Restaurants

Concierges on the cheap

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› news@sfbg.com

The concierge desk in the lobby of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel was doing a brisk business on a recent Sunday afternoon. Located a few strides north of Union Square, the Drake is best known for its colorful doormen, who work the curb out front in cartoonishly red costumes. But on this day the doormen seemed to be just killing time, while the concierge, a tall blond named Jill Schultze, was dealing with the long line inside.

"How can I help you?" Schultze asked the elderly couple at the front of the queue. They told her they were interested in taking a bus sightseeing tour. She looked pleased, recommended a specific tour of the Napa wine country, then picked up her phone to make the reservation.

"That was easy," the wife said once the transaction was complete.

For the next half hour, Schultze — whom I watched from a nearby chair without her knowing that I was a journalist — set up one bus tour after the next. In fact, that’s all she seemed to do — or, at least, all she did well. When a party asked for a recommendation for Indian food, she suggested the nearby Naan-N-Curry on Eddy Street, a restaurant that (apparently unknown to her) closed down last year.

One might expect better of a concierge at a place like the Drake, which boasts a AAA three-diamond rating. But the Drake is one of many hotels in San Francisco that have decided professional, in-house concierges are too expansive to bankroll. Instead, the hotels are starting to lease their concierge desks to outside companies, often charging $1,000 a month for a spot in their lobbies. The outside companies, most of which are established vendors in the tourism world, happily incur the cost — and the responsibility of the desk — in exchange for exclusive access to the hotels’ clientele.

Tower Tours, the bus sightseeing company affiliated with the Drake, is the largest player in the growing outsourced concierge business. The company has created a sister enterprise called Tour Links, which runs the concierge desks at five San Francisco hotels: the Drake, the Argonaut, the Best Western Tuscan Inn, the Hyatt Fisherman’s Wharf, and the Hotel Whitcomb. Tour Links concierges like Schultze can range from longtime professionals to summer interns. They’re rotated from one hotel to the next, depending on how well a particular hotel likes them and where the holes in the Tour Links rotation might be. According to one former employee, Tour Links concierges are required to book Tower Tours bus sightseeing trips. The employee told the Guardian the concierges are required to book a minimum number of tours per month, although higher-ups within Tour Links deny there are quotas.

"Our tour desk do provide information about Tower Tours," Hagen Choi, the president of Tour Links and Tower Tours, conceded, speaking in choppy English. "But our concierge also provide high-level service. As long as guests get good service, it doesn’t matter who operates the desk."

Laura Meith, the assistant general manager at the Tuscan Inn, had high praise for the service Tour Links provides. She said her concierges are well-informed, loyal, and outgoing. But Meith also admitted that she worked for Tower Tours as a concierge in 2004 (before the bus sightseeing company formalized Tour Links). She said she was thrown into the fray with little training — "I quickly discovered Zagat and Google and really just utilized those resources" — and said she was denied tips and commissions.

"Basically, concierges can make commissions on anything they sell," Meith said. "At an outsourced concierge desk, the concierges don’t make the money, the company does. The incentive is to drive the sales." She added, "From the guests’ perspective, they don’t know, nor do they care."

The Holiday Inn at Fisherman’s Wharf and the Radisson Wharf both currently lease their desks to Airport Express, the mom-and-pop shuttle company that competes with Lorrie’s Airport Service. Like Tower Tours, Airport Express has created a sister enterprise, Concierge of America, to handle that responsibility. Gil Sherabi, Concierge of America’s head concierge, told us his company allows its concierges to keep their tips and doesn’t mandate any sales quota. They do, however, exclusively book Airport Express tours; it wouldn’t make financial sense if they didn’t.

"We only care about serving the customers," Sherabi said. "We don’t have any quotas on anything. As long as the hotel is happy, we’re happy too."

The Hyatt Regency has handed over its concierge desk to Presentation Services, the company that manages the hotel’s event technologies, such as stage sets, projectors, and audio-video. Presentation Services runs the desk in exchange for the business the hotel provides it. The four-star Westin Market Street leased its concierge desk to Tour Links until last week. According to several inside sources, SuperShuttle, Lorrie’s, and Airport Express are in a bidding war to fill the vacancy.

And then there’s Shell Vacations, the nationwide time-share company that owns the Donatello Hotel, the Inn at the Opera, and the Suites at Fisherman’s Wharf. Concierges at each of these locations are required to cajole guests into taking time-share tours for Shell Vacations. Shell Vacations also runs the concierge desk at the Sheraton Wharf, where its concierges pull the same stunt.

"Our concierges do have quotas they have to meet," Yvonne Merzenich, the assistant general manager at the Donatello, said. The sales center "has negotiated packages with local restaurants, so that if guests want a nice meal, we’ll offer them $100 off that meal if they go to one of our time-share presentations."

Professional, in-house concierges are understandably concerned about the long-term viability of their jobs and the impact of outsourcing on their reputations. I met with one member of Les Clefs d’Or, the prestigious concierge association, who called this new wave of outsourced concierges "un-American and absurd." Another told us that hotel managers need to get their priorities straight.

"It’s a difficult situation because the concierges do not generate revenue," she said. (All the concierges quoted in this story requested to remain anonymous, as they’re prohibited from speaking to the media without the consent of their hotels.) "But the concierges provide the services that the guests come back for. You can’t put a dollar amount on all that we provide."

Whether guests feel that way is a different matter. I caught up with Sandra Curtis, a tourist from New Castle, Australia, who was staying at the Drake recently. When I told her that the concierge who had just helped arrange her bus tour worked for a bus tour company, Curtis was unfazed.

"The concierge was very helpful," Curtis said. "And that’s the way it’s happening now, isn’t it? We’re from Australia, and everything’s outsourced there too."

Susan McDonough, a fellow Drake guest from Cairo, Egypt, was less enthusiastic.

"I question [whether] if I ask the concierge anything else other than about bus tours, will she work just as hard?" McDonough said. "It’s a way for the hotel to cut corners. I don’t like it."

Last year the Wall Street Journal was the first mainstream media outlet to identify the outsourced concierge phenomenon. In a story headlined "The Concierge’s Secret Agenda," the Journal revealed that many of America’s top hotel chains are leasing their concierge desks to third-party employers. The chains include Hyatt, Marriott, Starwood, and Kimpton. Online travel giant Expedia.com had already acquired control of 38 concierge desks when the article hit the streets. Ticket vendor Vegas.com had obtained control of six desks, with plans to open up shop in several dozen more hotels in 2007. As many as 15 hotels in Manhattan had already caved in, and there were more in places like Chicago, Orlando, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.

Unmentioned in the Journal‘s exposé was just how unruly the outsourced concierge game is in San Francisco. The national trend in the hotel industry is toward large-scale outsourced concierge providers, companies like Travelocity, Expedia.com, and Vegas.com. It’s the providers who are expanding their services and courting new hotels. But in San Francisco, midtier hotels are the ones driving the murky business. Many have leased their concierge desks multiple times, unsatisfied with the service they were receiving but unwilling to pay for better.

The Westin Market Street has switched four times, transitioning from in-house concierges to Gray Line Bus Tours, back to in-house, then to Tour Links. Last week the hotel fired Tour Links and is looking for another company to take its place. The Drake has switched outside providers four times as well. In just the past few years, it has fired Tour Links, hired Lorrie’s Airport Service, fired it, and rehired Tour Links.

Ed Gunderson, the Drake’s general manager, said his hotel outsources its desk because concierges are "pretty cost prohibitive" and "if you can find a really good [outside] company and can keep some autonomy over the concierges they bring in, it’s the best of both worlds." When asked if fluctuating from one provider to another is really the best of both worlds, especially for the guests, he replied, "Tour Links is providing a service we’re very happy with."

Adding to the turmoil is Choi. Most professional concierges we spoke to don’t like Choi. "He’s terrible and very litigious" was how one Les Clefs d’Or concierge described the Tour Links and Tower Tours president. "He’s scared the shit out of me." Many concierges associate the outsourcing phenomenon that’s costing them their jobs with Choi and Tour Links more so than with the hotels.

The Northern California Concierge Association has urged its members to strike back by enacting an embargo on Tower Tours bus trips. (There are three primary bus tour providers in San Francisco — Tower Tours, Gray Line, and Super Sightseeing — and each offers comparable sightseeing tours around the city, to the Napa wine country, and to Muir Woods.) The NCCA also won’t let Tour Links concierges join its ranks. "He can drink my blood, and I can drink his," one NCCA member said of Choi. "I think that’s a mutual feeling there."

Earlier this summer, I headed to Tour Links headquarters for a chat with the controversial Choi. I wanted to gain some general insights into the outsourced concierge phenomenon and some deeper ones into the operations of the city’s largest provider. No surprise: Tour Links and Tower Tours share the same headquarters, an impressive office on Beach Street with an unobstructed view of the Hyde Street Pier. I found Choi holed up inside, in a small, cluttered workplace. His desk was strewn with papers, and his walls were festooned with pictures of his daughter (a former Tour Links concierge) and a framed copy of the Wall Street Journal "The Concierge’s Secret Agenda" report. Choi had even highlighted his company’s name in the article.

To my surprise, I liked Choi immediately. He was funny and personable, and he spoke about his company with disarming candor. He told me that in 2003, Expedia.com came to town and started cutting deals with hotels behind the scenes. Once contracts had been finalized, he said, it approached tourism vendors looking for hands to run its newly acquired desks. With more than 20 years of hotel experience — among other things, he used to sell used furniture from hotels undergoing renovation — Choi recognized concierge outsourcing as the newest trend and jumped on the bandwagon.

"The industry is evolving all the time," he told us. "We have to go along with it."

Choi said Expedia.com is still the puppet master at most of the hotels where Tour Links operates. (Expedia.com officials didn’t return numerous calls requesting an interview.) Choi also confided that it’s financially tough to get by in the outsourced concierge business, what with having to pay a hotel for a service it should be paying the lessee to provide. He added that most outside concierge services in the city don’t have the financial resources to expand and that he didn’t know if Tour Links would still be around in a few years.

"We’ll see," he said, his eyes twinkling and blinking in rapid succession. "But if not me, it’ll be somebody else."<\!s>*

Sudachi

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› paulr@sfbg.com

Trends fade, except when they don’t — and then you have hip. Sushi is hip food; its appeal to the cognoscenti is perennial. Tapas (a.k.a. small plates, little plates, or shareable plates) have been a trend for quite a number of years now and have assumed all sorts of ethnic guises while their claim to permanence has strengthened. At Sudachi, a new restaurant on Sutter Street at the edge of a still-sketchy run of Polk Street, the tapas appear in Asian guise: Eurasian fusion on a small scale. "Sudachi" turns out to be the name of a citrus fruit from the Far East; so, interestingly, is "yuzu" — which, capitalized, becomes the name of a Japanese-fusion restaurant in Cow Hollow. Do we bear witness to the beginnings of a trend?

Sudachi and Yuzu are similar in many ways, from food to interior design (lots of wood and splashes of green in each), but they are unlike in at least one important sense: their relation to their environs. Yuzu is a temple of young, well-to-do heterosexuals in a precinct of young, well-to-do heterosexuals. It is part of a euphonious whole. Sudachi, by contrast, is next door to a Yemeni mosque and just steps away from Polk Street, where the boy trade is diminished but not completely dried up. If its neighborhood is a neighborhood in transition, then signs are mixed as to what direction it might take.

But there’s always a place at the table for graciousness, and Sudachi is rich in modern graces, beginning with the host, who greets you with a youthful smile when you step from the street into the vestibule. The fluttering curtains part, and you find yourself being led into the front dining room, rather airy and loftlike and connected — via a length of burnished-fir bar, complete with a pair of cheery barkeeps — to a second dining room in the rear. The high brick wall behind the bar is trimmed with strips of steel: mementos mori of sorts, reminders of what can happen to unreinforced masonry in earthquakes. (What can happen? Fall down, go boom.) The bar itself is trimmed with youngish, dot-commie-looking people, waiting for a table or the rest of their party or just idling. They appear to be slightly edgier than their Marina counterparts, though clad in the same hideous designer jeans.

Chef Ming Hwang’s menu takes a step all seafood emporiums would do well to emulate: it tells us where much of the fish comes from. Not much of it comes from around here, unfortunately, and even an offering of albacore (which I love) labeled as local on the printed bill of fare turned out to be from Croatia. The specialty rolls, on the other hand, aren’t burdened with this information, which is unfortunate but also makes them easier to order: one less factor to weigh. Spyder roll ($9.50) — with its characteristic superstructure of (in this case, soft-shell) crab tempura — and California roll ($7), with crab, avocado, and cucumber, were both excellent if routine. Because the crab in them is cooked, they can help mollify the squeamish without completely putting off purists and sophisticates.

Still, said sophisticates — if not purists — would probably be happier with something like the Death by Sushi roll ($12.50), a very California combination of tuna, shiso leaf, avocado, snap peas, and gobo, rolled in rice and covered with a translucent blanket of salmon slices, with a throw pillow of sweet black sesame sauce. I liked the spicy tuna roll ($6) too, but I always do. It’s no-nonsense, a sushi equivalent to that Jack in the Box burger that’s nothing but layers of meat and cheese, barely contained in an envelope of starch.

As for the rawphobes, Hwang has saved some of the best for them, and it’s all cooked. One of the brightest stars of the tapas menu has to be the lamb lollipops ($16), a troika of frenched, broiled chops served with mint-edamame sauce, quartered new potatoes, and ribbons of pickled red onion. The red onion was too vinegary (pickling is a form of balancing, so add some sugar too, please), but the juicy tenderness of the meat obliterated that quibble.

Buddha’s pouches ($16) consisted of little piles of well-crisped Sonoma duck confit suitable for lading into a flotilla of endive canoes moored around the edge of the plate, along with a splash or two of sherry hoisin sauce. Potato croquettes ($8) were crunchy golden bullets laced with sweet corn, chive, and white truffle oil and served with a porridgelike shrimp sauce perfumed with basil.

I liked the shrimp sauce better than the shrimp proper: marinated prawns ($12) grilled on skewers and plated with jamón serrano, tad soi, bean sprouts, and a sesame caramel sauce. Shrimp are more forgiving of chefly neglect or mishandling than other forms of seafood; they don’t easily dry out or fall apart, but if they do dry out, they’re pretty dismal, no matter how gussied up. These shrimp were peeled, which probably contributed to their desiccation but also made it possible to eat them quickly.

Unlike many Asian-oriented restaurants, Sudachi offers desserts (all $6) to be reckoned with. Chocolate gelato, served as a pair of globes in a martini glass, along with strawberries and mint, was pleasantly ordinary, but the key lime ice cream — another set of globes, another martini glass — was an extraordinary blend of sweet and sour and a richness of texture that reminded me of well-chilled mascarpone. And chocolate decadence for once lived up to its much-used name, appearing as a hemisphere of brandy-scented chocolate ganache. A festooning of griottines cherries (pitted and halved) brought some color, but the overwhelming experience of the ganache was one of luxurious moistness, as if some kind of triple cream fudge sauce had been artfully thickened into a cake. And some people think decadence is a bad thing!<\!s>*

SUDACHI

Mon.–<\d>Thurs., 5:30–<\d>10:30 p.m.; Fri.–<\d>Sat. 5:30 p.m.–<\d>1 a.m.

1217 Sutter, SF

(415) 931-6951

www.sudachisushi.com

Full bar

AE/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Jang Soo BBQ

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› paulr@sfbg.com

You won’t find kimchee mousse on the menu at Jang Soo BBQ, but that’s not a criticism, since you probably won’t find it on any menu in town. Korean cooking, despite its many charms — could it be the most winning of the spicy cuisines? — has so far resisted the dressing-up that has given a Cali-French gloss to food traditions from around the globe. If you’re eating Korean food here, you’re almost certainly in a traditional Korean barbecue joint, with a grill (charcoal or gas, lighted or not) in the middle of your table. And if you’re lucky, you’re at Jang Soo, which is one of the most attractive such places, if not the most attractive, in the city.

Let’s start with the simple matter of aesthetics. At more than a few Korean spots, even some of the best-known ones along Geary in the inner Richmond, the décor situation can range from the indifferent downward to the downright harsh, with overhead fluorescent lighting worthy of a black-site interrogation room being a particularly noisome likelihood. Jang Soo, by contrast, gleams gracefully with spot and sconce lighting. And I like the panel of checkerboard-style tiles along the wall at each table; the black and white ceramic squares serve as a kind of backsplash in case your adventures in grilling start to get out of hand. (Since the grills are gas fired and heat up very quickly, this is not a far-fetched scenario.) Most and best of all, the place seems clean. If you could know only one fact about a restaurant’s physical plant, this is the fact you would value the most.

The food suggests that the kitchen, while invisible to the clientele, is in equally good order. There are no big surprises on the menu — except, perhaps, for a greater number of seafood dishes than experience has conditioned one to expect in Korean restaurants — and plenty of familiar faces, among them bul go gi (slices of broiled beef) and bibimbab (beef salad). But the freshness of the ingredients and the care with which they’ve been handled is palpable. A small dish of pickled cucumber coins, for example, had the satisfying crunch of the homemade kind and would have been good even without the accompanying red chili-garlic paste.

The cucumbers, of course, were presented as part of that cavalcade of small dishes (banchan is the Korean word) that give the flavor of a banquet to meals in Korean barbecue restaurants, even at lunchtime. Jang Soo’s portfolio of treats includes (in addition to the cukes) bean sprouts, marinated tofu strips, seaweed dressed with spicy sauce, pickled threads of carrot and daikon radish, geutf8ous bricks of rice paste, hot scallion fritters, and of course kimchee — excellent, with nonsoggy cabbage and plenty of garlic and chiles in harmony. Dinnertime adds a fix of dried sardines in spicy sauce, and of course, noon or night, there is soup, perhaps seaweed or tofu.

