Umami Mart

Chocolate ganache | Almond shortbread thumbprints with meyer lemon peel and icing. Find my meal in pictures here.

Photos by Travis LoDolce. Now tell me: why oh why would I ever move back to NYC when all of its wondrous gems can come to ME!!! When I heard last week that PDTman John Deragon would be guest bartending at the popular SF joint Beretta for ONE NIGHT ONLY, I screamed a silent hooray […]

Carefully observe this above photo. If you walked past this on your way home from work, how could you NOT go in? There is clearly a party explosion going on inside here, duh. Since I’m a sucker for a good party, a bunch of us gathered here at Schroeder’s in SF for their annual Oktoberfest […]

After all my bitching, I finally got my fancypants on at Zuni Cafe last month. I must say that the place far exceeded my expectations. It was all in the butter. I have a slight obsession with butter, as you all know. It is a major detail that so many fancy restaurants overlook, it drives […]

This is dedicated to You Cannot Be Serious, aka Jenny C. Finally, ehem, FINALLY, made it out to the famed Turtle Tower last week for a quick city pho stop. I had an interview to get to down in San Jose, so I was in a hurry, and there’s nothing quicker and deliciouser than a […]

Since moving back to California, I’m trying to branch out more and find new places to eat all over the Bay Area. A few weekends ago my parents and I took a nice drive out to Pescadero, a quaint little town out on the coast, just south of San Francisco. We had an awesome Umamiventure […]

My buddy Tom and I had been talking about going to the infamous Leg of a Beast at Incanto for a very long time. One lazy afternoon while bbqing outside we decided to call and make the reservation. Incanto’s Leg of Beast includes the preparation of an entire beef shank with all the delicious tendon […]

Been craving a fancy meal so I called around to try making reservations- but all the restos I want to go to in Bay Area is CLOSED for Labor Day. UGH! How does anyone expect me to stimulate this wilting economy if you close your establishment on my day off??? Gary Denko: closed!Chez Panisse: closed!Zuni […]

I have a new obsession- they come in these little bite-size sacks, filled with pork, crab and a touch of soup. Xiao long bao, aka XLB, soup dumplings!!! In NYC, I loved the dumplings at Shanghai Cafe, and have finally found a place that are just as good. Actually, they are BETTER. I haven’t been […]

To celebrate my VERY FIRST paycheck since moving back to the Bay Area, I took my parents out to their lunch of choice last week. They had been wanting to try Bushi-Tei, a Japanese “French California Fusion” place up in San Francisco, so we dressed up in our Sunday best, piled into the Toyota Camry […]