Hello, Hello!

I’m back! Did you miss me? Since our last get-together, I criss-crossed the East Coast, meeting up with family, attending baseball games (including at Fenway, a highlight) and eating all the foods that are best on the East Coast during peak summer. We mostly avoided the dreaded 3 H’s (hazy, hot and humid) and ate outside every day. There was lobster at Cabby Shack, crab noodles at Zaab Zaab at Market 57 in Chelsea, NYC, and locally sourced, custom cuts from New York’s Butcher Brothers for barbecues at our rental house in Cooperstown. Yes, baseball and hot dogs were in ample supply. (No apple pie, though, for those that know what I’m talking about…) Honestly, it was hard to come back to the West Coast cuz East Coast summer is where it’s at. Those fireflies after thunderstorms….I love it all.

1. What’s Hot

Just like the rest of us, restaurants are trying to figure out the new normal. Sometimes, it just doesn’t add up. (R.I.P. AFICI, which I highlighted in my July newsletter.) Other times, chefs re-tool the menu, as you can try for yourself in the terrific dishes from Luce restaurant Chef de Cuisine Dennis Efthymiou’s ode to his native Greece in Chef’s Degustation Menu. Or a whole community of restaurants gets together, like Mill Valley is doing right now with its own Restaurant Rally. It’s great to see these efforts in the Bay Area dining scene.

In my Field Notes column, I attempt to capture these new or one-off ventures and share them with my community. They are a chance to explore a different side of a restaurant, experimental dishes and flavors, or an entirely new chef. In this week’s column, I look not only at two Oktoberfest celebrations happening in San Francisco beginning this week (one at Schroeder’s, the other at Radhaus), but two cool collabs – one at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay with chef Shin Thompson from L.A.’s Niku X; the other at San Francisco’s Gozu with Tokyo-based chef Norihito Endo of Sushi Ebisu.

2. Eating Oysters in Marin and Sonoma

Of late, people are confusing me with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Janelle Bitker. I suspect this is because I wrote about eating oysters in Marin and Sonoma for Eater while Janelle published a piece about eating oysters in West Marin a couple weeks later for the Chron. I don’t mind the comparison. I bet Janelle doesn’t either. And really, the graphics in the Chron story are terrific, not to mention the writing. Besides, Marin deserves the foodie love. It tends to be an overlooked region for eating excellence. I am doing my bit to change that perception.

3. More Eater News

Right as I left on vacation, I wrote about the best eats I’ve enjoyed lately in Sonoma. There are plenty more places to include the next time I write. If you tried a new place that you think deserves a little love, please let me know.

4. Coming Soon – Holiday Eating and Drinking

I am ramping up my search for interesting foodie and boozy gifts for my Holiday Gift Guides. (Here’s a peek at the three guides I wrote last year.)  If you’ve got something great I should know about, please send me the details. I am also considering putting together a cookbook guide for holiday, too. Though there are plenty of online recipes, I still get asked about which cookbook authors’ recipes I like. There remains a need for informed recommendations and I’m here to help.

5. About That Image
You already know about my delight in carbohydrates, especially potatoes. I even wrote a whole piece about my favorite tots for Local Getaways. So it was a delight to come across the perfect bowl of French fries on a recent visit to Napa’s The Lincoln. Crisp and crunchy with a whisper of softness inside, these are the French fries of a food writer’s dream, so good, they deserved a spot at the top of my newsletter. You should try them.

I hope Back To School season is not too hard on you and yours (there can be some big emotions emerging from little and not so little bodies at this time of year). And that you are finding time to explore your community while the weather is still dreamy. Discovering hidden gems is one of the best parts of my job!

Until the next time, take care and eat all the things,

Christina