In honor of National Waiters and Waitresses Day, we present "Waiters Who are Nauseated by Food," a skit from the Dana Carvey Show featuring Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell way back in the mid-1990s. On this day in which we honor those who bring us our food in restaurants, let's all thank God that they don't act like this pair.
Waiters who are Nauseated by Food [YouTube]
There's some weird stuff going on in restaurant kitchens these days. In the video (which should be edited down to, say, three minutes, but is still interesting — just ignore the annoying blond woman), chef Stuart Sage of Tang in Dubai demonstrates how he uses liquid nitrogen like a deep fryer to cook food — in this case, a tomato espuma — at ridiculously cold temperatures.
What freaked us out was how he scooped the espuma out of the bowl full of liquid nitrogen and immediately presented it to the woman. We'd be terrified to eat it, for fear that our tongue would immediately freeze and break into 100 pieces, and then how would we taste food? (Shudder.) Of course, the nitrogen had likely evaporated at that point, and besides, we breathe it in and out every day, right? Still. Just a teensy bit scary.
Restaurants - Cooking with Liquid Nitrogen in the Real World [YouTube]
We are so happy that baseball is back. We managed to get tickets to Opening Day at Dolphin Stadium; the Marlins lost to the Mets (boo!), but it was still a great time.
To celebrate, we thought we'd present a photo essay of ballpark food from each of our cities. We've actually visited and eaten in each of the parks listed, except for the two in the Bay Area. We'll start with our favorite: Philadelphia.
Citizens Bank Park
We hate the Phillies. But we think their ballpark is great, and we love the fact that we can get a Tony Luke's roast pork Italian sandwich for about the same price as at the restaurant. Whenever we go to a game there, we arrive early to get our sandwich before the game starts, because by the third inning, the place is mobbed.
It's Friday. We won't keep you. Just wanted to put in a word for one of our favorite courses. And who better to sing it for us than the Mighty Boosh? Nobody, that's who. So here you go: The Soup Song
Just as you can't keep away from the farmer's market to try out all the produce newly coming into season, it's hard to keep away from the flea market, where that totally cool, vintage cutlery service refuses to let you go home without it. Let this happen a few times and you'll have a fork explosion, and that could hurt. But what to do with the stuff you're not using anymore? Unlike last week's farmer's market goodies it doesn't naturally disappear.
The folks at Boing Boing today showcased artist Osian Batyka-Williams, who is putting all those old forks, knives and spoons to good use elsewhere in the kitchen or dining room by making chairs out of them. Hope the tines are faced the right way!
Chair Made From Old Cutlery [Boing Boing]
Osian Batyka-Williams [Official Site]
Hilarious. You know, there can be a lot of fun in translation. Just ask the folks at Engrish. But rarely do you get a gem of this caliber. Ass-hot chicken? You know it! A plate of ass steak? Nothin' butt! (sorry-that was cheeky) Too bad there's no Ass hot dog up there. Ah, the golden age of film...
Anyway, here's why this exists: It's a menu for a burger stand in Quebec, where they speak Franglais. "Ass" stands for "assiette," which basically means "assortment plate," according to Neatorama. But dude, by this time they have to know how funny it is. You got to hand it to them for the sheer commitment. "Ass 2 pain?" We bet.
And what's with the soft-porn lamp hanging down there on the right? That thing deserves a menu board all its own.
Ass Burger! [Neatorama]
Title Credit: Adam P
This? Is awesome. Thank god somebody over at Required Eating keeps up with Improv Everywhere, because we don't, or at least we haven't been (Welcome to day one), and there's a chance we would have missed this fantastic video. The so-called spontaneous musical takes place in a Los Angeles shopping mall, which is in on the joke and rigged with hidden cameras. The music, according to IE, is piped in through the mall's sound system. Watch and marvel, then click over to IE to get the inside scoop on how they did it.
Food Court Musical [Improv Everywhere]
'Spontaneous' Musical Performed in Mall Food Court [Required Eating]
A Menupages co-conspirator sent the following video our way. He doesn't seem to be interested in posting it, so we stole it. This has very little (in fact, nothing) to do with San Francisco, but it is weird, funny and, for as ridiculous as it is, rather poignant. [via Boingboing]
BBtv: History of war through food, Dog impersonates boozy Orson Welles. [Boingboing]
This video, which we picked up from Serious Eats, may be a commercial for a South Korean pizza joint, but we think it could do well in San Francisco. It's got a bunch of our local favorite themes, including hyphy style, gener-bending and Vespas, not to mention pizza with crazy toppings such as octopus.
