Category: BiteClub

Starlight Cafe & Wine Bar

There’s an undeniable charm to eating in a railway car. Chummy quarters, dim lighting and feeling transported to a slower, more romantic time when travel didn’t include pat-downs and families in sweat pants. Captivated by romantic visions of the past (if not the long-term practicality of having a an entire restaurant, bar and kitchen in […]

Willow Wood Market & Boon Fly Cafe

Long before Anthony Bourdain ruined Sunday brunch for, well, pretty much everyone, BiteClub had her suspicions. Frankly, I think we all tend to be a bit too forgiving after a long, hard night of drinking. We tend to overlook soggy toast and mushy eggs through the fog of sleep still crusted in our eyes and the camaraderie of friends, kids and dogs gathered 'round the brunch table. We get a little too involved in sunny patio tables and crossword puzzles to pay much attention to the canned orange juice and fishy salmon.

Eat this now: Insalata Caprese

“Meh” is about the only word I can think of to describe my feelings about eating out lately. When the bounty of summer threatens to overwhelm my refrigerator it seems criminally wasteful to let so much good food go to waste. Well-meaning friends overwhelm my cupboards with figs, zucchini and tomatoes. A former PD employee […]

The French Laundry farm

Jacobsen Orchards in Yountville grow produce, snails for Yountville's esteemed French Laundry

The French Laundry’s farmers

Peter Jacobsen doesn’t get mad at the herds of snails that have made Swiss cheese out of his organic kale. He gets even. At the edge of his 1.5 acre Yountville orchard and farm, the dentist turned dirt-under-the-nails grower pulls open the lid of a wooden box to reveal hundreds of the slimy pests. Instead […]

Eat this now

“Meh” is about the only word I can think of to describe my feelings about eating out lately. When the bounty of summer threatens to overwhelm my refrigerator it seems criminally wasteful to let so much good food go to waste. Well-meaning friends overwhelm my cupboards with figs, zucchini and tomatoes. A former PD employee […]

BLT Brew Ha!

The bacon has hit the fan. Seems that longtime PD food writer and cookbook author Michele Anna Jordan isn’t too happy about Windsor’s most recent attempt to create the World’s Largest bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. Chris Smith recently wrote about the flap which boils down to the fact that Jordan (who wrote the BLT […]

I AM HUNGRY

Are you Grateful? Are you Charistmatic, Sassy, Golden or Abundant? Prepare to be all of them…and much moremore when SF’s Cafe Gratitude opens in Healdsburg in mid-September. Are we ready for all this raw, vegan, healthful positivity? The restaurant has been a whirlwind success elsewhere in the Bay Area with its combination of rejuvenating foods, […]

Tosaki Sushi

It used to be that you could pretty much throw a slab of raw fish at me and I’d clap my hands in joy — kind of like a sea lion. I’m over it. Truth is that like taquerias, there are far too many Japanese-style eateries churning out mediocre imitations of the real deal in […]

Battle of the Chefs

After two weekends of judging Iron Chef-style smackdowns — first at the Sonoma Wine Country Weekend and most recently at Kendall Jackson’s Heirloom Tomato Festival — I’m stuffed, exhausted, dehydrated and thoroughly impressed. From the haze that is my addled brain, some juicy tidbits I wanted to share with BiteClubbers. – The big winner during […]