, unusual combinations, a few side dishes of the highest quality. (PR, 2/04) 211 23rd Ave, SF. 379-9880. Pizza/Italian, L/D, $.
Q rocks, both American-diner-food-wise and noisy-music-wise. Servings of such gratifyingly tasty dishes as barbecued ribs, fish tacos, and rosemary croquettes are huge. (Staff) 225 Clement, SF. 752-2298. American, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.
RoHan Lounge serves a variety of soju cocktails to help wash down all those Asian tapas. Beware the kimchee. Lovely curvaceous banquettes. (Staff) 3809 Geary, SF. 221-5095. Asian, D, $, AE/MC/V.
Singapore Malaysian Restaurant eschews decor for cheap, tasty plates, where you’ll find flavors ranging from Indian to Dutch colonial to Thai. Seafood predominates in curries, soups, grills, and plenty of rice and noodle dishes. (Staff) 836 Clement, SF. 750-9518. Malaysian, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Spices! has an exclamation point for a reason: its Chinese food, mainly Szechuan and Taiwanese, with an oasis of Shanghai-style dishes, is fabulously hot. Big young crowds, pulsing house music, a shocking orange and yellow paint scheme. Go prepared, leave happy. (Staff) 294 Eighth Ave, SF. 752-8884. Szechuan/Chinese, L/D, $, MC/V.
*Straits Cafe has a slightly campy faux-tropical decor, but its Singaporean menu is a kaleidoscope of mingled satisfactions; masterful deployment of unusual ingredients all the way to a dessert of rice pudding in palm sugar syrup. (Staff) 3300 Geary, SF. 668-1783. Singaporean, L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.
Tawan’s Thai Food It’s tiny, it’s cute, the prices are reasonable, and the food is tasty. (Staff) 4403 Geary, SF. 751-5175. Thai, L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.
Thai Time proves that good things come in little packages. The food is tremendous. (Staff) 315 Eighth Ave, SF. 831-3663. Thai, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Tia Margarita is an old-style Mexican restaurant with big servings and big flavor. Go hungry. (Staff) 300 19th Ave, SF. 752-9274. Mexican, D, $, MC/V.
Traktir serves as a kind of town hall for the local Russian community, but the food has a distinct international flavor: dolma, feta-cheese salad, Georgian wine, curry-spiked pieces of cold chicken. (Staff) 4036 Balboa, SF. 386-9800. Russian, D, $, MC/V.
Twilight Cafe and Deli is a bit of an oldster, having opened in 1980, but the Middle Eastern menu is full of delights, from falafel and hummus to foul muddamas, a cumin-scented fava bean stew. A fabulous mural on one wall relieves the standard deli dreariness. (Staff) 2600 McAllister, SF. 386-6115. Middle Eastern, B/L/D, ¢, MC/V.
BAYVIEW/HUNTERS POINT/SOUTH
Cable Car Coffee Shop Atmospherically speaking, you’re looking at your basic downtown South San Francisco old-style joint, one that serves a great Pacific Scramble for $4.95 and the most perfectest hash browns to be tasted. (Staff) 423 Grand, South SF. (650) 952-9533. American, B/BR/L, ¢.
Cliff’s Bar-B-Q and Seafood Some things Cliff’s got going for him: excellent mustard greens, just drenched in flavorfulness, and barbecued you name it. Brisket. Rib tips. Hot links. Pork ribs. Beef ribs. Baby backs. And then there are fried chickens and, by way of health food, fried fishes. (Staff) 2177 Bayshore, SF. 330-0736. Barbecue, L/D, ¢, AE/DC/MC/V.
JoAnn’s Cafe and Pantry has gotten some word-of-mouth recommendations as a dive, but it serves upscale breakfasts with decidedly nondive sides such as low-fat chicken basil sausage, bagels, and homemade muffins and scones. (Staff) 1131 El Camino Real, South SF. (650) 872-2810. American, B/L, $.