While several restaurants in San Francisco serve octopus, none appears to serve it on pizza. This could be a growth industry. You listening Mr. Etang? Even chain-averse San Francisco might be won over by this commercial and welcome a franchise.
In Videos: Pizza Etang Commercial with Mr. Tyfoon; The Global Mashup [Slice]
Where to find Octopus in San Francisco:
SoMa/Mission
Downtown/Waterfront
Haight/Castro/Noe Valley
Marina/Heights
Sunset
Richmond
Here are a couple of local restaurant videos for a Friday afternoon. We've decided to start posting more of these, as it seems everyone in this town is armed with a video camera all the time, and they all put their dining experiences up on YouTube. Sometimes it's a great way to get a peek inside some of the city's restaurants. Other times, it's a very undergrad outing. The great thing about video as oppose to real life, however, is that it has a "stop" button.
The first one features some white-hat-style reggae fans working very hard to finish off their giant, boot-shaped glasses of beer at Suppenkuche:
Next, we get a year-old, but only recently posted tour of the wine cellar and proscuitto room at North Beach Restaurant . Pretty hokey, but interesting visuals. Maybe turn the sound off:
Suppenkuche [MenuPages]
Suppenkuche [Official Site]
North Beach Restaurant [MenuPages]
North Beach Restaurant [Official Site]
Hopefully you're not tired of the videos here. This one comes from no less than the New York Times' main food critic, Frank Bruni, who calls it "bizarrely riveting" in his Diner's Journal blog. Wouldn't go that far, but it is bizarrely hilarious. From the excellent quote that gave this piece its title to the site of Maury Povich actually chasing a blonde, blubbering lunatic around his auditorium with a pickle, there is much comic gold here.
At first it was annoying listening to this girl whimper and sob over the mere thought of pickles, but as you see her scamper, terrified, across the floor of a New Jersey pickle factory, you realize the annoyance stems from a desire to see her fear mollified. Before too long, that desire fades and you quickly start wishing she would trip and fall in a vat of pickles. It's a good exercise in losing sympathy.
Also sympathy robbing: The part when she says that, in her job as a waitress, she'll tell a customer they're out of pickles just so she won't have to handle one. That's effed up.
Attack of the Killer Pickles [NYT Diner's Journal]
Victoria Reynolds' works glow dimly like some mid-17th century oil painting, maybe of a scene from Paradise Lost or the Inferno. Swirling reds and whites and shadows evoke a distinct sense of butchery... Well, maybe that's more because they actually are paintings of meat, lovingly rendered with a sensitivity toward detail and light reminiscent of Rembrandt or some other pioneering Dutch master. Or something.
But we are not art historians. Not by a long shot. We've been to a few museums--some in Europe, even--and seen paintings that looked like Reynolds', but honestly this is kind of a new jam for us: The meat portrait. Reynolds is an oil painter who specializes in renderings of meats of all kinds. From the bright, cheerful 2003 Pimenti Dimenti to her her dark, hulking 2005 Reindeer Viscera, Reynolds explores the subtle aesthetics of meat with a probing, revealing brush.
These paintings are compelling, for sure, and weirdly beautiful. We'd wonder snidely just who would want to pay thousands of dollars for them if many hadn't already been sold. Now we're wondering hopefully if she'll team up for some portraits with the meat hats people. Cross those fingers.
[Via Serious Eats]
Meat Paintings [Serious Eats]
Victoria Reynolds' paintings [Richard Heller gallery]
One cool thing about living in such a food- and technology-obsessed town is that people often go out to dinner, record the experience on video then put the video up on TouTube. Actually, that leaves us with a lot of tedious and badly shot video, but sometimes you come across a gem, like this series on Benihana in Japantown, posted by a user named Bryankath. Click on the first one below to go through all of them. They're only about 30 seconds long each, and it's pretty interesting to see the Benihana gimmick at work.
We saw the following photo on SFist, who saw it on SF Metblogs, who saw the real thing at the Ferry Building farmer's market over the weekend. That's right, those are chicken feet. We weren't actually at the market, but we're assuming they're attached to chickens below the bottom of the frame because that's how farmers roll.
Photo of the Day: Ferry Building, Farmers Market [SF Metblogs]
What fun! This week, two of our favorite food blogs ran photo essays on two different Thomas Keller restaurants.
