melkor

They aren't equating anything. One star goes to a restaurant that is excellent in it's class. Gary Danko is apparently excellent in the banquet quality food, absurdly priced wine list, and excellent service category. The thing about this list for me is that while I don't agree with all of the choices they've done a much much better job than the Chronicle. The Chronicle could never get away with snubbing Oliveto, Jardiniere, Zuni, Slanted Door, etc even though they've all been cruising for years on their Zagat scores and Bauer reviews. The next year will be very interesting across the board as some motivated chefs push to move up the list. I fully expect quality to improve at the restaurants that Michelin rated lower than expected.

Stu is spot on - the place smells horrible and they're serving grocery store quality meat. If you're driving between SF and LA, sure it'd be worth considering, but going out of your way to eat there? Not unless you live somewhere with even worse restaurants.

I think it'd be tough to argue that there is a single correct way to make shawarma. The spices, meat, and marinade change from region to region. Assyrian shawarma is usually beef, Israeli and Palestinian style is a mix of beef and lamb, traditional Lebanese prep is all lamb. Sometimes the meat is marinated in an acid, though there seems to be no preference between vinegar, lemon juice, and yogurt - except I've never seen shawarma marinated in yogurt in Israel (can't eat a lamb in the spoiled milk of the neighbors cow). I think shawarma can be defined as spiced meat and fat, layered in slices on a spit, then cooked upright next to a flame. Without the vertical rotisserie, I don't think the same product can be made at home.

Octopus are frequently used as bait when fishing - in the ocean octopus are eaten live by any number of larger fish. I've got no burning need to eat a live octopus, but since I've got no problem sticking them on a hook with the hope of catching dinner then I suppose I've got no problem with people snacking on them either.

All the more reason to to SF for sushi

The junk shop (Ichiban Kan) in the Japantown mall has pocky cheaper than I've seen it anywhere else. You can pick up a case or three of pocky on your way to have sushi at Takara, Ino, or Kiss - the perfect excuse to drive across two bridges for pocky.

30th and Taraval. The fried chicken is called something like 'small pieces chicken, little spicy' on the menu - you can order it as fried chicken. It for some reason comes with a bowl of tofu soup. If you're two people, get the kal bi to go with it - if you're more people you can do the grill at your table thing. Don't order the skate listed under 'house specials' - raw cold bone-in skate with a blob of sauce on it. It'd be an understatement to say the skate is difficult to eat. The cold spicy noodles aren't my favorite - they're overly sweet, not at all spicy, and have a gluey texture. The chicken is great, the kal bi can be very good - the place is definitely worth a visit.

I had another meal at the front porch about a week ago and they were serving an excellent braised ox tail dish as a special. I'm a big fan of what they're doing but I'm not sure its accurate to simply call it southern. The chef at the front porch is from Barbados, I'd say that the chicken is more Caribbean than southern style. If we're including other style fried chicken, I prefer the chicken at Shin Toe Bul Yi - though it being a Korean preparation I have a hard time comparing them.

That's not stupid, most things taste better after you light them on fire.

Definitely the Generals Daughter in Sonoma for dinner. There's a taco truck in geyserville right off 101 on 128 east - can't miss that for a snack. I love NY pie in Santa Rosa has the best NY style pizza I've had on the west coast - stop there for lunch if you're near by, it's on 4th and Brookwood.

It looks like fish. You need to smell it to tell if it's fresh. If you think it smells ok then it's probably fine, or you could cut off a corner and toss it in a hot pan then taste it and see if it seems off.

I hope more experienced "fish" people chime in but I always unwrap my fish, place it on a bed of ice cubes and loosely cover it with plastic wrap until ready to use. ← Ok, but won't that make my fridge smell like fish? ← It shouldn't smell like fish to begin with. If you aren't going to eat fish before its 3 days old (from when it was swimming) then it should be frozen. I prefer to store fish whole, on a rack set on top of a sheet pan in the fridge. For fillets ice is fine against the skin of the fish, but I don't like to put the flesh side of fillets against ice. Cover whatever you're keeping the fish in/on with a tent of plastic wrap of foil and it'll be fine.

Moderately drunk. I keep a red wine mother happy with the dregs of a bottle every few weeks. Apparently red mother doesn't like white wine since it died when i split some off and fed it only white wine. To get it started I'd give it a maybe half a bottle of wine at most, mother isn't picky - corked wine is fine, stuff that's been sitting on top of the fridge in the sun for a year is good too.

Scoop out the mother and put it in a clean glass or ceramic container, add leftover random white wine and it'll turn to vinegar in a few weeks. You need to keep adding wine every once in a while or the mother will die and smell HORRIBLE.

There are lots of great cheap eats all over the city, what sort of food do you like?

Veal is a byproduct of the dairy industry. Only half the cows born can make milk, the other half have to go somewhere - I'd agree completely that its cruel to stuff them in cages in dark rooms, but I have no problem with them entering the food supply if they are raised responsibly. What do you suggest happen to the male calves?

Watching a goat eat a tin can is pretty unpleasant, chickens eat stones, fish never stop swimming. I'm no fan of sticking veal in a pen, I don't buy eggs from chickens that live in cages, but to say that the foie gras ducks are suffering is unsubstaniated conjecture on your part. Sure neither of us wouldn't like eating through a tube, but I suspect neither of us can fly either.

I don't think that's true at all. I think if there were some proof that producing foie gras caused animal suffering that many people would stop eating it. The research doesn't support that, so a ban seems premature.

I had dinner at the Front Porch tonight, it was excellent. I think it'd be unfair to classify the restaurant as purely southern as the chef is from Barbados and the bulk of the apps are more heavily Caribbean influenced than Southern. Everything we had was very good - the grits are delicious, the corn bread should be available by the bucket as no reasonable person can eat just one, and the fried chicken liver starter is crazy good. The entire menu is well priced too - I'm glad to have another interesting restaurant in the city worth visiting multiple times.

When pressed for time I hang the bird with kitchen twine from a pot rack, stick a tray under it, and set a fan blowing on it for 20-30 minutes after patting the thing dry.

I'm sorry, isn't that what I said? ← It is. My guess would be that you're using table salt or fine sea salt and the recipe wants kosher/coarse salt - either way, if you find it too salty use a bit less, it'll work just fine.

I don't think chicken or duck count as vegetarian. Difficult, vegetarian, and can be done in a day? Hand-pulled noodles is all that comes to mind. Puff pastry is more time consuming than difficult, and the same goes for phyllo dough - both require a cool place to work and a lot of free time.

Bodega Bistro and Pagolac are my two standbys for Vietnamese in SF. Pho Ha in San Jose or Pho 84 in Oakland are my favorites for Pho.

If the mechanism is the same then the reason for pre-salting rather than brining is to avoid the rubbery texture and ham-like flavor that brined meat has.

I've been to both Kabul and Afghani House, neither were bad but I prefer Kabul in Belmont. I'll check out some of the Chinese places you list - I've been to a dozen or so others, none were worth a return visit.