The Chatterbox

I’ve always has a soft spot for Buca Giovanni in North Beach—it was the site of one of my earlier childhood dining memories, and I tasted rabbit for the very first time there. (No Thumper trauma here.) Anyway, I was very excited to find out that by mid-July,…

Whew, at last, the ~PURSE SNATCHING DRAMA~ has ended: the police have stopped what was actually a nasty purse-snatching ring. The Examiner has the entire story here. It all went down when the alleged suspect decided to pay a return visit to the St. Regis, and a member of the…

Big news out in Dogpatch (I’ve been working on an article about this neighborhood for San Francisco magazine, stand by): Erin Rooney, the owner of ~SLOW CLUB~, is opening her second restaurant, this time in the Dogpatch ‘hood; she hopes to have it open by the fall. There is…

As many of you know, I was away for the inspiring ~TASTE3~ conference last week up at COPIA. All I can say is cool yo, what an interesting group of speakers, and attendees. I heard 31 engrossing 20-minute presentations on a slew of topics, like restaurant design from the principal…

Okay, not to start on a negative note, but this purse-snatcher B.S. has got to stop. This lady is out of freaking control. I can’t believe how many more places she has nailed the past few weeks. She was all over the Mission: Andalu got hit, and she…

Although I am not doing a full tablehopper this week, I had to at least give you some news about a few projects… I think the new bougie mantra in the city is, “A certified humane organic free-range chicken in every pot, and a new wine bar in every neighborhood!…

Okay, I have been too excited about this project for a couple months now, and I am finally able to talk about it. Excuse me while I unload a flurry of pixels about it! Joining the ranks of new wine bars around town will be a completely fresh concept for…

So, the waiting game is (almost) over. ~FIFTH FLOOR~ (it seems) has honed in on their new executive chef: but I am not allowed to say who it is just yet because the deal isn’t final. So let’s just run this as a blind item. All I can…

A tablehopper reader was asking me about ~LOTTA'S BAKERY~ on Polk Street, and we gotta love the Culinary Muse for posting the details not two days later and setting me up with the contact, meow. G. Earl Darny is opening this full-service bakery on April 17 that is…

While it seems Laurent Manrique's Alley project in Yerba Buena Lane is running into some delays, Vijay Bist's third location for ~AMBER INDIA~ is proceeding along (the other two locations are in Mountain View and Santana Row). The 5,000-square-foot restaurant is slated to open at…