Old Clam House really is old — it’s been in the same location since the Civil War — but the seafood preparations are fresh, in an old-fashioned way. Matchless cioppino. Sports types cluster at the bar, under the shadow of a halved, mounted Jaguar E-type. (Staff) 299 Bayshore, SF. 826-4880. Seafood, L/D, $$, MC/V.
Peking Wok is a great Chinese dive in Bayview, right smack on the way to Candlestick. Not counting the 18 special combos for $3.25-$4.50, there are 109 items on the menu. At least 101 of them are under five bucks. (Staff) 4920 Third St, SF. 822-1818. Chinese, L/D, ¢.
Soo Fong features good inexpensive Chinese food. For the heat-seeking diner, its fiery Szechuan specialties will hit the spot. Nice chow fun and other noodle dishes too. (Staff) Bayview Plaza, 3801 Third St, SF. 285-2828. Chinese, L/D, ¢.
Taqueria el Potrillo serves one of the best chicken burritos in town, if not the best. You can get your bird grilled or barbecued or have steak instead or tacos. Excellent salsas and aguas frescas, and warmer weather than practically anywhere else in town. (Staff) 300A Bayshore Blvd, SF. 642-1612. Mexican, B/L/D, ¢, cash only.
Young’s Cafe A restaurant full of cheap, big, decent Chinese food, Young’s serves up 15 rice dishes, most of them for $2.95, and 64 other standard Chinese things. Only four of those are more than five bucks. (Staff) 732 22nd St, SF. 285-6046. Chinese, L/D, ¢.
BERKELEY/EMERYVILLE/NORTH
Ajanta offers a variety of deftly seasoned regional dishes from the Asian subcontinent. (Staff) 1888 Solano, Berk. (510) 526-4373. Indian, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
La Bayou serves up an astounding array of authentic New Orleans staples, including jambalaya, (greaseless!) fried catfish, and homemade pralines. (Staff) 3278 Adeline, Berk. (510) 594-9302. Cajun/Creole, L/D, ¢-$, MC/V.
Breads of India and Gourmet Curries The menu changes every day, so nothing is refrigerated overnight, and the curries benefit from obvious loving care. (Staff) 2448 Sacramento, Berk. (510) 848-7684. Indian, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Café de la Paz Specialties include African-Brazilian “xim xim” curries, Venezuelan corn pancakes, and heavenly blackened seacakes served with orange-onion yogurt. (Staff) 1600 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-0662. Latin American, BR/L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Cafe Rouge All the red meat here comes from highly regarded Niman Ranch, and all charcuterie are made in-house. (Staff) 1782 Fourth St, Berk. (510) 525-1440. American, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
César You’ll be tempted to nibble for hours from Chez Panisse-related César’s Spanish-inspired tapas — unless you can’t get past the addictive sage-and-rosemary-flecked fried potatoes. (Staff) 1515 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 883-0222. Spanish, D, $, DISC/MC/V.
Cha-Ya Everything chef-proprietor Atsushi Katsumata makes, from the pot stickers and nigiri sushi to the steaming bowls of udon, hews to strict vegan standards. (Staff) 1686 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 981-1213. Japanese/Vegetarian, D, $, MC/V.
Chez Panisse may be an old-timer, but a devotion to the best seasonal ingredients (often organic), grilled on its wood-fired open hearth, means the restaurant’s distinctive Franco-Cal-Ital signature remains unmistakable and unmatched. (Staff) 1517 Shattuck, Berk. Café, (510) 548-5049, L/D, $$; restaurant, (510) 548-5525, D, $$$. California, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Christopher’s Nothing Fancy Café Chicken, beef, veggie, and prawn fajitas are the sizzling specialties. (Staff) 1019 San Pablo, Albany. (510) 526-1185. Mexican, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Clay Pot Seafood House specialties include steaming clay pots full of fascinating broths and such ingredients as meatballs, Chinese sausage, and whole fish. (Staff) 809 San Pablo, Albany. (510) 559-8976. Chinese, L/D, $, DISC/MC/V.
