Packs of wild dogs, 35 mile treks to find food and endemic viloence. No, it’s not Hollywood’s latest apocolypticly themed summer blockbuster, it’s life in California’s Great Central Valley.
—15 July 2009 ∞ | View Comments
It’s a San Francisco street food explosion! It’s Friday Night Street Supper in the Mission.
—29 May 2009 ∞ | View Comments
Beer By BART is a compendium of bars, restaurants and brewpubs easily accessible by BART and other forms of public transit in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. Never again will you have to weather the scourge of the designated driver.
—19 May 2009 ∞ | View Comments
Intelligentsia’s new showpiece of a café opens in Venice this month. It means to set a new bar for café layouts, with each customer having their own personal barista at their service when they order their drink.
—9 May 2009 ∞ | View Comments
Whole Foods, Oakland
—16 April 2009 ∞ | View Comments
Cappucino at Blue Bottle in the San Francisco Ferry Building
“Retrofit” espresso blend (did you know they use a different espresso blend at each of their locations?) in one of the “for here” Heath Ceramics cups. Stylish. Smooth. Tasty.
—16 April 2009 ∞ | View Comments
Looking for “There’s more than one way to roast a Wondo”? It’s now on Daniel of Arabica, my coffee-focused blog.
—2 March 2009 ∞ | View Comments
You can’t always judge a “book” by it’s “cover” but you should always trust your roaster
Sometimes, you have to wonder about awards. I used to look forward to the Oscars. They were an event in my home and we would plan our evening around the show. It was like a sporting event. We would wait…(read the rest at Daniel of Arabica)
—21 December 2008 ∞ | View Comments
Is Four Barrel going to begin roasting soon?
I was in Four Barrel Coffee today and witnessed what, I believe, may be the last piece of the roasting operation puzzle for them. There was a monolithic oriented strand board box sitting smack dab in the middle 
of the front of the house as I walked in. Not long after, a fork-lift (yes, a fork-lift) came rumbling through the (already open, of course) front doors. The owner of the joint was climbing on and around both the forklift and mystery box like Spider Man making sure nothing mussed up his new café’s decor as the box was pulled out the front door. It was the tightest of fits.
When asked about the contents of the, now absent mystery monolith, I was told it was the “after burner” for the roaster. The after burner incinerates all the fine particulate matter thrown off during the roasting process so that it doesn’t make a surprise, sudden toasty mess of one’s roasting operation at a later date.
The missing piece? I’m not sure but, the practice of repackaging all of those (admittedly tasty) Stumptown beans I witnessed a couple employees partaking in today? I’ll bet you it’s days are numbered. Here’s hoping 4B adds another tasty coffee roaster choice to the mix.
—3 November 2008 ∞ | View Comments
Call me an elitist or a sell-out, but I’ve come to love life’s little luxuries like chairs, tables and bathrooms [...]
– manseekingcoffee
From the mysterious “manseekingcoffee”, on his excellent blog of name same, from his review of the (fairly) recently de-funkified (no more alley location!) Four Barrel Coffee in The Mission in San Francisco.
Of note: Four Barrel is owned and operated by a Ritual alum and, like Ritual’s early days, serves Stumptown coffee. That, my friends, is going to save me an untold amount of shipping costs (and/or airfare, for that matter) in my continuing quest to fill out this blog’s “What I’m Drinking Now” section. Amen to that.
—20 October 2008 ∞ | View Comments
Well, I’ll be, Blue Bottle’s stellar beans have hit New York and have taken up residence in “A Restaurant That Respects Espresso”.
—19 October 2008 ∞ | View Comments
Architecture firm Sagan Piechota’s renovated office (and “salon” space as well, apparently) on Linden Lane provides the space for Blue Bottle Coffee’s seminal “bricks and mortar” retail outlet and hopefully, soon, right out front, a nice little alley renovation that will make sipping one’s finely crafted espresso beverage just that much more enjoyable.
—19 October 2008 ∞ | View Comments
Bella Donovan
What I’m drinking now: Bella Donovan.
From Blue Bottle, natch. “A classic moka-java blend”, indeed: smooth like one, floral/earthy like one. A classic.
—19 September 2008 ∞ | View Comments
After a hiatus, begun nearly 100 years ago, pork fat is back. Tip off by dk.
—18 September 2008 ∞ | View Comments
McDonalds is now Starbucks’ main competitor and Starbucks has nobody to blame but themselves. By opening up so many stores and introducing so many “frou-frou” drinks that they commodified the coffee buying experience, Starbucks gutted the value proposition of buying an espresso drink at their stores and, in so doing, created a monster in their own competitive space by inviting the king of commodified food service operaters – McDonalds – into the business of selling coffee. Starbucks has gone for the big middle ground and given McDonalds a new lease on life in becoming the scrappy underdog in the battle for the palettes of middle-america. Good job, Starbucks.
The wonderful thing about all of this is that Starbucks has made plenty of room for the so called “third wave” of coffee to gain a foothold in the marketplace. The commodification process Starbucks has undergone has allowed other shops to compete on the quality of their product. While Starbucks’ focus in making you an espresso drink is to get it in your hands as fast as they can, others are focussing on making sure that the beverage you are holding in your hand is of a certain quality: that the money you just shelled out is reflected in the integrity of the drink. They are bringing the craft back to the espresso bar. Good job, Starbucks.
In honor of the announcement that Starbucks will be closing 600 stores nationwide, a list of posts on Starbucks here at Dan Markham dot net.
—15 July 2008 ∞ | View Comments
In “On pie”, Dean Allen writes his treatise on the finer points of good pizza. Simple, really: a little skill, a little time, a focus on process, add just a few good ingredients and voila: good pie. Sounds familiar.
More on pizza here on Dan Markham “dot net”.
—26 June 2008 ∞ | View Comments
I just spent the first three years of my sons life trying to get him not to eat blocks, and now youre telling him they taste like fucking strawberries
– Gabe (last name?)
Kellogs has introduced a new fruit candy for kids called “Lego Fun Snacks”.
Another blatant siphon off of John Gruber’s Daring Fireball.
—21 June 2008 ∞ | View Comments
