Okay, so BiteClub’s a sucker for new promotions, especially when they involve bacon and waffles and guys named Ronald McDonald.
But the widely touted new “Waffle Tacos” at Taco Bell given the thumbs up by Ronald McDonalds nationwide?
Epic disappointment. Epic!
How a waffle can manage to be soggy and tough at the same time is a mind-bender. Mostly, but not quite melted cheese. Ultra-greasy bits of bacon and eggs. Or sausage and eggs. We couldn’t really tell the difference between the two. And no damn syrup.
Blech. Pass.
I’ll stick with my sausage breakfast burrito at the golden arches. Or better yet, the dreamy (locally made) sticky buns and ginger scones at my fave coffee haunt, SoCo Coffee (1015 4th St, Santa Rosa, (707) 527-6434, closed Sunday).
Chef David Bush, who propelled St. Francis Winery to be named “Best Restaurant in America” has left to open his own restaurant, Oso, on the Sonoma Square.
Bush says the restaurant will have two parts: The front lounge with small plates (around $6-$18) and wine by the glass–a casual drop-in spot that feels like an extension of the plaza. The rear part of the restaurant will be reserved for a prix fixe five-course tasting menu (around $65 per person) with a $35 wine pairing addition.
“The goal is to execute a tasting menu in the main dining room with a strong emphasis on pairing my food with local wines,” Bush said, making the fit a natural for the winery chef. With local sommelier Brian Kulich on board, the list is certain to have some stellar off-the-radar boutique gems on the list. The menu is still in development, but Bush calls it “New California: local, seasonal and eclectic, but not esoteric.” Because really, who needs esoteric on their plate?
“Opening a restaurant has been my goal since I started cooking at age fourteen,” said Bush. “Stuffy doesn’t work in Sonoma, (but) what does is excellent food and hospitality. We want to…give people an experience that has been absent for too long on Sonoma’s Plaza.”
Opening is slated for late May at 9 East Napa St.on the Sonoma Plaza. Oso will begin with dinner service, with lunch and brunch down the line.
Work has started on the new Chalkboard patio at the Les Mars Hotel.
The wildly popular Chalkboard, which took over the Cyrus space at the Les Mars Hotel last year, is upping its game.
Starting in late April 2014, they’ll be offering an 8-plus course prix fixe tasting menu in the hotel’s revamped “library room” on Friday and Saturday night. The intimate space seats just 16, and according to Chef Shane McAnelly, and is “the next step up” for the Bill Foley-owned restaurant.
It’s hard not to start making comparisons to Cyrus, with its haute tasting menus and Michelin-star status, but McAnelly says the vibe will be all Chalkboard. “For us its just a chance to have some fun. I am really excited and passionate about this next evolution of our restaurant,” he said.
The menu is still in development, but an exclusive sneak preview includes dishes like kampachi crude, bacon consommé with pork belly and 63-degree quail egg, pancetta wrapped duck breast with duck liver mousse, grilled ribeye steak with bone marrow, and a dessert called the “Drunk Elvis” with banana, peanut butter, rum, bacon and chocolate ganache. The prix fixe dinner will run about $100 per person, and additional wine pairings will be offered.
But wait, there’s more. The hotel’s pool has been filled in (who even knew there was a pool?) to make way for an expanded patio area, expected to open later this spring.
Chalkboard, 29 North St., Healdsburg, 707-473-8030.
Dishes from Aventine Hollywood. The restaurant will soon open an outpost in Glen Ellen.
Chef Adolfo Veronese of Aventine, which will open in Glen Ellen later this spring.
The funky Jack London Village in Glen Ellen has long been rife with dining possibilities, if not always success stories. Although the charming Olive and Vine and Himalayan eatery, Yeti, are flourishing in the village, the large Grist Mill building has seen restaurant after restaurant struggle and fail, despite its spectacular outdoor seating and quiet location.
That may soon change with the arrival of Aventine. The sceney bar and restaurant concept headed up by Alioto kin Adolfo and Gian-Paolo Veronese has locations in San Francisco and Hollywood, with a third slated to open in late spring in Glen Ellen.
