Tons of Santas invade our Hooters....

Sure Jager makes things all surreal, tequila makes you do things you normally wouldn't do, and whiskey makes things all sh---kicking but if you really want something that brings the crazy, there's absinthe. Absinthe was a drink popular at the turn of the last century but was banned supposedly for "making people insane" and by insane we mean too fin de siècle, you know-- into impressionism, dressing colorfully, chopping of one of their ears, and being gay. But now it's making a comeback, thanks to a heroic lawyer who got the prohibition in the U.S. revoked and thanks to that lawyer, a distillery in Alameda is going to start making some. Hell, if people thought they needed it to make it through the turn of the last century how do they expect us to make it through this turn of the century?...

The bay area Michelin Guide 2008 is out, and there’s not much changed from last year: the French Laundry is the only place with 3 stars (the most) in the wider bay area. Aqua and Michael Mina are the only 2 stars in the city. Those Michelin guys are so stingy with stars, Chez Panisse’s Alice Waters still clutches her lonely one. Jean-Luc Naret, the director of the Michelin guide, was handing out press copie......

What would Batman and Robin think? With its chic industrial/gothic design, the new “market hall” style Whole Foods that opened recently near Lake Merritt in Oakland certainly could be used for a set on the next Batman flick. (Note: we won’t be defending or condemning the corporation itself here. We instead refer you to Mark Morford’s sharp analysis of the friendly giant.) We wish we’d known about the opening day festivities, what with an......

Man, we can tell how long we've been doing this by the number of Zagat posts we've amassed! The 2008 edition is out: your nice alphabetical list of restaurants with a grade for food, decor and service, as rated by the users of Zagat. This year, it is going 2.0, with the introduction of such spiffy new things as colors, as in two of them, black and red! Post-it "love it" tags to customize your......

This Saturday at the San Francisco Embarcadero Hyatt Regency from noon-4 p.m., you can join KGO Radio and the Mendocino Wine Growers Foundation in celebration of the wines and other good stuff from Mendocino County. The event, called "Wine By The Bay 2007,", is $35 if you buy your ticket now; it'll be ten buck more ($45) at the door. What's exciting to us is that Friend of SFist, Destination Dinners' Lisa Diamond, is scheduled to be interviewed by KGO's Gene Burns during the event for his "Dining Around" program....

Berrylicious illustration from The Oakland Tribune. We gobble the various food sections up each Wednesday. Here are our favorite nibbles from today's offerings. SF Chronicle: Serious bock-bock time for those of you who may not give chickens their due. Our fave chicken recipes here and here. Many chefs feel local and smaller sized pollo may add up to a better tasting bird. Oh, and at one of the Mission's best spots, when the chicken's......

We’re thrilled when our commute ends up boring rather than late or, say, riddled with crushed pedestrians and such. It turns out that this commute, well, it’s the stuff that dreams are made of: kids' fantasies. Apparently, CalTrain is so dreamy and hot that it's now a center spread in the newly released Timmy and Tammie’s Train of Thought. TTTT, for short. Other local trains featured in the book include MUNI's F-line and the......

Why on earth would an almost 60-year-old former city councilman from Vallejo want to be on Hell's Kitchen<? To be continually called a "donkey" ("don-keeeeeh!") on route to embarassing yourself on national television?...

Yummy photo courtesy of Dinner Party -One new blog we're eyeing is Dinner Party, who recently put the jam in jammy by making strawberry balsamic jam. We like and find heartwarming the idea of family members sharing a love of food and cooking, what can we say? -Yee-haw! A slew of Bay Area food bloggers get down and dirty at Alemany farm. There are other volunteer opps at the farm, and you won't get......

We gobble the various food sections up each Wednesday. Here are our favorite nibbles from today's offerings. SF Chronicle: Oooh, Ho, Hoh! (said with heavy French accent, mimicking one of our favorite cooking school instructors). The Grand Cafe has a new chef and Californicated French menu. We're seriously eyeing the $18 express (45 minutes!) lunch menu loaded with salad, entree and macaroons for a Friday in our very near future. Grand Cafe remains a lovely......

No need to bury the lead: the Los Compadres taco truck that does business at Spear & Folsom is yummy. We enjoyed a rather large burrito there recently. At five bucks for the basic model, it's not too hard on the wallet....

There aren't a lot of reviews out there for Lol Tun Restaurant, on Folsom betw. 19th & 20th streets. The folks participating on Yelp generally say the food is good and cheap, but the restaurant is loud and slow. The police, on the other hand, aren't so concerned with the restaurant's food, but the 3.8 pounds of heroin, 5 oz. of ice, and 1 ounce of cocaine hydrochloride they confiscated. ...

The next season of Top Chef is looking for a few good contestants, right here in San Francisco. Applicants that aren't able to attend can submit video profiles instead, but Sunday brings you a chance for a little face time with producers. Either way, there's paperwork to fill out....

We like it like that: Taste Tests had a great Pres A Vi shrimp cake brunch recently. The pic is worth at least a thousand licks! Looks like a fresh update on our semi-usual crab cake benedict.......

You know how sometimes we point out when an out-of-town publication takes an outside-in look at our fair city? We've pointed to such pieces in the L.A. Times and the Economist even recently. Well, our lovely sister site, LAist, did much the same, criticizing San Francisco Chronicle Food Maestro Michael Bauer's recent take on the L.A. Food scene. ...

