Entries tagged with 'California'
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Note: It's time for another edition of Street Food Profiles. This week we scoot to Santa Barbara where a former school bus becomes a delicious burger-mobile. "CB&J," aka Cheeseburger and Jelly (that would be jalapeno jelly). [Photographs: The Burger Bus] Name: The Burger Bus Vendors: Cheryl and Michael Gardner Twitter: @theburgerbus Location and hours? Tuesday through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturdays are TBA. Locations vary but are always updated online. What's on the menu? Locally sourced cheeseburgers (including one with jelly), falafel, and sides like yam fries, fried pickle chips, and onion rings. How long have you been street fooding? Five months. How has Twitter affected business? Although Santa Barbara is a small city, Twitter helps remind...
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"Everyone likes Mexican food and everyone likes Chinese food, so why not combine forces?" [Flickr: R. E. ~] Name: Don Chow Tacos Vendors: Dominic Lau and Lawrence Lie. What do you sell? Chinese-Mexican fusion Twitter: @donchowtacos Location and hours: For now, Thursday through Saturday from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., but we are looking to expand. Tacos. [Flickr: R. E. ~] How long have you been street fooding? About eight months. How has Twitter affected business? Twitter is definitely a great communication tool that's changed the way people communicate—but the food is still the most important part. It's safe to say that Twitter has helped us attract a tech-savvy audience who can know exactly when and where we are at...
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Note: On Mondays, one of our various Market Scene correspondents checks in with what's fresh at farmstands, what's coming up, and what you better get while the gettin's good. This week, we hear from Los Angeles correspondent Leah Greenstein of SpicySaltySweet. Take us to the market, Leah! Persimmons from Peacock Family Farm. If fall had an official color—like poppies are the official flower of California, Humuhumunukunukuapua`a is the official fish of Hawaii and Crocs are the official shoe of Mario Batali—it would have to be orange. Vibrant, warm and evocative of piles of crisp leaves perfect for jumping in, or the jack-o-lantern shrapnel you wade through the morning after Halloween, orange permeates the season. Here are some of my favorite...
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Note: This week in Meet Your Farmers, we get to know Greg Massa, a fourth-generation California rice farmer. Each week he brings delicious brown rice to nine Bay Area farmers' markets and is working toward building a sustainable farm model. [Photographs: Massa Organics] Name: Greg Massa Farm: Massa Organics What do you grow? Organic brown rice, wheat, almonds and now ducks. Ducks? We are selling our first 100 ducks at farmers' markets this weekend. The ducks live in the rice field and can help us with weed management. Ideally, the ducks should be able to feed themselves on the weeds and the bugs in the field. Weed management is no small feat when it comes to rice—it's our biggest production...
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Note: It's time for another edition of Street Food Profiles. This week we meet a banh mi truck. [Photographs: Nom Nom Truck] Name: Nom Nom Truck Vendor: David Stankunas Twitter: @nomnomtruck Location and hours: All over Los Angeles for lunch, evening, and late-night. Primarily we've been heading out to west Los Angeles, but we still get to places like Hollywood, mid-Wilshire, Koreatown, Silver Lake and Torrance. What's on the menu? Banh mi, Vietnamese-inspired tacos (basically a banh mi in a corn tortilla instead of bread), and various other Vietnamese snacks and drinks. How long have you been street fooding? For about 5 weeks. How has Twitter affected business? Twitter is a huge part of our business. Not only is it...
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[Photographs: Chichi Wang] In the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California, you can't drive more than a mile in any direction without passing another Cantonese restaurant with dim sum. The competition is so stiff that I've never encountered an awful dish in all my years of Sunday morning dim sum. To be the best in the SGV, a restaurant must be innovative in its interpretation of the hackneyed classics, as well as consistent in its execution. Sea Harbour in the city of Rosemead meets both criteria with flying colors. A longtime favorite of dim sum connoisseurs, Sea Harbour is located in an isolated stretch of Rosemead Boulevard across from a vacant lot. Neither the higher prices nor the inconvenient...
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Just announced: The star rankings of the Michelin 2010 Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area & Wine Country. The highlights? Three Stars: The French Laundry is still alone at the top Two Stars: Coi, Cyrus, Manresa, and The Restaurant at Meadowood take the two-stars Newbies: Aziza, Commis, La Toque, Luce, Sante, Terra and Ubuntu all get their first star The full list, after the jump....
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[Photographs: Chichi Wang] I was busy on a recent trip out to Southern California, but not too busy to get my regular fix of crawdads at The Boiling Crab, a chain of New Orleans-inspired seafood shacks with locations throughout Texas and California. The Boiling Crab is known for two things: their sweet and succulent crawfish, and their signature method of service. Just about everything they serve is cooked and brought to you in a plastic bag, to be dissembled in one giant, messy feast at the table. From Dungeness and blue crab to shrimp and crawdads, the items of seafood are thrown into the bags with segments of lime, corn, and seasonings of your choice. As the name of...
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[Photograph: Neiman Marcus] The annual Neiman Marcus Christmas Book sells fantasy items that about a fraction of a fraction of people could ever afford—$20 million submarine, $1.76 million space charter on the Virgin Galactic spaceship. But the most expensive item this year is relatively cheap: the $25,000 Cupcake Car. "Slip under the muffin top of your Cupcake Car, and let the world figure itself out for awhile," advertises the catalog. Maxing out at seven mph, the ride is tricked out with sprinkles and swirly frosting accessories. California-based artist Lisa Pongrace, who first launched the design at Burning Man, will even customize your topping. This marks Neiman Marcus's attempt to cut back on the $1 million-plus super-ridiculous gifts and settle...
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"Sometimes people see chocolate and think alcoholic milkshakes." [Flickr: loremipsum] For the most part, those seeking to indulge both chocolate and cocktails have been restricted to the realm of heavy, sugary after-dinner drinks. But as chefs take chocolate more seriously—working with the savory, bitter flavors that cacao can bring to a dish—so have mixologists. As I wrote for last weekend's San Francisco Chronicle, a number of bartenders are getting into the chocolate game, making their own bitters, tinctures, and liqueurs that capture the rich character of chocolate without weighing down the drink's flavor with a palate-thumping load of sugar. Some classic cocktails and 18th century punches utilize the power of chocolate to good effect, playing the flavor against that of...
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