Melanie Wong's Profile
Tres leches cake in SF?
I had Market Hall Bakery's tres leches a year ago and thought it was excellent. My friend in SF went to Oakland to pick it up. More traditional style than Delessio's.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/760485
Bay Area Food Festivals and Events - February, 2012
2/10-12, Healdsburg Steelhead Festival
http://healdsburgsteelheadfest.org/default.aspx
2/11 - Kenwood Firemen's Annual Crab Feed and Fundraiser
http://www.kenwoodfire.com/kenwood-firemans-association.html
2/11 - Pacific Empire Chorus Crab Feed, Petaluma
http://www.pacificempire.org/
2/15 - Slow Sip at Comstock Saloon, SF
http://www.slowfoodsanfrancisco.com/sf_events.html?evcode=00206
2/16 - ArtRage: Mardi Gras, San Jose
http://www.sjmusart.org/event/art-rage-mardi-gras
2/16 - Walking Tour of Bayview/Hunters Point, SF
http://www.spur.org/events/calendar/food-guardians%E2%80%99-walking-tour-bayview-hunters-point
2/17 - Petaluma Rotary Crab Feed
http://www.petalumarotary.org/crab2012.htm
2/17 - VinOlivo Grand Tasting, Sonoma
http://www.sonomavalleywine.com/displayEvent.asp?eventID=2631
2/18 - Mardi Gras Dinner & Dance (Festa de Carnival), Union City
http://www.sdesalvarado.com/upcomingfestas.html
2/18 - Olive Odyssey, Sonoma
http://www.theolivepress.com/news-events/www.sonomavalleywine.com
2/25 - Ryan Farr, Sonoma Chop Shop (Benefit for FFA)
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/223384
2/25 - Slow Money Farm Fest & Pot Luck, Petaluma
http://slowmoneynocal.org/
2/25-29 - 9th Annual Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference
http://www.theepicureanconnection.com/sonoma-valley-cheese-conference-2012/
2/29 - Grand Cafe Mussel Battle (Benefit for Glide Memorial), SF
http://flexyourmussels.eventbrite.com/
Chef Vahit Besir Returns to San Francisco Next Week
Still regret that I didn't get to taste Chef Vahit's cooking before he left Grill House.
Some second-hand information:
Chef Vahit's former assistant and (current) son-in-law, Oktay, is working at Real Doner in Petaluma.
Chef Vahit is in discussion with some backers for a restaurant "near a military base between Los Angeles and San Diego".
Bay Area Food Festivals and Events - February, 2012
2/10 - Sonoma County Wine LIbrary Honors Merry Edwards, Santa Rosa
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151231908710532&set=a.10150381484375532.606376.425530425531&type=1
2/10 - An Evening with Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert, Santa Rosa
http://tickets.wellsfargocenterarts.org/single/EventDetail.aspx?p=537
2/11 - 9th Annual Bodega Bay Chowder Day
http://bodegabayca.org/chowder-day-2012/
2/11 - Gumbo Smackdown, KJ, Fulton
http://www.kj.com/events
2/15 - Tres Bicchieri Wine Tasting, San Francisco
http://www.gamberorosso.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=36&Itemid=5034&lang=it
Sacramento Hounds: Where to buy quinces??
They're out of season. Doubt you can find fresh ones of good quality right now.
"Restaurants" Database To Be Eliminated
Your last point about building a parallel database is where my thoughts have been these last few days. Made me wish I had hacker skills to pull out what I needed to start over again for a more tightly focused database. I think that's where we need to go.
Edited to add: I already have the first 6099 records that chowhounds created when the feature first launched in a .cvs file. Just the names and addresses with some cuisine info, but it's a start. This file was exported in 2007, long before the data vendor came along.
On your first point, I have to differentiate between posters and those who only read. Absolutely agree that user interface helps to filter out who posts here and that the original software kept away all but the most dedicated posters, and that is/was a good thing. As we saw when the new software launched in 2006, an easier to read format boosted readership and traffic, also a good thing. What I have liked about the restaurant pages in the database is that it makes it easier for the broader, casual audience to read chowhound content and they are one step removed from the boards so that it is not so easy for them to post on the core message boards. Anyone who gets hooked and is motivated to post can navigate to the boards with one-click and register, and those who found their answer without having to dig deeper into the archive can leave happy.
