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Whet Your Appetite with Burgers, Cheese, Sandwiches, Cocktails, and Wine

Sundays were made for burgers and red Burgundy.

Spruce in San Francisco sure thinks so. The glam restaurant is offering a “Burgers and Burgundy” menu every Sunday through November in the lounge or dining room.

Chow down on the classic burger snuggled inside a house-made English muffin with pickled onions, zucchini, and remoulade, while sipping one, two or three rotating selections of Burgundy. The burger is $14; the Burgundies are available at $12, $25, and $50. A flight of all three wines also is available for $40.

Big spenders can add foie gras to their burgers for an extra $13.

Cheese more your thing? Then, you’ll be glad that the postponed sixth annual “Cheese & Wine Dinner” at Parcel 104 in Santa Clara is back on for Nov. 8.

Parcel 104 Executive Chef Robert Sapirman will be joined by chefs Chris Schloss of Cin-Cin Wine Bar in Los Gatos, Mark Dommen of One Market in San Francisco, and Arthur Wall of The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards in Livermore. They will prepare a five-course dinner, each showcasing a different artisan cheese, and paired with an appropriate wine.

Local cheese authority and cookbook author Laura Werlin will be on hand to answer questions about cheese. The night’s appetizers will be made from recipes from her cheese books. The dinner is $145.

For those watching their pennies, Togo’s has a deal for you. Wednesdays through Nov. 26, participating Togo’s shops will roll back the price of a different select sandwich every week to the original 1970 price of $1.99. For Northern Californians, you’re in luck, because every Togo’s in Northern California is participating in the promotion.

During “Flashback Wednesdays,” with every $1.99 sandwich purchase, Togo’s will make a donation to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Togo’s, though, has not yet stated how large a donation that will be.

Quattro Bar in the Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley, however, will say how much it will donate with its new cocktail promotion, running every Friday though Thanksgiving.

Through “Cocktails for a Cause,”  the bar will donate $1 from each herb-garden cocktail to the local non-profit, BUILD, which provides disadvantaged youths with real-world entrepreneurial experience. Cocktails start at $15.

Through October, the PlumpJack Group of restaurants and resorts will be raising funds for Breast Cancer Awareness Month through special tasting menus, specialty cocktails, and retail items. All proceeds from the “PlumpJack for Pink” program will be donated to the Northern California Cancer Center.

Among the items featured during October are:

* A “Taste for the Cure” five-course tasting menu will be served at Jack Falstaff in San Francisco, which includes such dishes as roasted scallops and Gulf prawns with roasted pepper compote. The tasting menu is $75; wine-pairing is an additional $35.

* PlumpJack Wines stores in San Francisco on Fillmore Street and on 24th Street will feature Tessa’s Cuvee ($11 per bottle) in honor of Tessa Thomas Newsom, the PlumpJack Group’s controller who died of breast cancer.

* A “Cause”-mopolitan at FARM in Napa can be ordered for $10. It is served in a martini glass with a pink ribbon around the stem.

At Morton’s of San Jose, kick back with “Wine Down Weekday,”Mondays through Wednesdays, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. What that will get you is a $3 brewski (Samuel Adams October Fest brew); or a $5 glass of wine (Canyon Road Chardonnay or Canyon Road Cabernet Sauvignon).

To go along with that, nibble on $5 bar bites menu items such as a miniature prime cheeseburger trio, miniature crab cakes, or “Colossal Shrimp Cocktail.” The bar bites menu can be enjoyed Monday through Friday, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and then again from 9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.