The Dynamic San Francisco Bay Area
Restaurant Scene
As ever,
there have been changes on the dynamic San Francisco Bay
Area restaurant scene. A number of restaurants have recently
either opened or changed names and formats, including Home
(formerly John Frank) in S.F. with Executive
Chef, Lance Dean Velasques offering more popular
priced meals. Redwood Park in The Transamerica
Building in S F. is offering some of the Bay Area's most
expensive cuisine, but the word is that Chef George
Morrone's preparation and presentation makes it
worth it. Brava Terrace, which is in Black Hawk
Plaza in Danville, Executive Chef/Owner Fred Halpert is offering quality, fresh cuisine at very fair
prices. The restaurant, which has a fireplace and an exhibition
kitchen which is framed by huge mosaic columns, has a stylish
and intimate atmosphere. We enjoyed the Mediterranean, Northern
Italian Cuisine particularly the Bibb Lettuce Salad
with spicy caramelized walnuts, apples and sherry vinaigrette
($7.00), the Aroncini-Fried Risotto Balls with fontina and
tomato sauce ($5.00) and the Coq au Vin which was a delicious
rendition of the classic French dish of braised chicken
with mushrooms, onions and potatoes in Red Wine sauce ($15.00).
With tasty fairly priced offerings like these Fred
Halpert's latest venture is going to be very popular.
New Chefs
include the Ukrainian born and European trained Chef
de Cuisine Armen Jeghelian at McCormick &
Kuleto's and Marc Schoenfield at Red
Herring. Closings include Livefire in Yountville,
a victim of tourism being down and 24 at Pac Bell Park,
which will reopen as the Acme Chop House. A number
of local pros including Keith Reese are
on tap to turn this packed during baseball season only location
around. We had terrific meals at 24. Michael Bauer of The
S.F. Chronicle who recently put together a terrific annual
Bay Area Top 100 Restaurant section gave 24 a very positive
review with 3 Stars but for some reason it never caught
on in the off season. We look forward to trying Acme
Chop House.
We are also
pleased to report that Downtown Oakland has gone Uptown. Verbena Restaurant located at 1111 Broadway, a
light, bright, fresh and fun restaurant with Chef
Josh Ladd in the kitchen is making Oakland a destination
for those who want a City Style atmosphere with cuisine
that is a cut above. The exhibition kitchen, mahogany bar
with wine ladder and a view of the park behind it with a
Stonehenge likeness make the atmosphere very inviting and
pleasing. We particularly enjoyed the Artichoke appetizer
($7.95), Short Rib Sugo with fuscilli ($I4.50) and the delicious
Apple Crisp ($5.95) for dessert. With the Marriott
Hotel next door, Convention Center around the corner, plenty
of garages for parking and 12th St Bart for easy public
transportation access, Verbena will surely be successful.
Mayor Jerry Brown can now truly say that Oakland has gone
Uptown Downtown.
Are we speaking
of rooms with a view If we are, there is nothing like the
panorama from The Carnclian Room (www.CarnelianRoom.com).
Atop The Bank of America Building this is definitely the
restaurant to impress and be impressed. We enjoyed the Commonwealth
Business Media holiday party in the Golden Gate Room. Executive
Chef David Lawrence, who looks over both the restaurant
and banquet rooms received his formal Culinary training
in London at Westminster College and brings a wealth of
experience including cooking for British Royalty. He has
created a menu of French inspired California Cuisine. We
were pleased to find that the food could live up to the
view. We enjoyed our salad, loved the Herb Crusted Salmon
with truffle white beans grilled radicchio and The Carnclian
Strawberries with Vanilla Ice Cream. A meal worthy
of the great view!
Endangered
Species is now a hot topic for restaurants. Chilean
Sea Bass which has gained popularity in the past
10 years is quickly becoming an endangered fish. More than
50 local restaurants and wholesaler Japan Fish Corp. have begun a "Take a pass on Chilean Sea
Bass" campaign to try to cut demand and save
this species. Look for other popular fish to be taken off
menus soon as well.
Another hot/cold
topic is the proper care of left-overs / doggie bags. Alan
Fairhurst Sous- Chef at Scoma's told us that 20%
of their diners now take some food home. He wrote an interesting
piece called The PR of Left-Overs on the www.ggra.org Hot
Issues page. Scoma's has added Day Dot Take-Out Guidelines
on the bags to advise their patrons on how to keep the left-overs
fresh and healthful. Being proactive these days is both
appreciated by diners and prudent for the restaurants
Local Wineries
have started their promotions early this year. Kenwood
Vineyards sponsored a "Rain or Wine" event
where for $5.00 (included free logo wine glass) you were
able to taste their wines while sampling tasty treats from Delicacies Catering. Lake Sonoma Winery had
a 1999 Saint Old Vine Zinfandel Release Party. Valley
of thc Moon had their second annual Valentine Moon
celebration tasting event where for $5.00 you also got to
keep the logo glass. These tasting events are quite popular
so keep an eye out as they will continue from now through
The Crush in the fall. Most wineries now have websites where
you can learn about events. Check out closlubois.com, mumm.com, markbamvinyarls.com, canyonroalwincry.com. Just
add .com to your favorite wine and you'll likely find their
website and events. The Wine Institute www.wineinstitute.org released their latest statistics and The U.S. continues
to drink more wine than we produce by I9 million gallons
552,763,000 (3rd in the world) to 533,596,000 (4th in the
world). France is both # 1 in wine production and consumption
producing nearly 3 times the US. and consuming nearly twice
as much wine. Luxemburg leads in consumption per capita
at I6.07 gallons per person while the US. ranks 34th at
only 2.0I. Better drink up if we ever intend on catching
up!!
