Bay Area Restaurants

A table of R&G Lounge diners. [Photo: myhsu/Flickr] CHINATOWN—Want to dine like Benu's Corey Lee at famed Chinese banquet spot R&G Lounge? You'll have to call ahead to order the off-menu lo mei gei, a deboned chicken stuffed with all of its meat, Chinese sausage, glutenous rice, and vegetables. It feeds six people at minimum, and according to Lee, it "perfectly hugs the line between gastronomy and junk food." [SF Mag] THE KITCHEN—Intrepid SFist reporter/baker Rose Garrett spent two days trying to prepare Caitlin Freeman's signature SFMOMA Mondrian cake from her new Modern Art Desserts book, and chronicled each step of the journey. "I was beginning to see why slices of this cake cost $8 each," she writes after the end of day one. Read on to find out how her cake ended up. [SFist] THE MISSION—Speaking of cake (and scones, and tea sandwiches, and tarts), Charles Chocolates has announced they'll be offering an afternoon tea service beginning this Sunday, May 26. For $32.50 per person, diners will get their choice of fancy tea or hot chocolate, and a three-tiered plate of treats like chocolate-chip scones, blueberry-ricotta custard cake, sandwiches like 4505 Meats chicken confit on Panorama bread, and, for an extra $16, a 10-piece box of chocolates to bring home. For now, it'll be offered at noon and 2 pm on Sundays and Mondays. [Zagat] THE MISSION—No plans tonight? Consider rolling over to the Verdi Club for a "Kitchen Confidential" edition of the long-running Porchlight Storytelling series, featuring Laurence Jossel (Nopa), Richie Nakano (Hapa Ramen), David Lynch (St. Vincent), Telmo Faria (Tacolicious), bartender Jill Vice, and writers Mary Ladd and Ali Liebegott. Craig Stoll of Delfina will even co-host. Tickets are $15, and the show starts at 7 pm. [EaterWire] BERNAL HEIGHTS—The former Bernal Heights Produce at Cortland and Ellsworth is getting a new owner, who also runs the nearby Harvest Hills Market and has been leaving long, weird notes in the window, written in the voice of her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter. She's promising gluten-free baked goods and housemade ice cream, and will open in the next couple of months. [Bernalwood]

On the season finale of Saturday Night Live, city correspondent and tweaked-out club kid Stefon got a big send-off. Nightclub characters referenced by Stefon throughout the years showed up, and this clip has everyone: human parking cones, Gizblow (the coked-up Gremlin), the evil celebrity chef Wario Batali, and more. [-E-]

The interior of Pesce. [Photo: khelvan/Flickr] After more than a decade on Polk Street, Pesce, the somewhat forgotten original Italian spot from the Beretta and Delarosa team of Adriano Paganini and Ruggero Gadaldi, has decided to move across town, snapping up the Castro space that was previously home to long-running 2223 and, more recently, short-lived, Yelp-dissing Jake's on Market. The much larger digs will accommodate the duo's desire to offer space for big groups, and save them the cost of planned renovations at Pesce's original home. The plan is currently to keep Pesce 1.0 alive and kicking until two or so weeks before its new home is ready for action, and then to move the whole operation, including the staff and menu, to the Castro space. The menu will stay the same (aside from the possible addition of a few more small bites), and the new Pesce will have double the space, with 100 seats to the Polk location's 50. They're targeting an August opening, and will likely also hold on to the original location in hopes of opening a new concept there. · Pesce plans a big move from Polk Street to Market Street [Inside Scoop] · Jake's on Market Shuts Down, Leaves Anti-Yelp Note [~ ESF ~] · Gourmet Names 10 Hottest Italian Restaurants in SF [~ ESF ~]

Russian Hill: The multi-use space that is Firehouse 8 (1648 Pacific Avenue) no longer has their regular coffee vendor, Wrecking Ball Coffee. And the split doesn't sound amicable. [Sprudge via Eater] Embarcadero: Chef Kory Stewart and foraging expert/author Connie Green are putting together the third annual Wild Foods Dinner at Americano on June 6. The meal will feature wild vegetation foraged in the Sierras, as well as wild fish and meat. It's $85 per person, it starts with a reception at 5:30 p.m., and you can make a reservation here. [Grub Street] Oakland: Guest Chef in Rockridge is closed, which is not surprising given that recent, unexplained temporary closure, and given that owner Scott Cameron is moving on to work on The Commissar and Mad Monk in Berkeley. [Zagat] Read more posts by Jay BarmannFiled Under: neighborhood watch, americano, closings, firehouse 8, guest chef, kory stewart

This week we're continuing our coverage of full-flavored, lower alcohol brews in honor of Session Beer Month. Today's serendipitous 80+ degree weather is a perfect example of why we need well-cra...