These preliminary spreads can have much the same effect in Korean restaurants that plates of chips and salsa do in Mexican restaurants: be so addictively tasty and so filling that the main courses, when they finally arrive, can seem anticlimactic or superfluous — unless you are starving, and we were. Over the noon hour, the tabletop grills seemed to be in hibernation, and plates of food emerged fully cooked from the kitchen: pork bul go gi ($9.95), a pile of marinated, broiled meat shaved into strangely shaped ribbons, like scorched rubble from a house fire, and o jing au bokum ($8.95), chunks of sautéed calamari in spicy sauce. I found the calamari’s "spicy" sauce to have a notable, not quite ideal sweetness, while the seafood itself was a little tough — always a risk with calamari, which overcooks quickly and unforgivingly. The pork, on the other hand, was exemplary.

At dinner, our server lighted the grill with her little sparking wand, switched on the vent hood, and a few minutes later appeared with a platter of uncooked flesh: dak gui ($18.95), or marinated boneless chicken thigh meat, on one side, and hae san mul gui ($20.95) — squid, octopus, shrimp, and clams — on the other. She spooned half the seafood onto a sheet of aluminum laid atop the grate, while half the chicken went straight onto the grate. And now a word to the wise: you have to turn stuff yourself, when you think it’s cooked long enough on one side or your seafood medley needs tossing. That’s why you’re given a set of tongs. We waited rather innocently for our server to come flip the chicken flaps for us, even as they began to smoke ominously, and we ended up with some fragrant cinders. Luckily the larger pieces of meat resisted scorching, and we cooked the remainder of both chicken and seafood ourselves, turning often.

The restaurant’s clientele appears to be heavily Korean or at least Asian, certainly not Anglo. If they or you are lucky, walking to the restaurant, or maybe taking one of the innumerable Geary buses, is feasible. Certainly it is preferable, since parking in the neighborhood is hellishly difficult. The exceptions to this hard rule are work-week middays, when the streets are empty and all you have to do is feed the increasingly voracious parking meters. Does everyone who lives on the West Side drive downtown to work? Dang.<\!s>*

JANG SOO BBQ

Daily, 11 a.m.–<\d>10 p.m.

6314 Geary, SF

(415) 831-8282

Beer, wine, soju

AE/DISC/MC/V

Pleasant noise level

Wheelchair accessible

Code unknown

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

The CIA maintains a number of "black sites" around the world where suspected terrorists are "disappeared." You can get a recipe for Irish Eyes Chicken Pot Pie or instructions on how to commit suicide on the Internet. Thousands of starlings spontaneously converge in a suburb in Rome where Benito Mussolini once planned on holding an exhibition celebrating Fascism. I love having dreams. There are more than 130 revolving restaurants around the world.

These are all interesting tidbits. But what do they mean? While they may sound like the search results of indiscriminate Web surfing, all are factual elements found in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ "Dark Matters: Artists See the Impossible," curated by René de Guzman. Although organized around secrecy and the unexpected, this group exhibition deals more with what can be found than what is hidden.

Perhaps surrealist André Breton was predicting the future of curation with his juxtaposition of an umbrella and a sewing machine on an operating table; today randomness rules, and connections are coaxed by the curator and forged by the viewer. This show exemplifies such a process. For example: Sergio Prego’s video Black Monday (2006) is a mesmerizing parallax view of a small explosive going off in the artist’s studio. You get every awesome angle, and the cloud is suspended midboom. (I always wondered if the tests at Bikini Atoll were done so more military personnel would have a chance to glimpse the aesthetic wonder that is the atomic bomb.) Kitty-corner from Black Monday is Heaven Can Wait (2001–ongoing), a video installation by artist team Bull.Miletic showing more parallax views, this time from revolving restaurants around the globe, including the Equinox at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco. Was it Steve McQueen who starred in The Parallax View, shot from the revolving restaurant atop the Space Needle? Or was Breton predicting the Internet and how randomness is curated into blogs? What was I blogging? I mean, saying?

It’s well known that the CIA performs secret operations under fancy code names. Trevor Paglen has compiled a list — everything he could find, from Able Ally to Zodiac Beauchamp. "Dark Matters" includes a very tall wall full of them. The piece is called Codename (2001–07). Paglen told me he knows what a handful of the named operations are about, but if he talked to the wrong person, they might mistake him for a crackpot conspiracy theorist. Secret planes where? Extraordinary rendition what? Unmarked airplanes why? But Paglen is not a crackpot. He is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer. Information thus arranged and presented — what do we do with it? At this very moment, the CIA is torturing people at secret facilities in the name of our freedom. But what I want to know is, whatever happened to Bronski Beat? We do not want to think, much less believe, that the US government runs secret prisons. So we don’t.

Robert Oppenheimer once said — or wrote, I forget — "It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them." I thought I used that quote in some other art review because I liked it so much. So I Googled "kurtz oppenheimer." What I got instead was a live-sex webcam chat. How many degrees to Internet sex? Not many. Listening Post (2002–06), by Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen, demonstrates as much. Spinal columns of digital screens climb from floor to ceiling. A suite of seven programmed actions culls live chats from the Internet, which scroll across the screens. One is set to grab anything beginning with "I love" or "I like." It’s harder to determine the organizing principle of the other movements, but the very public exposition of very private conversations is discomfiting. And absorbing — all those desires scrolling by. And you thought you were the only one!

Did you know that there is no alpha leader in a flight of birds? What really occurs is democracy: when just over half of the birds begin to tilt in one direction, the rest follow. I saw that on the Internet somewhere. Richard Barnes, Charles Mason, and Alex Schweder were all in Rome, hanging out and making art. Unbeknownst to the others, each of them became fascinated with the mass starling convergence at Esposizione Universale di Roma. Murmurs (2006) consists of Barnes’s photography, Mason’s sound, and Schweder’s video. Starlings have binocular vision. Who knew?

Left on its own, information will eventually organize itself. What remains is the question of credibility. One of the things I named in the first paragraph is not found in the exhibition. Or maybe two. *

DARK MATTERS: ARTISTS SEE THE IMPOSSIBLE

Through Nov. 11

Tues.–Wed. and Fri.–Sun., noon–5 p.m.; Thurs., noon–8 p.m.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

$3–$6 (free first Tues.)

(415) 978-ARTS

www.ybca.org

Farina Focaccia and Cucina Italiana

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› paulr@sfbg.com

Imagine a restaurant situated inside a bottle of sparkling water, and you will have a working sense of Farina Focaccia and Cucina Italiana, the latest entry along 18th Street’s burgeoning food row in the Mistro. The Italians, in their inimitable way, refer to sparkling water as con gas, and Farina is an Italian restaurant — a Ligurian-influenced restaurant, to be precise, which means it’s not quite a head-on rival to Delfina, a few steps away. Delfina’s food tends toward the Tuscan, and the heart of Tuscany is Florence, a storied city well away from the sea. Tuscan cuisine makes ample use of grilled beef and also maiale (wild boar) and porcini mushrooms — the latter a pair of delicacies taken from nearby forests in the Apennines.

Liguria, by contrast, is a maritime region, a slender boomerang of littoral country whose center is the ancient port city of Genoa and whose long shoreline on the Tyrrhenian Sea runs from the French Riviera in the west nearly to Livorno in the east. We would expect then that Ligurian cuisine would emphasize seafood (other staples include lemons, olive oil, and pesto), and that is indeed what we find at Farina. (Farina, incidentally, means "wheat meal" in Italian; it was also the name of a creamy hot cereal I preferred as a child to oatmeal, which tended to be lumpy. And … it sounds vaguely like Delfina — coincidence?)

The sparkling-water effect has largely to do with a half wall of wine goblets that separate the bar from the main dining room. There are also expansive plate-glass windows along both 18th and Dearborn streets, and these blur the boundary between outdoors and indoors. Passersby are constantly peering into the restaurant, while the people inside peer right back, at least when not peering at one other. Although Farina is just a few months old, the see-and-be-seen, watch-zone factor has already reached Los Angeles–<\d>like levels. All this represents a radical change from the space’s previous life as the home of Anna’s Danish Cookies. Noise, interestingly, is under control, despite plenty of hard surfaces, including a slate gray concrete floor and a passage of gleaming white tiles high above the food bar near the back of the dining room. The high ceilings, with joists painted hospital white, must help.

The early word on Farina was that it was overpriced, and while the serving-size-to-price ratio is indeed rather stringent, the food itself is superior. Excellence at a high price is the Wolfgang Puck formula for success. The first promising hints are given by the house-baked breads: squares of plain and cheesy focaccia, along with slices of whole wheat and white country breads and a walnut bread, some of them still warm from the oven. The goodness of the breads prefigures that of the pizzata di Recco ($16), a large rectangle of pizza-like crust topped with garlicky tomato sauce, oregano, capers, anchovies, and gooey white melted cheese. The pie’s name refers to the Ligurian town of Recco, renowned for its cheese focaccias.

Another classic Ligurian-style dish is house-made tortellini ($17), stuffed with sea bass and served in an earthenware crock. The crock holds a shallow pond of white-wine-and-parsley sauce dotted with heirloom tomato quarters, mussels, clams, and rose-colored bits of calamari. The sauce was underseasoned — the only such example we came across. Salted up a bit, it made a nice match with a Ligurian white wine from the Cinque Terre ($9 for a glass), a seaside district famous for its five villages perched on cliffs. The wine had a grassiness I associate with American sauvignon blanc and tasted a little odd on is own, but it merged comfortably with the mollusk-heavy sauce.

The Catalana salad ($13) captured the magic of so much Italian cooking, regardless of region. It was so simple — tuna confit on a bed of onion and fennel slivers, with a light showering of pitted black olives, minced anchovies, and heirloom tomato chunks — as to sound boring, but it turned out to be a beautiful concertina of sweet, salty, sour, and rich effects.

We did feel, over a noontime visit, that portions were almost too small and starkly plated. The insalata di giorno ($9) turned out to be quite similar to the Catalana, and while it cost less, it was worryingly slight, although cannellini beans provided some ballast. We ended up ordering a panino ($9) of prosciutto and fontina cheese, and this soon arrived as an appealing golden square of pressed bread, tastily filled though presented with nothing more than a heaplet of mixed greens. Only the torta verdure ($9), a slice of spinach pie made with flaky pastry, seemed to carry real weight.

As for the dessert menu: the roving eye of the sweet tooth quite quickly found the panna cotta ($8). If Farina means to unseat Delfina as the king of Italian cooking on 18th Street, then panna cotta will be central to the strategy. Delfina’s buttermilk version has been on the menu from the beginning and is now legendary. Farina’s pastry chef has wisely chosen not to copy it. Instead of a geutf8ous cylinder, Farina’s panna cotta takes the form of a martini-glass parfait, a layering of cooked cream — softer than Delfina’s — atop a blackberry compote itself topped with a dollop of blackberry whipped cream.

But perhaps an unseating is neither necessary nor possible. Perhaps Farina and Delfina will turn out to be complements to each other, not watchful rivals. It’s not every two-block segment of street in town, after all, that can offer us a pair of Italian restaurants like these, alike and dissimilar but both sparkling.<\!s>*

FARINA FOCACCIA AND CUCINA ITALIANA

Lunch: Mon.–<\d>Fri., 11 a.m.–<\d>2:30 p.m. Dinner: nightly, 6–<\d>10 p.m.

3560 18th St., SF

(415) 565-0360

www.farinafoods.com

Beer and wine

AE/DC/DISC/MC/V

Well-managed noisiness

Wheelchair accessible

The Dining Room

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› paulr@sfbg.com

Ritz sounds a lot like rich, and you might well catch a glimpse of some rich people as you make your way toward the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton, where you have taken care to make a reservation. You might see them, financiers and captains of industry with entourages of family, debouching from black Lincoln Town Cars in front of the hotel, a colonnaded fortress of marble that sits like the Parthenon on an outlier of Nob Hill. The rich are different from you and me, Scott Fitzgerald said, but they get hungry too, and they know a good spot when they find one.

When I last visited the Dining Room, about a decade ago, Sylvain Portay had just become chef, and the mâitre d’ was Nick Peyton, pioneer of the cheese cart. Both are gone now, off to other ventures, but the cheese cart remains — reinforced by a champagne cart and a digestif cart — while the chef’s toque came to rest three years ago on the head of Ron Siegel. His penultimate gig was at Masa’s, and Masa’s is probably the restaurant in the city that most neatly compares with the Dining Room. At both places, Siegel seems to have eased a certain Gallic haute rigueur and added notes of Asian whimsy without descending into chaos. The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton has long been, and remains, among the most formal and correct restaurants you will find in this city — also among the priciest. But it isn’t stuffy, and the money spent, on the food and the enveloping experience, is money well spent.

Who among us could dislike a restaurant that sends bottles of fine champagne trundling from table to table on a wheeled apparatus laden with shaved ice? You know the wine is well chilled because you can see the bottles sweating as, one by one, they are lifted from the cart and presented to you, and if a glass of Henriot rosé ends up costing $22, then you will be glad you enjoyed your glass and didn’t order a second.

You wouldn’t really have had time to enjoy the refill, anyway, since the three-course à la carte menu ($74) is punctuated not only by a bread service but also by a sequence of dazzling amuses bouches, beginning perhaps with a creamed-spinach risole (a half-moon-shaped pastry pouch), continuing with a strip of crisp-fried Japanese butterfish presented on pickled daikon, and culminating in a divine sea urchin panna cotta, served like a bit of leftover sour cream in a martini glass and finished with a splash of extra-virgin olive oil infused with Tahitian vanilla.

Compared to these bright little dabs of flavor, flaring and vanishing like the glow of fireflies in the summer night, the first courses are large enough to last for several bites. A wild-mushroom soup required some assembly, with the puree poured from a glass teapot over a pair of lobster ravioli waiting at the bottom of the bowl. An heirloom tomato salad, meanwhile, consisted of several fat disks of blood-red tomato of that 11th-hour, beginning-to-split ripeness you sometimes find in the final minutes of farmers markets. Goat cheese, a familiar accoutrement to such salads, was well marbled here and jumbled among the mixed baby greens like strips of pork fat.

Since it is king salmon season for the first time in several years, one took delivery of the fish with some sense of greeting a long-lost acquaintance. (The three-course option gives you choice of starter, main dish, and dessert, but there are also several set multicourse menus, one of them vegetarian.) The salmon turned out to be a wonderfully crisped, medium-rare square of filet, presented on a green and yellow blanket of béarnaise sauce and English-pea puree, with some wild-mushroom dice and baby leeks enhancing the sense of rich earthiness.

Sea bream en papillote, by contrast, struck an ethereal note. The fish, along with a bouquet of lemon verbena, was cooked to exquisite moistness in a glove of aluminum foil, which was presented whole before being cut open tableside. The dish also filled out our daily ration of pasta pillows; once the filet had been extracted from its crinkly lair, it was laid to rest on a handful of porcini ravioli, with lemon verbena sauce poured around.

The cheese course, at $18, isn’t a bad deal. You get four choices from the day’s array of cheeses, and the chunks (along with bread, grapes, mulberry jam, honeycomb, and roasted almonds) are big enough to share. We noted several varieties from Cowgirl Creamery on the cart; 10 years ago, almost all the selections were from France. I let the cheddarhead have at it while contenting myself with a glass of Darozze Armagnac ($16), poured from the lazing digestif cart. Armagnac has a pleasant fieriness, almost like a cross between cognac and calvados.

Dessert brought our only disappointment: a chocolate savarin that seemed dry despite a good soaking with some orange liqueur. The chocolate manjari caramel cake, on the other hand — escorted by a tuile and a pat of walnut ice cream — was alive with moistness and suppleness, and no wonder it’s a mainstay of the pastry menu. Then there were the petits fours, followed by a parfait, of blueberry-fennel crumble atop lemon verbena cream atop strawberry jam — a school’s-out-for-the-summer treat subtly adjusted for an adult sensibility.

According to Open Table, the restaurant’s dress code is "jacket preferred," and that is probably enough to ward off hip-huggerists. At least we saw none. The tone, as in the rest of the hotel, is one of old money comfortable in its skin while gliding across a red and gold carpet of quiet beauty and richness.*

THE DINING ROOM AT THE RITZ-CARLTON

Dinner: Tues.–Thurs., 5–9 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 5:30–9:30 p.m.

600 Stockton, SF

(415) 773-6168

www.ritzcarltondiningroom.com

Not noisy

AE/CB/DC/DISC/MC/V

Full bar

Wheelchair accessible

Lonely enough

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS I don’t even know the name of this river. Three, four, maybe more years in a row we’ve been coming here, and the women bring magazines. My brother and Wayway and Jolly Boy go fishing and don’t catch fish. I sit on the rocks with a pen and don’t catch poetry.

At the bottom of the river, on a slimy rock, sits a barrel-shaped bug with four black legs sticking out of its head, an off-center orange dot, and — I swear — barnacles …

Nature is so punk! Here’s a duck with a Mohawk, and eight cute little ducklings, then the next day seven. Then six … The river speaks for itself, no fish, no poetry, all rocks and swirl, and yesterday a young woman from the campground wandered downriver to us, on something and full of questions. Where are you from? Are you white? Do you have kids with you? Who here don’t you like?