Chef Adolfo (Wolfgang Puck, Drago, Evvia) plans an Italian osteria menu with arancini, Sicilian lemon marinated octopus, burrata, wood-fired pizzas (we’re especially excited about the Tartufo with black truffle honey, bechamel and arugula), roasted red beet pasta with short rib ragu (gluten free pizza and pastas are available), branzino, grilled lamb chops and desserts like coffee panna cotta,fried dough with Nutella and jam and caramel budino.
Full bar (one of only three in Glen Ellen), inside and outside dining and (hopefully) some staying power. With the several restaurants already under their belt–and in the family–chances are good.
The soaring price of Mexican limes is sour news for restaurateurs as prices for the citrus have doubled, tripled or event more in recent weeks. And that’s not good news for your margarita.
“At $110 a case, it’s more expensive that a barrel of oil and is almost 5 times the average price we normally pay,” said Darren Chapple of Santa Rosa’s La Rosa Tequileria, whose restaurant uses several cases of limes each week. By comparison: In spring 2013 the average price for a single lime was 21 cents. Now, that same fruit will cost you a whopping now 53 cents, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Why the price hike? A plague of unfortunate events have hit the lime-growing regions of Mexico–the main exporter of limes to the U.S.–including bad weather that caused many trees to lose blooms and rot; a citrus disease wiping out entire orchards; and political unrest that has affected many lime-growing regions. Suffice to say drug cartels and thieves don’t make for great agricultural allies.
With lime-rimmed holidays like Cinco de Mayo on the horizon, restaurateurs are worried.
“Unfortunately we can’t (and won’t ever), stop using them to make our margaritas but we’ve stopped presenting them on most drinks and seafood dishes to save as much as possible, but we’re still going through an awful lot, as always,” said Chapple.
The good news: Prices are expected to go down in May, with the next harvest. In the meantime, don’t expect to see lime wedges adorning we’re desperately hoping it ends much sooner and definitely before the madness of Cinco de Mayo.”
This ain’t no pansy cook-off. The third annual ‘Wich Hunt at Battle of the Brewsis an iron-fisted sandwich brawl in which local chefs compete to construct the ultimate carbohydrate-protein-carbohydrate creation.
From Dagwoods to sliders, artisan BLT’s, heroes, hoagies, banh mi, and beyond, the only constraint is being able to fit into the eager maws of our judges and fans. Oh, and taste incredible, because there will be no awards just for showing up. We’re looking for off-the-charts, taste-bud exploding, meat-tastic (or alternative proteins), brain-bending creations that really showcase local talent.
Tickets to the ‘Wich Hunt event are included in the Craft Cup tasting, and guests will be able to meet the competing chefs and taste their creations for them selves.
The oft-changing SOFA coffee-shop/cafe space at 435 Santa Rosa Ave. (at the former Greyhound station) will soon become Naked Pig Farm to Table Food.
Owners Dalia Martinez and Jason Sokach of Guerrilla Foods at the Wells Fargo Farm Market are just a few weeks away from opening a breakfast and lunch cafe featuring scratch-made Belgian waffles with toppings like whisky caramel, chocolate ganache and seasonal fruit compotes, along with “odes to the pig”–porchetta sandwiches, pulled pork and chicharrones.
“We’re overachievers,” said Martinez of the tooth-achingly adorable space BiteClub’s eager to spend a sunny morning in. “We started transforming the space the day we got the keys,” said Martinez of the reclaimed wood tables and waffle-illustrated chalkboard.
The couple plan light dinner service in the future. “This area just comes alive at night with families,” Martinez said.
One word: Meshugah Fries. Okay that’s two. But when a potato is cooked in schmaltz, fried, covered in Russian dressing, sauerkraut, cheese curds and bits of pastrami, BiteClub tends to get a little, well, mashugana (meaning crazy in Yiddish).
We mentioned a couple weeks ago that local chefs Les and Tara Goodman of Adafina Culinary were planning an authentic Jewish deli at the West End Farm Market (Sundays from 10a.m. to 2p.m. at 817 Donahue, Santa Rosa), but that’s not the half of it.
Goodman’s Jewish Deli is a little bit of NYC in Wine Country with chocolate egg creams, celery soda (a new one for me, but interesting), homemade pastrami, chocolate babka, matzoh ball soup and the aforementioned Meshugah fries. The menu will change up weekly, so go with the flow. But we hear there might be some Sephardic hash and salmon schmear. And (sigh) Montreal-style bagels in the future!