Roasted Chioggia beets with nectarine juices & marjoram. We gobble the various food sections up each Wednesday. Here is our short and sweet favorite nibbles from today's offerings. SF Chronicle: Michael Bauer eats and examines the L.A. dining scene. We're shocked, shocked! to find out that many folks there feel they are and deserve celebrity treatment and ample ego stroking from restaurant staff. The Vegetable Harvest cookbook by Patricia Wells gets a look, which was......

We were rather pleased Monday, yesterday, and again today to be subjected to nice young lasses offering free gum to those exiting the Embarcadero Station on the corner of Market and Spear. In fact, today was best of all three so far-- while Monday's Dentyne-dealer gave us two packets (each with one piece of gum), and yesterday's ignored us to where we stomped off in a gumless huff, today's "Carefree" (ha, there we go biting the hand that feeds us) young lady just stuck out a massive, double handful of gum and invited commuters to grab as much as they liked....

Derrick Schneider has an excellent food-focused blog called "Obsession With Food." He also wrote for SFist regularly for quite a long time, most notably his still-popular SFist in the Kitchen series. So of course we were very pleased to see that he wrote an article appearing in the Wine Section of today's Chron. He writes all about "fruit wine," or wine made with fruit other than grapes....

Think you can't cook? Have a slew of reasons why not? There's hope. Find out how and why one 60-year old Brit took inspiration from 101 Cookbooks to make dishes like creme brulee, corned beef hash, and Stilton pancetta chicken. It's never too late to learn, kiddoodles! Get buttered and floured (her term, and it totally makes us tingle!) over at alpineberry. Bing and Rainier cherries. Frangipane. Puff pastry. Yumminess. If it's an organizational......

Unthirsty breaks down the top-ten San Francisco happy hours for stopping the shakes. Although we have to disagree with the number-one spot going to the thematic, fun, yet sometimes overpriced Tonga Room -- that, and the staff gets really mad when we stumble out through the hotel -- the other spots are spot-on. Any others saloons, dives, or lounges that we or Lindsey should know about?......

Ritual Coffee Roasters' two locations are only about three miles apart. Not so bad on a bike, right? Well, what if you're biking with 130 pounds of coffee? Yeah, a little tougher. This Saturday, popular cafe Ritual Roasters, in conjunction with Bikes to Rwanda, is having a wacky, multi-tiered charity event that involves bike-race betting, film-watching, a raffle, and the consumption of both of our favorite beverages: booze and coffee....

If you like learning about and consuming chi-chi/artisan/premium/hand-made chocolate in all its forms, there's lots to love at the Chocolate Salon, taking place today and tomorrow in Building A at Fort Mason. Tickets are $10 for kids and $20 for bigger kids (adults) but samples are plentiful. We appreciated the one hour of free parking, outgoing and friendly nature of the chocolate makers, and guaranteed exposure to exotic flavor combinations, wine and beverage tastings.......

We gobble the various food sections up each Wednesday. Here are our favorite nibbles from today's offerings. SF Chronicle: Sun-heated ovens are examined. Good: thought to help save the planet, low(ish) cost, uses "green" technology, and works in sunny/warm climes. Iffy/Bad: requires rooftop or outdoor space that City apartment dwellers probably lack, won't work on foggy or rainy days, lacks precision of traditional ovens, and can take a loooooong time. Saturday is Bastille Day, oui,......

We celebrated our birthday this week with a French-Food-Themed evening out, East Bay style that we thought you might like to try, too. Pixar's ">Ratatouille, followed by dinner at Liaison Bistro. ...

Ladies and gentlement, we give you San Jose's Mr. Joey Chestnut, who yesterday secured his place in history by eating sixty-six Nathan's hotdogs in 12 minutes in Nathan's yearly 4th of July competition. In doing so, Chestnut earned the coveted "Yellow Mustard Belt."...

Noah's Bagels are similar to other pale imitations of a superior products: they are akin, say, to low-carb anything, sugar-free candy, Tofurkey, etc. Of course, there are decent examples of situations in which one would want to consume less sugar, carbs, or avoid meat. What's the excuse for eating bagels that are more like Wonderbread? Usually desperation. Or convenience. Which brings us to the point: Noah's is hyping the celebration of its 18th birthday....

We've been meaning to try Mission Pie since we read about it in the Chron -- it's a homey dessert cafe (which we need more of in the Mission!), whose pie ingredients are grown by Mission High students at a local organic farm, to teach them agricultural, environmental, and nutrition skills. The students then staff the cafe behind the counter. (The pies themselves are currently baked off-site, but they're hoping to get a professional pastry......

SFist Julie treats herself! And why's she need treating? Find out for yourself -- congratulations, SFist Julie!!! So, you San Francisco folks have it made. With places like Polished Lounge and Le Crème Spa, you can go get a "natural" manicure and pedicure in a big puffy chair with lots of lovely organic products, fresh fruits and herbs, whenever you wish, with very little schlep involved, and no scary acrylics fumes. Us East Bay folks......

SFist Julie continues today's burger theme! Another stop on our East Bay tour of the best burgers made from "naturally-raised" meat: Luka's Taproom & Lounge. Just look at the picture. Need we say more? Note the little cup of garlicky-mayonnaise. That's 'cause these fries are Belgian. Speaking of which, want some Belgian beer ON TAP to go with 'em? No problem. They've got a selection. (Hence the name, "Taproom.") After the jump: Salads, oysters, and......