Locally, Bunrabs headed up to Yountville to dine at the French Laundry. While not every course posed for a picture, Gutenberg grabbed the essence of the meal in a handful of portraits, such as this one of "Barbie and Ken sized potato blini with chive butter and white sturgeon caviar:"
On the East Coast, the Amateur Gourmet visited Per Se for a birthday lunch shortly before attending a Mika concert. This coverage is more in-depth than Bunrab's with each course starring in its own little photo shoot, like this one, "'Oysters and Pearls'--'Sabayon' of Pearl Tapioca with Island Creek Oysters and Iranian Osetra Caviar:"
Both meals look delicious and both photo sets appear to capture the sheer magic of Keller's cuisine, with its artful splashes of colors, tastes, textures and presentation. Both of these bloggers ate far better than we did last weekend, but only one used that as a segue to a music video that made us blush while watching it in the office. We'll let you determine which one.
French Laundry List [Bunrabs]
The Seven Stages of Dining at Per Se [Amateur Gourmet]
Want to see Blue Bottle Coffee's $20,000 coffeemaker in action? We found this video that briefly documents the operation. Check out how Mr. Wizard starts the day:
No. Freaking. Way.
That's really the only appropriate reaction to the news that the Swiss company Katadyn has developed a fully cooked, ready-to-eat cheeseburger in a can. Talk about making Michael Pollan's head explode! The camping "food" is heated by just tossing it into boiling water for a while. Then you pop the top, drop the plop and eat. Nasty!
We were directed, via A Hamburger Today, to a photo series documenting one man's taste-test, including lots of close-ups.
The Cheeseburger In A Can Reveals Itself [A Hamburger Today]
The following video comes via the Amateur Gourmet, who we've liked for a while now, and who, thanks to this post, has just officially become a blogger crush on such a magnitude that if we ever see Adam Roberts in public we're going to kiss him right then and there.
Seriously, how funny was this sketch, and how much is watching it a 21st-century version of Proust biting into that Madeleine cookie? It makes one wonder how many other great, forgotten moments from childhood one might stumble upon on YouTube. By the power of Greyskull, let's find out...
Edith Ann's Sandwich [Amateur Gourmet]
Here's a nice video that goes step-by-step through a basic Cioppino recipe. This is the perfect time of year for that San Francisco native dish, with Dungeness prices at their lowest. If you don't want to make Cioppino, this guy will ship some to you, or you can buy it at a number of restaurants around town. Either way. You're probably just getting ready to have lunch right now, so this will get your appetite going.
So Linecook has posted pictures like this in the past:
But it was sort of hard to figure out what all the trappings were. Now, we have a whole step-by-step rundown, including photos, of this amazing amuse. Seems it was created to impress somebody over at the CoCo Times. Ooh la la!
Plate Up: Orange Julius and Fennel [Linecook]
No way. This is what French students do for projects these days. Things have changed depuis votre temps à l'école. This is great, though. Close-ups of Crepe-House food, some clever heart-wipes and a soundtrack by Mika. These kids are definitely going places. Places other than the Crepe House.
We can’t take credit for finding these terrifying pictures. That goes to our friend Jamie, who woke us from our World Series couch slumber to a nightmare far more intense than anything that crept between the television and our unconsciousness. They’re from a site called Andiamnotlying. Oh, yes, you are. You’ve got to be. This is both horrible and wonderful, and we can't bear to hide any of it behind a jump. Well, just see for yourself:
Yes, that's right. And then there's all this:
It’s the food equivalent of a Real Doll — a revolting, plastic, desperate experience that would just rope you in with tractor beams powered by an evil curiosity.
Pretty much. And we'll note the pistol, dagger, candle and tape measure in that last photo. Ominous.
Happy Halloween!
Using McDonalds as Pizza Toppings
Photo Credit: Chinese Fashion
This video of a man doing a stand up routine in which he simply reads reviews from our New York site has been generating a lot of buzz here at MenuPages (for real, we love being referenced in anything resembling pop culture). Instant messages (the primary form of communication round these parts) have been exchanged! Laughter has occurred! This qnarf fellow asserts that the major reasons for posting a review on MenuPages are "One: you HATED that restaurant, two: you're paid by that restaurant, and three: you are a crazy person." Not entirely false! We have one thought for Mr. qnarf: you should really see the reviews we can't publish. Comedy gold.