Holy Land transforms falafel, hummus, tahini, tabbouleh, and other Middle Eastern standards into gourmet-quality yet home-style delights. (Staff) 2965 College, Berk. (510) 665-1672. Middle Eastern/Kosher, L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.
Lalime’s is a long-standing institution in East Bay haute cuisine culture, but there’s nothing institutional about the attentive service or the creative and gorgeous dishes. (Staff) 1329 Gilman, Berk. (510) 527-9838. French/Mediterranean, D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.
Locanda Olmo Fine versions of risotto, gnocchi, and soft polenta pie, terrific thin-crust pizzas, and good traditional desserts have made Locanda Olmo a reliable anchor in the burgeoning Elmwood neighborhood. (Staff) 2985 College, Berk. (510) 848-5544. Italian, D, $, MC/V.
La Note Unique egg dishes and pancakes, big luncheon salads, fancy baguette sandwiches, and hearty weekend dinners. (Staff) 2337 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-1535. Country French, B/BR/L/D, $$, AE/MC/V. Restroom not wheelchair accessible.
Rick and Ann’s serves some of the best shoestring fries on earth, along with excellent (if nouvelle) renditions of such Americana as meat loaf and chicken potpie baked under a cheddar cheese biscuit. (Staff) 2922 Domingo, Berk. (510) 649-8538. American, BR/L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Rivoli is a near-perfect balance of the neighborhood eatery and the eclectic California cuisine destination restaurant. (Staff) 1539 Solano, Berk. (510) 526-2542. California, D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.
Sam’s Log Cabin Daily special egg scrambles, great griddle cakes and corn cakes, and exceptional scones and muffins top the morning fare, which also includes gourmet sausage and bacon, hot and cold cereals, and organic coffee. (Staff) 945 San Pablo Ave, Berk. (510) 558-0494. American, B/L, ¢, cash only.
Vik’s Chaat Corner For less than the price of a scone and a latte, you can try lentil dumplings, curries, or a variety of flat or puffed crisp puris with various vegetarian fillings. (Staff) 726 Allston Way, Berk. (510) 644-4412. Indian, L/D, ¢, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Your Place Venture away from typical Thai menu items toward neau yang num, laab gai, blackboard specials, and at lunch, the “boat noodles” soups. (Staff) 1267-71 University, Berk. (510) 548-9781. Thai, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Zachary’s Chicago Pizza The stuffed pizza is simply out of this world. The fact that both Zachary’s outlets are always busy speaks for itself. (Staff) 1853 Solano, Berk. (510) 525-5950; 5801 College (at Oak Grove), Berk. (510) 655-6385. Pizza, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.
OAKLAND/ALAMEDA
Arizmendi is a worker-owned bakery where bread rolls out in seemingly infinite varieties — potato, Asiago, sesame-sunflower. (Staff) 3265 Lakeshore, Oakl. (510) 268-8849. Bakery, B/L/D, ¢. Not wheelchair accessible.
