707 Scout

By 707 correspondent Heather Irwin. Sign up for the BiteClub Newsletter.

Over the next few months, the inevitable comparisons between Cyrus and the space’s new iteration, ~CHALKBOARD~, will appear in endless food blogs, Yelp reviews, and “critical reviews” of the new Les Mars/Bill Foley restaurant. As devotees of the much-lamented Michelin-starred restaurant, we can’t help ourselves.

Ignore the blather and simply head north. Change is good, and here it’s also visually and culinarily stunning.

Sure, the ghost of Cyrus hangs heavy, as do the devotions of its diners. Chef Doug Keane’s kitchen sanctuary has been thrown open in a striking visual leveling of kitchen and dining room. A wide communal table commands the center of the space. White tablecloths have been banished. The caviar cart was literally kicked to the curb (snatched up by a former employee, we hear).

But this ain’t Chalkboard chef Shane McAnelly’s first rodeo. The small plates menu is exceptional. A mix of high- and lowbrow dishes, it includes a “snack” of warm, housemade soft pretzels with Mornay sauce, stone-ground mustard, and tomato chutney ($6). Buttermilk biscuits with maple-glazed pork belly, pickled onions, and chipotle mayo ($8) are finally given the proper execution I’ve sought for so long. Kampachi crudo with grapefruit, avocado purée, and slices of jalapeño ($12) are small summer jewels. A tiny shot of chilled English pea soup with Dungeness crab ($3) is like sipping spring. I nearly got misty over a deconstructed dish of fresh radishes with butter and rye crumbs and pickled carrots.

Dishes get more substantial as you move down the menu. Roasted baby carrots with caraway yogurt and sesame seed brittle ($6); a hearty pasta with duck confit and mascarpone ($12); and seared scallops with risotto cake, uni sauce, and grapefruit was so good we ordered it twice ($16)—and then fought over the second order.

Meatier fare includes a delicate buttermilk fried quail with fava beans, nasturtium, and fennel salad ($15), and the entrée of the evening, crispy pork belly with triangles of fried grits, a poached egg, melted leeks, and sweet pepper purée ($12). Baskets of produce procured from restaurant owner Bill Foley’s Chalk Hill Farms makes each dish all the better.

Pastry chef Bill Woodward showers each of his desserts with sweet surprises: a donut semifreddo (frozen creaminess) with white coffee foam and mocha-glazed donut holes ($8); a towering multilayer brownie with caramel and ganache flanked by milk chocolate that’s been cooked sous vide ($8). Hold out for the warm vanilla bean cake with strawberries and crème fraîche sherbet baked to order ($8).

The bar still serves up creative libations along with regional beers. The wine list features (not surprisingly) many of Foley’s bottles along with other local superstars as well as some well-crafted white and red flights (all less than $20).

Le roi est morte, vive le roi. 29 North St. at Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg, 707-473-8030.

If you’ve got a hankering to pinch some soft, pillowy buns, BiteClub’s got the hookup. Mobile foodist Jeff Tyler (from the North Bay’s Chicago-Style Hot Dogs and Palooza Catering) has launched The Bun Slinger, a bright yellow truck serving up pork belly, steak, chicken, and tofu wrapped in Chinese steamed buns. Taking a cue from popular SF trucks like Chairman Bao, Tyler does a tasty fusion of grilled meats, spicy aioli, and veggies on the handheld sammies along with kimchi or togarishi (a sort of sweet, salty, spicy rub) fries. For $12, you get three buns and a side of fries. Look for the Bun Slinger at O’Reilly Media in Sebastopol on Thursdays and at the Sonic.net headquarters in Roseland on Wednesdays. You can find his exact schedule and routes online.

Raise a glass to the final days of American Craft Beer Week by heading to one of Sonoma County’s newest gastropubs: ~BELLY LEFT COAST KITCHEN & TAPROOM~ (523 Fourth St. at Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa) or ~HERITAGE PUBLIC HOUSE~ (1901 Mendocino Ave. at Steele Lane, Santa Rosa, 707-540-0395). The food’s been getting better and better with each visit to Belly (one of the original chefs has been replaced) with happy-belly dishes like pulled pork sliders, crispy pork belly, Two Hog Mac and cheese (with twice the chorizo) along with crab cakes and a killer buffalo chicken pizza with Humboldt Fog blue cheese. The kitchen’s open until 1:30am and oh, did we mention the beers? My craft brew loving friends gave big props to the craft brew list.

