"San Francisco restaurants" news and stories

Why ask just one food pro about the best new restaurants around the country when you can ask a gaggle of them? Eater did just that, and came up with its Top Newcomers and Top Standbys in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., Miami, Portland, and Austin.

When in Austin, go to newcomer Uchiko for contemporary Japanese dishes like walu walu (oak-grilled escolar with candied citrus, yuzupon and myoga), say four of the seven experts in the Texas capital. If you happen to be in San Francisco, be sure to drop by standby Pizzaria Delfina (above, and home to the "Purgatorio" pie) say three of the Bay Area critics.

And in Slashfood's hometown of New York? Thai is where it's at, according to the pros. Wander over to Kin Shop for a braised goat curry, or Lotus of Siam for crispy rice with sour Thai sausage.

There's a new trend in food-buying: getting beef directly from the rancher. Recipes are for: Marinated Grass-Fed Flank Steak, Sally Gale's Olive-Crusted Rib Roast, and Chileno Valley Beef Stew.

Apple recipes in preparation for Rosh Hashana: Currant- & Ginger-Stuffed Baked Apples with Honey Creme Fraiche, Butter Lettuce, Apple, Endive, Walnut & Cheddar Salad with Honey Vinaigrette, and Grilled Flatbread with Melted Brie & Honeyed Apple Compote.

Olivia Wu's Shanghai Diary has Drunken Soybeans.

In the news, THomas Keller's temporary Ad Hoc is open, Cindy Pawlcyn does fish at Go Fish, and Gary Danko tops the Zagat survey. Pan-Asian Red Ginger in El Granada and Oakland's country French JoJo both receive two and a half stars (**½). Mescolanza in the Richmond District gets two stars (**).

I love food, but I will admit that I am not a hugely adventurous eater. I love to watch the likes of Tony Bourdain travel to faraway places and eat things like, oh, cobra hearts, but i doubt that I'd be able to stomach it myself. In fact, I can hardly stand to think about some of the foods of my own cultural cuisine, Korean.

Frogs aren't considered all that adventurous, and yet, I doubt I could have eaten it, as Reid of Ono Kine Grindz did on a recent trip from his home in Hawaii to San Francisco. The restaurant is Dragonfly, a contemporary Vietnamese restaurant that he read about. He hasn't written any notes about what it tasted like yet, but the picture makes them look, at least to me, pretty damn good.

Over the weekend, I begged for some advice about dim sum in the Bay Area, with only Yank Sing and Ton Kiang as names that I had from Michael Bauer's List of the Top 100 Bay Area restaurants. Thank you to all for your suggestions! However, I ended up at Yank Sing anyway because our host couldn't stop singing its praises. He warned me that there would be some of the traditional dim sum like shiu mai and chicken's feet, but there would also be what he called "gringo dim sum." I was worried, but the new-fangled "gringo dim sum" was just as good as the OG. The photo tour is after the jump...

Over the weekend, I posted a picture of Monkey enjoying a Mandarin and soda during Happy Hour at a downtown LA restaurant and bar that's heavy on steaks, and asked you to guess where he was. No no no, it's not the Standard! Monkey wasn't on the guest list for the rooftop bar. Monkey was across the street at...Nick & Stef's Steakhouse of Joachim Splichal's Patina Group.

Now Monkey is on a road trip, and has motored into the Bay Area. For Friday Happy Hour, he was in downtown San Francisco enjoying another Mandarin & Soda in an almost all-black, wear-your-sunglasses-inside bar in the lobby of a swanky hotel. Just inside the front door, the ceiling goes all the way up to skylight, which at Happy Hour, lets some waning sunshine in. The bar has a list of about 40 "signature" cocktails (doesn't that defeat the idea of "signature?"), several of which include: the Wondertini (Chopin vodka with a splash of Bonny Doon Muscat Vin de Glaciere), San Franhattan (Johnnie Walker Black, Amaretto di Saronno and dash of cherry juice), and the Dot Com Bust, which is a glass of tap water on the rocks.

We also ordered French fries, which came out in a paper cone resting in a wire frame, mostly because we needed to sober up. The drinks are fairly strong, and had Monkey singing the alphabet backwards!

Where is Monkey having his Mandarin and Soda?