Menupages [YouTube: qnarf]
A debate about pasta is slowly coming to a boil in the foodie world (sorry, we can never resist a pun). On Tuesday, Serious Eats launched their new video series "Mario Unclogged" (hee!) starring none other than Mario Batali. Batali's inaugural video topic? How to sauce pasta. Batali asserts that Americans put too much sauce on their overcooked pasta, turning it into a veritable soup! The very next day, Mark Bittman, the self-proclaimed minimalist, published a piece in the New York Times alleging the very opposite: that health-conscious eaters should create pasta dishes with twice as much sauce as pasta. Now. We have infinite respect for both Batali and Bittman. We don't have quite enough money for his big ticket restaurants, but we've had some of our favorite meals at Otto Enoteca and Pizzeria and we'll always watch a rerun of Molto Mario. Meanwhile, How to Cook Everything is one of our most frequently used cookbooks. Who should we trust on this vital matter?
As it turns out, we may not need to choose. It seems to us that Bittman is not necessarily advocating saucing all (or even most!) pasta dishes this way. Rather, he seems to be advocating for a new type of dish: one that involves pasta, but functions more as a showcase for vegetables than anything else. The butternut squash and tomato dish he demonstrates in his video, for example, seems more like a vegetable dish than a traditional pasta. We're generally interested in making our food healthier, so that's definitely something we might try next time we're making a veggie-heavy pasta dish. On the other hand, when we're making a pasta meal with a less healthful sauce or one with great fresh pasta, we're definitely going to follow the Batali principle. After all, your spaghetti carbonara really doesn't need to be swimming in eggy, porky goodness.
Below, Batali's video, just because he's hilarious and we can never quite get enough of him.
Mario Unclogged: How to Sauce Pasta [Serious Eats]
Serving Pasta: Forget What You Learned [New York Times]
Hey! Did you know that Taco Bell is expanding to Mexico? True story! The company will advertise its "American tacos" south of the border with the slogan "Es Otra Cosa" (It's Something Different). This sounds like a spectacularly wrongheaded move to us, but it does give us a very good excuse to post our favorite Taco Bell lampooning of all time. Enjoy!
Taco Bell's Hard Shell May Be A Hard Sell [San Diego Union Tribune]
Taco Town [YouTube: sawyerhey]
The Grinder and Chez Pim bring us this very silly video from Japanese comedy duo Rahmens. Watch and giggle. A lot.
Ha Ha Hamachi [The Grinder]
How To Eat at a Sushi Bar [Chez Pim]
Rahmens [Official Site]
How To Eat at a Sushi Bar [YouTube: Konkaver]
One of our favorite innovations of the past few years has been the proliferation of online television options. Watching your beloved network and television shows online is super-awesome, but even better are the online-only shows (we're rather fond of Wainy Days, from the genius behind Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten). A few days ago, Slashfood turned us on to a new online-only channel that promises to be almost as addictive as watching YouTube clips of people lip-synching. It's called Chocolate Television and it is awesome. How awesome? See for yourself in the below clip. Feel free to ignore the bizarre joke about foie-ttage (™MP: Chicago).
Mmmm...Chocolate Television! [Slashfood]
Chocolate Television [Official Site]
As we've been wont to do, here's the most recent CHOW Obsessives video. The man you see is James Norwood Pratt. The first of the seven videos is above, and in the course of the seven short--and endlessly interesting---Pratt "tea-stifies" (sorry) on everything from his memorable tea experiences, teabags and lovemaking to gaiwans, Starbucks and water.
The Proper Cup of Tea [CHOW]
Range splashed on the national dining scene when the Michelin inspectors awarded it a fabled star, making it the Cinderella story (i.e., the biggest surprise) of the inaugural Bay Area edition. After all: a Michelin star ... in the Mission?!
Suffice to say, under Chef Phil West, Range has lived up to its reputation and has continued to be one of the destination restaurants in what is quickly turning into the city's restaurant row.
Still, we can't wait for Dungeness season, bittersweet as it may be.
Closings: A. Sabella's To Call It Quits [MenuBlog]
The French Laundry really doesn't need an introduction or a back story, but in the above video, the most interesting moments may be when Thomas Keller discusses the evolution of his flagship. From keeping some signature dishes to staying cutting edge to handing the reins to chef de cuisine Corey Lee, it's easy to see how the French Laundry--and the rest of the Keller empire--has never missed a beat.
Chef Thomas Keller [Official Site]
Over the weekend, Alice Waters made an appearance at the 22nd annual Farm Aid concert in New York. The event--headlined by the likes of Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John "This is ooooouuuuurrr country" Mellencamp and Dave Matthews--is the longest running annual concert event in the country.
