Food + Drink Archives

The Weekend Catch-Up: Long Live This Cornerstone of San Francisco Matcha

30Aug

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

The Weekend Catch-Up: Long Live This Cornerstone of San Francisco Matcha

Plus: San Francisco's "doom loop" tour was an epic failure — and exposed a City committee member as the organizer behind it. In just five short years — two of those years marked by a carousel of pandemic-born closures, reopenings, and stay-at-home orders — Stonemill Matcha helped San Franciscans acquaint themselves with authentic matcha. The sprawling Mission District cafe was heralded as a touchstone for SF matcha heads; it, too, played a key role in the city’s reputation as a mecca for matcha along the West Coast. Stonemill Matcha wasn’t only just an Instagram darling, it was an IRL source for ceremonial-grade matcha, matcha-inspired sweets (think matcha mochis and mooncakes), and a place to experience time collapse while holding handmade ceramic tea cups. But one of San Franc...

I Got *V* Stoned at SF’s First-Ever Pizza, Bagel, and Beer Festival

23Aug

By Matt Charnock2 Comments

Editors' Picks, Essays, Food + Drink, Hyperlocal News + Stories

I Got V Stoned at SF’s First-Ever Pizza, Bagel, and Beer Festival

‘At one point, I earnestly believed I saw Julianne Moore and Laura Dern cackling over two cold hard ciders.’ As my ostensible youth flickers into irrelevance, few activities coax me out of my innate introversion and into the greater, unknown collective. But the promise of complimentary meals and attractive novelties exist as evergreen proddings. (I could also argue that the opportunity to engage in fulfilling sex lives in that same canon, though time dedicated to after-work napping now usually takes prominence over any fleeting horniness.) This past weekend on Saturday, August 19th, the intersectionality of those two nouns met in San Francisco’s first-ever food festival dedicated to all things carbohydrates, specifically pizza, bagels, and beer. Making things neurochemically more...

San Francisco Is Getting Its Own Pizza, Beer, and Bagel Festival

31Jul

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Food + Drink, Hyperlocal News + Stories

San Francisco Is Getting Its Own Pizza, Beer, and Bagel Festival

San Francisco is a city that's known for its gastronomy — and, at long last, SF is getting its first taste of a food festival catered to those who regularly befriend carbohydrates. Unlike butter, bagels, in fact, are a carb. Cheese is serotonin. Beer is hydrating. These are merely universal truths that punctuate life on this mortal coil. For too long, San Francisco has been devoid of a foodie festival that marries this trifecta in harmony. (After all, we know just how successful pairing two cult-followed goodies — like, say Ube, and Mathca — is in the city.) Well, San Francisco is set to finally have a celebration of this holy trinity when SF’s first-ever pizza, beer, and bagel festival debuts on August 19th in North Beach. Featuring over 45 food and drink vendors, the extravaganza ...

8 of My Favorite Neighborhood Treats in San Francisco

25Jul

By Juanita MORE!No Comments

Food + Drink, Queerness

8 of My Favorite Neighborhood Treats in San Francisco

SF is home to an ever-rotating number of bakeries, donut shops, and street-side cafes — but the best treats are always in my orbit. I am a creature of habit. I find comfort in routine and the predictability of my daily tasks. For instance, I wake up at about the same time every day and make a pot of Esperanca, Brasil Ritual Coffee, which tastes like orange marmalade, milk chocolate, and toasted pecans. I then return to bed to watch the gayest news program currently on television — ABC7 Mornings with Reggie Aqui, Jobina Fortson, Drew Tuma, and last but not for a second least, Kumasi Aaron. Watching the news with them is like catching up with old friends with many important issues to discuss. It's the same with Jackson and Macho; keeping the boys on a schedule is incredibly important for...

A Revamped Eatery Becomes a Gastronomic Pearl in SF’s Fisherman’s Wharf

16Jul

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Food + Drink, Hyperlocal News + Stories

A Revamped Eatery Becomes a Gastronomic Pearl in SF’s Fisherman’s Wharf

The Blue Mermaid Restaurant manages to cut through the proverbial, faceless fray of SF's foremost tourist-centric area with an unforgettable tasting menu. Sentences that include “Fisherman’s Wharf” inevitably conjure up images of selfie-stick-wielding tourists and San Francisco’s only In-and-Out. The neighborhood — a cornerstone of the metro’s guise as a destination city, rich with Golden Gate Bridge knick-knacks and family-friendly activities — perpetually vyes to become a common destination amongst San Franciscans. (Francisco Park, which debuted last year with breathtaking views of the Bay and surrounding cityscape, has lured people to walk two blocks down from its 4.5-acre summit, putting them in the seasonal bustle of Fisherman’s Wharf.) Restaurants around the waterfront are...