Dogs lick toads to hallucinate. Cats like catnip. Nature uses. Our "innocents" high on s’mores and we in our various states of adult intoxication decide, sitting around the fire, that the young upriver woman is a serial killer. This distracts us temporarily from the very real fear of bears, who have been knocking over our bear boxes, breaking into cars, and sniffing our tents in the middle of the night.

If the campfire is town square, or San Francisco, then I pitched my tent in Sonoma County, in a dense, dark cluster of pine trees. Why? I’m lonely enough. Do I still need distance? Seclusion? I’m not brave. I have nothing to hide, even less to prove.

But when I get up to pee the stars comfort the fuck out of me. And when I curl back into my warm, soft wrappings, I am surer than ever that I am dead. The adamant meat eater’s comeuppance: to play the juicy part of a bear’s burrito. I lie awake and breathless, listening to pine cones decompose, and seriously consider just sitting outside until morning. On a rock. With a pen.

The river speaks for itself, but Taqueria San Jose needs me. One tiny shrimp taco has 10 times as many shrimps on it as Papalote’s. But the salsa’s not great.

But no line. In fact, no one at all. A newspaper clipping on a post says San Jose’s are the best tacos in the world. I wouldn’t know, but I can tell you it’s my new favorite taquería.

My companions barely touched their food.

The Maze, just back from New York and St. Louis, couldn’t believe that his chicken was chicken. Anyway, it wasn’t the way he’d wanted it. And his friend from work didn’t seem too thrilled with her quesadilla. I tried to interest them in tasting my tiny taco, or side-order ceviche, but they weren’t biting. I think they were put off by the place’s unpopularity.

I don’t know why I love empty restaurants. Maybe it’s the same impulse that makes me pitch my tent where no one else is. And maybe it will be the death of me, by mauling, exposure, broken heart, food poisoning, serial-killing camper chick … One thing: I won’t die of starvation.

The Maze, who might, asks as many questions as our campfire killer. Although, admittedly, his make more sense. I’d wanted to hear about his adventures in New York and St. Lulu, but mostly we talked about the usual: ethics, spirituality, chickens. I’d missed the tangling tree roots of his forehead and tried to keep him perplexed with my goofball philosophies.

At the bar I mostly talked to her. We had the same favorite restaurant in New Hampshire! I didn’t know if they were on a date or what, but she left first, and he walked her out, then came back and walked me home. Not that he meant to; we just couldn’t stop talking. He had a million questions and it was a beautiful night. I don’t think he knew if he was on a date either.

Something had happened between them, and he seemed wracked with amazement and uncertainty. "How do you know …," he asked, rhetorically, and before he could finish the question I said, "You don’t."

My stomach growled. We were standing outside of Sockywonk’s, whispering, so as not to wake her neighborhood’s dogs and babies.

I already knew the answer (no), but anyway I invited the Maze inside. I wanted his burrito, and never have I meant a thing more literally. He had most of his rejected dinner with him, in a bag. If he didn’t want it, I did.

Does my longing speak for itself? Does it have a name, or fish in it, or poetry? It kills me how few people have ever even heard of Richard Brautigan. *

TAQUERIA SAN JOSE

Daily, 8 a.m.–11 p.m.

2830 Mission, SF

(415) 282-0203

Beer

MC/V

Wheelchair accessible

Kabul City

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› paulr@sfbg.com

War, although unfortunate in almost every way, can pay some ex post facto dividends in foodland. (Emphasis on post.) Would we have the Slanted Door today if misguided policies founded on ignorance and false premises a half century ago had not led us into Vietnam? War creates refugees, and if the war is an imperial one, the refugees allied with the imperial power tend to seek refuge in the home territory of that empire — homeland is the homey term we use today — often bringing with them little besides culinary knowledge. Of course, the moral equation here is absurd; who would not vote to give up the Slanted Door, and all the rest of the excellent Vietnamese restaurants that have opened here in the past generation, if by doing so we could undo the Vietnam War? But we can’t. The most we can do is look for some sort of redemption in food we might well never have heard of, let alone tried, but for the warmongering of fools in positions of power.

Fisherman’s Wharf — I speak of the neighborhood, not the pier proper — is a curious place for an Afghan restaurant, but that is where we find Kabul City, which opened in May across the street from a large open space at Beach and Taylor that should be a public square but is instead a parking lot filled with Hummers. The area is the Vatican City of local tourism; it is in but not of the city and so different from it, physically and metaphysically, as to constitute nearly a separate jurisdiction. The restaurant’s windows do afford an appealing view, from an unusual, backside angle, of Russian Hill. Better to keep one’s gaze fixed there than on the spectacle nearer at hand, with its general sense and look of cheerful vulgarity. Would these rushing tourists, I wondered, be interested in Afghan food? Afghanistan has been an unhappy place for a long time, and a great deal of travel has to do with escape from reality.

As for the locals: experience suggests that they — or we — go to considerable pains to avoid the neighborhood. Yet Kabul City is worth braving the knickknack shops and Hummers for. The restaurant’s food is distinctive, well prepared, and fairly priced, and the setting (at least once you’re safely inside) is neither grubby nor overwrought. It’s far too early to say whether Afghan cooking will find the same vogue Vietnamese cuisine has attained in this country, but it’s not too early to say that if Kabul City is a glimpse of tomorrow, tomorrow isn’t looking hopeless. (I should also note here that for the moment, Kabul City is also the only Afghan restaurant in town, since the Helmand, on Broadway at the foot of Telegraph Hill, remains closed after a February landslide. The Bay Area’s biggest Afghan community, meanwhile, is in Fremont.)

Although much of Afghan cuisine, as presented by Kabul City, turns on familiar Middle Eastern cues, there are also dishes you aren’t as likely to have seen before. In the former category are kabobs — grilled meat in various guises. Tekka kabob ($12.99; $6.99 at lunch) consists of charbroiled lamb chunks served with salad and basmati rice, while shami kabob (same prices) looks like a pair of skinless, seasoned-ground-beef sausages. The rice is good, but the Afghan flat bread (called naan but baked in square rather than round loaves) is better, especially when dipped in the accompanying yogurt-cucumber sauce.

Yogurt, in fact, is put to all sorts of clever uses. It turns up pureed with cilantro as a sauce for pakowra ($4.99), deep-fried, peppery slices of potato that look like the soles of pink bedroom slippers. It is folded into badinjon burani ($4.99 as a starter), a baba ghanoush–<\d>like mash of panfried eggplant. And it appears mixed with garlic and mint as a topping for kadu burani ($7.99), chunks of panfried pumpkin. The squash here really did seem to be pumpkin, so points for complete disclosure, but the dish would have been better — less stringy, more intensely tasty — if another orange-flesh squash, like butternut, had been used.

One of the most striking preparations on the menu is mantu ($12.99), a plateful of steamed dough pillows stuffed with seasoned ground beef and onions and presented under a blanket of yogurt sauce flecked with green peas and diced carrots. The pillows reminded me of ravioli, of course, but also — because of the their pleated tops — of shu mai, the little Chinese dumplings that so often figure in dim sum services. Afghanistan shares a border with China, so the similarity probably isn’t coincidental. It’s also landlocked, which goes some way toward explaining the lack of seafood on the menu.

The restaurant’s owner, Syed Ahmadi, presides over the front of the house with mystical grace. In theory he could have plenty to do, since Kabul City isn’t small. An entire corner of the space, in fact, is given over to a slightly elevated platform laid with beautiful rugs and pillows and set with low tables you recline rather than sit at. The Last Supper was enjoyed in this fashion, as was the infamous banquet in Kandahar in October 2001 presided over by Osama bin Laden and captured on video for a still-stunned world. Afghanistan was a battlefield then and still is today, but tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara once told us from the midst of our own traumatic war, is another day.*

KABUL CITY

Daily, 11:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

380 Beach, SF

(415) 359-1400

www.kabulcitysf.com

Beer and wine

MC/V

Pleasant noise level

Wheelchair accessible

Canton Seafood and Dim Sum Restaurant

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› paulr@sfbg.com

If children should be seen but not heard, and writers should be read but neither seen nor heard, what does this tell us about restaurant signage? Certainly that it should be seen and, ideally, read. Signage isn’t everything, but it tells us a lot about a place even before we step inside. If signage is going to be conspicuous, it ought to be stylish, as at Dosa and Ziryab, and if it’s going to be inconspicuous, as at many of the highest-end places around town, then the place had better be so good that we’ll find it despite the lack of a beckoning beacon. The splendor inside had better balance the lack or near lack of street presence.

What, then, are we to make of conspicuous but unstylish signs, such as the one that hangs above Canton, a Cantonese seafood and dim sum restaurant on Folsom I’ve zoomed past a million times over the years without pausing to consider because the cheap, blaring, generic yellow sign above the door all but dared me to stop in for some mediocre, greasy food, and who needs that? Bad Chinese food isn’t hard to find in San Francisco, alas, and one of the easier ways to find it is to look for those turmeric yellow signs that are the Asian equivalents of all-American roadside-diner signs, complete with a Coke (or Pepsi) blurb and logo.

Canton, moreover, has hung its jaundiced shingle in a part of town that’s moved notably upmarket in the more than 20 years the restaurant has dwelled in the neighborhood. The old warehouses and industrial plants are gone or transformed now, and the area’s restaurants are tuned into the tourist and convention frequencies being broadcast from the nearby Moscone Center and its coterie of hotels and museums. Canton looks like a throwback, a piece of old furniture abandoned by the curb with a hand-lettered "free" sign taped to it — but it is not.

For one thing, the restaurant is one of a handful in town to offer the Cantonese specialty nor mai gai ($20), the skin of a whole chicken, stuffed with sausage-dotted sticky rice and deep-fried. The dish is more interesting for its presentational value and as a textural adventure than as one of taste, since in the mouth it’s basically rice with a hint of salty sweetness (from the Chinese sausage) and a bit of poultry crunch (from the skin). Much of the flavor comes from the accompanying mystery sauce, a kind of sweet-sour vinaigrette laced with rounds of scallion.

We could not say where the rest of the chicken went, though some of the meat might have found its way into the chicken chow mein ($7), fat noodles tossed with chopped scallions and a soy-based sauce. And the remainder of it, cut into strips and sautéed to a golden crispness, might have ended up in the excellent chicken salad ($7.50), with a thick honey-soy vinaigrette served on the side. The kitchen, in fact, does a nice job all the way around in the crispy department, from salt and pepper spare ribs ($8.50) to the similar but even better salt and pepper sea bass ($18), slightly curly flaps of creamy flesh within a delicate golden envelope.

Cantonese cooking is known for its seafood variations and for its mild subtleties. These themes intersect in the seafood combo ($12), a large clay pot filled with prawns, squid, and scallops atop a medley of vegetables, among them snow peas, water chestnuts, and shreds of carrot and napa cabbage. The broth that hydrates this little world tends toward reticence, but you will find that the vegetables, when you reach them, have been tarted up nicely with ginger, whose clear, strong flavor shines like a light in a dim room.

But not all Cantonese subtlety has to do with seafood. Snow peas beef ($8.50) proves that meat too can show well with gentle handling, although it must be said that beef is among the most forgiving of ingredients and is often excellent with little or no help at all. Here the supporting cast includes a shower of snow peas, bright green as spring, and a slightly sweet sauce with flecks of crushed peppercorn.

Practically every Chinese restaurant of note in town offers some version of duck buns, and Canton ($13) is no exception, although there is a twist. The half duck is brought tableside and first stripped of its reddish gold skin, which is then served in steamed buns, along with plum sauce and scallion tips shredded to look like pieces of frisée. While these are eaten, the skinless bird is carved up and the meat passed around the table. I liked this little drama in two acts, but I did find the skinless, bunless meat to be a bit naked.

Although Chinese artistry in soup making cannot be doubted, and although I have had some excellent dessert soups over the years — fruit soups, mainly — I just don’t warm to the sweet red-bean soups that bring many a Chinese dinner to a close. Canton’s entry ($3) looked quite familiar, like muddy river water with bobbing unmentionables, and it tasted like what it was: cooked beans with some sugar added. I would recoil less, I think, if it weren’t served hot. Heat, on the other hand, became the shredded pork soup ($3.50), an early-on course made memorable by the ghostly intensity of dried scallops.

Canton is modestly if neatly fitted out, but the space is magisterial: as enormous as a ballroom, with a coffered glass ceiling and a far wall lined with aquariums in which the more alert members of the day’s catch await some sign that their turn is imminent. *

CANTON SEAFOOD AND DIM SUM RESTAURANT

Daily, 10:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

655 Folsom, SF

(415) 495-3064

www.cantonsf.com

Beer and wine

AE/MC/V

Comfortable noise level

Wheelchair accessible

Why a cherry?

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Chili, most of us would probably agree, is beer food rather than wine food — if we are to make such odious distinctions — and that would make a winery an unlikely setting for a chili cook-off. Still, wineries can have their chili-friendly atmospherics on early-summer afternoons; the air is warm and fresh but not hot, and small planes drift through it on their way to and from the Petaluma airport, just a few flat miles away, across the vineyards. That, at any rate, is the view if one is standing on the grounds of Sutton Cellars, which did host such a cook-off recently and does bottle a Rhône-style red table wine sturdy enough to stand up to all the associated meat and spice.

Chili, it turns out, is surprisingly adaptable. None of the four restaurants from the city involved in the cook-off (Nopa, the Slow Club, the Alembic, and Maverick) used a recipe, nor, for that matter, do they offer chili on their regular menus. Yet each entry was strikingly different — one quite spicy, another perfumed with smoke and fruit from a combination of (pre)grilled skirt steak and lime juice, the third friendly in a rather ordinary way, and the fourth devoid of meat.

I liked this last one, from Nopa, the best. Ground calamari was used in place of meat, and with long braising, the cook told me, the flesh acquired the texture of cooked hamburger. More interesting was the deployment of rice beans, which indeed looked like fat grains of rice and are a close relation of azuki beans. Nopa’s chili struck me as being, in its overall effect, a close relation of gumbo, while the lone non–San Francisco restaurant’s effort (from L Wine Lounge in Sacramento) was so thick with pork, duck, and duck fat as to resemble a cowboy cassoulet. That chili was also served with a cumin-and-coriander cherry on top — pitted, of course — for a touch of tasty weirdness, or maybe a nod toward dessert?

There were no desserts, of course, unless you count a block of cheddar cheese that quickly disappeared, leaving behind plenty of forlorn sliced bread. A loaf of bread, a jug — or goblet — of wine, and thou, thou being chili in many guises, scarfed happily at picnic tables while little planes buzzed in the distance.

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com

Patisserie Philippe

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› paulr@sfbg.com

Most of us have our favorite bistros, boîtes, bakeries, and pubs — but patisseries? That seems a little precious, and maybe hard to pronounce. And fattening, since patisseries are all about pastries, and pastries are all about — or largely about — butter and eggs and sugar, with some flour and yeast thrown in, not to mention chocolate, more often than not. Boulangerie is tricky to pronounce too for unschooled Anglophones, but boulangeries are about bread, and bread isn’t really fattening — unless it’s brioche, which is something you’d get at a patisserie, perhaps your favorite one.

Pâtisserie Philippe, which opened earlier this spring in a gigantic new building on the roundabout at the end of Eighth Street, is not a boulangerie, but it does have its boulangerie-esque elements. The handsome glass display cases are full of pastries, including tartes tatins and financiers, but they aren’t full of just pastries. There are panini too and baguette sandwiches and salads. If you said deli with a French accent, you would be striking near the heart of the matter. I don’t know how you say sports bar in French — le sports bar? — but there is one next door (not at all French), and it is loud. Pâtisserie Philippe, by contrast, is serene and civilized, and while you can’t get french fries with your panino, you won’t miss them, since you prefer a salad of mixed baby greens anyway.

The Philippe of Pâtisserie Philippe is Philippe Delarue, formerly of Bay Bread, the large and spreading consortium of bakeries and restaurants run by Pascal Rigo. Delarue’s place does resemble, a little, Rigolo, the Rigo restaurant in Laurel Village. The latter is bigger and has a more extensive menu (including wine), but while the food is good, it isn’t better than Pâtisserie Philippe’s. I was particularly taken by PP’s croque monsieur ($5.95), the classic grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich that here is caked with a béchamel sauce — a bit on the rich side, yes, but the sandwich is European in scale. It’s not huge, in other words; five or six bites and you’re done, and you’re well satisfied. If the sandwich were built out to American standards, it would be two or three times as big and perhaps worthy of the sports bar next door. But … inelegant. Anyway, there are plenty of other savories to sample, and the panini are quite large.

This has much to do with their being assembled on ciabatta bread. The name means slipper in Italian and refers to the loaves’ long, flat shape; sandwiches made from ciabatta are particularly well-suited to the panini press. Pâtisserie Philippe’s versions ($5.95) feature ham or chicken along with melted mozzarella and provolone cheeses. I liked them both but preferred the ham, which was a little more deep-voiced and assertive in the face of all that white goo. If neither appeals, there is a fine spinach quiche ($3.75 for a not inconsiderable slice) — a kind of open-face spanikopita, with a gorgeous flaky-tender, golden pastry crust.

Although the French aren’t known for their vegetarianism, Pâtisserie Philippe is surprisingly vegetarian-friendly. There is a vegetarian baguette sandwich, but even better is the wide array of salads and side dishes. You could make a nice little lunch out of these alone — perhaps a picnic lunch, if you can find a swatch of grass in the neighborhood other than the little lawn in the middle of the roundabout. (The host building, which seems to be at least a block square, or triangular, fills up what was once the parking lot for the handsome old Baker and Hamilton edifice and its warren of eclectic furniture stores.)

