After touring the Tower, three blocks west lies (very appropriately) The Hung, Drawn & Quartered.
They feature Fuller’s Frontier lager and an excellent small plate food selection. We decided on Crispy Squid, Steak & Fuller’s Mini Pie and Chorizo in Red Wine. All were very good and followed up with another Fuller’s Craft Lager.
From a New York Times online article:
A more recent addition to San Francisco’s rooftop bar scene is Everdene, a standout which opened this April atop the new Virgin Hotels San Francisco. Besides taking its name from the heroine of Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd,” Everdene has a lush, garden party vibe that feels far removed from the crowds below in SoMa. The drinks program consists of brightly colored, flora-heavy sippers (tequila-based “Her Majesty’s Pleasure,” with cucumbers and sugar snap peas, is an early favorite), courtesy of the lead bartender Tommy Quimby, another Trick Dog alum.
To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/travel/san-francisco-hotel-bar-cocktails.html
From a Forbes.com online review:
Chef de cuisine Julio-Cesar Florez, a native of Lima, served as chef de cuisine of the now-defunct Peruvian-themed Isla and has been the sous chef at Lucky Robot since mid-2017, where he began adding subtle Peruvian touches to Huang’s playful Japanese cuisine. Seeing the success of these special menu items, the two decided to take the 6-year old restaurant in this new direction.
Lucky Robot, a casual Japanese restaurant in Austin’s popular South Congress Avenue, switched its menu to focus more intensively on nikkei in the spring. With over 15 years’ experience in Japanese cuisine, training under Master Shibazaki-san of Benihana and Tyson Cole of Uchi, executive chef Jay Huang is a master of Japanese flavors and plating, enhanced by a passion for sustainability and support of local purveyors.
From a Wall Street Journal online article by Lettie Teague:
Many self-styled “wine educators” online claim to be certified sommeliers, but that doesn’t mean they have worked in a restaurant. Others are winemakers, adjunct professors or simply oenophiles with a pedagogical bent. Whether via video or podcast, the education they offer tends to fall into two categories: basic (grape names, how to hold a glass) or wonky (the role of tannins, grapevine blights).
LEARNING about wine online seems easy enough—not to mention affordable. Yet after exploring all manner of internet wine education, I’m not ready to declare it the ideal forum—at least not yet.
The educational content actual wine professionals produce mostly falls into the latter camp, and podcasts appear to be the preferred format. The decidedly wonky “Guild of Sommeliers Podcast”(guildpodcast.com) features sommeliers such as Geoff Kruth and Kelli White interviewing top talent. In an episode last fall, Mr. Kruth and Virginia Wilcox, winemaker at Vasse Felix in Western Australia, discussed tannins in a surprisingly lively chat. “I think you can make or break a wine by getting the tannins wrong,” Ms. Wilcox said. She enumerated various categories of tannin, including “astringent,” “squeaky,” “toothy,” “tongue” and “green”—the ones that “push to the back of your throat.” I learned a lot and plan to invoke the term “squeaky tannins” very soon.
To read more click on the following link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-online-wine-courses-worth-your-time-11568321079
From a UpRoxx.com online article:
The Crack Shack … offer(s) genuinely tasty chicken sandwiches with meat sourced from farms outside of the industrial farming world. They… cost roughly ten times as much as a McChicken and more than double the Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich.
“Solid, good cooking and comfort are always on-trend,” says Chef Richard Blais. We reached out to the Top Chef all-star and co-owner of The Crack Shack to talk chicken sandwiches because, well, that’s all people seem to be talking about lately. We figured, if anyone would understand how a sandwich basically turned into a cult obsession at the tail end of summer ’19, he might.
“Chicken is incredibly universal and always a crowd-pleaser,” Blais adds. “As is fried food, so… I think it’s just math.”
