They aren’t even the best doughnuts in New York!

One problem with the recent glut of food television is that there are only so many restaurants to cover — travel-related shows hit the same spots again, and again, and again. It’s hard to blame the restaurant owners, since continued national TV exposure is guaranteed to make business boom. But TV producers could stand to look a bit harder for their next spot to feature. Here, then, are ten restaurants that should take a break from the tube.

More “Feeding Tube”:
Ten Important Moments in Food-TV Recipe History
Buttered Up: A Look at Paula Deen’s Financial Empire
Five Cooking-Competition Bad Guys Tell Us Why They’re Just Misunderstood
Anthony Bourdain Tells Grub Street About the Food Shows He Actually Likes
Jonah Hill Totally Dissed Paula Deen on TV
How Food Television Changed the Way We Eat
Eleven Real Secrets Behind TV Food Styling
How Many Cooks (and Fridges, and Researchers) Does It Take to Run Food Network Kitchens?

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Sociopathic party promoter Michael Alig, now 43, wants to open a restaurant when he gets out of prison later this year. “You know, something that doesn’t entail staying out until seven o’clock in the morning,” he told Interview. Though he sounds like he’d love to make over the New York nightlife scene, calling it “a skeleton of what was there,” his parole officer might frown on that. The first stop on his freedom tour will likely be L.A., where Alig says he wants to work with old pal James St. James at World of Wonder. Angelenos should be on high alert for any new eatery that features bizarre theme nights and, well, James St. James.

Michael Alig [Interview]

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Filed Under: party people, empire building, michael alig

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from Grub Street San Francisco

In its April issue, Food & Wine named thirteen new places in the U.S. and Italy where you can find great Italian food. Among them: A Voce Columbus and Maialino in New York (touted for their molto grande wine lists), the barely two-month-old Amis in Philadelphia, Chicago’s Cibo Matto, and Tony’s Pizza Neapoletana in San Francisco for its “true pizza cred.” Looks like Anthony Mangieri missed this throwdown by a mere couple months, but watch out next year — or the next time one of these listicles drops.

Best New Italian Spots [Food & Wine]

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Filed Under: lists, a voce, amis, anthony mangieri, cibo matto, food & wine, maialino, pizza pizza, tony’s pizza napoletana

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from Grub Street San Francisco

Watch out or your sensitive gourmand palate could be lost for days.

“Pine nut mouth” — a mildly allergic reaction to Asian pine nuts which, until recently, had not been widely available in the U.S. — appears to be a growing phenomenon, reports the Oakland Tribune. The main symptom: a strongly bitter and metallic taste on the tongue after eating food that lasts for several days. The cause: imported pine nuts from China sold at Trader Joe’s, Costco, and elsewhere. Trader’s hasn’t issued any warnings, but a European journal first reported the reaction back in 2001. [Oakland Tribune]

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Filed Under: health concerns, allergies, fyi, trader joe’s

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from Grub Street San Francisco

Alas, the “post-Sideways world” is rife with faux Pinot.

“Pinot partisans have been growing irate that their heartbreak grape is being ruined by the masses. It is an affirmation of every Pinotphile’s conspiracy theory: that our beloved grape has been defiled by large-scale industrial winemaking.” — SF Chronicle wine critic Jon Bonné, regarding the continued fallout from Pinotgate. [Chron]

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Filed Under: quote of the day, jon bonne, oenofile, pinotgate

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from Grub Street San Francisco

In a new memoir by Times staffer Kim Severson, there’s a story in which Alice Waters schools her friend and mentor Marion Cunningham, who admits to being a fan of iceberg lettuce. As SFoodie reports, Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life recounts the life lessons the former Chron food writer learned from a group of female cooks, including Waters, Cunningham, Rachael Ray, and Ruth Reichl. We suppose the lesson from Waters goes something like, “Don’t be afraid to judge your friends, or to mail them a box of crunchy heirloom lettuces from France in order to shame them out of their plebeian tastes.” The book is out on April 15th.

Does Alice Hate Iceberg Lettuce More Than She Loves a Dear Friend? [SFoodie]

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Filed Under: bookshelf, alice waters, books, kim severson, locavores, marion cunningham, rachael ray, ruth reichl

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from Grub Street San Francisco

Last weekend’s 8.8 magnitude earthquake came at the beginning of harvest time in Chile’s grape-growing regions, which is lucky for both vintners and drinkers. As Wine Enthusiast reports, some wineries suffered minor damage to tanks and barrels, but stored bottles and older vintages in tanks received the most damage. The majority of the 2010 vintage remains safe, and still on the vines. “We have water, but we need electricity to run the destemmers and presses. Fortunately, only white grapes are ready now,” said Francois Lurton, owner of Hacienda Araucano. You can exhale now, all ye hoarders of bargain priced Carmenères.

Chile’s Wine Industry Wounded But Largely Spare by Massive Earthquake [Wine Enthusiast]

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Filed Under: oenofile, earthquake, francois lurton, hacienda araucano, wine enthusiast

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from Grub Street San Francisco

In this sneak peek of new ABC show Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, the British chef ambushes a classroom full of innocent first graders in Huntington, West Virginia and begins showing them things they neither recognize nor eat — like an eggplant, a beet, and a head of cauliflower. While it may not be fair to expect kids in “the unhealthiest city in America” to be able to identify vegetables that even children of Berkeley chefs would balk at on a good day, we applaud Jamie in his efforts to shame educate America into eating better.