Asena Restaurant Good dishes at Asena, a charming Med-Cal cuisine spot, include individual pizzas and grilled marinated lamb sirloin in a burgundy-rosemary demi-glace. (Staff) 2508 Santa Clara, Alameda. (510) 521-4100. California/Mediterranean, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Le Cheval Shrimp rolls and peanut sauce, the fried Dungeness crab, the marinated “orange flavor” beef, the buttery lemongrass prawns — it’s all fabulous. (Staff) 1007 Clay, Oakl. (510) 763-8495. Vietnamese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Connie’s Cantina fashions unique variations on standard Mexican fare — enchiladas, tamales, fajitas, rellenos. (Staff) 3340 Grand, Oakl. (510) 839-4986. Mexican, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Garibaldi’s on College focuses on Mediterranean-style seafood. (Staff) 5356 College, Oakl. (510) 595-4000. Mediterranean, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.
Gerardo’s Mexican Restaurant offers all the expected taquería fare. But a main reason to visit is to pick up a dozen of Maria’s wonderfully down-home chicken or pork tamales. (Staff) 3811 MacArthur, Oakl. (510) 531-5255. Mexican, B/L/D, ¢-$.
Mama’s Royal Cafe Breakfast is the draw here — even just-coffee-for-me types might succumb when confronted with waffles, French toast, pancakes, tofu scrambles, huevos rancheros, and 20 different omelets. (Staff) 4012 Broadway, Oakl. (510) 547-7600. American, B/L, ¢.
La Mexicana has a 40-year tradition of stuffing its customers with delicious, simply prepared staples (enchiladas, tacos, tamales, chile rellenos, menudo) and specials (carnitas, chicken mole), all served in generous portions at moderate prices. (Staff) 3930 E 14th St, Oakl. (510) 533-8818. Mexican, L/D, ¢, MC/V.
Nan Yang offers too many great dishes — ginger salad, spicy fried potato cakes, coconut chicken noodle soup, garlic noodles, succulent lamb curry that melts in your mouth — to experience in one visit. (Staff) 6048 College, Oakl. (510) 655-3298. Burmese, L/D, $, MC/V.
Ninna You’ll find steaks, duck breast, and pork loin on the same menu as chicken in yellow curry, as well as such intriguing and successful fusions as penne pasta “pad Thai” style and veal “Ithaila.” (Staff) 4066 Piedmont, Oakl. (510) 601-6441. Thai fusion, L/D, $-$$, MC/V.
Il Porcellino When faced with a menu like Il Porcellino’s, any concern for health benefits should take a backseat to hedonism. (Staff) 6111 LaSalle, Oakl. (510) 339-2149. Italian, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.
Restaurante Doña Tomás offers upscale versions of enchiladas and carnitas, as well as tantalizing chicken-lime-cilantro soup and bountiful pozole. (Staff) 5004 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 450-0522. Mexican, BR/D, $, AE/MC/V.
Rockridge Café offers bountiful breakfasts, a savory meat-loaf special, and hearty cassoulet. But the burgers, wide-cut fries, and straw-clogging milkshakes remain the cornerstones of the menu. (Staff) 5492 College, Oakl. (510) 653-1567. American, B/L/D, $, MC/V.
Taquería Ramiro and Sons typically has customers lined up to the door for (mostly take-out) burritos and tacos and quesadillas. The menu nods to contemporary tastes with black beans and spinach or tomato tortilla options. (Staff) 2321 Alameda, Alameda. (510) 523-5071. Mexican, L/D, ¢, cash only.
Tijuana serves big round bowls and plates teeming with shrimp, crab, octopus, and fish in cocktails, salads, and soups. The place is usually packed and loud. (Staff) 1308 International Blvd, Oakl. (510) 532-5575. Mexican, L/D, $, MC/V. Not wheelchair accessible.
Tropix Dig into a heap of spicy grilled jerk chicken or wallow in the wonders of the shrimp pawpaw: curried vegetables and fat shrimp piled up over meltingly ripe papaya. (Staff) 3814 Piedmont, Oakl. (510) 653-2444. Caribbean, L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V. Patio not wheelchair accessible. SFBG

