Stone

I don't under stand how Charanga, Slanted Door or Fleur de Lys can be called "new." rnm is very good. Go. Tell Lisa I say hello.

This is little more than an list of 100 popular restaurants in the Bay Area. "Antica Trattoria" is an excellent neighborhood Italian place. Excellent. But as someone above would say, it wouldn't be more than a blip in NY. "AsiaSF" -- it's Lucky Changs (yes, the Chines drag joint. "Cosmopolitan Cafe" -- think of any place on Park Avenue South where the Advertising Administrative Assistants, First Year Lawyers, and Wall Street Cold-Callers meet after work. I don't think it's trying to list the best quality restaurants. Different definition of "best." Although it does remind me of some great places I haven't been to in a while: Globe Gordons Kokkari Pane e Vino

As long as the Chronicle's picking up the tab, you can be as wrong as you'd like. (And again, I would recommend Slanted Door for the event -- because it is one of SF's most reknowned and loved restaurants, yet also one of its most derided.)

Warning -- if you enter "Vann" and "Spice" on google, you will get "Vann's Spice House." It is not a spice house. It is a spicy house. (I now return you to the regularly scheduled thread.)

I use these chemical storage bottles. Amber glass is good since it's light protective. I got mine from VWR (catalog number 16180-025) but any scientific supply place should have similar bottles. Cool. But can you let me use your account number? I want to load up on all my haz-mat needs, and it's easier if they bill you directly.

interesting. And believe me, your nonsense is no worse than most of the nonsense i have to put up with on this site. (added the hated emoticon to ensure that the new friend knows I'm kidding.) Santarpios in East Boston is great, and during one layover I took a cab over for dinner. (The crust is a little dry and tasteless for my liking. But otherwise great pizza, grilled sausage and character.)

what keeps me away from eating it is finding good restaurants nearby. Cooking is a different question -- it's usually the problem of not having fresh ingredients around and not having time to go to the market. And I'm scared to open my big tupperware tub of bulk-bought spices because when I bought them I was too cocky to write down what they were on each little bag, and now I can't really smell the difference (which leads me to believe of course that they're too old). Anyone know what type of store sells little empty spice bottles? What am I doing about it? I'm seeing a therapist twice a week and having accupressure. How did I get to this point? I clicked on the "today's active topics" and thought this was an interesting post.

I went to the Marios that was on Polk. Thought it was just some pasta with canned tomato sauce and some bits of sausage. I will try the others. As for NY -- beats me. I'm not sure there is real good Italian in Little Italy. I used to go to Umbertos for calamari in hot sauce, but the last time I was there it was awful.

I win. (I have been to Delfina, and it was great. As I said, there is a lot of very good and great food in SF. It just doesn't compare with the variety in NY.)

I don't understand how you can say this. Sure, there is great food here, and I also don't understand how someone can say that they can't get a great meal in SF. But at every price/style range, NY has more variety. There are only about three menus floating around SF. There's the seared ahi tuna with mango chutney menu (which Fat Guy describes as adding an Asian influence whether it needs it or not); the comfort food of double cut pork chop, short ribs and pureed tubor; and . . . well, that's about it. Other than Fleur D'Lys, Danko and a few others, most of the menus in town are geared towards 20-something post-grads who, up until two years ago, thought that wearing a goatee and riding a scooter made them way cool. You can't get a decent burger or sandwich in this town. There is no such thing as a deli here. Pizza is an afterthought. High end dining means that you don't wear sandals and leave your dirty fleece in the back of your Subaru outback. SF does win in the burrito area.

I've heard great things about Swan's. Not much of a fan of LuLu -- too Pottery Barn. More on ethnic food -- Suppenkuche in Hayes Valley for excellent German food. By the way, Butter Man, -- perhaps you could host the first San Francisco eGullet dinner when you get out here?

Other than beef jerky, carrot sticks and pork rinds, what can one snack on in this diet?

I think finding good Italian food in North Beach is harder than finding good Italian food in Little Italy. (I've found that only Boston's North End offers consistently good old-style food.) North Beach has absolutely no Italian "charm," with North End has in droves and which Little Italy still has some of. But does it have decent food? I think Steps of Rome is the most consistent. I once went to the place billed as the first Italian restaurant in SF (Fiorio?), and we all agreed it sucked. I also went to the place what serves wine out of ceramic chickens and gives every table gummy bears for dessert and, well, it serves wine out of ceramic chickens and gives every table gummy bears for dessert. Haven't been to Rose Pistola. It looks a little polished for what the "Italian" section of town should be offering.

Hollywood -- I think that shot's from Bullit, not Vertigo. Enricos should be avoided, unless you enjoy crowds of inane youth proudly drinking Red Bull and Vodka. I'm looking forward to another East Coaster's take on SF's chinese food.

That's the scuttlebut I've heard also.

Seared ahi tuna and mango chutney.

Also, Mitchell's for ice cream in the outer Mission, not to be confused with Mitchell Brothers for . . . well, I'll let you find that out yourself. And the original Swensons up on Russian Hill.

This is a delicacy with which I am not familiar. I have so many questions. They're like dancing prawns, but, you know, fucking.

If you're doing "ethnic" please check out Helmand and Alborz. Helmand offers exceptional Afghan cuisine (and happens to be owned by Hamid Karzai's brother) in the heart of North Beach. Alborz, in a cheesy location on Van Ess that looks like the lobby of some suburban hotel, has terrific Persian food. It's been a while since I've gone, but they have a chicken in pomegrant sauce that is one of the most interesting flavors I've ever had. Not at all sweet like I would have imagined, with a smokey, almost chocolately undertone. Maybe I'll start reading the Chronicle.

The thought of sending someone to Fisherman's wharf for the actual San Francisco experience seems to me like sending someone to South Street Seaport for the actual New York experience. The wharf is for tourists.

1) El Toro, 17th and Mission. Carnitas super-burrito. 2) House of Nanking, Kearny & Pacific-ish. Ask the "chef" to make something special for you. He will give you a wonderful, spicy crabmeat and asparagus soup, sesame chicken, and either shrimp or scallops with snow-peas. 3) Zuni Cafe. Roast chicken (the burger is way overrated). Welcome to town.

Chef Ripert -- It seems nowadays that restaurants at every level are trying to incorporate new flavors and techniques from the world-over into their menus. The results bring us surprising and exciting non-traditional ingredients, techniques and flavors. But at the same time, I find that often the dishes are results oriented, as the chefs try to force new and unknown (to the customer) flavors into places they don't particularly belong, or that some new vegetable or dipping sauce will suddenly appear everywhere. Are there any styles of cuisine that you believe don't carry-over well into a restaurant like Le Bernardin? Are there types of fish or other ingredients that you would avoid because they are riding a wave of public popularity, but don't have the substance to back them up? (For example, many people on this board have criticised the now-ubiquitous Chilean Sea Bass as bland and tasteless.) How conscious are you of what your competitors are doing, and how do you decide what you want to borrow and what you want to avoid? Thanks, Stone

Folks, that's why he's rich, and we're not.

Try using cubes of fried tofu instead of meat. I fry mine in a little less oil than necessary, this causes a little sticking and some of the tofu breaks up to mimic ground meat. (The pan deglazes when the chopped tomatoes are poured in, so there's no horribly burnt mess to clean up.)

Very good suggestion. A friend of mine made some great chili, it took a while before I guessed cinnamon -- he had to tell me about the chocolate.