Category: BiteClub

If you’ve ever had a close friend eat at the French Laundry, you’ve probably ended up on the receiving end of the Conciliatory Cookies and Too Bad Truffles, AKA Pastry Chef Claire Clark’s shortbread and chocolates. It works something like this. Your pal gets the meal of a lifetime. Busting to tell you about it […]

As you’ve probably figured out by now, BiteClub’s got a thing for being first. Especially when it comes to food. Doubly so when it comes to snacks. So you can imagine how freakishly jacked-up I get when five bags of not-yet-released-to-the-public Fire & Spice potato chips land on the doorstep for my tasting pleasure.* Not […]

A while back, a BiteClubber asked about local Russian restaurants or bakeries. Well, I’ve been doing my homework, and the news wasn’t especially good. Despite a growing population of Russian and Slavic folks in the area, they’re woefully under-represented in the restaurant department. In fact, the only spot where you could reliably buy piroshki in […]

Is there a Brit-pub brouhaha brewing in Santa Rosa? Just months after Toad in the Hole opened its doors in Railroad Square; Stout Brothers Pub has finally opened on Fourth Street with a similar fish and chips, bangers and Guinness focus. But that’s about where the similarities end. Stout Bros. owners have transformed the former […]

The Sebastopol spot that’s seen as many reincarnations as Shirley MacLaine is closing again. But fear not. It will reopen. According to the owners of the Sebastopol Brewing Company, they’ll be throwing in the towel on November 1 after two years at the downtown location. Going out with a bang, however, the Brewing Company will […]

Big openings Windsor’s new Pacific Rim restaurant, Chinois Asian Bistro (186 Windsor River, Windsor), has opened for dinner-only. The second restaurant for Ume’s Kelly Shu the menu pulls from Chinese, Japanese and other Asian influences. Also opening this week to a power outage, Mary’s Pizza Shack on Fourth St. in downtown Santa Rosa. The popular […]

I like a good Tootsie Roll as much as the next ghoul. I pilfer mini Twix bars and Halloween peanut butter cups from my kids (it’s really for their own good). But I’d consider selling my soul for wicked treats like these… Death Becomes HerTake, for example, Mori Ex Cacao from Valerie Confections. These ultra-luxe […]

I didn’t mean to do it. Eat the entire pizza, that is. All twelve delightful inches. In my ongoing search for a killer pie, Sonoma’s Red Grape came onto my radar after several BiteClubbers mentioned it. Sadly I’ve always shied away from this off-square eatery in favor of the siren songs of slightly haute-er cuisine. […]

There aren’t many seasonings who can claim to have changed the course of human history, built empires and motivated entire economies. In fact, there is only one: Salt. With its ability to preserve food almost indefinitely (a nice thing to have before the advent of refrigeration), salt has long been a commodity worth fighting and […]