January is traditionally the lowest grossing month for restaurants anywhere. But 100 of the top San Francisco restaurants have found a possible cure with the annual “Dine About Town” promotion. These restaurants are again dishing up extravagant three-course meals a special prix fixe prices. Just use your VISA card to take adantage of the deals:…
Sad news… One of the best restaurants in Marin County, north of San Francisco, burned to the ground last week following a storm-induced incident. Now the world famous Manka’s Inverness Lodge along the Bolinas Lagoon is just a pile of ashes. Luckily, the cabins, annex with conference rooms and boat house are still open and…
As a lover of modern Japanese cuisine, I was pleasantly surprised when my date took me out to lunch at Zuma — a Tokyo-style restaurant in London’s fashionable Knightsbridge district. To start our meal, we shared appetizers of steamed edamame, sesame spinach, and seaweed salad. Then followed small courses of the house salad, fried soft…
It’s a shame, actually. The enormous main dining room at the French-California brasserie of the Grand Café was elegantly decorated. Its 30-foot-high ceilings and 20th century Parisian atmosphere were breathtaking. The holiday crowd was in a festive mood. The open kitchen was bustling. The food was delicious — from the chilled Lemon Drop cocktail to…
Japanese food is generally healthy, except for the fried tempura. But try a meal at Tokyo’s Nakameguro district’s Cafe 8. It features macrobiotic, vegan cuisine void of all animal proteins. No meat. No chicken. No fish. No dairy products. No sugar. Just lots of beans, soymilk, veges and unrefined grains like brown rice. We’ve heard…
<img src=”https://www.vagablond.com/wp-content/uploads/images/SetaiRestaurant.jpg” width=”375″ height=”240″ alt=”” title=”” border=”1″ style=”float: right; padding: 4px; margin: 5px 5px 5px 5px; border: 1px;”/>The Assignment: Write up my most memorable upscale meal of 2006. My Answer: This one was simple—The Restaurant at the Setai Hotel, Miami Beach. The only thing NOT memorable about this place is its name! The Ambiance: Dramatic…
The Michelin Guide is the cosmopolitan gourmand’s bible. With the 2007 release of its New York City restaurant reviews, a major change takes place. Alain Ducasse’s Essex House Restaurant plummets from being awarded Michelin’s highest distinguishment in 2006 (“exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey”) to being totally absent in the 2007 book. I can’t help…
The next new thing in LA is not a holiday movie or second season TV show. It’s frozen yogurt that’s so good, it’s “the taste that launched 1,000 parking tickets.” Pinkberry is blooming with one locale in New York and five in Los Angeles with just two flavors: green tea (not so popular) and plain…
The owner of Vosges Haut-Chocolat says music is her muse when writing, cooking and creating. So it’s not just a coincidence that Katrina Markoff combined chocolates and music to create The Groove Collection. It contains 12 chocolate truffles and 12 genres of music influenced by African Americans, from field songs to rural blues to hip…
In 1994 I stood in a local bar in the countryside near Grecia. A weathered old man walked in from a day in the cane fields. A machete hung at his waist and he was barefoot. He stepped to the bar and put up one finger. The bartender poured him a shot that nearly dribbled…
The Fairmont Royal York in Toronto is offering a fun, informative and tasty weekend culinary shopping package. I made a reservation for the Shop With Chef package earlier this fall, and and it’s a unique way to get up close and personal to the food and producers utilized by the hotel’s signature EPICrestaurant. Since I…