San Francisco’s Corpse Flower Is Blooming, Y’all

4Jul

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Food + Drink, Hyperlocal News + Stories

San Francisco’s Corpse Flower Is Blooming, Y’all

One of the big ol’ smelly, exotic flowers in SF is officially unraveling inside Golden Gate Park. We’re big fans of biophilia. And we’re just as endlessly giddy/enthusiastic about signal-boosting hyperlocal ways to exercise that inherent human quirk. Well, those of us in the seven-by-seven at the moment can catch an incredibly rare sight at the Conservatory of Flowers. But for how long? Just 48hrs — maybe less. “IT'S HAPPENING! Scarlet the Corpse Flower is blooming tonight at the Conservatory of Flowers,” reads a tweet from the greenhouse. “Join us tonight 5-9:30 pm (last entry 9 pm) for a special ticketed after-hours program.” People lined up to catch a glimpse (and whiff) of the flower yesterday evening, per social media. Thankfully, a glimpse at the livestream shows the fl...

This Oakland Deli Had a Car Smash Into It Over the Weekend

5Jun

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Food + Drink, Nature + Climate Crisis

This Oakland Deli Had a Car Smash Into It Over the Weekend

A hit-and-run driver smashed into Oakland’s Wise Sons deli — the Jewish restaurant at 1700 Franklin Street — over the weekend, causing all matter of mayhem The automotive era might’ve been a terrible, costly, dangerous mistake. In the 100-plus years since their grip on American society, more than 3,600,000 motor vehicle mortality have been recorded; they are responsible for 40% of all transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions; have stripped cities of precious space, and led to the ballooning expansion of car-dependent suburbs; and have made our lives all around, more expensive and cumbersome. Oh, they also have a knack for plowing into human-made structures — like, say, a cherished East Bay eatery — when piloted by irresponsible bipeds. Sunday afternoon around 3 p.m., an ...

Queer Dinner Party Group in SF Raises $21K in Funding

12May

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Food + Drink, Queerness

Queer Dinner Party Group in SF Raises $21K in Funding

After securing $21K in its first-ever funding round, Deluxe Queer intends to expand its SF-focused dinner series and catering services to new heights. Like how hyperlocal news and opinionated takes on San Francisco’s underbelly play organizing roles in our coverage, Underscore_SF also oscillates around the brand’s innate queerness. (The founder and editor-in-chief — me! — is a queer-identifying biped, after all.) And we’ve been immeasurably fortunate to watch Deluxe Queer — an SF-based dinner series founded on the idea of connecting members of the LGBQIA+ community in more intimate, less sensory-bombarding places (like, say, a nightclub) over multi-course measles — grow and thrive. (I had the chance to attend the brand’s pilot dinner during Pride Month last year; I sat at the offi...

Extreme Fasting Is Still a Thing in Silicon Valley (and Elsehwere)

5May

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Food + Drink, Hyperlocal News + Stories

Extreme Fasting Is Still a Thing in Silicon Valley (and Elsehwere)

Fasting has long been touted by many religions, but a growing number of people in the SF Bay Area (and the country) are skipping meals for more secular reasons. What’s old is new again. One of Silicon Valley’s hottest trends is fasting as a means of biohacking — defined as hot-wiring or “engineering” your biology to fast-track success. Biohackers count among their numbers Twitter’s former CEO, Jack Dorsey, and yesteryear-famous YouTube hustle darling Gary Vaynerchuk, both of whom say that restricting calories is a way to attain superhuman levels of focus. Men like Dorsey and Vaynerchuk use self-inflicted starvation as a tool for checking things off their to-do lists. But at what point does fasting cross over from helpful to harmful? And with that said, is it ever helpful?...

San Francisco’s Biggest Ube Festival Is Back for 2023, Baby!

28Apr

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Food + Drink, Hyperlocal News + Stories

San Francisco’s Biggest Ube Festival Is Back for 2023, Baby!

Oh, and it’s being paired with another iconic, equally vibrant, and chromatic food: matcha. “Babe, wake up. An iconic duo just dropped.” That was the conversation we had with ourselves when we heard Kapwa Gardens, San Francisco’s healing and culture space that highlights the city’s thriving Filipino community, announced its ube food festival, Yum Yams, is returning next month, following its prior festival held in September of 2022. What’s even more exciting about the event’s 2023 iteration? Matcha will be joining the chat, thanks to a collaboration with Japantown’s KOHO SF; the partnership exists as a means to elevate and celebrate AAPI month. “Just as the purple yam known as ube has become a signature flavor of Filipino Culture, the finely ground green tea powder matcha has bee...