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......

Unless you see all four of Mike Daisey's "Great Men of Genius" monologues (and see them IN ORDER), you might miss the point. GMOG is NOT in fact one man acting as four different "geniuses" -- Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, Nicola Tesla, and L. Ron Hubbard -- in four 75-minute monologues. Rather, this is one five-hour monologue, broken up into four segments, wherein the true genius of the piece, Mike Daisey, interweaves vignettes from his life with the excerpted life stories of those famous men. And did we say he's funny? ...

SFist Julie's got the 2,4 dithiapentane and she's not afraid to tell you about it! So, we ourselves are as naïve as anyone else on this topic, having not-too-long-ago extolled the virtues of dishes containing the latest faux-food villain at B Restaurant in Oakland... Guess what? Truffle oil does not contain truffles. At all. Not even a trace, not a soaking, nothing. Thank you New York Times and local chef-owner Daniel Patterson of Coi who......

East Bay Eater SFist Julie reports in from the other side of the MacArthur Maze! To tell you the truth, we were hesitant to share this restaurant review with you, because we were worried that you would swarm our favorite neighborhood breakfast place and extend our wait for corned beef hash, but now, with the collapse of the 80/580 interchange, we have nothing to worry about. So here goes... There are many good and great......

We've got two contests this week, one to celebrate over a decade of experimentation and the other to to support some stalwart locals. Giveaway #1! On Monday and Tuesday, Blonde Redhead make their gorgeous art rock at Bimbo's with openers Annuals. Annuals weave intricate melodies with ambitious sounds while still giving you hooks to hold onto (and remind us a little of the wonderful Aloha in the meantime.) One winner will get a pair of......

East Bay diner SFist Julie goes pirate! Okay, it's really NOT a soup kitchen, but if you have a boat docked in Oakland’s Embarcadero Cove Marina (down the highway from Jack London Square and across from Alameda's Coast Guard Island), have a pot belly and a brush mustache, and a propensity for telling jokes like: “What kind of fish likes to sing? A tune-y fish!” -- and bursting into laughter at your own brilliance,......

SFist Julie, contributing. You may know by now that we prefer our meat grass-fed, pedigreed, pasture raised, and without ooky hormones, antibiotics or other additives. So when we had a craving for a burger the other night, we decided to take our East Bay selves down to 4th Street in Berkeley. A decidedly dead nighttime destination, save for one or three stalwart and stellar restaurants, including Eccolo -- where we almost took a hosting job,......

East Bay food critic SFist Julie hella hearts Oakland. Remember those days? My parents went to blah-blah-blah and all I got was this stupid... Well, if you go to Oakland's Bulldog Coffee Shop today from 6-7:30pm, not only will you get to enjoy Cindee de la Vara's newly-installed paintings, but also you will get free snacks and wine (natch), musical accompaniment by singer/guitarist Mercedes Skye (we wouldn't have it any other way) and access......

SFist Julie goes out in Oakland's Laurel District for some smokin' jazz. No, not the Laurel Heights familiar to San Franciscans, with its chain stores and baby strollers, but Oakland's Laurel District, home to personable purveyors of down-home cooking, musical instruments and lessons, locally-penned books, equine supplies, and the recently revived Laurel Lounge. Taken over in April 2006 by a local couple -- who also happen to be neighborhood activists -- the Laurel Lounge......

SFist Julie, our East Bay eater, stops by Tamarindo in Old Historic Oakland for a glorious Mexican meal. Small plates are certainly très chic these days (even if our propensity for mixing foreign phrases is not), but usually, the price tag is not quite as nice of a fit. Not that we're above spending a fortune on small bites of delicacies. We do have our weaknesses in that area. However, we were glad to......

Okay, so we admit it. We read your comments, sometimes. And thus, this post is for you, Gene. First, a clarification. The egg yolks in the center of the moon cakes that prompted your concern, and presumably the concerns of many others (statistically, for every letter written to a congressperson, the government assumes 9, or 99, or some other amount of people feel the same way — and so shall we), are not raw. Moon......