Yesterday, I drank a few bottles of Voss Artesian Water from Norway. One was Still. One was Sparkling. Both were pretty good but its wicked cool glass bottle is the best thing about it. My friend Sharon said she paid $20 for a bottle of Voss at the tres upscale Michael Mina Restaurant in San…
Today is Bastille Day to Francophiles everywhere. You can watch the Tour de France on TV. Or here in San Francisco, you can celebrate in a variety of ways: • Join thousands of revelers at Plouf and the other international restaurants lining the city’s newly named “French Quarter” on Belden Alley, between Bush & Pine…
I just read about Bob Kantor’s Memphis Minnie’s Barbecue Joint and Smokehouse, at 576 Haight Street, San Francisco, celebrating slow-smoked Southern style BBQ. According to the eNewsletter from True Sake, the first American Sake store a few blocks away on Hayes Street, Memphis Minnies BBQ is “where sake comes face-to-face with the biggest badass rack…
About 20 years ago, I bought a tone-on-tone dress shirt at Barney’s New York for $65. Though it was double what I normally paid for an oxford shirt, it was worth the bragging rights and the way it made me feel whenever I wore it. Now, my fellow San Francisco shoppers can cherish the same…
Today, I drove across all three major Bay Area bridges and only paid for one of them. I had three in my car for the Golden Gate Bridge commute early this a.m. into San Francisco, so I qualified for a car pool, saving $5 cash or $4 with my Fastrak transponder. This famed span, which…
With the rising awareness of global warming, greenhouse gases, hybrid cars and gas prices going through the stratosphere, green is definitely in and the greener the better. So California’s first hotel built to U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) standards is worth noting. The premier boutique Orchard Garden Hotel will open on July 12. This newly…
The True Sake store is the first of its type in America. The store is in the fashionable Hayes Valley district of San Francisco. The owner, Beau Timken, is a professional sake taster and sake sommelier. His passion for sake, and dream of sharing sake with the world, started over a decade ago in South…
Over 30 years ago, three prisoners escaped from Alcatraz Island, AKA “The Rock,” a maximum-security federal prison in San Francisco Bay. They were never found. They could have been eaten by sharks. They could have gotten hypothermia in the 50-degree waters. They could have drowned. Or they could have survived. No one knows. But this…
Imported six-figure sports cars. Premium wines. High-rise condos. High-priced cigars. Luxury hotel suites. Not since 1999 have people in the San Francisco Bay Area enjoyed their riches so much. An uptick in income has yielded a corresponding rise in conspicuous consumption. A glowing example is The Ritz-Carlton Hotel San Francisco and its recently completed $12.5…
Yesterday, my wife, daughter and I visited the California Palace of The Legion of Honor, one of the two Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. It was the second to last day of a poignant exhibit called: After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006, featuring stunning black-and-white “before” and “after” photos of various locales around the…
In the 1970s, fondue parties were the rage. You’d invite people over to dip bread or ham chunks into bubbling hot cheddar cheese. Or you’d put chicken, shrimp or steak on a fork and place it in boiling oil. Dessert was fruit dipped into melted chocolate. It was fun then and it’s even more fun…
A Day Spa can be as small as a store front with a few hundred square feet. Or as large as a warehouse. The Burke Williams Day Spa slated to open in the new Westfield San Francisco Centre this fall is definitely the latter. With 16,000 square feet on the fifth level, it will be…