First Graders Can’t Identify Fruits, Veggies [Huffington Post]
Earlier: Jamie Oliver’s Plan to Change the World [Grub Street]

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from Grub Street San Francisco

Each week on the Food Chain, we ask a chef to describe a dish he or she recently enjoyed. The chef who prepared the dish responds and then picks his or her own memorable meal. On and on it goes. Last week, Oakland’s own Russell Moore delighted over Ignacio Mattos’s empanadas at Il Buco in New York. What’s tickled your fancy, Igancio?

Who: Ignacio Mattos, chef at Il Buco, New York
What: Wood-grilled poussin with bone marrow sauce and artichoke hearts
Where: Bar Jules, San Francisco
When: 2009

“I visited Bar Jules on Hayes Street when I was in San Francisco about a year ago. I was visiting friends and we went to many different places, we went all over, and one day we just went there for lunch and I had this magnificent poussin with artichokes and chanterelles in a bone marrow sauce. It’s really, really really good. I don’t know if it’s on the menu regularly, but I know she does it pretty often. It’s so rich. It’s light and at the same time it’s decadent — like really, really decadent. It’s amazingly good.”

Chef Jessica Boncutter at Bar Jules responds:

“At the restaurant we are lucky enough to have a wood burning grill, which makes everything delicious — seriously, it could make baby poop taste delicious. The poussin (which is a baby chicken) gets a lot of its flavor from the grill. And the bone marrow sauce: what’s not to love about rich bone marrow, dried and fresh porcini mushrooms, breadcrumbs, a rich chicken broth, and butter?

“The inspiration for the dish came from the wood-oven-roasted chicken at Zuni. I worked there for about six years and I worked the oven station for a long time, cooking thousands of those chickens, and I could never get over that wonderful crispy skin and the incredible smoky flavor from the wood.”

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Filed Under: the food chain, bar jules, ignacio mattos, jessica boncutter, zuni cafe

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from Grub Street San Francisco

Ranked #3 by the Times and #2 by New York, Mangieri’s Neapolitan pie will be the one to beat in SF’s brewing pizza war.

As of next week, there’ll be a new pizza sheriff in town: Anthony Mangieri, one of New York’s more celebrated Neapolitan pizza chefs who shuttered Una Pizza Napoletana in the East Village at the height of its popularity last year, moves to SF permanently on March 1st. Mangieri announced in the fall that he’d be moving his operation to SOMA, and we’ve now learned from the man himself that he’ll be opening, hopefully by May, just a block or so away from the clubland of 11th Street, not far from Thad Vogler’s upcoming Bar Agricole — a combo which should make this usually boozy part of town a new food destination.

“I found the kind of space that I could never have afforded in New York,” Mangieri told us. “Really raw and industrial, high ceilings. I came out here and really fell in love with it. But mostly I just can’t wait to get out my hiking boots, you know?”

His wood oven arrived from Naples ten days ago and the building owner installed it last week. All that remains are some trimmings and a few permit approvals from the city.

Mangieri intends to keep the same restaurant name he had in New York, Una Pizza Napoletana, which may cause a bit of confusion after Farina’s Antica Pizza Napoletana comes online — however if all goes well, Mangieri should beat Farina to market by at least a month. And with another pizzeria slated for Mission and 24th, not to mention former Flour + Water pizza man Jon Darsky’s as-yet-locationless venture on the horizon, SF is about to ride the pizza wave that crashed over New York in the last few years in a big way.

But don’t expect Mangieri to compete on price. At around $20, his pies out-priced most of the competition in New York, and as a sign in his original joint read, “We have no quarrel with the man who sells cheaper pizza. He knows how much his is worth!”

Earlier: Chairman Anthony [NY Mag]
Anthony Mangieri Closes Una Pizza Napoletana, Hands Keys Over to Motorino [Grub Street NY]
It’s Official: Una Pizza Napoletana to Open in SF [Grub Street]

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Filed Under: pizza pizza, anthony mangieri, antica pizzeria napoletana, farina, flour + water, jon darsky, previews, una pizza napoletana

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from Grub Street San Francisco

Martha Stewart entered the iPhone app fray today with Martha’s Everyday Food: Fresh & Easy Recipes. The app allows the user to create shopping lists of ingredients for specific recipes from the archives of Everyday Food. Today is also the release date for Martha’s 70th book from Clarkson Potter, Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast (say that three times fast), according to LA Weekly. We’re pretty certain Martha herself had little input on the final product, which was authored by the elves back in “The Kitchens of Martha Stewart Living,” but perhaps she penned a pithy introductory page about how these are some of her *favorite* weeknight recipes, which is of course a lie to make housewives believe like she’s just like them.

What Would Martha Do: Martha Stewart Launches an iPhone App [LA Weekly]

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from Grub Street San Francisco

Martha Stewart entered the iPhone app fray today with Martha’s Everyday Food: Fresh & Easy Recipes. The app allows the user to create shopping lists of ingredients for specific recipes from the archives of Everyday Food. Today is also the release date for Martha’s 70th book from Clarkson Potter, Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast (say that three times fast), according to LA Weekly. We’re pretty certain Martha herself had little input on the final product, which was authored by the elves back in “The Kitchens of Martha Stewart Living,” but perhaps she penned a pithy introductory page about how these are some of her *favorite* weeknight recipes, which is of course a lie to make housewives believe like she’s just like them.

What Would Martha Do: Martha Stewart Launches an iPhone App [LA Weekly]

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Filed Under: app-etizing, martha stewart, recipes

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