We particularly liked a pair of salads ($3.25 each for half-servings of about a cup) made from shreddings of roots that don’t often attain headliner status: carrot and celery root. We noted in each a texture like that of cappellini cooked al dente, and a firm but gentle embrace of well-mellowed vinaigrette. The potato salad (also $3.25) was good too, though heavily dotted with tabs of ham. And at the end of this road we find the drastically unvegetarian pork rillettes ($4.50), a mash of slow-cooked meat mixed with fat to become a ropy paste you spread on rounds of baguette and enjoy with cornichons, the little pickles. The rillettes were slightly undersalted, I thought, but did not lack for satisfying lipidity.

No consideration of a patisserie would be complete without a discussion of the sweets on hand. Plenty of familiar faces here, from a chocolate éclair ($2.50) — milk-chocolaty-ish — to an elaborately layered, single-serve apple tart ($3.50) — excellent pastry, mediocre apples — to a fine bread pudding ($3.75), laced with large blackberries and pregnant with custard. The one standout we found was a bouchée caramel ($2.50), a disk of brioche with a shortcake-like depression in the middle that was filled with caramel. It was a bit like a crème caramel with brioche instead of custard and no ramekin to have to clean up afterward. Here, it seems to me, was the no-muss-no-fuss wisdom of the sugar cone as applied to pastry: the serving vessel was itself edible, and delectable.

Pâtisserie Philippe’s greatest liability could be its location, in the middle of a dark-faced building a long block long with not much to distinguish the storefronts. I can’t say I mourn the erstwhile parking lot, but the design district, of all districts, seems like an odd place to raise such a boring building. *

PÂTISSERIE PHILIPPE

Mon.–Fri., 8 a.m.–6 p.m.;
Sat., 8 a.m.–5 p.m.

655 Townsend, SF

(415) 558-8016

www.patisseriephilippe.com

No alcohol

MC/V

Not noisy

Wheelchair accessible

How is that gratitude?

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› amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Doing the right thing often costs a little more. Organic food, solar panels, and compact fluorescent lightbulbs are all pricier than conventional options. But Café Gratitude is now adding legal fees to the cost of going green for terminating a linen service contract in order to use unbleached cotton napkins in its four restaurants.

It’s hard to imagine how a restaurant could be any more humane, sustainable, and environmentally conscious. Café Gratitude’s raison d’être is encouraging deeper human relationships with one another and the world while serving strictly raw, vegan food. Wheatgrass grows on its counters, and if it’s not organic, it’s not on the menu.

Terces and Matthew Engelhart opened the first restaurant in the Mission District in 2004 and have since spread to the Sunset, Berkeley, and San Rafael, with a Los Angeles location on the way. Each spot has compact fluorescent lightbulbs, toilets that flush with a low-flow gush, high-output hand dryers, and cornstarch to-go containers.

In order to eliminate plastic from their entire supply chain, the Engelharts have leaned on their bulk-food carriers to use fusti containers (large, stainless-steel casks provided by the café) instead of those ubiquitous, unrecyclable five-gallon buckets when shipping their raw goods. A recent raw food recipe book by Terces was printed on 100 percent recycled paper at her insistence. The cafés frequently host fundraisers for local nonprofits. Of course they compost, recycle, and buy local. The delivery van putters along on biodiesel.

Yet in the process of seeking to further green their business, the issue of bleached napkins came up. The Engelharts have always used cloth napkins rather than paper. Once washing napkins themselves became infeasible for their growing business, they contracted for clean cotton napkins from Mission Linen Supply. From the start, they asked the company for an unbleached alternative, but none was available.

Anyone with a bottle of Clorox can read the warning label cautioning against allowing its contents anywhere near your skin, mouth, or eyes. The use of chlorine bleach in laundry produces chloroform, a human carcinogen, and additional industrial uses create another 177 organochlorine byproducts, including dioxin, the stuff found in pesticides like DDT and Agent Orange. No level of exposure to dioxin is considered safe, but it has pervaded the environment so deeply that it typically turns up in breast milk and semen, drinking water, and the fatty tissue of the fish we eat. Dioxin can lead to hormone imbalances, reproductive disorders, kidney and liver diseases, and cancer of all kinds.

So the Engelharts decided to switch from Mission Linen to another nationally known company, Aramark, which offers unbleached cotton cloth rags, often used in the auto industry. The rags, which are a creamy beige color and look like they could have come off a shelf at Crate and Barrel, would have a first run at Café Gratitude, then be recycled for their next job, wiping oil dipsticks. "We thought this was a great green solution," Terces said.

But now Café Gratitude is being sued for $25,000 by Mission Linen for breach of contract.

Before terminating their contract with Mission Linen, the Engelharts continued to press the company for a green solution, but no dice. They decided to keep the bleached supply coming to the Harrison Street location, but as new cafés opened, they’d use Aramark’s unbleached alternative, which is the same price.

After repeatedly requesting a greener laundry service from Mission Linen, they reviewed their contract and determined it could be terminated if Mission Linen couldn’t provide a product or service of the quality found at a similar laundry in the area. Mission Linen did not return calls for comment, but according to the Engelharts’ lawyer, Fania Davis, the linen company interprets that language more narrowly and is suing for the estimated lost profit. The Engelharts offered a settlement, and the company turned them down, so the fight continues, but the Engelharts still think it’s unfair.

"We were more committed to green than to continuing to bleach in ever-increasing numbers," Terces said.

Matthew added that the point isn’t to cast Mission Linen in a bad light but to bring attention to an important need in the restaurant community for more environmentally friendly laundry options.

"We’re not doing this for us," Matthew said. "It’s for everyone, our children and grandchildren." *

Comments, ideas, and submissions for Green City, the Guardian‘s weekly environmental column, can be sent to news@sfbg.com.

Hip to be screwed

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By Deborah Giattina

As always, a trip to the Commonwealth Club proved to be an edifying venture. For last night’s event, Hot Young Sommeliers (that’s pronounced so-mol-yay), the club rounded up three of the aforementioned creatures from the front houses of our city’s finest restaurants.

Now, I don’t know very much about wine, and young is such a relative term, n’est-ce pas? But I know hot, as in wouldn’t kick ‘em out of the sack, not as in a wine that heats your palette because it has too much alcohol (ew). And all three panelists–Mark Bright of Oola, Christie Dufault of Quince Restaurant, and Courtney Cochran, steward of the monthly Hip Tastes events–definitely met my grape expectations.

bright.jpg
Oola’s hot sommelier, Mark Bright, gives his girlfriend a cool look

Myconos

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› paulr@sfbg.com

Our town, for all its glories, does have its little shortages here and there. We are, in particular, not as rich as some of the bigger cities in the "littles" and "towns" that give those great metropolises their distinctive scents of ethnic potpourri. Oh, we do have a Chinatown and a Japantown, and our Little Italy can be found living under a pseudonym in North Beach. There’s even a remnant of a French quartier on lower Nob Hill, along a run of Bush Street that includes the Alliance Française, the French consulate, and the Église Notre Dame des Victoires. But for all San Francisco’s affinity for the Mediterranean, many of the Mediterranean cultures are virtually invisible here. I was reminded, after visiting Chicago recently, that we have not only no Greektown but hardly any Greek restaurants, hardly any place where your cheese can be set on fire before your eyes with a cry of "Opa!"

Flaming cheese (not to be confused with the Flaming Homer) is known by the Greeks as saganaki, and it is on the menu at Myconos, a Polk Street stalwart that has survived since the 1970s and preserves an authentic sense of Greek rusticity, as such latecomers as Kokkari and Mezes do not. Greece, we should remember, is one of the poorest countries in Europe; it is quite near both Africa and the Middle East and was ruled rather harshly for several centuries by the Ottoman Turks. (One enduring monument to the struggle against the Turkish occupation is the semiruined Parthenon in Athens, which had been built in the golden age of Pericles in the fifth century BCE and stood intact for two millennia, until, in the 17th century, the occupiers turned it into a munitions dump, which then exploded.) If we ever start wondering why the argument between Christianity and Islam is so bitter, we can get much of our answer simply by considering the Greek case.

Fortunately, everybody likes saganaki, with the possible exception of the American Heart Association. ("I wish they’d never invented fried cheese!" Marge Simpson says in a fantasy graveside scene in which Homer has died of obesity and is being buried in a piano crate lowered by a crane. These are her last words, for the crane then gives way and the crate crushes everyone.) Myconos’s version ($9.95) isn’t detonated tableside, but it does reach the table still spitting blue flames, and it does develop a wonderful golden crust that contrasts nicely with the cheese’s natural citrusy (and not too salty) tang.

Saganaki is probably about as good for you as dessert, so after your sinful beginning, you will be relieved to find that the rest of the menu is dotted with salads, legume dishes, and vegetarian choices. We found the hummus ($4.95) to be non–Middle Eastern despite the accompanying warm pita bread; the chickpea puree was coarse rather than peanut-butter smooth and seemed not to have been mixed with tahini, the sesame seed paste. The dominant flavors, instead, were those of lemon and garlic.

The restaurant’s version of a Greek salad — mixed greens tossed with roma tomato coins, crumblings of feta cheese, and onion slivers — turns up beside many of the main courses. Among these is a rather splendid pastitsio ($11.95), a kind of Greek lasagna that combines layers of tubular pasta, seasoned ground beef, and béchamel cheese sauce into a shape that resembles a large square hamburger (with the béchamel cheese sauce looking like the top half of the bun). The wind blows from the east across the pastitsio, bringing the scent of nutmeg, perfume of the Middle East and even points beyond. This is not surprising; as Elson M. Haas, MD, instructs us in Staying Healthy with Nutrition (Celestial Arts/Ten Speed, $39.95), "the Middle Eastern nations consume a variant of the Indian diet," and Greece is on the fringes of the Middle East.

Novices, neophytes, and the inattentive might be forgiven, in fact, if they mistook the Greek condiment tzatziki — a sauce of yogurt, shredded cucumber, garlic, and onion — for the Indian condiment raita, a sauce of yogurt and cucumber. Tzatziki is the salsa of Greek cooking and has a way of turning up everywhere, but we found it only as an accompaniment to garides souvlaki ($15.95), two brochettes of grilled shrimp plated with roasted potatoes and salad.

I was not impressed with the falafel ($5.95 at lunch), despite the massiveness of the plate: five Titleist-size balls arrayed on a carpet of pita and topped with a blob of hummus that looked like lumpy gravy. The falafel balls were unwarm and undersalted; worse, they recurred on the vegetarian platter, which offered (in addition to the falafel and in place of the cottage potatoes) a dolma — a torpedo of seasoned rice swaddled in grape leaves — and a round of spanikopita, the phyllo pie stuffed with spinach and cheese. These teaser items were tasty enough to distinguish themselves from the falafel but not substantial enough to make up for it.

The wine list is brief but does include a variety of Greek bottlings both red and white, and these tend to be quite good value. Although the Greeks have been making wine since time out of mind, the country’s modern wine industry had fallen into disrepair until recently and was known mostly for retsina, whose turpentine quality can be overwhelming. There is also a selection of Greek beers, including a lovely golden lager from Hillas. After a few of these, even Homer might nod. *

MYCONOS

Mon.–Thurs., noon–10 p.m.; Fri., noon–11 p.m.; Sat. 1–11 p.m.; Sun., 1–10 p.m.

1431 Polk, SF

(415) 775-7949

www.sfmyconos.com

DC/MC/V

Beer and wine

Can get loud

Wheelchair accessible

Dining listings

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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–<\d>$12

$$ $13–<\d>$20

$$$ more than $20

DOWNTOWN/EMBARCADERO

Bocadillos serves bocadillos — little Spanish-<\d>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-<\d>modern to be quite cozy. (PR, 8/04) 710 Montgomery, SF. Spanish/<\d>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/<\d>seafood, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Bushi-tei melds East and West, old and new, with sublime elegance. Chef Seiji Wakabayashi is fluent in many of the culinary dialects of East Asia as well as the lofty idiom of France, and the result is cooking that develops its own integrity. The setting — of glass, candles, and ancient lumber — shimmers with enchantment. (PR, 3/06) 1638 Post, SF. 440-4959. Fusion, D, $$$, AE/MC/V.

Café Claude is a hidden treasure of the city center. There is an excellent menu of traditional, discreetly citified French dishes, a youthful energy, and a romantic setting on a narrow, car-free lane reminiscent of the Marais. (PR, 10/06) 7 Claude Lane, SF. 392-3515. French, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Chaya Brasserie brings a taste of LA’s preen-and-be-seen culture to the waterfront. The Japanese-<\d>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-<\d>on-<\d>acid look — lots of heavy, weird multicolored mobiles — but Pascal Rigo’s Mediterranean-<\d>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.

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 multi<\d>level 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, ¢.

SOMA

Le Charm might be in San Francisco, but it has a bistro authenticity even Parisians could love, from a wealth of golden wood trim to an enduring loyalty au prix fixe. The chicken liver salad is matchless, the succinct wine list distinctly Californian. Ponder it in the idyllic, trellised garden. (PR, 9/06) 315 Fifth St, SF. 546-6128. French, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Chez Spencer brings Laurent Katgely’s precise French cooking into the rustic-<\d>industrial urban cathedral that once housed Citizen Cake. Get something from the wood-<\d>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.

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.

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.

Ah Lin offers Mandarin-style Chinese cooking in an easy-to-take storefront setting on Cathedral Hill. The dishes are well behaved and tasty, with only an occasional flare-up of chile heat. The roast duck is one of the best deals in town. (PR, 10/06) 1634 Bush, SF. 922-5279. Chinese, L/D, $, AE/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, ¢.

CIVIC CENTER/TENDERLOIN

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-<\d>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.

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-<\d>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/<\d>eclectic, D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.

HAYES VALLEY

Frjtz serves first-rate Belgian fries, beer, crepes, and sandwiches in an art-<\d>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 started more than a quarter century ago as an emulation of the city’s old seafood houses, and now it’s an institution itself. The original formula — immaculate seafood simply prepared, with choice of sauce and French fries — still beats vibrantly at the heart of the menu. Service is impeccable, the setting one of relaxed grace. (PR, 7/06) 816 Folsom, SF. 863-5545. Seafood, L/D, $$$, AE/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-<\d>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

Firewood Cafe serves up delicious thin chewy-<\d>crusted pizzas, four kinds of tortellini, rotisserie-<\d>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-<\d>oriented neighborhood setting. Lots of pink on the walls; even more starch on the plates. (PR, 11/04) 151 Noe, SF. 252-7450. Cuban/<\d>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-<\d>ceiling setting is quietly spectacular. (PR, 7/05) 3945 24th St, SF. 695-0549. Peruvian, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Gialina offers fabulous thin-crust pizzas in the nouveau-quaint heart of Glen Park’s village center. Toppings reflect the companionable spirits of innovation and playfulness. For dessert: chocolate pizza, though beware the danger of starch overload. (PR, 3/07) 2842 Diamond, SF. 239-8500. Pizza/Italian, D, $, AE/DC/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.

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/<\d>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/<\d>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-<\d>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, $.

MISSION/BERNAL HEIGHTS/POTRERO HILL

Cafe Phoenix looks like a junior-<\d>high cafeteria, but the California-<\d>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-<\d>Italian dinner of pasta, milanesa, and chimichurri sauce. During the day the café offers a more typically Cal-<\d>American menu of better-<\d>than-<\d>average quality. First-rate coffee beans. (PR, 10/04) 1314 Ocean, SF. 333-3665. Italian/<\d>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-<\d>influenced cooking into a stylishly barnlike urban space where dot-<\d>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/<\d>Asian, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Couleur Café reminds us that French food need be neither fancy nor insular. The kitchen playfully deploys a world of influences — the duck-<\d>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.

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-<\d>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.

Esperpento is as authentic a Spanish-style tapas restaurant as you’ll find in San Francisco, but even better — the paella is good! (PR, 4/07) 3295 22nd St, SF. 282-8867. Spanish/tapas, L/D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.

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.

Front Porch mixes a cheerfully homey setting (with a front porch of sorts), a hipster crowd, and a Caribbean-inflected comfort menu into a distinctive urban cocktail. The best dishes, such as a white polenta porridge with crab, are Range-worthy, and nothing on the menu is much more than $10. (PR, 10/06) 65A 29th St, SF. 695-7800. American/Caribbean, BR/D, $, MC/V.

MARINA/PACIFIC HEIGHTS/LAUREL HEIGHTS

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/<\d>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.

Out the Door is the takeout-friendly child of the Slanted Door, and the food reflects the same emphasis on first-quality ingredients. You can eat in if you want or shop for hard-to-find Asian groceries at reasonable prices. (PR, 1/07) Westfield Center, 845 Market, SF. 541-9913; One Ferry Bldg, SF. 861-8032. Vietnamese, L/D, $, AE/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.

SUNSET

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/<\d>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-<\d>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.

Pisces California Cuisine brings a touch of SoMa sophistication to an Outer Sunset neighborhood in need of paint. (You can’t miss the restaurant’s black facade.) The kitchen turns out a variety of seafood preparations — the clam chowder is terrific — and offers an appealing prix fixe option at both lunch and dinner. (PR, 8/06) 3414-3416 Judah, SF. 564-2233. Seafood, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/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-<\d>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/<\d>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.

So Restaurant brings the heat, in the form of huge soup and noodle — and soupy noodle — dishes, many of them liberally laced with hot peppers and chiles. The pot stickers are homemade and exceptional, the crowd young and noisy. Cheap. (PR, 10/06) 2240 Irving, SF. 731-3143. Chinese/noodles, 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/<\d>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-<\d>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

Eva’s Hawaiian Café re-creates the Hawaiian lunch-plate experience in a Clement Street storefront done up in primary colors worthy of a 1970s-era middle school. The food is excellent and inexpensive, the service skilled and cheerful, the setting immaculate. What’s not to like? (PR, 3/07) 731 Clement, SF. 221-2087. Hawaiian, L/C, ¢, 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-<\d>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.

