BiteClub Eats

Brunch is so ho-hum. This year take mom for a seaside afternoon, an eco-hike, or a day of pampering in Petaluma. Then, have brunch. Seaside getaway to Bodega BayEat: Bodega Bay’s Seaweed Café hosts ’7 Courses in May’, a menu featuring Andante Dairy cheese and Peay Wines at 6pm, Sunday May 13, $130 prix fixe, [...]

Willi’s Wine Bar isn’t new. It doesn’t have a maitre d’, a cheese cart or a celebrity chef. It’s inconvenient to get to and the whole “small plate” thing can add up to a damn fortune. But day after day, season after season, year after year, the cozy Santa Rosa bistro just keeps on cranking [...]

Chilaquiles. It’s been called the Mexican hangover cure for its amazing restorative powers. I call it the cure for whatever’s gnawing at your craw. All the requisite mood/metabolism enhancers are present and accounted for here: Fried, spicy, cheesy and meat. Vegetables take an appropriately supportive role in the form of guacamole (yes!), a tomato wedge [...]

Chas Langley isn’t one for formalities. Standing in the barebones kitchen of Honey Biscuits, he hollers, “Now, make sure you get the Styrofoam plate in that picture. That’s kind of my trademark.” “Uh, why?” I snap back with crumbs of sweet pastry (what he calls Fat Rascalz) flying from my mouth as I focus the [...]

Local is the new organic. Meaning that buying tasty little organic kiwis from New Zealand is nice and all, but you’ve just helped destroy the ozone with god knows how much jet and diesel fuel getting it here. You cad, you. During the last weeks of April, locavores “activists who try to eat only foods [...]

Five words: Phyllis’ Giant Burgers is open. Don’t miss: The cheese steak is a monster of a meal, with green peppers, onions and juicy, greasy meat on a fresh roll. Homemade milkshakes of every flavor and hue make it worth the subsequent coronary. And, of course, there are the burgers. But you knew that. Phyllis’ [...]

I realize I’m coming to the party about three years too late. Postmodern cuisine–you know, that wacky food created with foam, lasers and the powdered essence of an extinct Chilean tree frog–has seen its star begin to fall into the centrifuge of weird gastronomic trends. Kind of like aspic. Or the whole resurgence of lettuce [...]

Sausage is a religion in Chicago. And Hot Doug’s is the high altar where locals come to pray from 10:30am to 4pm daily in a steady stream of devotion. We all stand quietly, penitently in a growing line that snakes down the block outside the small suburban diner. Slowly, the line moves forward a person [...]

Syrah Bistro is a top-pick in Santa Rosa, especially for crabcakes and innovative California cuisine

Chicago in April is cold. As in an maybe 37 degrees and sleeting–in stark contrast to the lush, almost summer-like conditions I left in Sonoma County last week. Now granted, it was a little thick-headed, but thinking of spring back home, I actually asked someone if there were any good farm markets I could visit [...]

Marin burgery in Santa Rosa

Like you, I love to eat out. And, like you, I have uh, many of those in-between-paycheck days where things have to get a little creative. I have been known, in fact, to dig for change in my backseat just to avoid those gnarly Tupperware bowls of leftovers in the fridge. So, here are my [...]

BiteClub has learned that Bistro V, the popular, Michelin-rated Sebastopol restaurant owned by Chef Rick Vargas and his wife, Meekk, has gone up for sale. An advertisement in the Sunday Press Democrat listed the restaurant for $1.25 million and adds, ‘illness forces sale.’ When BiteClub called the restaurant this morning, an employee explained that Vargas’ [...]

Check out a first look at Green string farm, a small farm market going beyond organic. More details to follow… Green String Farm: 3571 Old Adobe Road, Petaluma, 707.249.0144. Open Friday through Monday 10am to 6pm.

Haute-folksy barbecue with a definite Napa vibe

SF chefs head to Napa top open a red-hot new BBQ joint, BarbersQ. Early reports are glowing, lauding the use of lots of local purveyors like Alexis Baking Company, Long Meadow Ranch for beef and Fulton Valley chickens. Plus, cheddar biscuits with ham. Is it hog heaven? BiteClub’s strapping on the bib as we speak. [...]

If you’ve endured a winter anywhere, well, east of the California border, you may understand the unbridled glee that we non-natives feel about spring farm markets. Yeah, that’s us fondling the spring onions and caressing the asparagus. Weird? You try living on beets, potatoes and cheese all winter. In the next few weeks, BiteClub heads [...]

The obligatory list of Easter Brunches for the omelette-and-french toast crowd. Love it like a little furry bunny. PASSOVER SEDER April 2: Passover Seder at Bistro-V, 6pm. Bistro V, 2295 Gravenstein Hwy S, Sebastopol, 707.823.1262 April 3: Passover Dinner at Syrah Bistro, Prix-fixe, $65, 205 Fifth St., 707.568.4002. Wednesday through Saturday: Buckwheat knishes and duck [...]