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While I didn't make it to either Zuni or Town Hall when I was in San Francisco, I batted nearly 1.000 at the places we did get to. I [heart] San Francisco. Frascati: Russian Hill, Italian. Warm, cozy setting. Lovely wine list, tight food menu. Stars included pork chop, chocolate bread pudding, bread salad (hooray for a lightly dressed yet flavorful salad!) and--man, oh man--the black truffle gnocchi, a dish I'd happily fly all the way back there just to eat again. Bong Su: SOMA, Vietnamese. Oh-so chic decor and oh-so useless service. (A tip: if I have to pour my own wine because my glass has been empty for five minutes, don't fly over to the table and deride me for doing your job.) (I could go on.) By and large very good food, though, and a terrific drink list (kaffir cocktail!). Menu items are marked by region (north, central, south), and go heavy on the fish. I can't recommend the pork noodles more highly. Yum. Absinthe: Civic Center, American/California. Been there three times now (brunch on this visit) and never get sick of the place. Best. Cocktail List. Ever. The polenta (with maple syrup, mascarpone, bananas, and walnuts) may be the pinnacle of brunch concoctions. Zushi Puzzle: Marina, Sushi. Best sushi I've had in a long time. The nigiri is, basically, perfect, and the rolls have interesting and delicious flavor and texture combinations. Efficient service. Annabelle's: Union Square, American/California. Full disclosure: my brother's the GM. Widely assumed to be a tourist joint (and widely patronized by tourists), it's now home to the former Rose Pistola chef, who put together an amazing 9-course dinner of regular menu items for we special guests. Clean cooking, very product-based. The scallop carpaccio with almonds and the bacon-wrapped dates were my faves. Delicious wine list. We also got to Cyrus in Healdsburg, which I'll post a review of in the Wine Country thread as soon as my brain can think of something more intelligent to say than "wow." In short: maybe the best restaurant in America.

I really like the Free Range on Food discussions. They've got creative ideas, post a lot of good recipes and guidelines, and seem to really think about the questions before answering. Very refreshing considering how tired Kim O'Donnell has gotten. Does she still scarcely post two answers without suggesting white bean puree or urging the poster to "just go with the flow"?

Ris Lacoste left 1789 nearly a year ago. Current chef is Beauchamp.My favorite pumpkin dish is the meat-pumpkin-yogurt thingy at Aghan Grill in Woodley Park. On the menu year-round, but sure sounds good now...

For more Asian fix in the area, Regent Thai, Rice, and Simply Home also deliver! Get well soon!

I think what's least promising is the language they're using to describe themselves. I don't think they could have chosen sillier, more meaningless boxes to put themselves in if they tried.But hey, who knows--let's not get too down on the poor new guy yet. It might turn out to be superb. Right?

Has anyone been to Town Hall? Experiences to share? As part of my farewell tour, I'll be going there, Cyrus, and Zuni in a couple of weeks. No other questions. Just bragging.

Well, I ended up stuck in a conference room for most of my time in Johannesburg, but our closing out dinner was spectacular. We went downtown to a place called Moyo at the Market--modern African food with a bit of a schticky flair, but not too bad. (It is technically a chain, with three outposts in Joburg.) And the food was excellent. The whole meal was served family style, and each table started out with a selection of fresh rolls--mini chapati, pumpkin, onion-coconut--and dips--olive oil, chili sauce, chickpea dip (not hummus), and chopped nuts and spices (a dry mix). All were quite good, and a nice start. This was followed by a tray of samosas, which were easily the best I'd had in my life. They all used the same light, flaky pastry and were shaped differently depending on filling--duck, venison, or pea and potato. The duck was the runaway winner (which is particularly impressive when you consider that I don't like duck), but they all were head and shoulders above any other samosa I've run across. Finally, the main course. Each table got large dishes of braised lamb, baked chicken, veggie mash, couscous, and cornmeal pap. The chicken tasted like bananas. But while I find that idea to be deeply disturbing and utterly disgusting (bananas, for god's sake!)... it still managed to be *gorgeous*. Subtle, juicy... I was temped to throw a few legs in my purse. (All the other dishes were spectacular too, just not as easy to transport in an evening bag.) The ice cream dessert (topped with caramel and sweet almonds) was a bit of a letdown, so we just ordered yet another bottle of excellent South African wine to carry us through. (No, I don't remember the name, which is silly--and understandable--considering how many empties were littering the table.) Caveat: Do not order the local rum, Red Heart. Ew.

