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If you haven’t been back to this Oakland pub since it reopened after a July 2012 fire, it’s time. Both the beer and wine lists are East Bay-centric, to good effect--Linden, Ale Industries and Drake’s all make great beers--and the kitchen’s potpies and Scotch eggs are far from leaden, oil-drenched sops for booze.
http://www.cmonoakland.com
2882 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland, CA
510-663-3001
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A proper izakaya should be filled with boozy after-work colleagues, homey and fried dishes, and a good amount of noise. Izakaya Roku, from the chef-owner of the JapaCurry truck, delivers. Don’t go for the high-priced items. Instead, get little things like ochazuke (tea-doused rice) and tonpei-yaki, an omelet filled with pork and cabbage, then topped with bonito flakes and mayonnaise. (See our previous coverage.)
http://www.rokusf.com
1819 Market St.
San Francisco, CA
415-861-6500
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While the signature burger at Chris Kronner’s Sunday-through-Thursday pop-up is great, the former Bar Tartine chef demonstrates that he hasn’t lost his more advanced culinary skills: His wedge salad, drizzled with a tart blue cheese dressing and showered in herbs, is a subtler take on the steakhouse staple, and the beef-cheek gravy on the poutine is so good, you’ll use your finger to clean up the plate. (See our previous coverage.)
http://www.kronnerburger.com/
2379 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA
415-656-9871
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Now reopened after a five-month break, this sunny Tenderloin café is San Francisco’s only Tunisian restaurant, with a sideline in Moroccan dishes. We’re partial to the owner’s take on chakchouka, a crimson mass of satiny peppers, onions and house-made Merguez sausages topped with eggs, as well as his kufte (meatball) tagine, a conflagration of spices. We end every meal there with mint tea and slices of harissa (not the spice mix), a semolina cake perfumed with orange water.
http://www.sfcafezitouna.com
1201 Sutter St.
San Francisco, CA
415-673-2622
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La Palma is famous in San Francisco for its masa, cornmeal ground for fresh tortillas and tamales, as well as its flour tortillas made with butter or lard. The taqueria’s a solid source for tacos and tortas, but our favorite La Palma lunch is to feel up the packets of fresh blue-corn gorditas (pupusa-like corn cakes stuffed with cheese and meat or zucchini) and buy the steamiest, hottest bag. By the time we get home, half of them are gone.
http://lapalmasf.com/
2884 24th St.
San Francisco, CA
415-647-1500
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