Francoise Hardy, I Love You

-
0

Have you heard Francoise Hardy’s If You Listen? First released in 1972, this collection of songs sounds very 2006 — proof positive that Devendra Banhart could uncork some wild worship at Ms. Hardy’s feet just like he does at Vashti Bunyan’s. Last night and this morning, I listened to her takes on compositions by Buffy St. Marie (an exquisite “Until It’s Time for You to Go”) and Randy Newman (“I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today”) and imagined her performing a concert in San Francisco. But what local venue can do her justice?

francoise.jpg

This isn’t heralded as one of Hardy’s best albums, perhaps because she largely sings in English, and perhaps because it comes near the end of her ye-ye-era popularity. (Today, when she isn’t guesting with Benjamin Biolay, she’s still a handsome solo artist: all young dudes should check her website to be turned on — and to learn how to wear a suit.) But If You Listen is dating so well it’s verging on timeless. Pristine, cool, like the Nico who covered “I’ll Keep it With Mine,” yet with a little lightness of phrasing and a lot more pitch-perfect ability, Hardy lords over the impeccable instrumentation. Her versions of Beverley Martin’s “Ocean” and “Can’t Get the One I Want”? Perfection.

A flickering light

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com
Acclaim is often decreed as much by fashion as by accomplishment. While Frank Borzage spent four decades as a well-paid Hollywood director and was honored with two Oscars, his talent wasn’t — and still isn’t — fashionable. In his hundred or so features, he routinely elevated or rescued contrived material. Typed as a director of romances and melodramas, he made myriad movies that were phony in concept — but never in their treatment.
Indeed, purity was often his subject, transcendence a running theme. What sometimes looked like “mush stuff” to critics now seems an oft-extraordinary intensity of unforced emotion. “Frank Borzage’s Philosophy of Desire,” a retrospective starting at the PFA this week, just scratches the surface of a very deep filmography. Its 12 titles can match up against any dozen by John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, George Cukor, and Howard Hawks.
Making his unlikely way into showbiz from a working-class Catholic immigrant family in Salt Lake City, the strapping, athletic Borzage entered movies as a popular mid-1910s actor. Disgusted by the poor product of a fledgling company he signed on with, he offered to direct himself, and early two-reel westerns distinguished him as an innovator with sophisticated visual and psychological instincts.
He abruptly jumped to the A-list when chosen to direct the first film version of Fannie Hurst’s Humoresque. This tale of a concert violinist rising from New York City’s Jewish ghetto was detested as “too realistic” by its own producer (Paramount’s Adolph Zukor) but became a surprise smash — winning praise from Russia’s Sergei Eisenstein and Europe’s surrealists. As Herve Dumont’s fine Frank Borzage: The Life and Films of a Hollywood Romantic puts it, Borzage’s usual narrative centered on “the young couple facing adversity.” Using poetical imagery and few words (Borzage admitted to being a de facto silent film director well into the sound era), his genius lay in mixing beauty and pain, happiness and sorrow in profoundly telling sequences he often invented himself.
These near-mystic surges of human yearning found quintessential expression in films he made for Fox during an eight-year stint starting in 1925. That year brought his first masterpiece, Lazybones, which cast cowboy star Buck Jones against type as a country layabout who ends up raising a local girl’s abandoned child. There’s one scene when the tot is crying because she’s teased and shunned as a “bastard,” and he comforts her with a self-deprecating lie. The moment is classic Borzage — character stoicism and directorial restraint at a point of crushing sadness — and for anyone who likes an honest cry at the movies, it is almost unbearably good.
Lazybones was not a hit, but the later films (most famously, Seventh Heaven and Street Angel) that Borzage made with newcomers Janet Gaynor (herself the subject of a current PFA program) and Charles Farrell were huge. Later the director found another elfin, fragile, yet morally fibrous favorite femme in Margaret Sullavan, heroine in a trilogy that subtly charted the growing fascism in Germany: 1934’s Little Man, What Now?, 1938’s Three Comrades, and 1940’s The Mortal Storm. These ambitious movies blended comedy, romance, thriller, and drama to unpredictable effect. But no film of the era exemplified Borzage’s penchant for unclassifiable projects more than 1937’s History Is Made at Night, an exquisite-corpse narrative lent total emotional truth by his handling of Jean Arthur’s flight from a demented rich husband into the arms of headwaiter Charles Boyer.
Demands for more focused escapism and propaganda during WWII paired Borzage with inappropriate projects, and the postwar cynicism and penchant for spectacle made him seem even less relevant. What snowball’s chance in hell is there that 1959’s The Big Fisherman (which former Max Ophüls, Josef von Sternberg, and Hitchcock cinematographer Lee Garmes called “the finest thing I ever did — a visual masterpiece”) might ever get restored? Holding one’s breath is ill-advised.
Borzage died of cancer at 68 in 1962. Back then, his greatest films seemed antique. Now we know better. The summer of 2006 has brought the latest universal insights by M. Night Shyamalan and Kevin Smith. Guess what — the least worthy work by Borzage never stunk up the joint like Lady in the Water or Clerks II, nor auto-serviced such undeserved directorial narcissism. SFBG
“FRANK BORZAGE’S
PHILOSOPHY OF DESIRE”
Through Aug. 23
PFA Theater
2575 Bancroft, Berk.
$4–$8
(415) 642-0808
www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