We’re also loving the brotastic rumpus room vibe of Heritage Public House, which recently opened in the former Video Droid (1901 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa). The renovated space (with a pool table and plenty of big screens) features a California microbrew lineup of 24 taps (rotating weekly) and more than 30 bottled selections. Chef Andrew Oldfield is ramping up the menu to include lots of gastropub faves including burgers, fish and chips, lettuce wraps, and fried chicken sandwiches. Oldfield is promising some fun additions from the smoker soon.

Finally, the insanely popular ~BEERCRAFT~ now offers public beer tastings each Thursday from 6 to 8pm. Recently featured: 101 North Brewing’s Stigmata Red Rye Ale and Heroine IPA, and Auburn Alehouse. 5704 Commerce Blvd., Rohnert Park.

Missed BottleRock last week? Check out the pics of what you didn’t eat here.

By 707 correspondent Heather Irwin. Sign up for the BiteClub Newsletter.

There’s good news and there’s, well, pretty good news about the opening of ~DIERK’S MIDTOWN CAFE~ (the offshoot of the brunch-tacular Dierk’s Parkside): The veggie stack is back. If you time it right you can get still-warm pie, and if you time it wrong there’s still really good cold pie—or maybe cake. For fans of Mark Dierkhising’s original Santa Rosa eatery, the recently opened Midtown Cafe is familiar territory, with additions like a spicy Asian soba salad with harissa dressing, an exotic red rice salad with ginger-soy dressing that’s healthy and refreshing, the produce-friendly Talbot sandwich with vegetarian sausage, and the much-loved grilled vegetable stack (which I have been dreaming of for days) with a tower of eggplant, tomatoes, spinach, and onions bathed in saffron tomato sauce. With a blob of goat cheese ever so slowly melting on top. There are, of course, plenty of bacony, chicken-fried-steaky bits as well. With both naughty and nice dishes served all day (from 7am to 3pm) you can have your cake and five servings of veggies too.1422 Fourth St. at St. Helena, Santa Rosa, 707-545-2233.

The open sign is on: ~CHALKBOARD~ started serving dinner this week at the former Cyrus space in Healdsburg. BiteClub is headed up this weekend for a full report, but early diners have given a thumbs-up on the food. 29 North St. at Healdsburg, Healdsburg, 707-473-8030.

In Napa, ~EMPIRE RESTAURANT~ is slated to open on May 18. The Andaz Hotel restaurant will focus on small plates, bourbon cocktails, and late-night eats. 1400 First St. at Franklin, Napa.

Also slated to open soon is ~NAPA VALLEY BISTRO~, which replaces Neela’s Indian restaurant. The venture is a collaboration of former Silverado Brewing Company and Market St. Helena chefs. 975 Clinton Ave. at Main, Napa.

By 707 correspondent Heather Irwin. Sign up for the BiteClub Newsletter.

News that Santa Rosa’s ~ZAZU RESTAURANT~ will be moving to Sebastopol leaked out earlier this year, but now that owners Duskie Estes and John Stewart have officially announced their intentions to reopen at The Barlow, more details are emerging. Their passion for local, seasonal ingredients goes meta with a U-pick garden at the new restaurant, allowing diners to play a role in the creation of their own meal. The couple will also finally have a single kitchen for producing Stewart’s nationally recognized Black Pig bacon and salumi. The new restaurant will also feature a full bar offering farm-artisan cocktails and signature snacks like chicharrones-peanut butter cups and Black Pig bacon caramel corn. Opening is slated for late summer.

In Healdsburg, the combination café, gardening shop, event space, and artisan marketplace ~SHED~ has finally opened, and we declare its housemade shrubs the official drink of summer 2013. This old-is-new thirst-quencher gets its kick from the most unlikely of ingredients: vinegar. Far better tasting than it sounds, this colonial-era cocktail combines fresh fruit purée (think rhubarb, strawberries, or raspberries) with sugar and a light vinegar for a tart-but-sweet refresher that’s kickier than lemonade and far more refined than soda. Already, fans are bellied up to Jordan Lancer’s fermentation bar to get a taste of his homemade fruit shrubs in flavors like blueberry red wine vinegar and pear apple cider vinegar ($4). Lancer’s also got kombucha on tap, lemon and ginger kefir water (from Sebatopol’s Kefiry), and hard ciders from Murray’s in Petaluma and Tilted Shed in Sebastopol. There are also dozens of beers and wines on tap and in the bottle (I’m especially fond of the Bodkin Muscat Canelli from Lake County). With plenty of outside seating, folks are already flocking to this hyper-local food and drink hot spot. 25 North St., Healdsburg, 707-431-7433.