Shelves of vegetable seeds at the West County Community Seed Exchange seed library in Sebastopol. (photos by Christopher Chung)
“Seeds are about abundance,” says Sara McCamant, co-founder of the Sebastopol Seed Library, “and abundance leads to sharing.”
That’s just what the seed library does, sharing seeds that are donated by local gardeners and those that are grown at the library’s quarter-acre seed garden. The library is open to all, seeds are free, and seed donations are welcome and encouraged, yet not required. There are no late fees.
A seed library is not a seed bank, which preserves seed in a controlled environment so that it remains viable indefinitely, thus ensuring the survival of its genetic heritage. A library makes seeds available to individuals in order to encourage small-scale gardening and farming. This seed must be used and replenished for a seed library to thrive.
Sara McCamant, co-founder of the West County Community Seed Exchange, at the seed garden in Sebastopol.
Operated under the umbrella of the West County Community Seed Exchange, the Sebastopol Seed Library and its garden are located at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, not far from downtown. Bookshelves in a meeting room hold more than 140 varieties of seeds, some in glass jars, others in envelopes.
On the last Saturday of each month from January through October, the library is open to the public. In November and December, volunteers conduct a major inventory, not just cataloging what the library contains, but also confirming that all seed is viable. A group of 10 core volunteers maintain the collection, oversee the garden and teach classes in seed saving.
The seed library was started six years ago by McCamant and other members of Transition Sebastopol, which is part of the international Transition Towns movement. Simply put, the movement seeks, at a local level, to establish long-term community resilience in anticipation of what is believed to be a future of fewer resources.
When members of the Sebastopol group asked themselves what it takes to build a strong, enduring local food system, seeds quickly emerged as the answer. Today, most commercial seed is controlled by international corporations; such seed comes from around the world and is not necessarily viable here. More importantly, seed from these sources puts corporations in control of local farming in a fundamental way.
“Why don’t we build a local seed source?” Transition Towns folk said to each other, and the idea of a library of seeds soon blossomed, as it has all over the United States and beyond. When the Sebastopol Seed Library was launched in 2008, there were fewer than 10 similar libraries in the country. Today there are more than 150, with new ones in the works, including locally.
Sometime this year, a new seed library will open at the Healdsburg Regional Library, with seeds stored in a vintage card catalog that library director Bo Simons found. The project was spearheaded by Carolyn Harrison of Sonoma Antique Apple Nursery fame and members of Transition Healdsburg, which Harrison helped form.
In November 2013, Transition Healdsburg hosted a community seed swap at Healdsburg Shed; seeds that remained after the exchange formed the beginning of the new collection, which will be accessible to the public whenever the public library itself is open.
A variety of beans, corn and seeds stored at the West County Community Seed Exchange seed library in Sebastopol.
Growing for seed is not simply gardening. There is a learning curve: All seeds need careful handling, and some plants require special techniques if they are to produce viable seed.
To help guarantee a continuing source of new seeds, seed libraries distribute detailed instructions and sometimes offer classes, some that focus on the basics of saving seed and others that drill down to specific varieties of plants, especially those that require special skills.
Experts recommend beginning seed-savers start with self-pollinating varieties such as lettuces, tomatoes and other nightshades, peas and beans. Before moving on to broccoli, kale, cabbage and other brassicas and squashes (both summer and winter), it is necessary to learn hand-pollination so that you get true seed, not seed that has pollinated with unwanted varieties. Corn is particularly problematic, because it can easily cross with varieties that are as far as a mile away.
Classes at the West County Community Seed Exchange cover a single variety, such as heirloom beans, or a specific process, such as saving wet seeds (the method used with tomatoes). These classes typically are held when the seed library is open and include tastings and an opportunity to exchange seeds.
The Healdsburg Regional Library works with Master Gardeners, a program of the University of California Cooperative Extension, to offer a range of classes on certain Saturdays. Consult the library’s schedule for classes on saving seed.
Okay, so BiteClub’s a sucker for new promotions, especially when they involve bacon and waffles and guys named Ronald McDonald.