Post by Allison Aubrey, The Salt at NPR Food (5/20/13) Carbon isotope analysis: a scientific way to know just how much soda kids are drinking behind parents’ backs?Photo: iStockphoto.comOne way to know how much soda people drink is to ask them. The problem? We tend to underestimate, lie or forget what we’ve consumed. And this is a challenge for researchers who study the links between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity. A new study published in the Journal of Nutrition explains a technique that could help researchers get a good measurement of sugary beverage consumption — by analyzing a piece of hair or a blood sample. Researcher Diane O’Brien of the University of Alaska and her colleagues have used carbon isotope analysis to develop their measuring tool. “We’re isolating the [carbon] isotope ratio in a specific molecule,” explains O’Brien. The molecule is an amino acid called alanine, which captures carbon from sugars. It turns out that when you consume sweetened soda, slightly more of a particular kind of carbon called C-13 gets trapped in alanine and incorporated into proteins. And proteins hang around in the body much longer than sugar does. So the scientists say they can sample proteins to look for extra amounts of C-13 in alanine. People with a lot of C-13 are likely to be people who have consumed a lot of corn syrup and cane sugar. Using this technique, O’Brien says, you can capture a longer-term picture of sugar consumption compared with urine samples — which only reveal how much sugar a person has consumed in the past day or so. Carbon isotope analysis has helped scientists piece together ancient dietary patterns, explains Dale Schoeller of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in a commentary about the study: “The use of stable isotope signatures has even provided information about the diet of Otzi [aka The Iceman],the 5,000-year-old natural mummy found in the Alps in 1991.” And he writes that he thinks the technique will be helpful for researchers studying the obesity epidemic. “This should be a major step toward resolving the controversy over the role ofcaloric sweetener intake in the development of obesity,” writes Schoeller. Not everyone is convinced. “This is an interesting, but preliminary, finding,” says Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital and director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center, in an email to The Salt. Barry Popkin of UNC-Chapel Hill, another obesity researcher, sounds the same note: “This might be useful,” Popkin writes in an email. But the big drawback, he says, is that such testing is expensive to carry out. Still, as the mom of a teenage son who has been spotted more than once sneaking off on his bike to the corner store for a big old soft drink in the afternoon, it would be nifty to perform the r-u-drinking-soda? test. So can O’Brien help? “Sure, in theory we could run your son’s hair and find out if he’s quaffing on the sly,” O’Brien says. Or maybe I should just check the bottles in the recycle bin. (‘Fess up, Luke, I’m on to you!) Copyright 2013 NPR.

William von Schneidau, who owns the BB Ranch butcher shop at Pike Place Market in Seattle, has made prosciutto from pigs fed marijuana. Photo: Courtesy of BB Ranch Post by Eliza Barclay, The Salt at NPR Food (5/20/13) William von Schneidau, an intrepid butcher in Seattle, is giving a whole new meaning to “potbelly pig.” Lately, he’s been feeding marijuana refuse to the pigs he turns into prosciutto for BB Ranch, his butcher shop in the city’s famous Pike Place Market. Pot-scented bacon? Well, not quite. The stems, leaves and root bulbs von Schneidau recoups from Top Shelf Organic, a medical marijuana dispensary, don’t season the meat, he says. But the meat from the first few “pot pigs” he’s butchered has been “redder and more savory” than what he usually works with, he says. It’s not clear whether the pigs feel anything from the weed in their feed, or how much, if any, THC — the psychoactive substance that gets humans high — ends up in the meat. Rather than an attempt to develop a new meaty treat for stoners, the “pot pig” experiment seems mostly to be an (effective) publicity stunt. Von Schneidau’s first Pot Pig Gig event — where he promoted the product, as well as other local foods — sold out quickly. And he says all the media attention he has gotten is generating lots of interest in the next event he’s planning. Still, von Schneidau’s creative reuse of a local waste product is part of a larger trend of small farmers looking for new, free sources of livestock feed, especially since prices for corn and soy have been on the rise. In addition to the pot refuse, von Schneidau has linked up ranchers and farmers in the region with a vodka distillery and with vegetable vendors at Pike Place Market who have waste that would otherwise end up as compost or in the landfill. As we’ve reported, high feed prices have led some farmers elsewhere to seek out food scraps and even bakery byproduct — bread, dough, pastries and cereal — for their pigs and cattle. Pigs have stomachs pretty similar to humans and can eat just about anything we eat. But we couldn’t find any research on what happens when you feed them marijuana. Scientists at the European Union Food Safety Authority looked into the safety of using hemp, a plant that’s a close relative of marijuana, in feed for dairy cows. When the cows were fed hemp plants, enough THC made its way into their milk that the scientists recommended prohibiting its use. (However, feeding the cows hemp seeds was just fine, they found.) Von Schneidau says he’s all for finding out what his dietary supplement is doing for his pigs. “If we had a vet that stepped up to the plate and wanted to check out their joints and mood, and what drugs make pigs happy, that would be great,” he says. “But me, I just get out there, and cut them up, and put them on a BBQ, and eat them.” Copyright 2013 NPR.

Jake at Le Fooding a couple years ago. Megastar and Alice Waters acolyte Jake Gyllenhaal was in town last week and was spotted dining at Locanda. He ordered a pretty big meal of Jewish-style artichokes, bucatini all’amatriciana, burrata cuscini with crawfish, and the bavette steak, washed down with a glass of Pievalta Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi. Gyllenhaal was recently mentioned in connection with the casting of the upcoming movie version of the musical Into the Woods. No word on whether he was dining alone. [Tablehopper, Earlier] Read more posts by Jay BarmannFiled Under: celebrity settings, jake gyllenhaal, locanda

Many restaurateurs and grocery stores located along the chaotic Bay to Breakers route respond by simply closing their doors for the morning or day, but credit must be given to newly-opened Bi-Rite Divis, which embraced the occasion by stripping the cheese case and filling it with normally-unavailable Tecate and PBR tallboys, as well as bottled water. Down the way at the Haight Whole Foods, the olive bar got the same treatment. [SFist]

San Francisco's oldest continuously operating restaurant, and the third-oldest in the country, Tadich Grill, is opening a second location after 164 years in Washington, D.C. As the Business Times reports, the iconic restaurant will "introduce West Coast seafood" to the nation's capital sometime next year, and the location is a 7,400-square-foot space at 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue, between Capitol Hill and the White House. Tadich CEO Michael Buich is working on the project with Seattle-based restaurant developer Icon Inc., which develops spinoffs of iconic properties like Tadich. [SF Business Times] Read more posts by Jay BarmannFiled Under: empire building, other cities, tadich grill