This week's tablehopper: rawk the vote.
One of the best porchetta sandwiches I have ever had the pleasure of sinking my choppers into (at the Tartine Bakery after hours party to celebrate Hartwood’s new cookbook). Photo: © tablehopper.com.
Happy fall day to you. Hopefully you’re enjoying your fill of squash soup these days, and persimmons, although I’m pretty damn sad that we won’t be eating any local Dungeness crabs for quite a while. (No one is sadder than the poor fishermen, damn.) Recreational Dungeness crabbing season was supposed to kick off this weekend, with commercial crabbing on the 15th. We’ll just have to see how this one plays out. Washington, we’re gonna be eating all your crabs! (And probably expensive ones at that.) Fie upon you, domoic acid!
I am also yelling “fie upon you!” to my bike, espresso machine, and printer, which are all giving me mechanical difficulties this week, because my car in the shop obviously wasn’t enough of a headache. Maybe I’m just supposed to stay home. Well, at least until I leave for Mexico City next Sunday, arriba! (And if you have any favorite places there you want to send my way, gracias!)
Yours truly has been busy writing some freelance pieces, so apologies for not having more for you today, but I am all (keyboard) tapped out. Take a look at my first piece for Robb Vices, featuring SF’s best sushi counters that you can book a spot for on Reserve—and if you’re inspired to try out the app, use my code EYC1AX for $10 off your first reservation.
I also put together this piece for SF Travel on local craft breweries you can visit and the holiday brews they’ll be pouring.
For those of you attending this Sunday’s (sold-out) tablehopper and Campari America Filipino-inspired brunch at 1760, we’re looking forward to seeing you at this family-style feast! Come hungry and thirsty.
And lastly, I’d love for you to take a close look at my piece in the chatterbox today. Yes, it’s about that Time Out contest I want you to vote for me in! #1!
A presto! Marcia Gagliardi
the chatterbox
Gossip & News (the word on the street)
"You Still Working on That?" Please Vote for tablehopper in This Time Out Contest!
Let’s get the hopper to NYC! All it takes is your vote for #1!
You have 10 seconds? Great. Because that’s the maximum it’s going to take you to vote for my piece in the Time Out Ultimate New York Life contest!
Yours truly’s piece, “Seven things San Francisco restaurants need to stop doing, like, right now” is #1 on the page, which makes it even easier to vote for.
If I win (oh please oh please oh please!), I’ll get an apartment for six months rent-free in NYC (um, unheard of) and will write for Time Out magazine on New York restaurants, lifestyle, bars, and more. This would be a dream come true, gang—I have wanted to live in New York for way too long! I’d be honored to represent SF in NYC—I’m already dreaming of the events I’d love to host there with SF chefs. (And I promise, I will come back. And I will keep writing tablehopper, don’t you worry!)
Voting ends Monday night! Please vote (you only need to vote once!), please share, and please know how much I appreciate all your support in this! Really, it takes a village. GRAZIE MILLE! XOXO
the sponsor
This Round Is On Me... (hey, thanks!)
(Sponsored): Get Ready to Impress at Your Next Party, Thanks to Parties That Cook!
Many of you will be entertaining guests for the holidays, and we want you to shine! Join Parties That Cook! at our charming Parties That Cook Kitchen for hands-on cooking classes where you’ll create an incredible holiday party featuring delicious and festive appetizers. Or there’s our Midnight in Paris Holiday Dinner Party menu, which includes a warm chocolate soufflé cake with salted crème caramel sprinkled with flaky fleur de sel! You’ll also learn some plating tips too.
Join us this Saturday November 7th for the Holiday Appetizer Party Class and Friday November 20th is our Midnight in Paris Holiday Dinner Party. We’d love to see you at both! And don’t forget, you get to enjoy eating the fruits of your labor at each event—because it’s a party after all!
707 scout
Wine Country Buzz (it’s what happens there)
Meadowood Opening a Project in Tra Vigne, CIA at Copia, Rossi's 1906
Chef Christopher Kostow will be opening a new, casual restaurant at the Tra Vigne location. Photo courtesy of Meadowood.
Copia food and wine center has a new tenant. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.
Korean fried chicken at Dick Blomster’s is coming to Santa Rosa next Friday. Photo courtesy of Dick Blomster’s.
By 707 correspondent Heather Irwin. Sign up for the BiteClub Newsletter.
The big news in Napa Valley this week: Chef Christopher Kostow of THE RESTAURANT AT MEADOWOOD will be opening a yet-to-be-named restaurant in the St. Helena space being vacated by TRA VIGNE. He will be joined by Meadowood’s restaurant director Nathaniel Dorn.
News broke last week that the legendary Italian restaurant will shutter on December 20th. Property owner Bill Harlan, of Harlan Estate, decided not to renew the restaurant’s lease. Harlan also owns Meadowood.
The new restaurant, according to Kostow, will be focused on more casual, celebratory dining experiences. He plans to continue his role at the three-starred Michelin restaurant, along with his wife, Martina. “We will continue our work here, unabated, at The Restaurant at Meadowood. We are looking at this new project first and foremost through the lens of St. Helena and then through that of the Napa Valley as a whole,” said Kostow. The new restaurant is slated for a 2016 opening.
In downtown Napa, Robert Mondavi’s long-empty food, wine, and art center Copia finally has a new resident, THE CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA. The 80,000-square-foot building includes a theater, two restaurants, a demonstration kitchen, classrooms, a library, and retail space, along with an outdoor theater and gardens. Though the details of what will stay at the CIA’s Greystone campus and what moves to Copia are still in flux, it sounds like the downtown Napa space may be used for public events and classes as well as the Vintners Hall of Fame and the CIA’s Food Business School. There’s plenty more to come in the months ahead, but the acquisition of this Napa Valley gem is great news for the culinary scene.
Another new ‘cue: Glen Ellen Star chef Ari Weiswasser spent nearly a month in Austin learning the fine art of barbecue. He’s brought that back to Sonoma’s ROSSI’S 1906 with a brand-new menu that debuted last week. Working with owner Max Young, they’re billing the new menu as “Texas barbecue in a California context,” featuring dishes like brisket and oysters. Appetizers on the menu include brown butter corn muffins, crispy pig’s ears with nacho cheese, chicken-fat fries with malt vinegar salt and lemon, and sausage links. Clearly not for the calorie-conscious. In addition, look for decidedly non-Texan pork ribs, turkey, veal-base barbecued baked beans, mac and cheese, and collards. For dessert, there are pecan hand pies and assorted ice cream flavors. Wed-Sun lunch and dinner. 401 Grove St., Sonoma, 707-343-0044.
Get ready for Korean fried chicken: DICK BLOMSTER’S KOREAN DINER in Santa Rosa has set an opening date of Friday November 13th. This second pop-up of the Korean BBQ-meets-pub grub (the original is in Guerneville) will be the nighttime alter ego of Don Taylor’s Omelette Express several evenings a week. Doors open at 5pm. 112 4th St., Santa Rosa.
