Eat Me Daily: Meat! and Fire! at Primal Napa Valley [events]

Primal, an event celebrating "fire cooking, meat, and the art of butchering," certainly held up to its promise at Chase Cellars at Hayne Vineyard in St. Helena, Napa Valley yesterday. Two stages shared the spotlight at Primal: the first was a structure built to hang a cow section, the second for a full pig, lamb, and goat. Each animal was butchered while hanging, then taken to the sanctimonious table and then broken down into smaller pieces to be delivered to their next destination, an enormous fire pit. Primal emphasizes full animal utilization, so on the menu was a wide array of parts from whole roasted goat to beef hearts, pork livers to lamb heads. Read more

Eat Me Daily: Futurist Banquet at SFMOMA: OPENfuture: Spinning Marinetti's Wheels [events, food art]

Saturday night, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was full of bizarre sights: bicyclists circled a group of people who had gathered to eat dishes such as beef ice cream cones while a poet screamed Italian poems into a megaphone, and the moos and howls of dying cows blared over the speakers. Read more

Eat Me Daily: Whip It Food Fight [video]

What can’t be missed in Drew Barrymore’s Whip It, the new roller derby dramedy, is the B-movie-esque food fight scene. The french fry with ketchup stuck to the face is a valiant first assault, but it’s the requisite “FIGHT!!!” high school outcry (from none other than Barrymore herself) that really gets us. Not to mention the whole pies that end up smashed on combatants' faces. If there’s a high school in America that serves whole pies, we want to go. Read more

Playground

1705 Buchanan St. (between Post & Sutter)
(415) 929-1471

Ever since my trip to Korea, I've been manic for Korean food and managed to talk Z into catching up at Playground.
Now I'll say upfront that you don't go to Playground for the food. It's in Japantown upstairs in a shopping center structure, and when you get inside, there's a lot of neon lighting to accommodate the karaoke activities that go down there.

To start, the server brought an appetizer which can only be described as Niblets with melted cheese on top. Strange yes, but oddly addicting? Double yes. We started with the mutual fave Dolsot Bibimbab, a rice bowl with mixed veggies, beef and spicy chili paste, this time served in a hot stone pot to get the rice at the bottom nice and crispy. While I appreciated the texture, we both agreed that this wasn't the most flavorful Bibimbab we've had, and the stone pot kind of dried out the moisture that was already missing. Next, we had the Haemul Pajeon, a fried pancake of green onion with assorted seafood served with a soy sauce dip. While interesting at first, we quickly fatigued from all the fried and all the shrimp, squid and miscellaneous seafood parts. Though Z raised his eyebrows when I ordered a third, by the way enormous, dish, we weren't sorry. The Buldahk or fire chicken, was an incredible monstrosity of perfectly fried chicken drenched in the house special sweet and spicy sauce. So amazing that I'd readily take the subsequent heartburn again.

All in all, Playground is a fun place, but I'd come for the karaoke and stay for the food.

The Verdict: Worth It Only If There's Karaoke

Road Trip: Los Angeles (Round 2)

After being berated by S for hating on the food in Los Angeles, I gave her the opportunity to prove me wrong on this trip. In my humble opinion, though I had some very pleasurable SoCal meals, the culinary crown remains in San Francisco. Nevertheless, below were some of my favorites:

Huckleberry (1014 Wilshire Blvd. Santa Monica): Huckleberry is a super cute, casual, counter pick-up spot, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. We went for brunch and dined on unique AM specialties like green eggs and ham, and quinoa topped with roasted vegetables and sunny-side eggs. If you’ve got more of a sweet tooth, you’re in luck because the pastry counter is out of this world with selections like donut holes, huckleberry cake and mini cupcakes. And nothing legitimizes a foodie destination like an, ahem, Giada sighting.

STK (755 N La Cienega Blvd. West Hollywood): STK is super swank. And though it’s done nothing to refute my opinion that steaks have a threshold of possible amazingness, the sides reign supreme at STK. Nosh on the chef signature corn pudding and truffle fries for an unforgettable experience. PS – don’t get your steak sliced. Though they’ll do it gratis, you miss out on the oral satisfaction of teething through the undoubtedly tender bite-sized morsels.

Pizzeria Mozza (641 N Highland Ave. Los Angeles): Mario Battali’s LA pizza outpost doesn’t disappoint, especially if you’re feeling a little daring. Dine on chicken liver crostini, and squash blossom and burrata pizza. My only regret was that we weren’t hungrier…everything on that menu looked devour-licious and if the early-bird full house on a Monday night was any indication, many many others are in devout agreement.

Diddy Riese Cookies (926 Broxton Ave. Los Angeles): It’s nice to know that after several (I won’t say how many) post-college years, this Westwood ice cream establishment has not lost its appeal. Assembled as you watch, you get to pick both the cookie flavor – one of each if you wish – and the ice cream flavor for your customized ice cream sandwich. And any place with peanut butter ice cream is good by me!

Not a Bite Wasted on $20 and Over Strike

Due to an assessment of my meager finances - hey, who says life as a food blogger is lucrative - Not a Bite Wasted will not (for now) be visiting restaurants with main dishes more than $20. To that end, I need your help! Let me know your favorite places that serve delectable entrees for less than $20 and I'll go.

Not to worry, once my bank account is back to its healthy, bountiful self, I'll be back!

PS - You'll continue seeing reviews for restaurants that do not meet the above criteria for some time...I have quite the backlog!

Eat Me Daily: What, Exactly, is a Hangtown Fry?

In last week's San Francisco episode of No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain visited the Tadich Grill to eat a hangtown fry, a dish he called "an abomination against God and civilization." What, exactly, is a hangtown fry? Put simply: it's an omelette that includes bacon and oysters, with an origin story with one of those epic food legends. Read more