Along with the big name rock acts, Waters spoke about the farm crisis looming over America:
We have an unimaginable food crisis, environmental crisis, a cultural crisis. We need to spend the money upfront and what the effects could be have yet to be realized.Of course, the (basic) message of Farm Aid is so well-known in the Bay Area that it's practically mantra here: spend money on locally-farmed, seasonal ingredients. It may seem obvious around these parts, but the fact is that the strong majority of the nation's farmers are struggling and too many children are suffering from obesity.
For more information on Farm Aid, check out their official site. If all those, ahem, older rock stars can put on a show for 22 straight years, surely you can do something productive.
Farm Aid Concert Makes NYC Debut [WNYC]
Farm Aid [Official Site]
The theme of this year's shindig is "Eat Local" (creative, right?) and participants have been asked to showcase "items that use ingredients grown or produced within three hours of their final destination." Of course, the aforementioned final destination will be Justin Herman Plaza, and if last year's event (shown above) is any indication, there should be at least 1,500 food and wine enthusiasts in attendance.
VIP tickets (with "exclusive" access to the VIP tent, where one gets a flight o' wine) are going for $150; normal tickets ($80) get you into the event with food/wine tastings, chef demos, music and the rest of the hubbub.
FallFest 2007 [Official Site]
You can buy her products at the Ferry Building and through her website. If that's not good enough for you, she offers hands-on classes about the entire jam process, from fruit tasting evaluations to cooking and jarring.
Jam, Packed [CHOW]
June Taylor Jams [Official Site]
When it burst onto the national stage in 1995, The Slanted Door combined the local, organic flavor of Alice Waters with the flair and exoticism of Vietnamese fare.
Now, a dozen years later, Charles Phan's restaurant is still one of the hardest tickets in town, and as can be seen from the clip above, he's still running his flagship with plenty of fresh ideas, enthusiasm and precision.
The Slanted Door [MenuPages]
The Slanted Door [Official Site]
As reported by SFist, "Black Gold" screened in Dolores Park yesterday. With coffee the second most valuable trading commodity in the world behind oil, the film explores the $80 billion industry and the impoverished Ethiopian coffee farmers that fuel it.
For its part, Starbucks has always professed to be a proponent of fair trade and social responsibility, although that doesn't necessarily mean much (check out this Starbucks Fair Trade Challenge; it's from last year, but still interesting).
As for the film itself, "Black Gold" is currently touring across the world. It's been lauded at scores of film festivals, from Sundance to Rio, and is available on DVD as well. More information, of course, is available on its website.
SFist Photo: "Black Gold" Coffee Movie in Dolores Park [SFist]
Black Gold [Official Site]
Ok, when it comes to CHOW's "Obsessives" series, we're officially, um, obsessed.
The third episode (above) takes a trip up the coast to Philo, home to seaweed harvesters/experts John and Barbara Stephens-Lewallen. The happy married couple runs the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company and are more than willing to preach the wonders of sea greens. In the multi-part video, the pair describes the four types of sea vegetables they farm (fish?), explains how to cook and dry them, and notes the coastal differences between seaweed species. As a bonus, Millennium's Eric Tucker even makes a cameo appearance to demonstrate how to make a quick little seaweed-centric salad.
Eat Your Sea Greens: Enter the world of seaweed harvesters [CHOW]
Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company [Official Site]
Millennium [MenuPages]
Millennium [Official Site]
• Food blog fight! Food blog fight! Los Angeles, still apparently stinging from Michael Bauer's opinion-laced article about their restaurants, found some faults with Bauer's definition of "esoteric ingredients." Your move, Signore Bauer. [The Grinder]
• Meanwhile, on the original glossary-like post on the Bauer Blog, no one really cares, despite a commenter's attempt to create a ruckus. (And we have to side with the non-plussed crowd, aka San Francisco.) [Between Meals]
• The 20th Anniversary shindig at Toronado was quite the specialty beer-laced party. Bonus: they will continue to serve the anniversary ales until they run out, so we recommend stopping by this week. [SFist]
• Lol Tun Restaurant in the Mission: mediocre tacos, subpar burritos but ample, ample amounts of heroin. And by ample, we mean $170,000 worth. Heavens. [SFist]
• Raw milk has been in the news a lot lately, hasn't it? [Chez Pim]
• In the video below, Domino's presents the Oreo Pizza and the Oreo Pizza Mustache. See, you get the mustache because there are just so many Oreos on the pizza. And you thought Domino's was gross! [Slashfood]
We guarantee this video will be the best thing you'll see today, especially if you have any modicum of interest in the wonder that is coffee.
