Category: BiteClub

If you’ve endured a winter anywhere, well, east of the California border, you may understand the unbridled glee that we non-natives feel about spring farm markets. Yeah, that’s us fondling the spring onions and caressing the asparagus. Weird? You try living on beets, potatoes and cheese all winter. In the next few weeks, BiteClub heads […]

The obligatory list of Easter Brunches for the omelette-and-french toast crowd. Love it like a little furry bunny. PASSOVER SEDER April 2: Passover Seder at Bistro-V, 6pm. Bistro V, 2295 Gravenstein Hwy S, Sebastopol, 707.823.1262 April 3: Passover Dinner at Syrah Bistro, Prix-fixe, $65, 205 Fifth St., 707.568.4002. Wednesday through Saturday: Buckwheat knishes and duck […]

BiteClub is a fan of firemen–especially young hunky, off-duty ones. Except when they’re blocking my way to the buffet table. And then BiteClub gets a little grouchy. But it wasn’t the hungry fire fighters hogging the buffet line at My Ha that had me perturbed. It was the buffet, itself. After so many of your […]

BiteClub has learned that Seafood Brasserie, the McCormick & Schmick-managed seafood restaurant in Santa Rosa’s Hyatt Hotel will be losing its longtime chef, Liz Ozanich and restaurant’s management group, McCormick & Schmick’s will be pulling out. The change comes as the Hyatt Vineyard Creek & Spa transitions ownership to the Noble Investment Group. McCormick & […]

I arrived at 5pm. The doors opened at 5:30. To say the tension was palpable would be an understatement. The waiters huddled around an impromptu staff meal awaiting instructions. Cooks fiddled with their mis en place, checking and double checking the ingredients. Busboys threw on white jackets and checked their hair in whatever reflective surface […]

Posted By: saundra (20/03/2007 9:34:15 AM)Comment: Gary Chu’s in Santa Rosa is serving shark fin soup. Sharks are captured, their fins cut, then they are thrown back in to die of wounds or eaten by others. This is unacceptable and illegal here in the U.S. Please be responsible diners and don’t order the soup, hopefully […]

Congratulations to Chef Mark Stark, (Willi’s Wine Bar, Willi’s Seafood, Monti’s) voted BiteClub’s Top SoCo Chef for 2007. Just a handful of votes behind, in second place, Syrah’s Josh Silvers (who sportingly told BiteClub he was proud to have lost to his friendly SR rival, Stark). And, in a close third place, Cyrus’ Douglas Keane. […]

Zin serves deviled eggs without apology.Potato and fried onion casserole without flinching.A Blue Plate Pot Roast every Tuesday to a packed house. Here, comfort food rules and no one walks away from the table hungry. Riffing on American regional favorites, (Chicken-N-Dumplings, spaghetti and meatballs, Mac-N-Cheese) Zin Chef Jeff Mall feeds the need for dishes just […]

There are crab cakes. And there are crab hockey pucks. Crab cakes have, uh, actual crab in them. In fact, the main ingredient needs to be crab. Crab hockey pucks are those nasty, greasy little things chefs try to pass off as crab cakes, but are mostly breadcrumbs, egg and celery with a string or […]

The cocktail menu at Cyrus reads like a J. Peterman catalog, minus the quirky illustrations of wrinkle-free travel dresses. But it has that same breathless, exotic quality that compells you to spend 10 minutes ignoring your martini (and your date) learning about the history of Mexican Coke, hand-crafted vodkas and why Rangpur limes are so […]