"Restaurants" Database To Be Eliminated
I should clarify that "failure" is my own term. Yet, if the experiment was considered a success but simply implemented badly with poor data (as described in Meredith's post), I would think that Chow's positioning would be to say that it was coming out with something that works better that would serve the same user needs.
Whatever the criteria for success or failure might be, the changes in google indexing that happened a few months ago probably changed the game and the profit picture.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/802462#6792642
Checking now, there are still more than 24,000 restaurant records with "reviews" indexed in google. That's not insignifant.
http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl%3Achow.com%2Frestaurant+site%3Achow.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=%22restaurants+%26+bars%22+inurl:restaurants+site:chow.com&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&ei=m3YzT9nNDcbliALDy6i3Cg&start=0&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=4beb3564e638ad04&biw=1366&bih=540
"Restaurants" Database To Be Eliminated
Hi Phil, I am not in favor of closing down the Restaurant database. Far from it.
"Restaurants" Database To Be Eliminated
Jim, your continued reference to the restaurants database as an address book did tend to mislead me into thinking you have the same blinders on. (And thank you to Robert L for being more explicit than I was above about the two types of “reviews” that display on the pages to clear up that other point of confusion.)
You’re good at searching. You have other preferences along with the talent for finding things on your own. Not everyone is like that or wants to spend their time that way. Those folks are the audience for the restaurant pages. The content from the boards was repurposed, filtered and formatted in an easier to access mode. And thereby created a revenue stream for Chowhound content that allowed these boards to live another day. While the Chowhound side has the vast majority of site traffic, we know that an eyeball on the Chow side is worth more to advertisers than a reader of the boards. I continue to be concerned with monetizing our clubhouse and keeping the lights on.
When Jonathan Gold’s _Counter Intelligence_ came out in 2000, IIRC, you criticized it for not including a neighborhood index. The restaurant database supplies Chowhound content with searchable cuisine and neighborhood indexing. We need more, not fewer, tools for readers to mine the archives of Chowhound content and have a reason to return.
The chowhound database has stuff in it that is not found on google or yelp. This spring I was in meatn3’s territory and stumbled on a restaurant that’s been there for a few years but has no google place page or references on the web other than the county health inspection listing the address. It’s published here now. The database includes virtual wineries that have no physical address, cell phone numbers for tamale ladies, church auxiliaries that host food festivals, and other chowish entities that google doesn’t know about but for the information archived here. It kills me that Chow is doing away with this info.
"Restaurants" Database To Be Eliminated
Further up thread in her Jan 11 post, Meredith of CHOW said, "We certainly understand that many of our users would like up-to-date address information to appear alongside their posts. You've been heard, and if we are able to address this in the future, we will." Sounds like no one is promising a replacement in the near (or distant) future.
My great concern is that this 5-year long beta test has been judged a failure by management. Faced with that, few organizations have the institutional fortitude to make the investment to try again. That's why I've lobbied so hard for management to reconsider getting rid of the feature.
Dan, a Japanese place, Saratoga and Payne Wowed me! [San Jose]
Yes, I've been to both locations but only once each. They're worthwhile. I owe you a post on the California board.
Clay Pot Rice and Double Boiled Soup at Best Taste in Oakland
Welcome to Chowhound, Kirk. You've shown your true 'hound colors posting about the French Laundry and also Best Taste. Love it.
I was back at Best Taste myself a couple weeks ago and had my fingers crossed that I'd pull the coconut chicken in the soup of the day draw. Nope. But I was happy with the ginseng chicken soup, perfect for a cold night.
For our claypot rice, we picked the quail with tender greens. Really liked that too with lightly seasoned quail that was not at all dried out (as too many can be). Another dish that I'd recommend is the chicken-salt fish-tofu clay pot. Ones I would not order again would be the spicy green beans or the dry-style beef chow fun.
