2900 Calories, 182g of Fat, and 240g of Carbs...

... is what you would consume if you ate the worst of the 20 worst foods in America.

The 2008 Michelin Guide

Today, the second edition of the Bay Area Michelin guide was released, with 34 restaurants receiving a one star rating or higher. Out of this list, Karen and I have been fortunate enough to visit a few of them: Bouchon, Boulevard, Gary Danko, Quince, Range, Redd, Sushi Ran, Cyrus, and Manresa, with the last two restaurants garnering a two star rating.

In addition, the guide lists 50 other Bay Area restaurants which earned a Bib Gourmand rating. According to the guide, this rating is given to restaurants that are "an inspector's favorite for good value. For $40 or less, you can enjoy two courses and a glass of wine or dessert (not including tax and gratuity)." Out of these restaurants, Karen and I have sampled the fare at A16, Cafe Gibraltar, Delfina, Hong Kong Flower Lounge, Junnoon, Kokkari Estiatorio, Koo, Nopa, Perbacco, Poleng Lounge, Pres a Vi, rmn, Tomasso's, and Yank Sing. We've also visited the predecessor of TWO (namely, Hawthorne Lane).

(Edited 10/24/2007 to include links to past dining experiences.)

Coming soon... "The List"

As you can probably tell from reading this blog, my girlfriend Karen and I enjoy eating out. We are truly fortunate to be in a situation where we are able to go out and enjoy so many of the culinary delights that the Bay Area has to offer.

One evening a couple of summers ago, Karen and I were talking about the various restaurants that we had visited together, both in the San Francisco area and during our travels. At that time, we had been dating for about nine months and had checked out quite a few places around town. I asked her if she had any idea of how many places we had dined. She did not. I was a bit curious and started combing though my old credit card receipts (yes, I'm a bit of a pack rat) to jog my memory on the places that we had visited. I opened an Excel spreadsheet to help me organize this information. Thus, on that warm evening a couple of years back (July 6, 2005 to be more precise), "The List" was born.

As you can imagine, "The List" has grown quite a bit since it was first created. We came up with a few loose rules to determine whether or not a restaurant qualified for inclusion in "The List":

• Both Karen and I must have eaten a meal there at the same time; therefore, a restaurant does not get included if we have each eaten there separately but not together;


• No national chain restaurants (e.g. TGI Fridays, Chili's, etc.) - not that we go to those places very often anyway; smaller or local chains, like Il Fornaio are okay, but we'll make a judgment call;


• No fast food places (perhaps redundant due to the national chain rule).

I should mention that there are a couple of restaurants where the service was so gawd awful, we have banned them from inclusion in "The List". If any of you want to know the restaurants-that-shall-not-be-named, please let me know; hopefully you can be spared from experiencing the crapola service that we received. Also, despite my best efforts, I know that the list is not complete. I'm sure that I've forgotten a few places that we've visited over the years. In fact, if any of you could tell me the name of the little place about a block away from the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof that we visited on November 20, 2005, I'd sure appreciate it...

Over the past couple of years, a number of friends and colleagues have requested access to "The List", which I gladly shared with them. While most of them have been happy just to have "The List", a few people have complained about the lack of restaurant ratings. So, attempting to meet this need, I have tried to go through the exercise of assigning ratings, with an emphasis on the word tried. Actually, I've tried several times to do this, but have yet to be satisfied with the set of ratings. You can probably imagine the difficulty of assigning ratings to a collection of restaurants you have visited over the past two and a half years well after the fact. Well, assigning the ratings is quite easy, but assigning them in a consistent way is a tad more difficult.

Nevertheless, "The List" is nearing a milestone, one that will probably be reached in the upcoming weeks. Once that milestone is reached, I plan on publishing "The List" on the blog, with or without ratings (most likely without). So, stay tuned and keep your eyes open for the grand unveiling of "The List".

29 out of 100

This past Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle published its annual list of the Top 100 restaurants in the Bay Area, as selected by its resident critic, Michael Bauer.

Inspired by a post on Becks & Posh, I decided to go through the list to see how many restaurants at which Karen and I have eaten together in the past two and a half years.