{Empty title}

-
0

JULY 12-18
Mercury goes direct on the 29th. Somebody have a party!
ARIES
March 21-April 19
Aries, it’s a lucky but not lazy week. Get off your happy ass and follow our instructions: Figure out what it is you really love. Next, introduce yourself or open up to people and other resources that will support you in your pursuit of this great love.
TAURUS
April 20-May 20
Don’t forget to be available to your own damn self, Taurus. You risk forgetting to be available to those people around you whom you adore, which means you really risk ignoring your own needs. Stay checked in with everyone.
GEMINI
May 21-June 21
Gemini, you have a serious responsibility: you. Be clear about your boundaries, follow through with enforcing them, cop to your feelings and requirements. No amount of hemming, hawing, or head-tripping will relieve you of these duties.
CANCER
June 22-July 22
Batten down the hatches, Cancer — whatever that means. We think it’s an old-timey way of saying “secure your foundations.” ’Cause once you get that taken care of, you get to do the fun stuff, like putting yourself out there and taking excellent risks.
LEO
July 23-Aug. 22
Leo, are you out in the social swirl? Put yourself smack in the middle of your local mix. It’s a this-is-the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-your-life day, every day this week. The more open you are to your life being different, the more wonderfully different it will become.
VIRGO
Aug. 23-Sept. 22
Anxieties are just anxieties, Virgo. Try to get a grip. We know you hard workers love a challenge, and the universe has dealt you a real one — to dare yourself to be proactive and courageous as you deal with whatever is making you so nervous.
LIBRA
Sept. 23-Oct. 22
Libra, do you want success and power or what? If that’s your jam, be prepared to make some serious sacrifices. And while you’re making some serious sacrifices to propel yourself ahead, make sure you’re wicked grounded so you don’t spaz out.
SCORPIO
Oct. 23-Nov. 21
Go ahead, Scorpio, make some clear choices. What are you waiting for? Your life couldn’t get any more tranquil. Things are nice right now, and it’s prime time for reclining and chillaxing and working shit out from a place of calm.
SAGITTARIUS
Nov. 22-Dec. 21
Sag, if you can temper your baser drives with your higher aspirations, it’ll be an awesome week for you. There is serious love in your sphere, and you can ride that wave smack into some powerful healing and creativity or you can wipe out into some compulsive hooking up and über-boozing. Your choice.
CAPRICORN
Dec. 22-Jan. 19
Capricorn, are you feeling yourself? If your answer is no — and knowing you stoic goats, it is — we suggest taking a moment to really focus on feeling and cultivating some presence in the world. Don’t take on anything new: Luxuriate on your laurels.
AQUARIUS
Jan. 20-Feb. 18
Nothing is clear, Aquarius. Can you roll with that? You’re going to have to, ’cause you people are not supposed to know the answers this week. Difficult for such cosmic know-it-alls, we know. Be wary of blind faith in the face of such cloudiness, and be patient. All will be revealed.
PISCES
Feb. 19-March 20
Pisces, your horoscope could not be easier. Simply emotionally invest yourself in the relationships that matter the most to you. There’s a bunch of happiness at your disposal this week, but you’re going to have to swim after it. SFBG

