Tag Archives: Verbena San Francisco

My Top 10 Eats of 2014

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Sokol Blosser Top 10

As we near the end of one year and ready for the start of a brand new one, allow me to toast my favorite dishes of 2014.

It’s never easy to narrow the list to just 10. But these are the tastes that lingered the most; the ones I’d want to eat all over again in a heartbeat.

Here’s my Top 10, listed in no particular order. I raise a glass from a lovely sample bottle of Sokol Blosser Evolution Sparkling, a blend of nine white wines, which give this method champenoise bubbly the complex flavor of apple, pear, peach and lemon. Here’s to all the chefs and restaurants that made 2014 so delicious and delightful.

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Verbena Blooms on Polk Street in San Francisco

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Aged Mangalitsa ham flavored with house-made shoyu at Verbena in San Francisco.

Aged Mangalitsa ham flavored with house-made shoyu at Verbena in San Francisco.

 

Fans of Gather restaurant in Berkeley have even more to rejoice now with the opening of Verbena in San Francisco.

When Gather opened five years ago, it celebrated vegetables prominently by assuring that 50 percent of its menu would always be devoted to vegetarian selections.

Verbena continues that thread of giving star treatment to veggies, but goes even further. It’s Gather’s more ambitious young cousin.

A dramatic back-lit wall stacked with jars of house-made pickles attests to that. Executive Chef-Partner Sean Baker has a penchant for preserving. He makes his own kimchi. And miso. Plus shoyu and even fermented black beans.

Pickles as wall art.

Pickles as wall art.

The dining room and bar.

The dining room and bar.

Parking is at a premium in this neighborhood. So are seats at this bustling six-month-old restaurant, as I found out when I was invited to dine as a guest a few weeks ago on a busy weeknight.

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