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Apr 13, 2009 3 min read

April 14, 2009

April 14, 2009
Table of Contents

Looking back on my culinary excursions last week, it was the week of Little Bunny Foo Foo: I had rabbit pot pie at Mission Beach Café (and a full-tilt-boogie with dessert—j’adore the lemon velvet cream pie, whoa), and rabbit and liver sausage the following night at Poggio (plus lamb’s brain ravioli with ricotta—extraordinary). Huh, I also had some tasty wabbit at Nopa. Methinks the tablehopper has an affinity for animals that hop (and hoppy beers).


You’d think I had rabbit on Easter as well, but no: my family feasted on capretto (baby goat) with peas and my father’s house-made pancetta, and our stupidly delicious lasagne, stuffed with house-made soppressata, little slices of sausage, baby meatballs, my mother’s incomparable tomato sauce, plus slices of hard-boiled egg, and a slew of cheese. This dish would be my last meal ever, no doubt about it. Good thing we only make it a couple times a year, or it really would be my last dish.

I want to welcome all the new subscribers who hopped aboard after hearing me on Forum with Michael Krasny last week on KQED. If you missed it and want to check it out, you can listen to the show here. My fellow fab guests included Michael Bauer, and Meesha Halm of Zagat. We chewed the fat in a quick-fire fashion on a variety of topics and then took live calls; with a room full of restaurant hounds, we could have turned the show into five hours, I swear.

One topic was cheap eats, so I thought for this week instead of doing a review, I’d just do a recap of 10 ideas for cheap eats for y’all (it’s also an easy way for me to link to some of the places I mentioned in the segment—some of you were asking me about them). Another thing that came up is the recent rise of street food. And being in San Francisco, of course we have some clever additions to the scene. Since I got a lot of emails asking about the whereabouts of things like the Magic Curry Kart, I am supplying some links to the latest ad hoc culinary happenings below in fresh meat. I hope you dig it.

We have a very cool wino this week, written by Michaël Engelmann, who just won the title of Best Sommelier in America last week. Check it out—it’s a compelling account of the competition.


It’s a new month, which means another book giveaway from the award-winning Ten Speed Press. This month I am giving away three copies of Takashi’s Noodles by Takashi Yagihashito to three lucky tablehopper readers. All you need to do all you need to do is forward this week’s tablehopper newsletter to one buddy, but even more would be so very fabulous. Just tell your friend(s) why they would dig a subscription to the tablehopper e-column (if you call it a blog, you are disqualified, I am so not kidding!), and CC or BCC luckyme@tablehopper.com so I know you sent it—I promise I won’t use anyone’s email address. Deadline to enter is midnight Sunday April 19th—I’ll notify the winners with noodle slurping in their future next week.

Speaking of next week, as I mentioned, yours truly is heading off to Coachella this Thursday for some fun in the sun. And next Monday I will be kicking it poolside instead of writing this beast of a column. Yup, the tablehopper is having a mini getaway, and I intend to enjoy every single sun- and cocktail- and bass- and treble-filled moment of it. So next week’s issue is going to be a shorty (unlike this week’s, jeez Louise), written by guest jetsetter and wino and bookworm writers, yay. I’ll also be off email for a bit, so don’t expect me to get back to you until next week.

Let’s rawk!

~Marcia

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