The video is the first episode of CHOW's "Obsessives" series and features Arno Holschuh, a barista at San Francisco's own Blue Bottle Coffee. There are seven segments of Arno discussing various aspects of the coffee world, from coffee storage to Starbucks farm policies to the life of a barista.
Among the fun tidbits we learned: ground coffee has a shelf life of two-three minutes (so grind it at home), don't freeze your coffee beans, don't use drip machines and a real espresso should have a nice layer of crema, which comes from oils and provides nice flavor.
Get the Shot: One man, many beans, and the perfect cup of coffee [CHOW]
Blue Bottle Coffee [Official Site]
On this Sunday, August 12th, from 12pm to 4pm, Bravo's ever-popular Top Chef will be conducting open call casting at Postrio.
But don't just show up with a smile and a photo of the newly-single Padma Lakshmi (who, by the way, might have the worst blog in the world); interested candidates must bring the following items: a completed application, a completed certification of veracity (i.e., no Jags allowed), a photo and a recent resume.
Good luck to all San Francisco chefs. We hope to see you rapping cooking on cable television soon.
Open Call Casting [Bravo]
Top Chef [Bravo]
Postrio [MenuPages]
Postrio [Official Site]
This is Gary Vaynerchuk. He has been making "wine webisodes" at Wine Library TV for over a year now.
Though the Jersey native has a little bit of Guy Fieri in him, from the jock overtones right down to the single wristband, a more suitable comparison might be Emeril. Like the Food Network pioneer, Gary brings that palatable excitement and hyperbole as well, not mention an abrasive, possibly polarizing style.
Despite what you may think of his shock jock tendencies, there's no denying that he knows his stuff. His intricate and original descriptions of the wines' aromatics and bouquets are downright fascinating, and he's definitely going into uncharted territory by trying to make wine more accessible to the masses. With the recent commercialization and growing popularity of gourmet food in the media world, there must be a market for wine as well. Will his success spur the Food Network--or another network--to embark on a wine-centric show that appeals to the common man?
In the meantime, if you fancy yourself a wine person (or an aspiring one) we'd recommend checking out his site regularly. You are sure to learn something. If nothing else, his love for wine might rub off on you, or maybe after a couple minutes, you'll start a petition asking Gary to switch to decaf. Either way.
90 Point Wines Under 15 Bones - Episode #286 [Wine Library TV]
If you have a hard time differentiating the candied coxcombs from the fish maw, perhaps you should consult Chef Cosentino's menu to assist in your offal-identifying endeavors:
• Amuse bouche of duck fat fried rabbit ear with carrot aioli and chervil
plouche
• Salad of crispy sweetbreads & warm beef tendon with chilli & mint
• Terrina of lamb tongue & fries (testicles) with lamb’s tongue lettuce &
pickled grapes
• Fish maw with chickpeas & agretti
• Pork tripe, beans & blood cooked in vescica (bladder) with creamy polenta
• Candied cockscomb with cherries & rice pudding
Blood, Sweat, & Tripe [Hungry Magazine]
Incanto [MenuPages]
Incanto [Official Site]
• Anyone who's anyone knows that wifi cafes are only for yuppies. All the cool kids go to wifi bars. [Gridskipper SF]
• Napa Valley: SOLD! [The Grinder]
• Trader Joe's ventures into Asian slur territory. [Becks & Posh]
• Good champagne and food can be had in the Financial District at The Bubble Lounge. As an added incentive, a certain former mayor has also been rumored to partake in imbibing there. Former! [SFist]
[Video of British people walking on desserts via The Grinder]
San Francisco houses many a conundrum.
Whatever happened to the Zodiac Killer?
Why do tourists insist on Fisherman's Wharf?
Exactly what gel does Gavin use?
And, chief among the myriad mysteries is the puzzling absence of Wendy's outposts in the city. The dearth of the burger chain has been magnified lately with the advent of the Baconator (already covered by our sister sites): six slices of bacon heaped over mounds of two square patties of beefy goodness.
It's with all this in mind that the always-excellent folks at SFist discovered the NAARP (National Association for the Advancement of Redhaired People). They don't appreciate the racist overtones of the pigtailed, fair-haired, freckled Wendy's logo; furthermore, they plan to let everyone know about the pigment-challenged prejudice of the superchain. Also, they're an improv comedy troupe.