4505 Meats is run by chef and artisan butcher Ryan Farr. Ryan formerly was executive chef at Fifth Floor. He teaches butcher classes and serves up food at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmer’s Market. We saw them at the Eat Real festival in Oakland. They create homemade relishes, multi-national ’Zilla sauce, and even bacon-dressed chocolate desserts.

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Chairman Bao is a San Francisco food truck that serves Chinese steamed and baked buns with a variety of fillings. Their truck can be found all over the San Francisco area (SF, Emeryville, Brisbane) with locations broadcast over Twitter. We tried their buns at Oakland’s Eat Real Festival. Chairman Bao is backed by corporate food truck company Mobi Munch. Incidentally, The Chairman is the name of a well respected Hong Kong restaurant.

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Gialina Pizzeria is a small pizzeria named after the chef-owner’s grandmother. It is opened in January 2007 and is located in San Francisco’s Glen Park neighborhood right near BART. Chef Sharon Ardiana has help positions at well respected places including Lime, Dine, Garibaldis, Slow Club, and Boulevard. Her next restaurant, Ragazza in the Metro Kathmandu space on Divisadero, will be opening soon.

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Tony’s Coal-Fired Pizza and Slice House is a new San Francisco North Beach takeout place from Tony Gemignani, 9 time Champion Pizza Tosser, certified pizziaolo. He also runs Tony’s Pizza Napoletana next door. This location serves a wide range of food; New York-style pizza, Roman-style pizza, Chicago-style Italian Beef Sandwiches, and New York deli sandwiches. Read the rest of this entry »

benu is the long awaited new restaurant in SF from French Laundry Alum and James Beard Award-winning chef Corey Lee. His old boss Thomas Keller is a partner in this new venture and has a wine locker by the front door. benu is housed where Hawthorne Lane used to be. We dined early on, during their 3rd week of operation. benu is a small product driven restaurant focused on contemporary American cuisine. benu is an Egyptian word and that stands for the phoenix, a symbol of something constantly renewing.

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Din Tai Fung is a popular Shanghai dumpling restaurant with locations in Los Angeles, Taipei, Japan, China, Singapore, and several other countries. We dined at the location in Shanghai’s touristy Xintiandi. The Los Angeles location is in Arcadia with Yelp reviews unfortunately indicating it is a step down from the ones abroad.

This restaurant started in Taipei City and has expanded over the years based on the popularity of their Shanghai steamed dumplings. We decided not to visit the USA or Hong Kong branch and eat at one in the heart of Xiao Long Bao dumpling territory, Shanghai, China. Read the rest of this entry »

Cafe des Amis (Amis means Friends in French) is a 3 week old classic French Brasserie on Union Street in middle of the Marina – Cow Hollow area, located were Restaurant Prego used to be. It is run by the Bacchus Management Group who also runs Spruce, Mayfield Bakery, and Village Pub. Former Florio chef Ed Carew is executive chef. Read the rest of this entry »

Zero Zero is a new restaurant in San Francisco’s SOMA district by Bruce Hill. (Pizzeria Picco, Picco, Bix) The restaurant is named after “00″ or doppio zero ultrafine milling flour, used in many pizzas. They feature ‘Calipolitan’ pizzas, pastas, Italian small plates, ‘two big time bars’, and organic soft serve. The focus is on farm driven ingredients and a party like atmosphere. Reservations for parties 5 or larger only, so by 6:45pm there was a wait. Read the rest of this entry »

Speederia Pizzeria is located in the Laurel St shopping district in sleepy San Carlos. We have been here several times with our last visit in August 2010.

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Marlowe Restaurant is a market driven neighbourhood bistro near ATT park, just across the street from the Cal train station. Chef du Cuisine: Jennifer Puccio was formerly of Cortez. The focus here is on American comfort food. We decided to try this place because Michael Bauer raved about its burger. Read the rest of this entry »

South Sea Seafood Village took the place of Fook Yuen Seafood Restaurant in Millbrae in February 2010. Fook Yuen was a long standing Chinese restaurant in Millbrae that acquired a good reputation over the years. South Sea Seafood has a location in San Francisco’s Sunset district. Millbrae is home to many fine Cantonese Chinese restaurant including Asian Pearl Peninsula and Zen Peninsula. With such high powered competition we wondered how they would position themselves. We came for dinner about 2 weeks after they opened, and returned for dim sum Lunch in late April.

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bund Shanghai Restaurant is a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown that serves Shanghainese cuisine and opened in 2009. It is named after one of the touristy but must visit areas of Shanghai next to the Huangpu river. Most of the restaurants in Chinatown serve Cantonese cuisine in contrast to this place. We stopped by for a quick snack in 2009, then returned for lunch in August 2010. Read the rest of this entry »