Bedrock Billiards has that nice corner of couches and chairs that I think could, on an early-week evening, be conducive to book-chats-with-beers. And you can bring in your own munchies.

Thanks for this link. Arzak is the only of those restaurants I've been to, and his description is spot-on--and eons better than any review I could write. The egg dish he mentions is stunning. And Arzak himself bought me a drink!

Google does: about 100,000 tons.

I'll bite. What happens?

Another nice version of the grilled cheese-tomato soup combo is grilled mozzarella on Italian bread with a side of chunky marinara for dipping. Mmmmm...

I'll absolutely back you up on this. A bit of dijon on a grilled cheese adds a great spicy/vinegary counterpoint to the fat and carbohydrates. (I also think a bit of mustard in crucial on a breakfast egg sandwich, and they always look at me wierd when I order it that way.)

I said it once and I'll say it again: The Berghoff (don't remember the terminal) is an excellent stop for a sandwich. Its 100-year old original site downtown recently closed, but the airport outpost is supposedly still open. Berghoff Web site

Bill Buford contributed an article to this week's New Yorker summing up his impressions of the Food Network after forcing himself to watch 72 hours of it straight. (Actually, he gets pretty deep into the corporate history of the channel; I'd have liked to read more of how he managed to get through four Rachael Ray shows a day.) Some excerpts: Chefs tend to do one kind of show—the scorned how-to, or “dump-and-stir,” as the network executives call it. “You need television talents. You can’t run a network with chefs,” Girard said, so authoritatively and matter-of-factly that I found myself agreeing with her. (Of course not! Who wants to watch a wizened old chef!) ... Judy Girard left the Food Network in 2003. Her work was done (the channel—worth billions, according to Lowe—was in eighty million households, although their average income had fallen a bit, to a still fairly affluent seventy-five thousand dollars), and she moved to Nashville: Scripps had bought a shopping cable network, and Girard was going to develop it into a Shop at Home venture featuring celebrities from the Food Network and other Scripps stations. Her legacy, she explained when I spoke with her, included Rachael Ray, Giada, Alton Brown, and Sandra Lee, “brands,” whom viewers would now go out of their way to watch and follow—in effect, do anything to be closer to. Now Girard would put them on her new network, selling. ... For all their swagger and expertise, Girard and her successors may not be that different from anyone else who has tried to run the Food Network, basically a good-hearted organization still fundamentally clueless about itself (TV or non-TV?) and its audience (cooks or kitchen idiots?), more professionally run than ever before, but still throwing a lot of product out there, a motley up-and-down mess, filling up the hours, hoping something is going to work, loyal, above all else, to its community, the shareholders.

I bet it's all the good ones...

Oooo! What do barnacles taste like???

Luigi's has excellent pizza if you're dining in. It doesn't really survive delivery, but it's the best pan pizza I've had in the city (including Alberto's!).

I had to cancel on the first DR event I'd planned on attending (Corduroy dinner this spring) due to a broken rib. I can't attend this one due to a broken leg. For the sake of my health, it looks like I'll have to become a staunch nonparticipant in DR-related revelry.

How about Johannesburg? Can anyone recommend some good eats there?

I think your premise may be faulty, though. We were firmly in the second, happy-giddy group as well and were treated as generously as you can imagine. (Note: this was five or so years ago.) We walked in happy, and ordered the tasting menu with wine. On hearing that my brother/dining companion was a sommelier, the server sent out their sommelier (which of course sent bro over the moon). He proceeded to come out about five minutes before every course to talk extensively about what he was pouring, and he even served us several (very special) wines that weren't the menu's listed pairings but that he thought we'd enjoy more ("something special we opened in back just to taste"). When we popped into the garden for a smoke break, they brought us pillows for our seats and ice water. We got a tour of the kitchen at the end, and one of the valets walked us the block to our car holding an umbrella over our heads, while he was rained on comprehensively.We definitely discerned no discrimination against giddy diners; rather, I think our excitement allowed them to go over the top in hospitality.

Nooshi's Singapore noodles with pork--which survive delivery extremely well but could use a little more spice--paired with two (2) Vicodin to take the edge off my most recent idiotic injury.

Something tells me that, in the spectrum of Internet-aired issues that can keep customers away from restaurants, a story of mediocre service is much less of a mortal wound than management attacks on the folks who got the mediocre service.

Thanks for the info, a. I'll pick up a DC North and check it out. I was really surprised too that I couldn't find any news on this. Glad to hear that it seems to have been a much smaller thing than it could have been...

Someone posted this to Marc Fisher's Post chat last week, but I can't find any reporting on it. Anyone got any info?