Le Berger du Temps in Montagny-lès-Beaune? (Bourgogne, Burgundy, Cote d'Or)
Haven't been to Burgundy since 2006. At the time the proprietress at my Chambre d'hôte recommended Le Berger du Temps in Montagny-les-Beaune highly but I didn't have a chance to check it out. It features dishes prepared in a wood-burning oven. I'm wondering if others have tried this spot and can stack it up against the other options near Beaune.
http://bergerdutemps.com/
CHOW Restaurant Data Export Tool Now Available on Your Profile
As others have mentioned, the reviews are no big loss. The export of reviews that I got included a few one-liners but otherwise limited to content that was posted to the boards and fed to the restaurant pages.
What I would like to have back is whatever I entered in the "Good to Know" sections and "Reviews around the Web" field. That should be easy to export. Also please provide the name and city for every restaurant page that linked to a discussion that I participated in. Hopefully that is within the limits of your agreement.
As far as website info, if your data provider said it supplied those, it lied to you. The only place where website info came from other than user-input might possibly be the restaurants that were fed from Opentable.
"Restaurants" Database To Be Eliminated
Hello Chowhound Team, from the posts were seeing from folks who are confused about the change and from the emails that are showing up in my inbox today, it's clear that the Restaurant Database and its features were not well known to the readership. As jen kalb says above, Chow did not tap its potential.
In the month or so since the change was announced here, I've been paying attention to how folks have changed their posting behavior. On a thread I participated in on the LA board, someone had posted a url to the restaurants yelp page to provide an address. I saw that it was later deleted. is this what you plan to do in those cases?
Also I have noticed posts with links to threads discussing the same restaurant to provide a cross-reference. With the restaurant database going away as the hub for cross-referencing multiple discussions, I can understand why posters are trying to be helpful in this way. But it adds to the clutter on the site and I'd hate to see an outbreak of posts that provide no other info than a cross-link.
Recommendation for Small Chinese Banquet in Oakland
Would your group be open to going to Alameda instead of Oakland? Easier to park (there's a lot in the back) and you could take five large tables toward the back or in the side room.
Price I'd estimate to be in between the two spots you named.
Short Leash Hot Dogs
I've heard about another hot dog truck, Epic Hot Dogs. Have you tried it? http://www.epichotdogs.com/
The Phoenicians have made good use of the restaurants database, far more than the other parts of the country that I've visited in the past year or so. So I wanted folks on this board to be aware of the change that's coming. I'm still protesting it and I hope others will join the discussion I linked as I feel there are alternatives to dumping it.
CHOW Restaurant Data Export Tool Now Available on Your Profile
Baffling as it may seem, I have indeed been told by private correspondence with the powers-that-be that there is no way to separate out user-generated information from the store-bought data. Not by date of entry (e.g., before the data load from the vendor, or post data load) or any other markers. Seems odd to me since there's an editing trail with each record for who has made changes.
I hope that others will take the time to read this thread and add their comments,
Restaurants Database to be eliminated
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/827433
"Restaurants" Database To Be Eliminated
Jim, you're falling into the trap of just seeing it as only an address database and I think that's where Chow management makes a big mistake as well. Here's a well-filled out page for Hakka Restaurant in San Francisco to let you see what the real potential is. This is the online successor to _The Chowhound's Guide_.
http://www.chow.com/restaurants/914535/hakka-restaurant
If I tried to search for the place by name using the search engine, I'd get a slew of unwanted results for mentions of Hakka cuisine or other restaurants in the area that share the same name. This one landing page gives me a quick look at photos of the restaurant, curated reviews ("read/reply" ones were fed from posts on the board; ignore the ones that just say "read" as that's from the feature that we both hate), and links to the relevant discussions. I can also use the map to search for restaurants nearby from the database (should my target be closed) and sort those results by the ones most discussed/favored by chowhounds --- nothing else does this.
Not having it does indeed kill some of the usefulness of this site if readers cannot find what they're looking for. This site has to keep up with the times or it looks like a dinosaur. It loses readers who land here from search engines who need a quick answer and that kills traffic. More than 30% of searches for restaurant data come from mobile and that is increasing daily. The restaurant pages fit my needs as a mobile user to find the info I want on one page and access more with a minimum of clicks.
Pastured jersey milk and pastured eggs?
Perhaps this is what rworange spotted --- St Benoit Jersey organic whole milk at Whole Foods Petaluma.
Super Bowl Sunday: Second largest fresh produce sales of the year
Nice going! As advocates for healthier food wonder how to inspire the American public to reach for veggies all year-round, the spike in produce sales is encouraging. Maybe more football is in order.