Standard deviation

-
0

› andrea@altsexcolumn.com
Dear Andrea:
I’m a young, mostly heterosexual woman, and I don’t get much out of ordinary sex. I rely on (safe) sex with one-off partners, which just doesn’t satisfy me.
I’m increasingly interested in S-M — tattoos, piercings, bondage, and I like to be dominated. I’ve also been having fantasies about being cut, which I find a bit worrying. Maybe not being able to fulfill the other, milder desires is causing me to think up more twisted things? Obviously it’s difficult to bring this up with strangers, but I’m not interested in having a long-term partner now. I also don’t want to buy into a whole subculture when all I want is the occasional bit of harmless deviance. What next? Do I even have a problem?
Love,
Deviant Dallier
Dear DD:
Ha! Good question. I wish more people would ask me if they even have a problem, so I could just say, “Not really, no,” and go back to my book. And you don’t, particularly. You seem to know exactly what you want. The only question is how to get it.
The S-M scene does not care if you “buy into it.” You will not hurt its feelings by failing to identify with it. Think of it not as a club but as a marketplace: Is there something you want? What are you willing to pay for it? Is it really so hard to attend a meeting here and there or some events at the local Sexe Shoppe? You don’t have to buy a lot of shiny, unflattering clothing or pierce your face or anything, just go and check out the scene. Meet some nice deviants, get invited to some parties. I’m not a joiner either but sometimes you just have to shut up and do it, whatever it is. It’s competitive out there, and if you want to be properly abused you’re going to have to assert yourself.
As for the cutting, it’s less scary in the doing than in the contemputf8g. Most people into blood play are obsessively careful, occasionally too careful, if you know what I mean, and few will come near you with anything sharpish without undertaking exhaustive negotiation first. You do not want to get into this with total strangers, though, or at least I’d rather you didn’t. There’s a whole realm of “play partners” out there, perverty people who get together at parties or less public arenas to exchange some affectionate floggings or piercings and then go on their way again, no strings attached, or at least not for long. I’m sure someone would want to do the same with you, but if you want it you’ll have to, oh, I dunno, leave the house?
Love,
Andrea
Dear Andrea:
My girlfriend and I have explored a number of fantasies, and last week she let me in on one that worries me: She wants us to act out a rape fantasy. She says she wants to be dominated and forced to submit, especially by someone who minutes ago was holding doors open for her.
I’m the first to admit that I’m interested and I think it could be fun if done right. I like the idea of the “woman in a frilly Southern dress gets ravished by muscular lover” stuff of romance novels. Unfortunately, her fantasy is closer to “girl gets dragged off the sidewalk and pounded hard while being called a slut.” I really worry about forcing myself on a woman while she screams “No, don’t!” — no matter that she asked me to do it.
Sorry to kill your immediate reaction, but yes, we have talked openly about it. I’ve told her my concerns, and she understands. So what do we do here? Should we even be considering it? Have we accidentally stumbled into one of those relationship-killing zones where it’s best for a couple to just forget the idea and move on?
Love,
Hesitant
Dear Hes:
I dunno. There are interracial couples who act out slave dramas without psychological harm. There are incest survivors who reenact their childhood traumas in “daddy’s girl” scenarios and the like and end up the stronger and saner for it. If they can play with this combustible material without getting burned, I don’t see why you two can’t. It’s worth noting, though, that the bottom/submissive/“victim” in a scene is not the only one who can get hurt. Not only can tops develop “flogger’s shoulder” or other repetitive strain injuries, they are just as vulnerable to psychological harm as the bottom, but without the built-in safety valve: Bottoms can cry and regress and call a safe word if things get too intense. So can you, but you’ll have to break role to do it. If you try this and it’s too much for either one of you, stop. (You’ll need a safe word other than “stop!” or “no!” or this will never work.) It’ll be fine. It’s not like you’ll accidentally actually rape her or anything. It’s a game, and games end when you’re done playing.
Love,
Andrea