BAYVIEW/HUNTERS POINT/SOUTH

Bella Vista Continental Restaurant commands a gorgeous view of the Peninsula and South Bay from its sylvan perch on Skyline Boulevard, and the continental food, though a little stately, is quite good. The look is rustic-stylish (exposed wood beams, servers in dinner jackets), and the tone one of informal horse-country wealth. (PR, 3/07) 13451 Skyline Blvd., Woodside. (650) 851-1229. Continental, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

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.

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/<\d>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.

OAKLAND/ALAMEDA

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-<\d>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, ¢-$. *

Caffe Bella Venezia

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› paulr@sfbg.com

The world traveler might arrive in some strange foreign city eager to find enlightenment at the table — to suss out the city’s most interesting and revealing restaurants and ponder the cultural clues they offer — but first there is the matter of jet lag. The world traveler has an urgent need for a good night’s sleep and perhaps a meal that’s somehow authentically local but not too difficult: not too expensive or far away or served at a place that’s difficult to get into. Tourist cities — of which ours is one — must have plenty of restaurants to provide this service, just as they must have plenty of other places to provide dazzle and memories while charging prices that keep the local tourist economy well watered and in bloom.

We don’t lack for the second, lofty sort of restaurant, of course, but you might be surprised that we have examples of the former too. While stepping into Caffé Bella Venezia one recent mild evening, I noticed a huge youth hostel on the other side of Post Street, and I was glad. For a city that so self-consciously links itself to youth culture, ours is a fearfully — I might even say prohibitively — expensive place for youth to visit. Youth tends to be impecunious, and that won’t get you very far at the Ritz-Carlton or even the Phoenix, no matter how charming and chic your pennilessness. If the concierge is nice, you might be sent down to the hostel on Post Street, not far from Union Square and the theater district, and welcomed there. And if you’re hungry, you might next be sent across the street to Bella Venezia, which isn’t exactly Venetian — except for all the wall art, with its many depictions of gondoliers and canals — but is appealingly pan-Italian, with a rich selection of pastas. If money is one language everybody speaks, pasta is another.

Venice has long been the most eastward-looking of Italian cities. For centuries it was the western terminus of the Silk Road to China, and after the horrendous Fourth Crusade in 1204 — in which Venetian forces sacked the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, instead of carrying on to the Holy Land — it was handsomely decorated with Byzantine gewgaws looted from that ancient city. One associates certain oriental perfumes, of cinnamon and nutmeg, among others, with the cooking of Venice, and while you’re not likely to catch a whiff of these at Bella Venezia, you might catch a latter-day Silk Road echo: the chef is Italian, and his Filipina wife runs the front of the house with the help of their son.

Meanwhile, much of the clientele speaks little or no English. While we did note several solitary, possibly Anglophone, diners roosting forlornly at tables on various evenings, we were more struck by the parade of high-spirited young people moving in packs and speaking, say, French. Of course the French like and serve pasta, even if they’re French Canadian. And just about everyone would like Bella Venezia’s fettuccine arlecchino ($9.95), a lively and colorful mélange of zucchini coins, black olives, and sun-dried tomatoes in a sauce of garlic and goat cheese and a heaping tangle of pasta. Even better is gnocchi ($5 for a small plate that’s not that small), which isn’t really a pasta but is often grouped with the pasta family. Bella Venezia’s house-made lobes are achingly tender, stuffed with gorgonzola, and bathed with a mushroom cream in which we detected, we thought, a hint of brandy breath.

I was surprised to find that I did not quite care for the lasagna ($9.95). So seldom am I disaffected in this way that I can’t recall the last time it happened, if it ever did. But BV’s lasagna, though served in an immense portion, had an unbecoming sweetness; too much minced onion mixed in with the ground beef? We noted a similar problem with the minestrone ($4.50), a run-of-the-mill vegetable soup heavy with carrots, onions, celery, zucchini, potatoes, and shreds of spinach — but no tomatoes, white beans, or pasta. Both lasagna and minestrone responded to salting, the latter more smartly than the former.

A nice feature of the menu is that you can get little versions of pizzas, pastas, and salads for $3 to $6 each. A pair of these makes a nice two-course dinner for someone who isn’t starving or is watching carb intake or feels a little jet-lagged. Pizza regina ($4.75) is a daughter of the full-figured pizza margherita, topped with the same combination of tomatoes, oregano, basil, and mozzarella — plenty of mozzarella. Pizza salsiccia ($8.95) is (to extend our familial imagery) an uncle, a brawny pie of meaty mushrooms and lots of fennel-charged Italian sauces. If the current vogue of thin-crust pizza has left you fatigued, you will appreciate BV’s slightly thicker, breadier crusts.

Two of the restaurant’s best dishes turn up as appetizers. Caprese salad ($6.95) is often routine, a tried-and-true medley of sliced tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, but here it is lightly doused with a pesto vinaigrette that enlivens each constituent while bringing them together. (All salad dressings are supposed to do this, but few do it this well.) And sautéed mussels ($9.95) arrive in a pool of garlicky tomato–white wine sauce that will have you motioning for more of the house-made focaccia to sop it up with, since it is impolite to do so with your fingers, even if you’ve just flown in from Venice and have jet lag. *

CAFFÉ BELLA VENEZIA

Dinner: nightly, 5 p.m.–midnight

720 Post, SF

(415) 775-1156

www.caffebellavenezia.com

Beer and wine

AE/DC/DISC/MC/V

Not loud

Wheelchair accessible

Tattoo you

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CHEAP EATS She had tattooed knuckles. One hand said PORK and the other said CHOP. I expressed my adoration, and she said, "You should see the other ones."

"Should I?" I asked.

She has a girlfriend in Canada. This was not a date but a business meeting.

Business = new favorite Vietnamese restaurant. Pho Clement, between, I think, Third and Fourth avenues on Clement Street. One hundred and seventy things on the menu, not counting appetizers and sandwiches.

Over two bowls of soup big enough to paddle two small canoes in, I said to my new friend Pork Chop, "What else ya got?"

"Bacon," she said. I think she said it was on her stomach, but I kind of passed out at that point, and when I came to we were making whole different sentences.

Something about Michigan. Turns out, thanks to Pork Chop’s encouragement, I am going to go there this summer for that wimmin’s music festival. Pork Chop works in the kitchen and has been attending the festival for six or seven years. Says it has changed her life.

I’m sure it will change mine too. For one thing, I won’t be as pretty as I am now, what with black eyes, broken teeth, and every manner of structural damage.

Oy, the things we do for a story, eh, fellow hard news reporters and investigative journalists? I tell you. I for one am not a fan of pain or mosquito bites. Yet there I will be, in Michigan in August, getting my ass kicked by both bugs and backward-thinking lesbian feminist separatists. Ah, but someone’s gotta go see what these girls are having for dinner, and there’s no question I’m the tranny for the job.

Oh: I say backward-thinking because their definition of wimmins is stuck all the way back on what Mr. Doctor had to say about it, overriding all present tense appearances to the contrary. Because everyone knows that the last-century medical profession, or in other words, "the Man," interprets reality more accurately and certainly more definitively than we do, its living and kicking and messy subjects, prone as we are to the pesky revisionism of tick tick time, the great editor.

To review: trans men welcome, beards and testosterone and homemade wieners and all; trans women, no, nope, not welcome, sorry.

But now I have a friend on the inside. In the kitchen. With tattoos! And I don’t know why I love soup so much, but with all due respect to pork, if I could have tattoos on my knuckles I think they would say SOUP and SOUP. Big bowl of steamy, sopping noodles on my belly … but it’s always only a dream because as much as I love tattoos, and seeing them on other people and thinking about them on me, and soup, I can’t take the pain, personally, like I said.

So … "Do you regret any of them? Your tattoos?" I asked.

Her bowl of pho was way bigger than my hot and sour shrimp soup, yet she was almost finished and I was just getting started. I’m a slow eater.

She thought about it. "No," she said, finally, tentatively. Then: "Maybe ‘pork pies’ instead of ‘pork chop.’"

But that’s editorial. That ain’t regret.

Pork butt, pork buns, pork soup, pork meat, pork beef, more pork, I thought, savoring my pineapples, tomatoes, and celery. Sometimes with shrimp and sometimes with catfish, I’ve been ordering canh chua for as long as I’ve been eating in Vietnamese restaurants, and it hadn’t occurred to me until now to ask for noodles too.

The waitressperson had seemed delighted by this suggestion, and I was certainly delighted by the outcome. Only it came out in two separate bowls, and one reason I was so far behind was because it took me 10 minutes to decide whether to add the noodles to the soup, or the soup to the noodles.

Anyway, it was great, and nobody was in no hurries. And I left when I left with a sloshy stomach that worked weirdly well on the soccer field. At least at first. I scored a goal early, then kind of went to sleep in the grass and dreamed about doughnuts. *

PHO CLEMENT

Daily, 10 a.m.–10 p.m.

239 Clement, SF

(415) 379-9008

Takeout available

Beer and wine

MC/V

Wheelchair accessible

The pyramid

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While fretting a few days ago about the menace of the $40 main dish, I spoke to my neighbor, who on a recent trip to San Diego had a close encounter with a $63 main course, some kind of veal with truffles. San Diego — not Las Vegas, not New York. She ended up with a $40-something main dish (veal, no truffles), and I went to New York to forage on the lower reaches of the city’s restaurant pyramid.

High-end restaurant food, whether veal or something else, doesn’t just happen: it is built, or cooked, or created, on an infrastructure of more modest restaurants. In these places, far from the lurid glow of the world’s Columbus Circles, cooks and eaters alike educate themselves; expectations are formed and preferences established. While I am not a partisan of the inventive, technique-driven school of cooking that seems to prevail in New York City, I have always found the standard of execution in Manhattan restaurants to be of the highest order. Had, I must now say, for after spending several days grazing in restaurants up and down the West Side, I became filled both with surprisingly mediocre food and with disappointment.

Let us begin by granting conditional pardon to busy-body New York chefs, who after all must spend months working their way around an inconvenience called a real winter. Still, is this any excuse for serving plate after plate of perfectly unseasoned food? At a place called Fairway Café (above the fabulous Fairway Market on B’way at 74th St.), I nearly wore out my salt-shaking hand in the struggle to revive a succession of dishes, beginning with grilled asparagus and a mushroom pizza and continuing to creamed spinach and some linguine with scallops and pesto. At Swagat, a fragrant, crowded Indian restaurant on Amsterdam, it was the same, with the chicken tikka masala sweet rather than tangy. And again at Louie’s, a handsome café with extensive outdoor seating, a big Sunday brunch–with–the–Times service, and a DOA huevos rancheros–style egg preparation.

We were warned beforehand, by an Upper West Side–dwelling friend, that the neighborhood was a dead zone for food. The better places, he said, are all downtown. I came to see his point, but I couldn’t help wondering how good the food downtown would have to be to impress people immiserated by bad food uptown. That is the $63 question.

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com

David’s Kitchen

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› paulr@sfbg.com

In the kitchen of David’s Kitchen, a tiny restaurant in the Sunset, you will find David. The kitchen is of the semiexhibition sort, viewable from the snug dining room through a rectangular aperture that looks as if it once might have housed a picture window or maybe a large plasma flat-screen television. Was this space once home to a sports bar? David is David Chang, a native of China who opened the place with his wife, Terri, about four years ago. He could have called it David Chang, if he’d cared to join the trend of to-the-greater-glory-of-me chef-owners who name their restaurants after themselves. I have sometimes wondered how often these grand people can actually be found in their own kitchens. "David’s Kitchen" suggests to us that David is actually in the kitchen, and so he is, perhaps cooking your lunch after taking your order. At lunch it can be just you and him; it’s like having your own short-order chef. He seats you, writes down what you want, then makes and serves it. You are happy, even when he presents the bill, which your own short-order chef would never be so crass as to do. But then, even the best fantasies have limits.

It would be difficult to overstate the intimacy of David’s Kitchen. Like Thai Time, the fabulous and impossibly small restaurant on Eighth Avenue in the Inner Richmond, David’s Kitchen has only a handful of tables and fills to near capacity when a few parties of three or four come through the door at about the same time. If there had been an Asian restaurant on Skylab, the makeshift space station from the 1970s, it might have looked something like this. While David’s menu does include a strong Thai element, it’s pan-Asian in a way Thai Time’s isn’t; there are even a few New World items thrown in — for fun? Or because of neighborhood demand? One of them, the chicken barley soup ($3.50), we found to be insipid, but that was the only dish we came across that failed to sing in a clear, strong voice.

Even among the Asian dishes, one finds the occasional global touch. Although fat seafood noodles ($5.95 at lunch) spoke with a pronounced Thai accent — the sauce was coconut-milk green curry, with a strong subplot of chile heat — the noodles themselves were fettuccine, for a slight Marco Polo twist. The seafood, meanwhile (shrimp, mussels, clams, and whitefish, leavened with zucchini quarters), was immaculate, in keeping with the restaurant’s assurance that "we use only the freshest ingredients."

XO chow fun noodles ($5.95), on the other hand, were the broad, glistening Chinese rice-flour kind, tossed with shreds of boneless chicken, bean sprouts, scallions, and (the star ingredient) XO sauce, a Hong Kong–<\d>style paste of dried shrimp and scallop along with garlic, onion, and chile peppers. This saucing gave the dish a flat, fierce heat, like an August day on the Great Plains — quite different from the rounded punch of the fat noodles — with a strong hint of onion breath and some soy saltiness.

Although many of the appetizers will seem familiar to anyone who’s eaten at a Thai or Chinese restaurant in these parts (and who hasn’t?), David’s versions are mostly executed with a soupçon of panache, which helps make them memorable. The crispy fish cakes ($5.75), for example, will never be mistaken for tortilla chips, but they do minimize the characteristic rubberiness of the average fish cake and achieve a delicate stiffening around the edges. It helps that they’re quite flat, like small griddle cakes.

Spring rolls ($4.95) were nearly ordinary, despite a weighty filling — of shredded chicken, bean sprouts, and shiitake mushrooms — and a crime-scene-red dipping sauce redolent of chiles and garlic. But the veggie pancake ($5.25) was unlike anything I’ve had before, a kind of soft Asian crepe, like a socca or farinata, made from ground lotus and taro root (instead of chickpea flour) and spruced up with water chestnuts, scallions, and pesto.

We also detected European influences, or echoes, in a duck curry stew ($9.95), a crock of meat, potatoes, and carrots that resembled beef burgundy, except that the beef was duck (a little fatty, but tasty) and the sauce had no red wine but plenty of yellow curry, mildest of the Thai curries. Spicy sunflower chicken ($6.75), on the other hand, though not yellow, was straight from Thailand — a larb, really, of minced white chicken tossed with a lively combination of Thai basil, garlic, and chiles. The meat was heaped in the center of a large plate, with canoelike leaves of endive set around the perimeter like hour markings on a watch. The endive was convenient for the scooping up of the minced meat, of course, but even after the leaves had run out, all the members of our table, forks in hand, were jostling for a crack at the last of the chicken.

The kitchen at David’s Kitchen doesn’t much look like the kitchen at Canteen, Dennis Leary’s small boutique place downtown. Leary’s kitchen is L-shaped, for one thing, and also more exhibitiony: you can sit at the counter and watch the chef work the stoves.

But to be at either place is to be aware that the restaurant as a labor of love is a phenomenon that persists even in this overpriced city — and that there are a few fine chefs who still do their own cooking. And then some. *

DAVID’S KITCHEN

Lunch: Tues.–Sat., 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. Dinner: Tues.–Thurs. and Sun., 5–9:30 p.m., Fri.–Sat., 5–10 p.m.

1713 Taraval, SF

(415) 566-6143

Beer and wine

MC/V

Moderately loud

Wheelchair accessible

Disorientation

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS The closest chicken fried steak to my shack is at the Route 1 Diner in Valley Ford. You probably know it, if you’ve ever been to Bodega Bay. And if not, what the fuck? The Sonoma coast has the prettiest beaches in the world. Surfers don’t like it because they get eaten by sharks, but, other than that …

Anyway, I’m not a beach reviewer.

Two chickens, like I said. That’s all the chickens I have left is two chickens. One lays eggs, and the other one eats them. Or: tough times for a chicken farmer. Oldest trick in the book is to suck the egg out of an egg, then fill it up with Tabasco sauce and put it back in the nest.

But I treat my chickens with a little more respect, I like to think, than most backyard farmers. Instead of Tabasco sauce, I’m whipping up a little roux — butter and flour — then adding onions, fresh jalapeños, tomatoes, and hot sausage. Season to taste, and this way if the oldest trick in the book doesn’t trick her out of the nasty habit, she’ll practically already be jambalaya.

One way or another, I’ll be eating lunch again in no time, by my calculations. But right now I’m still eating breakfast because it’s only 10:30. And I’m all-the-way out of money, so I have to put it on the card, but there’s a $10 minimum, so I have to have coffee too, even though I’m already overcaffeinated, and therefore I can’t stop writing on napkins.

Guess what. Now that I ain’t getting any at home, I can order eggs in restaurants again! Chicken fried steak and eggs ($8.75). Route 1 Diner, Valley Ford, on the way to Bodega Bay — for you. For me, it’s on the way to the city and back.