Rasta Dwight’s Return: BiteClub’s got word that Sonoma County barbecue legend Rasta Dwight Jones has returned. Old-timers may remember his lovingly crafted Carribean-inspired jerk pork, spare ribs, and tri-tip along with Burn Your Face hot links from the days before his Cotati ‘cue shack closed. He’s set up shop in Rohnert Park at Quincy’s Pub and Cafe (6590 Commerce Blvd. at North St., 707-585-1079) and is currently serving lunches only. We’re jonesing for a bite already!

The 15th Annual Guys Can Cook Too! wine and food extravaganza proves what most of us already know: There is some serious amateur culinary talent in Sonoma County. More than 25 home cooks and 20 restaurant chefs plan to participate in the Rotary Club of Sebastopol’s annual fundraiser. The May 4 event will be held at the Santa Rosa Junior College’s Shone Farm in Forestville from 4-8pm. Tickets are $75 per person, details at the event’s website.

Tucker Taylor, a beloved Yountville farmer responsible for the kitchen gardens at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, is bringing his trowel to Jackson Family Wines. Exec chef Justin Wangler hired Taylor to oversee the winery’s growing farming operations at Santa Rosa’s Kendall-Jackson Wine Center (and several other properties), where he grows hundreds of varieties of heirloom tomatoes, corn, eggplant, squash, herbs, and other produce. “Within a year I think K-J will have some of the best produce in Sonoma County,” said Wangler. Much of the produce is being used at the winery’s new Healdsburg wine café, Partake, in vegetable-centric dishes like caramelized carrots with guajillo chile; rhubarb sorbet; beet tartare with black sesame; and housemade Cabernet ketchup. Check out pictures of several tasting plates from Wangler and his staff at BiteClubEats.com.

By 707 correspondent Heather Irwin. Sign up for the BiteClub Newsletter.

We’ve got an exclusive peek at the forthcoming menu for ~CHALKBOARD~, the casual dining restaurant that’s replacing Cyrus in Healdsburg’s Les Mars Hotel. The menu will source much of its produce from the legendary Chalk Hill Gardens (part of Les Mars owner Bill Foley’s portfolio), so expect lots of seasonal specialties on the menu like microgreens, squash blossoms, stinging nettles, nasturtium greens, peas, leeks, and asparagus this spring. Chef Shane McAnelly does a mix of low- and highbrow comfort plates that range from warm pretzels with cheddar cheese and “stadium mustard” ($6), pork belly buttermilk biscuits ($8), veggies with Green Goddess dressing ($7), and marinated sardines ($9) to tonier beef tartare with a quail egg ($11), duck confit pasta ($12), and buttermilk fried quail with fava beans ($14). When it comes to his Dungeness crab tater tots with crème fraîche? We’re ready for a taste-testing tot-off with Stark’s Steak & Seafood, who also offer the crabby bites. Chalkboard is slated to open in early May.

BottleRock Eats: Music isn’t the only thing rocking this May in Napa. Valley toque ~CINDY PAWLCYN’S~ team will manage the nearly 40 chefs and restaurateurs participating in the 26-acre rock fest slated for May 9-12. On the roster so far: Mustards Grill, Oenotri, ZuZu, Grace’s Table, the girl & the fig, Backyard, La Condesa, Azzurro Pizzeria and Enoteca, Tra Vigne, Fish Story, Farmstead, The Model Bakery, C Casa, BarbersQ, and Gott’s Roadside in addition to chef appearances from Masaharu Morimoto, Todd Humphries, and Ken Frank (La Toque). Pouring at the event (this is Napa, after all) are some 50 wineries and artisan brewers. The event, which has caused massive buzz with the inclusion of top-billed bands including Kings of Leon, Jane’s Addiction, The Shins, The Black Keys, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and the Alabama Shakes. More details at the ~BOTTLEROCK WEBSITE~.

~NAPA VALLEY DISTILLERY~, the first licensed distillery to open in the town of Napa since Prohibition, will open a retail outlet at the Oxbow Market in June. Owned and operated by the Hartunian family, Napa Valley Distillery is best known for its fruit-based distilled spirits including single-estate and vintage vodka made from sauvignon blanc grapes, barrel-aged cocktails, and liqueurs. The retail shop will also offer bitters, shrubs (an acidulated beverage made of fruit juice, sugar, and other ingredients), syrups, drink mixing condiments, and cocktail-related items such as martini shakers, glassware, and books on distilled spirits.