Super Bowl Sunday: Second largest fresh produce sales of the year
Ha! Buffalo wing consumption probably drives up celery sales.
French ciders and Poire
Mmm, Bordelet ciders, my first taste 13 years ago was a game changer. In the San Francisco area, we're lucky to have access to his production.
http://beauneimports.com/retail/producer_detail.php?producer_id=22
Nothing else at that level that I should seek out?
HELP! SENDING THE BOSS AND OUR #2 TO PARIS, LE MARAIS DISTRICT.
Thank you to Parnassien and law_doc89 for the ID.
I've found the earlier post in this thread too.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/371059
The duck confit topped with foie gras is calling me!
http://chezchristine.typepad.com/chez_christine/2006/03/so_how_do_i_jud.html
Super Bowl Sunday: Second largest fresh produce sales of the year
Just learned from a friend of mine who knows about nearly everything related to produce markets that Super Bowl Sunday represents the biggest produce sales of the year, second only to Thanksgiving. He said, "Avocados, cherry and grape tomatoes. broccoli, celery, snap peas, salsa..... The tomatoes and peas come from Mexico. The broccoli and celery from Imperial Valley, CA and Yuma, AZ. Avocados from SoCal and Mexico. Been that way for almost twenty years..."
I found it interesting and thought others might too. Here are a few pieces on the subject.
"What Will American Eat on Super Bowl Sunday?"
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-02-03/features/chi-what-will-america-eat-on-super-bowl-sunday-20120203_1_chicken-wings-vegetables-veggie
"Perishables Group Reports on Super Bowl Weekend" Feb 4, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FFDNJKypHA
"Super Bowl: Healthful Foods Need Not Apply"
http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2012/02/super-bowl-healthful-foods-need-not-apply.html
Costco, Trader Joe's, and Grocery Outlet
Which GO's do you shop? I've been to 17 of them in Northern California, and they are quite variable. The Oakland store often has things that none of the other stores carry. The three stores in Sonoma County carry more organic items than the others. Yes, there are items that are common across the stores, for example, I overheard a suit in the Berkeley store next to corporate headquarters remark that the Harris Ranch 5# ground beef was the no. 2 top-selling SKU chain wide. But those items are rarely the ones of interest to 'hounds.
HELP! SENDING THE BOSS AND OUR #2 TO PARIS, LE MARAIS DISTRICT.
Hello "law_doc89", while the original poster's need has passed, I'll be in the Marais next month and this place sounds interesting. What is the name of the restaurant you describe?
House-baked Baguettes and Banh Mi from Phat Tri in San Jose
Appreciate the props, but again, I haven't been to the RR brewpub for PTY personally so have no first hand knowledge. The release at the source is indeed tomorrow, Feb 3, and the website offers advice.
http://russianriverbrewing.com/new-website-and-younger-release/
And in last yr's thread, best time windows were mentioned.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/765290
In Search of South Bay equivalent of "West Style fish fillet soup with 1000 Chilis"
When Trend Restaurant first opened in Mountain View, it served the dish you're looking for.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/547490
But it has gone through a few iterations and is now called Trend China Bistro, so I can't vouch for the current quality. Still, might be worth a try - here's the online menu. Scan down to the "spicy" section.
http://www.grubhub.com/sf/trend-china-bistro/;jsessionid=5D5E2DE79BCC6FB5040357D13C1E456A.consumersiteworker4?showSmallSearchWidget=Y
The dish you're trying to avoid is shui zhu yu (水煮鱼), one of the hottest dishes in the Sichuan repertoire and covered with an oil-bomb of hot peppers and sichuan peppercorns. It's B.3 Spicy boiled fish filet on the online menu.
Nothing's jumping out at me as a translation for the fish soup with the chilis bobbing on top.
ORIGINAL JOES..North Beach!
Lady Luck smiled on me, I didn't have to wait. No reservations right now, I was told. Yes, I did eat there. And, the food might be better than before. Brought forward with the same changes that dining generally in SF has experienced in these past four years, using better ingredients, more made fresh and prepped in house, and quality over quantity. Sorry, I've been on the run, more when I can sit down with my computer and not typing on my phone on the fly.