The eggs are not as fresh or as free-rangy as I’m accustomed to, but the chicken fried is great. Big, thick slab of cubed steak in a nice, crispy breading, draped over a mound of hash browns and just drowned in gravy.

Speaking of which (gravy), Satchel Paige the pitcher was here with his little Thai fambly, and his big American fambly threw a little picnic party for him recently. In Sacramento! So even though I didn’t get to ground out weakly to second against him, or eat no all-you-can-eat sushi with him, or laugh at his little tiny daughter for almost choking to death on cantaloupe instead of chicken bones, I did get to see my old big old friend, and hug him and stuff. And talk about how good the chicken wings were, just like in the good old days.

Except this time I was in Sacramento, which can be very disorienting. Warmth. Mosquitoes. Fireworks. A keg. And when I got back to the Bay Area, you’re not going to believe this, but I swear to you there was a small, compact car on fire at the MacArthur Maze, on the ramp from West 80 to South 880. Couple fire trucks, police, flares, one lane open, and traffic slowed some but not too bad because it was one in the morning, or at any rate after midnight.

Went to sleep in West Oakland, and by the time I woke up, in West Oakland, the media had blown the whole thing entirely out of proportion. Other people had to have seen this. Right? I swear, it was an old Pinto, slapped on the ass, or something. No big deal, a little campfire fire, they were roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.

And by four in the morning it wasn’t a Pinto anymore, it was an oil tanker, spun out and exploded. And the freeway had melted and collapsed and the MacArthur Maze as we know it was no more, snarling traffic all day, affecting the travel plans of generations to come and just generally ruining everything.

You’da thunk I’d have heard something like that right outside my window. Big rig goes boom, couple football fields of freeway crashing down, sirens, states of emergency, and so on. Yeah, right.

My point being: damn, those were some damn good chicken wings! Eh, Satch? To knock me out that hard. I must of ate about a bucket of them myself. And if I knew the name of the Sacto deli that battered and fried and buttered and hot-sauced them, I’d review it.

But I don’t, so … *

ROUTE 1 DINER

Mon. and Wed., 6:30 a.m.–7 p.m.; Thurs.–Sat., 6:30 a.m.–7 p.m.; Sun., 6:30 a.m.–5 p.m.

14450 Route 1, Valley Ford

(707) 876-9600

Takeout available

No alcohol

MC/V

Wheelchair accessible

Summer 2007 fairs and festivals guide

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ONGOING

ArtSFest Various venues; www.artsfestsf.org. For its fourth year, ArtSFest presents a showcase of theater, dance, visual art, film, music, spoken word, and more. Through May 28.

Night Market Ferry Bldg Marketplace, along the Embarcadero at the foot of Market; 693-0996, www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com. Thurs, 4-8pm, through Oct 26. Marketplace merchants and farmers offer their freshest artisan foods and produce at this weekly sunset event.

United States of Asian America Arts Festival Various venues; 864-4120, www.apiculturalcenter.org. Through June 30. This festival, presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, showcases Asian Pacific Islander dance, music, visual art, theater, and multidisciplinary performance ensembles at many San Francisco venues.

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Yerba Buena Gardens, Third St at Mission; 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. Through Oct, free. Nearly 100 artistic and cultural events for all ages takes place at the gardens this summer including Moroccan percussionists, Hawaiian ukulele players, Yiddish klezmer violinists, Balinese dancers, Shakespearean actors, Cuban musicians, and Japanese shakuhachi players.

BAY AREA

Silicon Valley Open Studios www.svos.org. Sat-Sun, 11am-5pm, through May 20. Check out Silicon Valley artists’ works and the spaces they use to create them at this community art program.

MAY 8–20

The Hip-Hop Theater Festival: Bay Area 2007 Various venues; www.youthspeaks.org. Youth Speaks, La Peña Cultural Center, the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, and San Francisco International Arts Festival present this showcase of new theater works that feature break dancing, MCing, graffiti, spoken word, and DJ sampling.

MAY 10-20

Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival Various venues; www.mcmf.org. The Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival features the best and brightest independent musicians and artists, including music by Vincent Gallo, Acid Mothers Temple, Edith Frost, and Gary Higgins. Literary and film events are also planned.

MAY 12

KFOG KaBoom! Piers 30-32; 817-KFOG, www.kfog.com. 4-10pm, free. Kick off the summer with this popular event featuring music, a spectacular fireworks show, food and drinks, and activities for kids. Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Guster, and Ozomatli perform.

BAY AREA

Arlen Ness Motorcycles Anniversary Party Arlen Ness, 6050 Dublin, Dublin; (925) 479-6300, www.arlenness.com. 10am-4:30pm, free. Celebrate the company’s fourth year in Dublin and 37th year in business with a display of the largest selection of Ness, Victory, American Iron Horse, and Big Dog Motorcycles in California, a walk through the museum, and a live music from Journey tribute band Evolution.

Beltane Pagan Festival Civic Center Park, 2151 MLK Jr. Way, Berk; www.thepaganalliance.org.10am-5:30pm, free. This year’s festival focuses on children and young adults and features a procession, performances, vendors, storytelling, an authors’ circle, and information booths.

Peralta in Bloom Spring Festival Carter Middle School, 4521 Webster, Oakl; (510) 655-1502, www.peraltaschool.org. Due to a fire, Peralta’s spring festival will be held at a temporary home this year. Expect the same great live entertainment, carnival games, old-fashioned high-steppin’ cakewalk, free arts and crafts, and delicious barbecue as always.

MAY 13

Hood Games VI "Tender Love" Turk between Mason and Taylor; 11am-4pm. This celebration of youth culture features live skating and music, art, a fashion show, contests, and a raffle. Bonus: every mom who shows up for this Mother’s Day event gets a free skateboard.

BAY AREA

Russian-American Fair Terman Middle School, 655 Arastradero, Palo Alto; (650) 852-3509, paloaltojcc.org. 10am-5pm, $3-5. The Palo Alto Jewish Community Center puts on this huge, colorful cultural extravaganza featuring ethnic food, entertainment, crafts and gift items, art exhibits, carnival games, and vodka tasting.

MAY 16–27

San Francisco International Arts Festival Various venues; (415) 439-2456, www.sfiaf.org. The theme for this year’s multidisciplinary festival is the Truth in Knowing/Now, a Conversation across the African Diaspora.

MAY 17–20

Carmel Art Festival Devendorf Park, Carmel; (831) 642-2503, www.carmelartfestival.org. Call for times, free. Enjoy viewing works by more than 60 visual artists at this four-day festival. In addition to the Plein Air and Sculpture-in-the-Park events, the CAF is host to the Carmel Youth Art Show, Quick Draw, and Kids Art Day.

MAY 18–20

Festival of Greece 4700 Lincoln, Oakl; (510) 531-3400, www.oaklandgreekfestival.com. Fri-Sat, 10am-11pm; Sun, 11am-9pm, $6. Free on Fri 10-4 and Sun 6-9. Let’s hear an "opa!" for Greek music, dance, food, and a stunning view at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension’s three-day festival.

MAY 19

A La Carte and Art Castro St, Mountain View; (650) 964-3395, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. A moveable feast of people and colorful tents offering two days of attractions, music, art, a farmers’ market, and a special appearance by TV star Delta Burke.

Asian Heritage Street Celebration Howard between Fifth and Seventh streets; 321-5865, www.asianfairsf.com. 11am-6pm, free. More than 200 organizations participate in this festival, which features Asian cooking demonstrations, beer and sake, arts and crafts, a variety of food, and live entertainment.

Family Fun Festival and Silent Auction 165 Grattan; 759-2815. 11am-5pm, free. Enjoy this second annual family event in Cole Valley, featuring a kids’ carnival with prizes, street theater, live music, refreshments, and a silent auction.

Oyster and Beer Fest Great Meadows, Fort Mason, Laguna at Bay; www.oreillysoysterfestival.com. 12-7pm, $15-19 ($50 reserved seating). O’Reilly’s Productions presents the 8th annual festival celebrating oysters and beer, featuring cooking demos, competitions, and live performance from Flogging Molly, Shantytown, The Hooks, and more.

Saints Kiril and Metody Bulgarian Cultural Festival Croatian American Cultural Center, 60 Onondaga; (510) 649-0941, www.slavonicweb.org. 3pm-midnight, $15. Enjoy live music, dance, and traditional food and wine in celebration of Bulgarian culture. A concert features Nestinari, Zaedno, Brass Punks, and many more.

Taiwanese American Cultural Festival Union Square; (408) 268-5637, www.tafnc.org. 10am-7pm, free. Explore Taiwan by tasting delicious Taiwanese delicacies, viewing a puppet show and other performances, and browsing arts and crafts exhibits.

Uncorked! Public Wine Festival Ghirardelli Square, 900 N Point; 775-5500, www.ghirardellisq.com. 1-6pm, event free, wine tasting $40-100. This second annual wine festival features wine tasting, five-star chef demonstrations, wine seminars, and a chocolate and wine pairing event.

BAY AREA

Cupertino Special Festival in the Park Cupertino Civic Center, 10300 Torre, Cupertino; (408) 996-0850, www.osfamilies.org. 10am-6pm, free. The Organization of Special Needs Families hosts its third annual festival for people of all walks or wheels of life. Featuring live music, food and beer, bouncy houses, arts and crafts, and other activities.

Pixie Park Spring Fair Marin Art and Garden Center, Sir Francis Drake Blvd at Lagunitas, Ross; www.pixiepark.org. 9am-4pm, free. This fair for preschoolers and kindergarteners features bathtub races, pony rides, a petting zoo, a puppet show, and much more.

MAY 19-20

Bay Area Storytelling Festival Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area, San Pablo Dam Road near Castro Ranch, El Sobrante; (510) 644-2593, www.bayareastorytelling.org.

Sat, 9:30am-8pm; Sun, 9:30am-5:15pm, $8-65. Gather around and listen to stories told by storytellers from around the world at this outdoor festival. Sheila Kay Adams, Charlotte Blake Alston, Bill Harley and others are featured.

Castroville Artichoke Festival 10100 Merritt, Castroville; (831) 633-2465, www.artichoke-festival.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $3-6. Have a heart — eat an artichoke. This festival cooks up the vegetable in every way imaginable and features tons of fun activities for kids, music, a parade, a farmers’ market, and much more.

Day of Decadence Women’s Expo Sedusa Studios, 1300 Dell, Campbell; (408) 826-9087, www.sedusastudios.com. 1-4pm, $5. Twenty-five women-owned businesses exhibit their products and pamper their customers at this decadent event. Includes free services, champagne, refreshments, and a chocolate fountain.

French Flea Market Chateau Sonoma, 153 West Napa, Sonoma; (707) 935-8553, www.chateausonoma.com. 10:30am-5:30pm, call for price. Attention, Francophiles: this flea market is for you! Shop for antiques, garden furniture, and accessories from French importers.

Himalayan Fair Live Oak Park, 1300 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 869-3995, www.himalayanfair.net. Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 10am-5:30pm, call for price. This benefit for humanitarian grassroots projects in the Himalayas features award-winning dancers and musicians representing Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mongolia. Check out the art and taste the delicious food.

Maker Faire San Mateo Fairgrounds, San Mateo; (415) 318-9067, www.makerfaire.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $5-15. A two-day, family-friendly event established by the creators of Make and Create magazines that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science projects, and the do-it-yourself mindset.

Muscle Car, Hot Rods, and Art Fair Bollinger Canyon Rd and Camino Ramon, San Ramon; (925) 855-1950, www.hatsoffamerica.us. 10am-5pm, free. Hats Off America presents this family event featuring muscle cars, classics and hot rods, art exhibits, children’s activities, live entertainment, and beer and wine.

Passport to Sonoma Valley Various venues; (707) 935-0803, www.sonomavalleywine.com. 11am-4pm, $55 (weekend, $65). This first of its kind, valleywide event will provide visitors rare access to the many hidden gems of California’s oldest wine region. More than 40 Sonoma wineries are participating, and the cost includes unlimited tasting.

Sunset Celebration Weekend Sunset headquarters, 80 Willow Road, Menlo Park; 1-800-786-7375, www.sunset.com. 10am-5pm, $10-12, kids free. Sunset magazine presents a two-day outdoor festival featuring beer, wine, and food tasting; test-kitchen tours, celebrity chef demonstrations, live music, seminars, and more.

Spring Fling Open House Rosenblum Cellars, 2900 Main, Alameda; (510) 995-4100, www.rosenblumcellars.com. Noon-5pm, $30. Try new and current releases at Rosenblum’s Alameda winery while enjoying wine-friendly hors d’oeuvres and music from local musicians.

MAY 20

ING Bay to Breakers Begins at Howard and Spear, ends at the Great Highway along Ocean Beach, SF; www.baytobreakers.com. 8am, $33-40. See a gang of Elvis impersonators in running shorts and a gigantic balloon shaped like a tube of Crest floating above a crowd of scantily clad, and unclad, joggers at this annual race from the Embarcadero to the Pacific Ocean.

BAY AREA

Jazz on Fourth Street Festival Fourth St, between Hearst and Virginia, Berk; (510) 526-6294, www.4thstreetshop.com. 11am-5pm, free. Local merchants present this annual outdoor music festival featuring Marcus Shelby Quartet, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Group, two Berkeley High combos, and the award-winning Berkeley High Jazz ensemble.

Niles Wildflower Art and Garden Show Niles Blvd at Main, Fremont; www.niles.org. 10am-3pm, event free, garden tour $12-15. Take a self-guided tour of beautiful home gardens and enjoy the creative works of local artists.

MAY 24–27

Sonoma Jazz Plus Festival Field of Dreams, 179 First St W, Sonoma; 1-866-527-8499, www.sonomajazz.org. $45-95. Thurs-Sat, 6:30 and 9pm; Sun, 8:30pm, $45-110. Head on up to California’s wine country for Memorial Day weekend and soak in the sounds of LeAnn Rimes, Tony Bennett, Smokey Robinson, and Harry Connick Jr.

MAY 25–28

Memorial Day Folk Music Camp Out Waterman Creek Camp, Santa Cruz County; (510) 523-6533. www.sffmc.org. $7/night. Preregistration required. Camp and sing along with the San Francisco Folk Music Club. Everybody’s goin’!

MAY 26

Soul Jazz Festival Crown Canyon Park, 8000 Crow Canyon, Castro Valley; www.souljazzfestival.com. 12-8pm, $45-49. A one-day music event celebrating the worlds of jazz, funk, and soul. This year pays tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and features Johnny Holiday, Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets, and Ella Fitzgerald’s son, Ray Brown Jr.

MAY 26–27

Carnaval San Francisco Harrison between 16th and 24th streets; (415) 920-0122, www.carnavalsf.com. 10am-6pm, free. The vibrant Mission District plays host to the best of Latin and Caribbean cultures and traditions with an array of food, music, dance, and art. The theme for this year’s carnaval is Love Happens, and it features speed dating at the Love Nest, a performance by Los Lonely Boys, and a parade on Sunday.

North American Cycle Courier Championship Speakeasy Brewery, 1195 Evans; 748-2941. Sat, 9am-2pm; Sun, 10am-1pm, free. This weekend-long celebration of bike culture features a race on a closed course that tests all areas of bike messenger skill.

BAY AREA

Santa Cruz Blues Festival 100 Aptos Creek, Aptos; (831) 479-9814, www.santacruzbluesfestival.com. 10am-7pm, $20-100. Rhythm and blues buffs beware. This annual festival, in its 15th year, showcases some of the most renowned acts of new and vintage R&B, soul, and blues rock, including Los Lonely Boys, Etta James and the Roots Band, and Little Feat. International food booths, juice bars, and beer make this event add to the appeal.

MAY 26–28

The San Francisco Cup International Youth Soccer Tournament and Festival Golden Gate Park’s Polo Field, SF; (415) 337-6630, www.sfcup.com. 8:30am. This 20th annual premier event brings together 128 national and international teams of both genders for great soccer excitement.

MAY 26–JUNE 30

Bay Area Summer Poetry Marathon Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; (415) 864-8855, www.thelab.org. 7-10pm,. $3-15 sliding scale. Various Bay Area and national poets read their work at this event held throughout the summer.

MAY 27

Antique Street Faire Main St, Pleasanton; (760) 724-9400, www.pleasantondowntown.net. 8am-4pm, free. This semiannual event sponsored by the Pleasanton Downtown Association provides more than a mile of antiques and collectibles displayed by about 300 professional dealers.

Art in the Vineyard Wente Vineyards Estate Winery, 5565 Tesla, Livermore; (925) 456-2305, www.livermoreartassociation.com. 11am-5pm, admission free, wine tasting $15. Mark your calendars for the 35th anniversary of this popular event, featuring 40 talented multimedia artists in addition to music by Vested Interest.

Asian Pacific Heritage Festival Bay Area Discovery Museum, 557 McReynolds, Sausalito; (415) 339-3900, www.baykidsmuseum.org.10am-5pm, free. Experience taiko drumming, the Marin Chinese Cultural Association’s Lion Dance Team, and other Polynesian and Pacific Islander arts groups, as well as traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipino cuisine in honor of Asian Pacific Islander Month.

Caledonia Street Fair Caledonia St, Sausalito; (415) 289-4152, www.ci.sausalito.ca.us.10:30am-6pm, free. This fest boasts multicultural food, dance, music, and more than 120 arts and crafts vendors. Don’t miss out on the Taste of Sausalito luncheon and wine-tasting event featuring food and wine prepared by select Napa and Sonoma wineries and restaurants.