Saving local industry

-
0

EDITORIAL It’s almost an axiom in San Francisco planning policy: High-end housing drives out industry. That’s only logical: When people buy million-dollar condos, they don’t expect to get woken up in the middle of the night by delivery trucks or deal with the smell of diesel fuel or look out their windows at barrels of chemicals. When the dot-com boom turned parts of South of Market into a housing mecca for the newly rich and hip, the problem became serious: Businesses (including some nightclubs) that had been around for years and were operating entirely within the law, conducting operations that were well within the existing zoning, found themselves under attack from an influx of residents who considered many of the traditional uses of the area to be nuisances.
As high-end housing creeps farther and farther into San Francisco’s industrial areas and the Planning Department continues to push for expensive housing in the southeast neighborhoods, the potential for even more clashes — which tend to end with an industrial business being forced either to leave or to spend a fortune revamping its operations — just grows.
The simple answer, of course, is to stop building pricey condos in industrial areas. But it’s unlikely that anyone at City Hall is going to put a total halt to housing construction in or near industrial areas, so at the very least there ought to be some protection for existing businesses. Sup. Sophie Maxwell has introduced legislation that would bar newcomers to an area from taking legal action to define existing legal industrial activities as public or private nuisances. That means people who move within 150 feet of a business that’s been around for two or more years and conforms to the local zoning laws would simply have to deal with the regular impacts of living next to industry. The law would also require that anyone selling a housing unit adjacent to an industrial area inform the buyers in clear language that there might be noise, odor, or visual issues. If that brings down the price of condos in the southeast, so much the better.
It’s a simple proposal that makes perfect sense. The supervisors ought to approve it. SFBG

What booze ban?

-
0

› amanda@sfbg.com
Outside of North Beach, the party is still on. That’s good news for San Francisco festivalgoers, but it leaves one outstanding question: What exactly is current city policy on promoting partying in public spaces?
Once again, the forum was the Recreation and Park Commission’s monthly meeting, this one July 19. It wasn’t exactly a reprise of the perplexing mess surrounding the North Beach festivals (see “The Death of Fun,” 5/23/06), but it did involve the same question of whether to allow drinking in city parks.
The commission approved a request from Seven Star to produce a two-day World Beat Music Concert in Sharon Meadow on May 19 and 20 next year. The application included codas for a modified sound policy and permission to sell beer and wine, which was granted without so much as a clarifying question, a scrutiny of beer garden site plans, testimony from event planners, or a peep of public comment.
This permit is practically identical to the permits submitted by the North Beach Festival and North Beach Jazz Festival for use of Washington Square Park, which incited no end of grief among event planners, neighborhood activists, local businesses, musicians, fans, and fun lovers throughout the city. The one apparent difference is that it’s not in Washington Square Park, whose use as a festival site has raised concerns among North Beach residents.
“That’s why it sailed right through,” said Dennis Kern, director of operations for the Recreation and Park Department. There are 56 greenways listed in Section 4.10 of the Park Code that prohibit consumption of alcohol. Introduced back in 1981, the code has been amended four times over the years to include additional parks. Washington Square joined the list in 2000, but in the case of the festivals, the code has historically been waived without fanfare.
This year, however, Kern broke with tradition by recommending that beer and wine not be sold in the park during the North Beach Festival and North Beach Jazz Fest. The festivals ultimately appealed, and a compromise was reached allowing alcohol sales outside the park.
When questioned by the Guardian as to whether future recommendations would follow suit, Kern said, “Yeah, probably. Each one is a separate case, but we’ll continue to follow the Park Code. The commission can always grant their exceptions.” SFBG

1...287288289...294Page 288 of 294

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org