Category Archives: Enticing Events

“Ultimate Guide to Bay Area Dining” — Food Gal’s First App — Plus A Give-Away

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Yes, your favorite Food Gal has joined the app world.

I’m proud to be part of the new venture, “Know What,” an app that takes the guess-work out of figuring out the food and cultural hot spots most worth visiting in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles region. The recommendations come already vetted by experts in those areas, including yours truly.

Here’s how it works: Purchase the “Know What Essentials” app for $2.99 to get 250 top picks for food, hikes, museums and bars in both Northern and Southern California. Then, you can add on more specific modules for an additional nominal fee, including my “Ultimate Guide to Bay Area Dining” ($3.99), which includes my spotlights on 72 delicious places around the Bay Area not to be missed. My guide will be updated regularly, too, at no future charge to you.

Since it’s map-based, it couldn’t be easier to use. Just click on the map to see the places near you worth checking out. So, for folks who regularly email me questions such as, “Where should I go eat after the game today at AT&T Park in San Francisco?” or “What’s a new place to try in downtown Palo Alto?” — and you know who you are — having my guide at your fingertips is the next best thing to me being right there with you to lead the way.

Other Bay Area guides available by local writers include: “The City’s Best Cocktail Spots” by Camper English; “Things in San Jose that Don’t Suck” by Gary Singh; and “San Francisco’s Top 30 Taquerias” by Burritoeater.

“Know What” and my “Ultimate Guide to Bay Area Dining” are available for iPhones via the iTunes store. Look for an Android version possibly toward the end of the year.

Contest: One lucky Food Gal reader will win a free copy of the “Know What Essentials” app, along with my “Ultimate Guide to Bay Area Dining.” Entries, limited to those in the continental United States, will be accepted through midnight PST Feb. 25. Winner will be announced Feb. 27.

How to win?

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Parcel 104 Marks a Decade of Deliciousness

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California white sea bass shines at Parcel 104, known for its use of local, sustainable ingredients.

It’s a restaurant named for the original lot number for the Bartlett pear orchard that once thrived there.

It’s only open weekdays for lunch and dinner, not weekends, owing to the fact that it’s in a hotel that caters to the business crowd.

And that crowd is often prominently male, given all the tech companies nearby.

Parcel 104 in the Marriott Hotel in Santa Clara has always been one of my favorite places in the South Bay for its farm-to-table fare served in a warm, inviting, contemporary environment. As a journalist, I’ve also been partial to it as an ideal place to conduct lunch interviews, because you can actually hold a clear conversation with someone without the usual din found at so many of today’s trendoid spots.

The golden glow of the dining room.

I’ve dined at the restaurant many times over the years. On my most recent visit a couple of weeks ago, in which I was invited to dine as a guest, I was happy to find that the restaurant is still going strong after marking a decade last year.

A number of the staff have been at the restaurant since Day One, always a good sign that it’s not only a good place to work, but one that knows what it’s doing.

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New Pizza Joint in the South Bay, Dungeness Crab Galore & More

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Caprese salad at Blue Line Pizza. (Photo courtesy of the restaurant)

San Francisco’s Little Star Pizza Opens a Locale in Campbell

Pizza lovers will rejoice that San Francisco’s Little Star Pizza — famed for its deep-dish, cornmeal-crust pizzas — opened an offshoot last week in downtown Campbell.

Blue Line Pizza, named for the train that runs between O’Hare International Airport and Chicago, features organic salads, paninis, and both deep-dish and thin-crust pizzas.

The original Little Star has been a sensation ever since it opened its original Divisadero Street location in San Francisco in 2004 in San Francisco. There’s now a second branch in San Francisco, as well as one in Albany.

Sidle up to the bar at Blue Line Pizza. (Photo courtesy of the restaurant)

One taste of its deep-dish pie will tell you why it’s so popular.

I’m partial to the Blue Line (Little Star) with spinach, ricotta, feta, mushrooms, onions and garlic, as well as the Mediterranean Chicken with roasted chicken, red bell peppers, olives, onions, feta and plenty of marinated artichoke hearts. It’s a mouthful; it’s a meal.

Blue Line Pizza is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner.

A Crabby Time at Lark Creek Restaurants

Through the end of February, the Lark Creek Restaurant Group celebrates the bounty of fresh, seasonal Dungeness crab.

Its 23rd annual “Crab Festival” will feature a range of crab dishes at its various restaurants.

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Chef Richard Reddington’s New Glam Pizza Joint, Celebrating Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup & More

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Not your typical pizza parlor. Redd Wood is glam and whimsical. (Photo by Nick Vasilopoulos)

Redd Wood Opens in Yountville

Acclaimed Chef Richard Reddington of Redd in Yountville has opened his latest venture — Redd Wood, a casual Wine Country pizzeria, located just up the block from his other restaurant.

The chic looking space was created by St. Helena interior designer, Erin Martin of Erin Martin Design. In her first restaurant project ever, she’s created a look that’s rustic yet chic with unfinished stone, steel, glass, wood, mismatched chairs and intriguing salvaged objects.

“So much of the Yountville area is about serious food and wine experiences,” Reddington said in a statement. “With Redd Wood, I want to create an entirely different ambiance.”

A wood-fired pizza from Redd Wood. (Photo by Nick Vasilopoulos)

Take a seat inside or out to enjoy wood-fired pizzas such as prosciutto cotto, Brussels sprouts, tellagio and red onion ($14), and pastas such as lamb bolognese, arancini and tapenade ($18). A dedicated charcuterie room turns out house-cured prosciutto and salumi.

Enjoy Prize-Winning Taipei Beef Noodle Soup

How popular is beef noodle soup in Taiwan?

Consider that more than 168 contestants battled over burners last year in the Taipei International Beef Noodle Festival cook-off.

But you don’t have to get on a plane to try this street food favorite.Chef Hou Chung-sheng with his prize-winning beef noodle soup. (Photo courtesy of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office)

Chef Hou Chun-sheng, the 2011 winner of the spicy beef noodle soup category, will be serving up samples of his specialty at two upcoming events in San Francisco.

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The Cellar Door in Santa Cruz Ushers in the Lunar New Year

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Chef Alex Ong plates a dish of fresh bamboo shoots at the Cellar Door.

This past Sunday, the Cellar Door restaurant at Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz welcomed the “Year of the Dragon” with a bang, thanks to Chef Alexander Ong of San Francisco’s Belenut, who prepared a masterful banquet fit for celebrating.

Indeed, my Santa Cruz cohorts half-joked that it was the first — and most likely only — time they could indulge in stellar Chinese food in their city, which unfortunately lacks some of the cultural and epicurean diversity of its larger neighboring cities to the north.

I was lucky to be invited as a guest at the 134-person dinner, which sold out in only a few days. It was the first guest chef dinner held there. But Proprietor Randall Grahm hopes to make it a monthly event at this quirky tasting room-restaurant that completely reflects his irreverent personality.

The "host'' (or shall I say "toast'') at the door.

An occasion for celebrating.

A New Year's dragon vies for space with a spaceship.

The tables are set for a festive time.

Festive red tablecloths covered long tables that were arranged in a serpentine in the front and rear of the space. The dinner was made up of (lucky) eight courses and served family-style.

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