MAY 28

Stone Soul Picnic Cal State East Bay’s Pioneer Amphitheatre, 25800 Carlos Bee, Hayward; 1-800-225-2277, www.kblx.com. Doors at 10am, show at noon, $56-81.50 includes parking. KBLX Radio 102.9 FM presents its 10th annual R&B and soul music event, featuring performances by Isaac Hayes, the Whispers, the Dells, and Tower of Power.

MAY 29–30

BALLE Film Fest Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley, Berk; (415) 255-1108, ext 112, livingeconomies.org. 6 and 8:30pm, $10 for screening, $15 for night. Business Alliance for Local Living Economies presents a two-night film festival reutf8g to BALLE principles, including Everything’s Cool, a film about global warming, and Manufactured Landscapes, a documentary about China’s industrial revolution.

MAY 31–JUNE 3

Contra Costa County Fair Contra Costa County Fairgrounds,10th and L streets, Antioch; (925) 757-4400, www.ccfair.org. Thurs-Fri, noon-11pm.; Sat-Sun, 11am-11pm, $4-7, parking $3. Now 70 years old, this county fair has a little of everything. Daily sea lion shows, a man dressed as a giant tree, and, of course, clown acts, are just some of the events presented to fairgoers this year.

JUNE 1–10

East Bay Open Studios Various venues; (510) 763-4361, www.proartsgallery.org. Open studios: June 2-3, 9-10, 11am-6pm; formal artists’ reception May 31, 6-10pm, free. For more than 25 years, the East Bay Open Studios have drawn more than 50,000 visitors to Pro Arts Gallery and various artist workspaces to support the work of local artists. The public can view exhibits, purchase artwork, attend workshops, and go on an art bus tour.

Healdsburg Jazz Festival Check Web site for ticket prices and venues in and around Healdsburg; (707) 433-4644, www.healdsburgjazzfestival.com. This ninth annual week-and-a-half-long jazz festival will feature a range of artists, from the George Cables Project and Roy Hargrove Quintet to the funky Louisiana-style Rebirth Brass Band and first-rate vocalist Rhiannon.

JUNE 2

Berkeley Farmers Market’s Strawberry Family Fun Festival Civic Center Park, Center at MLK Jr, Berk; (510) 548-3333, www.ecologycenter.org. 10am-3pm, free. Living up to its name, this festival is a guaranteed good time for the whole family. Highlights include environmental information booths, hands-on activities, delectable strawberry shortcake, and live performances by Nigerian Brothers, EarthCapades Environmental Vaudeville, Big Tadoo Puppet Crew, and Young Fiddlers.

Heartland Festival Riverdance Farms, Livingston; (831) 763-2111, www.eco-farm.org. 10am-7pm, $10 advance, $12 at gate. Celebrate a summer weekend by picking berries, taking farm and garden workshops, buying fresh produce from a farmers’ market, and enjoying live music at this family event.

Sonoma Valley Vintage Race Car Festival Sonoma Plaza, Sonoma; (707) 996-1090, www.sonomavalleyvisitors.com. 5pm, free entrance. Wine and food $30 in advance, $35 at the door. A gigantic taste explosion filled with more than 30 vintage dragsters, gourmet food, and wine samples.

Springfest 2007 Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, 200 North San Pedro, San Rafael; (415) 499-8891, www.mdt.org. 1 and 5pm, $14-22. Marin Dance Theatre presents this spring program featuring various performances directed by Margaret Swarthout.

JUNE 2–3

Art Deco and Modernism Sale Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 Eighth St; (650) 599-DECO, www.artdecosale.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 11am-5pm, $7-9. An extravagant art sale featuring pottery, books, art, vintage clothing, glass, furniture, and other accessories dating from 1900 to 1980.

Art in the Avenues Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, Ninth Ave and Lincoln; www.sunsetartists.com. 10am-5pm. This annual exhibition and sale presented by the Sunset Artists Society brings together artists and art lovers from all over the Bay Area.

Great San Francisco Crystal Fair Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; 383-7837, www.crystalfair.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-4pm, $5. This year’s fair is sure to please anyone interested in mystical and healing arts. Check out the more than 40 vendors catering to all of your crystal, mineral, bead, and jewelry needs.

Union Street Festival Union between Gough and Steiner; 1-800-310-6563, www.unionstreetfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. This year marks the 31st anniversary of one of San Francisco’s largest free art festivals. In addition to more than 200 artists and 20 gourmet food booths, the event features activities that represent the history of the Union Street Festival, including a special photographic exhibit that shows Union Street as it was 100 years ago.

BAY AREA

Marin Home Show and Benefit Jazz Fest Marin Center Exhibit Hall and Fairgrounds, San Rafael; (415) 499-6900, www.marinhomeshow.com. Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, $8 (Sat tix include free return on Sun). Not only will there be hundreds of experts in everything from renovation to landscaping on hand to answer all of your home and garden questions, but there will also be live jazz acts to entertain you throughout the weekend. Proceeds benefit Marin County public schools.

JUNE 3

Santa Cruz LGBT Pride March and Rally Starts at Pacific, ends at Lorenzo Park, Santa Cruz; (831) 427-4009, www.santacruzpride.org. 11am-5pm, free. Join the largest gathering of queers and allies in Santa Cruz County. Stage lineup includes Frootie Flavors, Nedra Johnson, Twilight Vixen Revue, Horizontes, and Assemblymember John Laird. Valet bike parking provided.

JUNE 6

Strollin’ on Main Street Party Main between St John and Old Bernal, Pleasanton; (925) 484-2199, ext 4, www.pleasantondowntown.net. 6-9pm, free. Stroll down Main Street and visit vendor booths, a beer and wine garden, and a stage where featured band Drive will play.

JUNE 6–AUG 29

Summer Sounds Oakland City Center, adjacent to 12th St/City Center BART Station, Oakl; www.oaklandcitycenter.com. Wed, noon-1pm, free. The Oakland City Center presents a weekly spotlight on an array of diverse musical artists.

JUNE 7–17

San Francisco Black Film Festival Various venues; (415) 771-9271, www.sfbff.org. The festival celebrates African American cinema and the African cultural diaspora by showcasing films by black filmmakers and emphasizing the power of film to foster cultural understanding and initiate progressive social change.

JUNE 8–10

Harmony Festival Sonoma County Fairgrounds,1350 Bennett Valley, Santa Rosa; www.harmonyfestival.com. Fri, 12pm-9pm; Sat, 10am-10pm; Sun, 10am-9pm, $20-149. This year’s theme is "promoting global cooling" boasts an ecovillage offering tips for living and consuming, a well-being pavilion featuring natural remedies, and a culinary showcase of dishes using natural ingredients. Festival-goers can camp onsite and musical highlights include Brian Wilson, Erykah Badu, the Roots, moe., and Rickie Lee Jones.

JUNE 9

Dia de Portugal Festival Kelley Park, San Jose; www.diadeportugal.com. 10am, free. The Portuguese Heritage Society of California presents this annual festival featuring a parade, live music, food and wine, a book and art sale, and more.

Temescal Street Fair Telegraph between 48th and 51st streets, Oakl; (510) 654-6346, ext 2, www.temescalmerchants.com. Noon-5pm, free. This fair will feature live music, crafts, martial arts demonstrations and food samplings from local restaurants, including an Italian beer and wine garden, a tribute to days when the district once flourished with beer gardens and canteens.

JUNE 9–10

Italian Street Painting Festival Fifth Ave at A St, San Rafael; (415) 457-4878, ext 15, www.youthinarts.org. 9am-7pm, free. Street painters paint beautiful and awe-inspiring chalk artwork on the streets of San Rafael.

Live Oak Park Fair Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 898-3282, www.liveoakparkfair.com.10am-6pm, free. Is there a better way to revel in the summertime than to enjoy original arts and crafts, delicious fresh food, and live jazz by Berkeley’s Jazzschool all weekend long in beautiful Live Oak Park? Didn’t think so.

San Jose Gay Pride Festival Discovery Meadow, Guadalupe River Park, San Jose; (408) 278-5563, www.sjgaypride.org. Sat, 10am-6pm, free; Sun, 10:30am, $15. This year’s San Jose pride celebration is two days’ worth of events, speakers, and music, including performances by the Cheeseballs, Average Dyke Band, and Smash-Up Derby. After the parade on Sunday, cruise vendor booths peddling their LGBT-friendly goods and services.

JUNE 9–24

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.worldartswest.org. Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm, $22-36. Performers from around the world converge at the Palace of Fine Arts to bring San Francisco a diverse selection of the world’s most talented dancers, including North Indian Kathak, Cantonese style Chinese lion dance, flamenco, and Middle Eastern belly dance.

JUNE 14–16

Transgender and Queer Performance Festival ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; (415) 863-9834, www.freshmeatproductions.org. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 7 and 10pm, $15. Fresh Meat Productions celebrates its sixth annual festival. This year’s artists perform traditional forms and path-blazing ones: hula, taiko, traditional Colombian dance, aerial dance, spoken word, rock ‘n’ roll, theater, hip-hop, and modern dance.

JUNE 14–17

CBA 32nd Annual Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival Nevada County Fairgrounds, McCourtney, Grass Valley; www.cbaontheweb.org. Ticket prices vary. Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, Cherryholmes, the Del McCoury Band, Dan Paisley and the Southern Grass, Country Current, the US Navy Band, the Dale Ann Bradley Band, and John Reischman and the Jay Birds perform at this California Bluegrass Association bluegrass jamboree.

JUNE 14–24

Frameline31: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival Various venues; (415) 703-8650. www.frameline.org. The 31st annual film festival by and about the LGBT community continues with a whole new program of innovative queer cinema.

JUNE 15–17

International Robogames Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, SF; www.RoboGames.net. Noon-10pm, $15-20. Engineers from around the world return for the fourth annual event listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest robot competition. Featuring 83 different competitions, including 18 just for walking humanoids.

JUNE 16–17

North Beach Festival Washington Square Park, 1200-1500 blocks of Grant and adjacent streets; 989-2220, www.sfnorthbeach.org. 10am-6pm, free. Touted as the country’s original outdoor arts and crafts festival, the North Beach Festival celebrates its 53rd anniversary with juried arts and crafts exhibitions and sales, a celebrity pizza toss, live entertainment stages, a cooking stage with celebrity chefs, Assisi animal blessings (Vallejo/Columbus), Arte di Gesso (Italian street chalk art competition, 1500 block Stockton), indoor classical concerts (4 pm, at National Shrine of St Francis), a poetry stage, and more.

San Francisco Free Folk Festival San Francisco City College, North Gym, 50 Phelan, SF; www.sffreefolkfest.org. Noon-10pm, free. Folkies unite for the 31st anniversary of this festival that features local and national artists, dances, open mics, family events, and workshops.

San Francisco Juneteenth Celebration Art of the Fillmore Jazz Presentation District, Fillmore from Geary Blvd to Fulton; 931-2729, www.sfjuneteenth.org. 10am-7pm, free. This Bay Area-wide celebration celebrates African American freedom while encouraging self-development and respect for all cultures. Promoted through a community festival that celebrates and shares African American history and culture through music, the performing arts, living history, and other cultural activities. Seven full blocks of food, arts and crafts, and community and corporate information booths. Three stages of entertainment, educational speakers, and health and job fairs. All neighborhoods welcomed.

BAY AREA

Marin Art Festival Lagoon Park, Marin Center, Ave of the Flags at Civic Center, San Rafael; (415) 388-0151, www.marinartfestival.com. 10am-6pm, $8. More than 250 fine artists join in at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Marin Center. Look out for the stilt walkers!

Russian River Blues Festival Johnson’s Beach, Guerneville; (952) 866-9599, www.russianriverbluesfest.com. 10am-6pm, $45-180. Head on down to the river for this annual affair featuring Buddy Guy, Little Richard, Koko Taylor, Roy Rogers and the Delta Kings, Lowrider Band, Elvin Bishop, and many others. Festival organizers also invite attendees to indulge in wine tasting for a nominal fee.

JUNE 17

Native Contemporary Arts Festival Esplanade at Yerba Buena Gardens, Fourth St and Mission, SF; (415) 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. 12pm-3pm, free. This fest features amazing performances, plus kids can make their own dream catchers, baskets, and bracelets.

JUNE 17–AUG 19

Stern Grove Music Festival Stern Grove, 19th Ave and Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. Sun 2pm, free. This beloved San Francisco festival celebrating community, nature, and the arts is in its 70th season.

JUNE 20–24

Sonoma-Marin Fair Petaluma Fairgrounds, Petaluma; www.sonoma-marinfair.org. $8-14. This fair promotes and showcases agriculture, while displaying the diverse talents, interests, and accomplishments of the citizens of California, especially the youth of Sonoma and Marin counties. Catch acts such as Cheap Trick, SHe DAISY, and Bowling for Soup on the main stage.

JUNE 22–24

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival Mendocino County Fairgrounds, 14480 Hwy 128, Boonville; www.snwmf.com. Three-day pass, $125; camping, $50-100. Camp for three days and listen to the international sounds of Bunny Wailer, Toots and the Maytals, Luciano, Ojos de Brujo, Les Nubian, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars, Junior Kelly, Sugar Minot, and many others.

JUNE 22–JULY 8

Alameda County Fair Alameda County Fairgrounds, 4501 Pleasanton, Pleasanton; (925) 426-7559, www.alamedacountyfair.com. $4-9. Enjoy opening night fireworks, carnival attractions, a wine competition, a karaoke contest, an interactive sports and fitness expo, concerts, and oh so much more.

JUNE 23

Dyke March Dolores Park between 18th and 20th streets, SF; (415) 241-8882, www.dykemarch.org. Rally at 3pm; march at 7pm, free. Head on out to march with the San Francisco chapter of this now internationally coordinated rally. A Dolores Park celebration and rally precedes the march.

JUNE 23–24

San Francisco Pride 2006 Civic Center, Larkin between Grove and McAllister; 864-FREE, www.sfpride.org. Celebration Sat-Sun, noon-6pm; parade Sun, 10:30am, free. A month of queer-empowering events culminates in this weekend celebration, a massive party with two days of music, food, dancing that continues to boost San Francisco’s rep as a gay mecca. Do not under any circumstances miss the parade!

BAY AREA

Danville Fine Arts Fair Hartz Ave, Danville; (831) 438-4751, www.danvillecachamber.com. 10am-6pm, free. The quintessential arts and crafts fair descends upon Danville each year, bringing with it fine food and drink, Italian-style street painting, and more.

JUNE 23–25

King of the Bay Third Ave, Foster City; www.kingofthebay.com. 1pm, free. See the world’s top kiteboarders and windsurfers compete at this event.

JUNE 23–30

Jazz Camp West 2006 (510) 287-8880, www.jazzcampwest.com. This eight-day jazz program for adults and older teens features more than 100 classes taught by more than 45 nationally and internationally known artists.

JUNE 23–AUG 4

Stanford Jazz Festival Various venues. (650) 736-0324, www.stanfordjazz.org. This acclaimed festival has been injecting Northern California with a healthy dose of both classic and modern jazz for more than three decades.

JUNE 23–SEPT 8

Concert in the Hills Series Cal State East Bay, Concord Campus, 4700 Ygnacio Valley Rd, Concord; (925) 602-8654, www.concord.csueastbay.edu/concertinthehills.htm. Free. This series celebrates its eighth season with performances by acts such as Dr. Loco and His Rockin’ Jalapeño Band, Aja Vu, Joni Morris, and Native Elements.

JUNE 29–JULY 1

Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival Black Oak Ranch, Laytonville; (707) 829-7067, www.katewolf.com/festival. Fri, 1pm-midnight; Sat, 10am-11:30pm; Sun, 11am-10pm, $55-160. This annual tribute to Northern California singer-songwriter Kate Wolf, who is credited with repopularizing folk music in the 1970s, features performances by Utah Phillips, Joe Craven and Sam Bevan, the Bills, and many others. Don’t miss the "Hobo Jungle Campfire," a nightly campfire on the creek shore with story swappin’ and song jammin’ aplenty.

JUNE 30–JULY 1

23rd Annual Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, 1-800-310-6563, www.sresproductions.com. 10am-6pm, free. Three stages of nonstop entertainment featuring top and emerging artists. Ten blocks of art booths and gourmet food.

JUNE 30–JULY 4

Marin County Fair Marin Center, Ave of the Flags at Civic Center, San Rafael; (415) 499-6400, www.marinfair.org. 11am-11pm, $11-13. This county fair stands above the rest with its promise of nightly fireworks, There will be many fun, new competitions to enter this year, including the Dancing Stars Competition, in which contestants may perform any style of dance — from tap to ballroom, salsa to boogie. Also not to be missed is the 18th annual "Creatures and Models" exhibit and the 37th annual "National Short Film and Video Festival," plus food and rides and other fun fair stuff.

JULY 1

Vans Warped Tour 2006 Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View; (650) 967-3000. www.warpedtour.com. 11am, $29.99. As Cities Burn, Bad Religion, Boys Like Girls, Coheed and Cambria, Escape the Fate, Pennywise, the Used, Funeral for a Friend, Revolution Mother, the Matches, and others perform at this annual punk music and culture event.

JULY 3–4

WorldOne Festival Cerrito Vista Park, El Cerrito; www.worldoneradio.org. Mon 5pm, Tue 10:30am, free. Worldoneradio hosts a world music and culture stage in the park. The eighth annual event is produced as a public service and fundraiser for area nonprofits.

JULY 4

City of San Francisco Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration Pier 39, Embarcadero at Beach, SF; (415) 705-5500, www.pier39.com. 1-9:30pm, free. SF’s waterfront Independence Day celebration features live music, kids’ activities, and an exciting fireworks show.