The cushy bread, the tangy mayo, the crunch of a salty pickle, and, of course, a beautifully seasoned and deep-fried piece of chicken (hopefully brined thigh meat) is about as complex-yet-simple as a sandwich can be. Add a little heat and it’s bliss in a bun.
https://uproxx.com/life/history-of-the-fried-chicken-sandwich/
From a Bon Appétit magazine online review:
Immediately upon checking into one of the Sound View’s cedar-paneled rooms, all clean white sheets and sailcloth pillows and views straight out onto the beach (ALL of the rooms at the Sound View look straight out onto the beach), I felt my blood pressure slow. For lunch, we jammed lobster rolls the size of our faces into our faces by the pool. Come late afternoon, we sat on our sandswept porch drinking canned rosé and watched the sky turn gold.
For dinner at The Halyard (Sound View’s hotel-restaurant-that-decidedly-doesn’t-suck), we grabbed a corner table on the open-air deck and ate peak-season heirloom tomato gazpacho and crisply seared scallops caught just a few miles away. Afterwards, loose on Greenport IPAs, we moseyed over to the piano bar for karaoke night and performed Alanis Morissette duets for a group of drunken Scottish people (all of whom are now our best friends) late into the night. It was a perfect weekend, the kind that made summer feel as endless as it did in the good old days, back before Google calendars existed.
https://soundviewgreenport.com/
To read more: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/sound-view-hotel-north-fork
From a New York Times online article:
One of the reasons the province of Cádiz is on this year’s 52 Places list is food, as chefs in the area are innovating with pork and fish, the base ingredients here. I tried out a few of the white-tablecloth joints, but came away remembering the noisy, cheap tapas bars that have been around forever.
What makes Andalusian cuisine so delicious are the ingredients, and sometimes less is more. Why go crazy with reductions and infusions when freshly caught sardines sprinkled with olive oil are enough to elicit moans?
Cádiz, the province and city on Spain’s southwestern edge, is an underdog — and I’m among the many travelers who have spent years overlooking it. I know Andalusia, the southern region it is part of, well. For years, it’s been a meeting point for my family who has just as much wanderlust as I do and is spread across the world.
To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/travel/cadiz-an-underrated-corner-of-spain.html
From a JamesBeard.org release:
This year, the Foundation is pleased to once again partner with the Mushroom Council to host the Blended Burger Project*, which encourages chefs to create a healthier, more sustainable, and tastier burger that can be enjoyed by consumers across the country, while also educating diners about the many benefits of The Blend and the future of food.
Through our Impact Programs, the James Beard Foundation has become more involved in the conversations around health and sustainability in our food system. The Foundation is proud of its work on the Blended Burger Project™ along with our other programs including the James Beard Foundation Food Summit, the annual Leadership Awards, and the Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change.
The five fabulous winners of the 2019 contest are:
To read more: https://www.jamesbeard.org/blendedburgerproject
From the Winvian Farm brochure:
Each dining area is dramatic in contrast and each is designed to harmonize with thecuisine created to suit that space—breakfast on the sunny Terrace, tasting menus in the Private Dining Room, light snacks in the casual Solarium to name a few. The Seth Bird House and The Smith Ell are freely accessible to all of Winvian’s guests, whether to play some games, sit by the fire with a hot toddy or chat with like minded souls.
Far from the madding crowd, in the Litchfield Hills, lies a quiet getaway. Set on 113 acres and bordering extensive woods and lakes, Winvian was created to recharge and indulge. A place like this is difficult to describe for it lacks nothing. Winvian aspires to host you with no airs but graces, no extravagance or opulence, only warmth and treats. The cuisine, the wines, the spa and the team are as unexpected as the experiences that
one ultimately enjoys.
Website: https://www.winvian.com/
From an SFBayTimes.com online article:
What makes this brasserie so popular? “A culture of hospitality comes from the top down,” explains Absinthe General Manager Brian Gavin. “Bill (our owner) is very gracious and the tone he sets makes everyone feel welcome.”
An homage to all things French, Absinthe is still one of my favorite places to eat in the city. Why? It’s a buzzy destination that feels glamorous and special, evoking a one-of-a-kind feeling of Belle Epoque-era Paris. It’s not just where I dine before the opera, symphony, ballet or SFJAZZ, but it is also where I always take out-of-towners, business associates, clients and staffers.
To read more: http://sfbaytimes.com/little-slice-paris-hayes-valley-absinthe-brasserie-bar/
Boomers Daily 