1. A16


2. Ad Hoc


3. Amber India


4. Bouchon


5. Boulevard


6. Canteen


7. Cetrella Bistro and Cafe


8. Cyrus


9. Delfina


10. Firefly


11. Foreign Cinema


12. Gary Danko


13. Greens


14. Hog Island Oyster Company


15. Junnoon


16. Koi Palace


17. Kokkari Estiatorio


18. La Taqueria


19. Manresa


20. Nopa


21. Oliveto


22. Park Chow


23. Pizzaiolo


24. Quince


25. Range


26. Sushi Ran


27. Swan Oyster Depot


28. Ton Kiang


29. Yank Sing

Not nearly as many places as Sam from Becks & Posh has been, but I suspect that the list will continue to grow.

Travelocity's Top 10 Destinations for Foodies in 2007

Travelocity recently listed its top 10 favorite destinations for food lovers in 2007. The cities on the list are (in alphabetical order):

• Barcelona, Spain


• Boulder, Colorado


• Charlestown, South Carolina


• Las Vegas, Nevada


• London, England


• Montreal, Quebec


• New Orleans, Louisiana


• New York City, New York


• Rome, Italy


• San Francisco, California

I've had the good fortune to live in two of the destinations on the list and can attest to the wonderful food scenes in both cities. In addition to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I currently reside, I spent a number of years in Boulder trying to become a mathematician. Regarding these two cities, Travelocity says:

Boulder:

It's no secret that Boulder is about as eco-friendly and earthy as it gets, but what may come as a surprise is how the recent addition of urban dwellers has led to a more sophisticated and trend-setting approach to organic dining. Take The Kitchen Cafe for example, which offers an eclectic menu with superior organic ingredients, but moreover, is completely green-they even compost all of the kitchen scraps and use wind power. On top of this green approach, Boulderites have access to some of the country's finest boutique ingredients, such as hormone-free Colorado lamb, local cheeses, and even organic microbrews.

San Francisco:

Alice Waters is credited with changing the way Americans eat, and now her local, seasonal approach to cuisine is now an integral part of San Francisco's venerable restaurant scene. With Wine Country vintages at hand, Bodega Bay oysters on the half-shell, and Northern California's bounty, visitors are able to try ingredients they wouldn't have access to at home. As if that weren't enough, the City by the Bay is a hotbed for artisanal products, such as Cowgirl Creamery's Mt. Tam cheese, McEvoy Ranch olive oil, and Scharfenberger chocolates, all of which can be found at the foodie mecca known as the Ferry Building.

Yet another Top 10 list

Food critic Josh Sens of San Francisco Magazine listed his Top 10 Bay Area restaurants in the August 2006 issue. The list is (in no particular order, I presume):

1. Bar Tartine


2. Pizzeria Delfina


3. Cyrus


4. Tarmarindo


5. Pizzaiolo


6. Ame


7. Redd


8. Range


9. Canteen


10. Sea Salt

I've been to three of these restaurants in the last few months (Cyrus, Range, and Canteen) - four if you count my visit to Delfina. I'll definitely have to plan some visits to some of these places that I haven't gone to yet.

What I find interesting is that the list doesn't include any of the usual suspects, such as French Laundry, Gary Danko, Chez Panisse, Boulevard, etc.

10 (or 20) Great American foods

I just read an MSNBC.com article listing 10 great American foods. The list is:

1. Lobster roll


2. Maple Syrup


3. Philly cheesesteak


4. Gumbo


5. Shrimp and grits


6. Frito pie


7. Wisconsin brats


8. Hawaiian plate lunch


9. Banana split


10. Mission burrito (from the Mission District of San Francisco)

Compare this to their list from last year (along with the state of origin):

1. New England clam chowder (uh, I mean chowda) - Massachusetts


2. Pastrami - New York


3. Shoofly pie - Pennsylvania


4. Smithfield ham - Virginia


5. Po-boys - Louisiana


6. Fajitas - Texas


7. Chicago hot dogs - Illinois


8. Chile verde - New Mexico


9. San Francisco sourdough - California


10. Olympia oysters - Washington

Personally, I think that the list from 2005 is a more quintessential list than the one from this year, though admittedly, I hadn't heard of a shoofly pie before I read the article...