JULY 5–8

International Working Class Film and Video Festival New College Roxie Media Center, 3117 16th St; www.laborfest.net. Held annually to commemorate the San Francisco general strike of 1934 brings together filmmakers and labor artists from around the United States and internationally.

BAY AREA

High Sierra Music Festival Plumas Fairgrounds, 204 Fairground Rd, Quincy; (510) 595-1115, www.highsierramusic.org. 11am-11pm, $35-156. Enjoy your favorite jam bands on five different stages and at five different late-night venues, a kid zone, arts and crafts, food and drinks, beer, yoga, dancing, camping, and more. The lineup features performances by Xavier Rudd, the Disco Biscuits, Yonder Mountain String Band, Martin Sexton, and Les Claypool.

JULY 6–SEPT 29

Marin Shakespeare Company Festival Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, Dominican University of California, Grand Ave, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. Fri-Sun, varying times, $7-30. The Marin Shakespeare Company presents its outdoor festival featuring performances of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2.

JULY 10–21

Mendocino Music Festival Various venues; (707) 937-2044, www.mendocinomusic.com. $15-45. David Lindley, Mollie O’Brien, the Chris Cain Quartet, and others celebrate the 21st anniversary of this classical and contemporary music festival.

JULY 12–15

World California Fest Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley; (530) 891-4098. www.worldfest.net. $30-140. The 11th annual festival features eight stages and four days of music, with performances by everyone from Ani DiFranco to the Venezuelan Music Project. Camping is encouraged.

JULY 13–15

San Francisco Silent Film Festival Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; (415) 777-4908, www.silentfilm.org. Call for times and prices. The Golden Age of the silver screen comes to life, complete with a swelling Wurlitzer.

JULY 14-15

San Francisco International Chocolate Salon Fort Mason Conference Center; www.SFChocolateSalon.com. Sat, 11am-6pm; Sun, 10am-4pm, $20. The first major chocolate show on the West Coast in two decades takes place this summer with the theme Chocolat, in honor of Bastille Day. Experience the finest in artisan, gourmet, and premium chocolate with tastings, demonstrations, chef and author talks, and wine pairings.

BAY AREA

Los Altos Arts and Wine Festival Main and State, Los Altos; (650) 917-9799. www.losaltos-downtown.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, free. Enjoy original art and free entertainment while indulging in gourmet food and fine wine.

San Anselmo Art and Design Festival San Anselmo between Tamalpais and Bolinas, San Anselmo; 1-800-310-6563, www.artanddesignfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. The San Anselmo Chamber of Commerce brings this buffet of cooking, home, and landscape design to the masses.

JULY 19–29

Midsummer Mozart Festival Various venues; (415) 627-9141, www.midsummermozart.org. $30-60. The Mozart-only music concert series features pianist Janina Fialkowska, the Haffner Serenades, and the Coronation Mass.

JULY 19–AUG 6

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Various venues; (415) 621-0556, www.sfjff.org. The world’s first and largest Jewish film festival has toured the Bay Area for 27 years.

JULY 21–22

Connoisseur’s Marketplace Santa Cruz Ave, Menlo Park; (650) 325-2818, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. This annual midsummer festival hosts live jazz, R&B, and rock ‘n’ roll as well as arts and crafts, chef demonstrations, international cuisine, and lots of fun for the kids.

JULY 27–29

Gilroy Garlic Festival Christmas Hill Park, Hwy 101, Gilroy; (408) 842-1625, www.gilroygarlicfestival.com. 10am-7pm, $6-12. If 17,000 pounds of garlic bread isn’t enough of a reason to go, then all the other manifestations of this flavorful food are. Gourmet food and cook-offs, as well as free music and children’s activities, entertain you as you munch.

JULY 29

San Francisco Marathon Begins and ends at the Ferry Bldg, Embarcadero, SF; www.runsfm.com. $110 to compete. Tighten your laces for 26.2 miles around the Bay. The less enthusiastic can run a half marathon, 5K, or "progressive marathon," instead.

Up Your Alley Dore Alley between Folsom and Howard, Folsom between Ninth and 10th streets, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm. Hundreds of naughty and nice leather lovers sport their stuff in SoMa at this precursor to the Folsom Street Fair.

AUG 3–5

Reggae on the River Dimmick Ranch, French’s Camp, Hwy 101, Piercy, Humboldt County; (707) 923-4583, www.reggaeontheriver.com. $165-225. Further details pending. This year’s riverside roots and reggae fest features the Roots, Shaggy, Angelique Kidjo, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Mad Professor, the Itals, Eek-A-Mouse, Sierre Leone’s Refugee Allstars, and many others.

Reggae Rising Dimmick Ranch, French’s Camp, Hwy 101, Piercy, Humboldt County; www.reggaerising.com. $175 for a 3 day pass. Further details pending. This new summer festival will benefit various nonprofit groups in this southern Humboldt community and features Damian Marley, Sly and Robbie, Tanya Stephens, Fantan Mojah, and more.

AUG 4–5

Aloha Festival San Francisco Presidio Parade Grounds, near Lincoln at Graham, SF; www.pica-org.org/AlohaFest/index.html. 10am-5pm, free. The Pacific Islanders’ Cultural Association presents its annual Polynesian cultural festival featuring music, dance, arts, crafts, island cuisine, exhibits, and more.

AUG 9–12

Redwood Empire Fair Redwood Empire Fairgrounds, 1055 N State, Ukiah; (707) 462-3884, www.redwoodempirefair.com. Noon-11pm, $3-6. Bring the family to this old-timey fair, complete with rides, food, and fun.

AUG 10–12

Comcast San Jose Jazz Festival Various venues; (408) 288-7557, www.sanjosejazz.org. $5. This three-day music festival hosts dozens of acclaimed musicians playing all flavors of jazz.

AUG 11

SEEN Festival 2006 People’s Park, Telegraph and Dwight, Berk; (510) 938-2463, www.maxpages.com/seen2000. 11:30am-5pm, $5 suggested donation. This year marks the 12th anniversary of this world music, reggae, and soul festival.

AUG 11–12

Nihonmachi Street Fair Japantown Center, Post and Webster, SF; (415) 771-9861, www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Japantown’s 34th annual celebration of the Bay Area’s Asian and Pacific Islander communities continues this year with educational booths and programs, local musicians and entertainers, exhibits, and artisans.

Pistahan Yerba Buena Gardens, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybgf.org. 11am-5pm, free. The Bay Area Filipino festival of culture and cuisine features arts and crafts, live entertainment, food, and more.

Vintage Paper Fair Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, Ninth Ave at Lincoln, SF; (323) 883-1702, www.vintagepaperfair.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-4pm, free. Craft lovers will enjoy this fair, which presents works made from all kinds of paper — from photographs, postcards, and memorabilia to brochures and trade cards.

AUG 18–19

Solfest Solar Living Institute,13771 S Hwy 101, Hopland; (707)744-2017, www.solfest.org. "The greenest show on earth" is back for another year featuring exhibits about renewable energy, green building, ecodesign tools, organic agriculture, and much more.

SEPT 1–2

Millbrae Art and Wine Festival Broadway between Victoria and Meadow Glen, Millbrae; (650) 697-7324, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-5pm, free. More than 100,000 visitors will gather for this festive Mardi Gras-style celebration featuring R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, and soul music, as well as arts and crafts, food and beverages, live performance, and activities for kids.


SEPT 8–9

Mountain View Art and Wine Festival Castro between El Camino Real and Evelyn Ave, Mountain View; (650) 968-8378, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. Known as one of America’s finest art festivals, this vibrant celebration featuring art, music, and a kids’ park draws more than 200,000 arts lovers to Silicon Valley’s epicenter.

SEPT 9

Solano Stroll Solano Ave, Berk and Albany; (510) 527-5358, www.SolanoStroll.org. 10am-6pm, free. The vibes are always mellow and the air filled with rhythm at the Solano Ave Stroll. In its 33rd year, the milelong block party will feature a pancake breakfast, booths, entertainers, a parade, and more, this year with the Going Green — It’s Easy! theme.

SEPT 15

Expo for the Artist and Musician SomArts, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 861-5302; artsandmedia.net. 11am-6pm. This eighth annual event, sponsored by Independent Arts and Media, is the Bay Area’s only grassroots connection fair for independent arts, music, and culture, featuring workshops, performances, and networking.

SEPT 22

California Poets Festival History Park San Jose, 1650 Center, San Jose; californiapoetsfestival.org. 10am-4:30pm, free. Celebrate California’s distinctive heritage of poets, poetry, and presses at this all-day outdoor festival. *

Compiled by Nathan Baker, Angela Bass, Sam Devine, Molly Freedenberg, and Chris Jasmin

Piccino Cafe

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> paulr@sfbg.com

Although restaurants can be, and often are described as being, sexy, they aren’t really sexy in that way, the people way. So far as we know, and for reasons that I need not get into, they don’t actually indulge. Which means that Piccino Cafe, a petite jewel of a restaurant that opened a few months ago on a quiet Dogpatch side street between the furies of I-280 and Third Street, cannot be the love child of, say, Universal Cafe and A16. Although such a union is flatly impossible – Universal and A16 have never met, never been alone together – one can’t stop wondering. Piccino’s serious yet warm industrial look (stainless steel, blond wood, glass), the almost tissue-thin pizza crusts coming out of the kitchen, and the ingredients obtained from impeccable sources all seem profoundly familiar if not familial.http://www.youtube.com/
YouTube – Broadcast Yourself.

If Piccino were a child, we might have our answer by waiting for it to grow up a bit. But, as the name suggests, the restaurant is tiny, with just a half dozen or so tables (not counting sidewalk seats) in a space largely given over to the kitchen. It’s almost like a catering kitchen or the original Citizen Cake; the setup seems tilted more toward making food than serving it to people, and we did notice quite a few takeout pizza boxes being whisked away by people who clearly live in the changing neighborhood. But despite the tight space, service is sharp; each table is swiftly brought a Straus Organic Creamery milk bottle filled with water (chilled but not filtered) and a plate of crispy flatbreads, and even at the outdoor tables, one’s needs are continually seen to.

It is a fact that sometimes restaurants, like children and even love children, do grow up: Delfina began in quarters no roomier than Piccino’s and is now an order of magnitude bigger, plus an adjoining pizzeria. Part of Piccino’s charm is its snugness, but the food is so good that demand is bound to raise the issue of expansion sooner or later, probably sooner. While that question simmers, wedge yourself in at one of the knee-to-knee tables, pour yourself a tumbler of water from your personal stash, have a bite of flatbread, and scan the brief menu.

What do you see? A selection of pizzas, of course, including such staples as margherita and napoletana ($9.25) – the latter swabbed with blood-red tomato sauce and dotted with halved black olives and bits of anchovy – along with special pies that vary according to season and inspiration. The people at the next table could be overheard urgently discussing a pizza topped with, among other things, speck.

"Maybe it’s fish," one of them said doubtfully. Her companion furrowed his brow. Only moments before, we too had furrowed our brows in bafflement about speck before asking our server. His answer: smoked prosciutto. The speck pie ($10.75), a bianco, was also topped with fresh arugula and mild white cheese. Since we like arugula, we’d started with a simple arugula salad ($7) decorated with Parmesan shavings and drizzled with balsamic vinegar – a simple and perfect combination, like an unforgettable piece of chamber music.

A weightier opener is the antipasti platter ($8.50), a blending of some usual suspects – country pate with Dijon mustard, thin coins of salume, black and green olives (mind the pits!) – along with a few special guests, including a chickpea spread that wasn’t hummus (coarser of texture, no tahini) and a bouquet of pickled baby carrots and radishes. There was flatbread on the side, of course, for clean-up duty.

The evening menu differs from its midday confrere mainly in the addition of a few nonbready main dishes. We did not try the evening’s risotto, though a plate that arrived at the next table (opposite the speck-flummoxed folk) looked fabulously creamy. We did try the duck confit ($14), a gently crisped leg and thigh half-recumbent on a bed of dandelion greens given some sweetness and crunch by sections of pixie tangerines and rubbly little bits of crushed hazelnuts. Duck confit is one of those ideal dishes for restaurants – it’s elegant and slightly exotic, highly skill- and time-intensive, with most of the work being done days beforehand and not much to do at the finish besides crisping the skin and warming the meat through – and Piccino’s version does honor to the kitchen. I wouldn’t have minded some lentils on the side, though maybe they’re considered cliche now, or maybe Americans just don’t have much use for legumes other than the peanut. And even with peanuts, we prefer the artifice of grinding them into paste.

There was at lunch an interesting minestrone ($5.50) that consisted largely of a mocha-colored cranberry-bean puree in which orecchiette floated like inner tubes on a muddy summer river. Perhaps legumes are more acceptable to the American palate if pulverized so as to be unrecognizable? And where there is soup, there is likely to be sandwich: of salume cotto ($8.75), slices of warm cured meat on grilled country bread. With arugula! And a nice heap of vinegar-modulated lentil salad on the side, with the legumes daringly left intact.

The advent of Piccino tells us which way the wind is blowing in the Dogpatch. In the evening the neighborhood’s streets are quiet (all the traffic is on the freeway a few blocks west and Third Street a few blocks east), and the houses show a friendly dowdiness, like a grandmother’s dresses. But the restaurant’s crowds are young and knowing, and if they’re not sure what speck is, they expect to find out. *

PICCINO CAFE

Mon.-Wed., 7 a.m.-3 p.m.; Thurs.-Fri., 7 a.m.-8:30 p.m.; Sat., 8 a.m.-8:30 p.m.; Sun. (coffee bar only), 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

801 22nd St., SF

(415) 824-4224

www.piccinocafe.com

Beer and wine

Cash only (credit cards pending)

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

The importance of being imported

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If you think of Mateus or Lancer’s when you think of Portuguese wine, then you may soon be thinking anew. Portugal’s food and wines have been overshadowed by those of Spain, its larger Iberian neighbor, over the last generation or so, but the Portuguese viticultural tradition has its roots in Roman times and produces wines that compare favorably with any in the world. The issue at the moment is distributing them to that world – in particular, to us – and that means finding importers.

To judge by the offerings of a recent trade show, Portuguese winemakers aren’t going to have much trouble convincing the public about the quality of their wines nor about their value. I found myself, after rapturous sips of this and that, asking what a particular bottling might sell for at retail in Europe and repeatedly hearing, "2 euros 50" or "3 euros" – in other words, $3 or $4. I would have bought several cases on the spot if I’d been able to, the whites being especially appealing.

At least one wrinkle for Portuguese winemakers who want to sell their stuff here is that there is no restaurant infrastructure to serve as a wedge into public consciousness. Our Iberian restaurants are almost all Spanish, and there aren’t even that many of them; I am aware of only the Grubstake, a Polk Gulch hamburger salon, as an offerer of a full-scale Portuguese menu in the city, and even there you have to know what you’re looking for, lest you end up with a BLT from the regular menu. Some years ago, Stars, in one of its post-Jeremiah Tower configurations, made a point of featuring Portuguese wines, but that program went down with the restaurant.

Perhaps there will be a breakthrough wine, a Portuguese answer to gruner veltliner and albarino. (The Portuguese grow the latter, incidentally, as alvarinho.) I might place a small bet on white wines produced from antao vez, a grape indigenous to Portugal and grown in the Alentejo region southeast of Lisbon. The name looks a bit forbidding to the Anglophone eye – an unhelpful detail in a brand-name culture like ours – but the wines are bright and fresh, with a green fruitiness gently crisped by acid. Wines like these at $3 to $4 a bottle would be too good to be true – but maybe $5 or $6 is feasible?

Paul Reidinger

> paulr@sfbg.com

El pollo greco

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Herbs tell stories, and the association of certain herbs with certain experiences can be specific and powerful. Basil, for instance, is summer and tomatoes, while sage is Thanksgiving and bread stuffing. Oregano? Its strong perfume is the smell of pizza — but it’s also Greek. It is, in particular, the herb that gives Athenian or Greek chicken its bewitching character.

For years I tried without much success to create at home a plausible version of the Athenian chicken that we found so irresistible in Greek restaurants. The restaurant chickens often seemed to have been roasted on rotisseries, and while I couldn’t match that, I did have my trusty vertical roasters, which produced (with day-before rubbing of kosher salt and Herbes de Provence) wonderful Zuni-style roast chickens. My basic theory was to substitute oregano for the Herbes; this worked, but the results were underwhelming, certainly no match for their Zuniesque brethren. Smashed garlic and lemon slices under the skin? These helped a little, but the birds still seemed to lack the sought-after verve.

Of course, there is more than one way to roast a chicken. Roasting says oven the way oregano says pizza, but it need not be so. Let us not forget pan roasting, a near relation to braising, in which the item in question is cooked on the stove top in a small amount of fat or other liquid. I had a time-tested recipe for pan-roasted lemon-rosemary chicken; what if I dropped the rosemary in favor of (dried) oregano? I did: eureka!

Start with an oregano-and-salt-rubbed chicken, cut into pieces. Put the pieces in a large nonstick skillet over lively heat for a minute or two, turning occasionally until they’re lightly seared. Add a couple of tablespoons each of sweet butter and olive oil to the pan, along with a good pinch of salt, a heaping tablespoon of dried oregano, and three cloves of smashed, peeled garlic. Cook for a few minutes more, shaking the pan and turning the pieces. Add a cup of dry white wine, and bring to a boil; reduce the heat and simmer, partly covered, for 30 to 40 minutes, turning the pieces now and then. When the chicken is golden brown, remove from the pan and deglaze with the juice of one lemon. I use a gravy separator for the pan juices, but you don’t have to. Serve the jus on the side and say oompah!

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com

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