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

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Spruce's gourmet burger (Photo courtesy of Frankie Frankeny)

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.

Togo\'s turkey-cranberry sandwich (Photo courtesy of Togo\'s)

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.

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New Robert Mondavi Institute Opens at UC Davis

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Breaking ground for phase 2 of the institute. Phase 1 was completed earlier this month. (Photo courtesy of UC Davis)

The $93.5 million Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science has opened its doors at the University of California at Davis.

The late-great Robert Mondavi, who passed away in May at the age of 94, would no doubt be pleased at the sight of the completed first phase of the 129,000-square-foot, three-building complex, which houses the departments of viticulture and enology, and food science and technology, as well as administrative offices.

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Penzeys Spices to Open Its First Northern California Store

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Lucky Menlo Park will be the home of it, too.

Penzeys, whom foodies love for its vast array of spices, started as a store in Milwaukee, Wisc. in 1957. Over the years, it has become a mail-order phenomenon, selling everything from adobo seasoning to zatar. It now boasts 39 retail stores across the country, too.

Fliers are already being mailed to Peninsula residents about the new 771 Santa Cruz Ave. store that will open “soon.”

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A Dang Good Burger

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Burger nirvana

If a shrine could be built for a burger, fans of Father’s Office gastropubs in Santa Monica and Culver City would erect one to be sure.

Sang Yoon, a South-Korean-born chef who has worked with the likes of French culinary genius Joel Robuchon, turned his back on fine-dining to create these two casual, fun, hip pubs that serve gourmet bar food and 36 craft beers on tap. Smoked eel with poached egg and horseradish creme fraiche, anyone?

It is his “Office burger,”  though, that has got tongues wagging and teeth chomping for seconds. A $12 burger made of dry-aged strip steak, bleu cheese, arugula, and onions caramelized with a splash of sweet-tangy balsamic. It trounced other chefs’ creations in a “Today Show” cook-off. Esquire and Chowhound fanatics have labeled it the best around. Indeed, foodies have deemed it a “masterpiece” of burger-dom.

But the real question, of course, is what my hubby, aka Meat Boy, would think of it. He had been looking forward to sinking his teeth into one ever since we planned our recent Los Angeles trip.

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Cupcake Challenge, Part 2 — LA-Style

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In one corner, cupcakes from Joan's on Third.

It would be hard to do justice to the cupcake culture that’s risen in Los Angeles. Everywhere you turn, it seems like there’s a cupcake bakery or one about to open. And it would be doubly hard to do an all-out cupcake-off after one is already bursting at the seams from a lunch of bone marrow, and burrata pizza.

But my hubby and I gave it our best shot, even after such a filling lunch. We picked up five cupcakes total from two bakeries (priced at $3 to $4), then took them back to our hotel room to do our own taste-test.

First up, cupcakes from Joan’s on Third, a cute-as-a-button, family-owned, cafe-bakery that also sells gourmet food to-go, including chi-chi pasta sauces, cheeses galore, charcuterie, and roast chickens. We had high hopes for these cupcakes. They were beautiful to look at. We chose a Snickers bar-topped chocolate cupcake; a peanut butter-marshmallow chocolate cupcake; and a “Cloud,” a chocolate cupcake topped with a huge spiral beehive of chocolate-dipped marshmallow that looked like Marge Simpson’s head.

In the other corner, cupcakes from Sweet Lady Jane.

We also picked up two cupcakes from an old favorite, Sweet Lady Jane, known for its fabulous cakes. The downside to Sweet Lady Jane is that it doesn’t always have cupcakes. You just have to hit it at the right time and hope for the best. We lucked out that day, getting our hands on a Red Velvet and a chocolate cupcake.

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