I’ve written about the Bay Area’s proliferation of izakayas before. It feels like nearly every month there’s a new izakaya in town — not that I’m complaining. San Francisco’s Chotto, which opened this summer, has been among the most buzz-worthy, and with good reason. Excited at the prospect of grilled offal and fresh seafood, I [...]
I had no idea what to expect when I met my friend Natasha at A Taste of the Himalayas for a Nepalese dinner in Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto. All I knew of Nepalese cuisine is that it’s somewhat similar to Indian: lots of lentils, chutneys, pickles, and aromatic spices. But Nepalese cuisine is diverse, with not [...]
When I stumbled into Piedmont’s Cesar a few weeks ago, I was craving their out-of-this-world Spanish tapas and cocktails. To my surprise, what used to be Bar Cesar reincarnated itself as Cesar Latino over a year ago, but their food remains just as stellar. Instead of cured meats and salted seafood, Cesar now serves up [...]
A few years ago, I lived in San Francisco’s Richmond District. I didn’t realize how good I had it at the time — you could hardly take ten steps in any direction without walking into a quality restaurant. My favorite dim sum restaurant was a five minute walk away, and after I moved, I searched [...]
I tend to take fusion cuisine with a grain of salt. Too many wasabi-creme foams and deep-fried California rolls have made me apprehensive, but done right, fusion can be a beautiful thing. At the Embarcadero’s Ferry Building, Hapa Ramen does fusion right by serving up bowls of locally sourced and locally influenced noodles. I stopped [...]