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When Hawthorne Lane became Two late in 2007, I quietly mourned. The original restaurant had been, from its opening in 1995, one of my very favorite places in the city — none better — and when you are sitting on top of the world, where is there to go but down? The idea of attracting a younger clientele made a certain steely-eyed business sense; nearby Bizou had become Coco500 largely for this reason, so there was precedent. Read more »

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Nopalito might or might not offer "far and away the best Mexican food in the Bay Area," as a hyperbolic toot harvested locally and posted on the restaurant's Web site contends — I say not — but the food is very good. The menu card, moreover, gives a brisk tutorial in the persistence of Indian language and culture in Mexico and is worth scanning just as an intellectual artifact. Read more »

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Waterbar is, obviously, a seafood house, but it doesn't shout this fact in your face. The building is handsome in a generic way, and the interior décor is notable mostly for its artful blend of bustle and hush. Read more »

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The words "Korean" and "barbecue" might never be woven into an eternal golden braid to compare with Gödel, Escher, and Bach, but they are definitely interwoven, perhaps even fused. When you say you want Korean food, you almost certainly will be understood to mean the kind served at the barbecue joints that line Geary Boulevard in the blocks just east of Park Presidio. Read more »

paulr@sfbg.com

What do pizza and jazz have in common? Why, two z's, of course — the pair of identical twins that also appears in such exciting words as nozzle, nizzle, pizzle, pazzo, and cazzo. Put these all together and shout them from the rooftops and you'll have quite a riff, if not quite a jazz riff. For music, play ZZ Top. Then run from the obscenity police.

Other than that, pizza and jazz go together like ... well, they don't actually go together. There is no connection I know of. Read more »

You might think, with today’s endless parade of television cooking shows, that the dining public’s appetite for a theatrical restaurant experience might be whetted. But mostly this does not seem to be the case. Oh, we have plenty of display kitchens, and soufflés finished tableside, and occasionally you might happen upon on a cheese cart, or a foie gras or champagne cart. Read more »

paulr@sfbg.com

Tropisueño's resonant name hints at dreams, but you won't be doing any dreaming there. In the evenings the restaurant — it's a kind of urban cantina — catches fire like a piece of newsprint and blazes up into a fabulous, if noisy, party. Read more »

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At this moment — at the cusp of spring — the most happening restaurant in Noe Valley is Contigo, which opened early in March in what had been a computer store. The crowd promptly swooped, with a thickness and intensity not seen in the neighborhood since the launch of Fresca nearly four years ago and without, it seems, much in the way of worries about the economic meltdown. You step into Contigo, find yourself against a wall of chattering people, and step out. Read more »

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Until quite recently, you did not often see the word "bar" associated with food-serving establishments in this part of the world. Hungry people slipping into Bar X for a bite were most likely in Europe, or the pages of a Somerset Maugham novel, not on the streets of San Francisco. Read more »

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We all have our little weaknesses, and one of mine is any form of the word "spice." "Spicy" is a particularly potent variation, since in common usage it doesn't mean well-spiced in a general sense, with nutmeg and clove — like carrot cake or mulled cider — but flavorfully hot. If some dish is described as spicy, whether shrimp or French fries, I am going to have a hard time staying away from it. And if a restaurant has the word "spicy" in its name, I am going to have a hard time staying away from it, too. I am all ears. Read more »