OFF MENU IS SPONSORED BY BENDER’S BECAUSE THEY ARE BADASS. DROP BY AND MAKE SOME BAD DECISIONS WITH SOME GOOD PEOPLE! Worth the Hype? is a column by longtime food and drink writer Geri Koeppel, who will check out bars and restaurants (some new, others popular or exceptional in some way) on her own

If you think you’ve met a Puerto Rican, you haven’t. You’d never have to question it, because where there is a PR…there will be the flag. Even if the car is a rental, there will be a temporary flag on the rear-view mirror. Few West Coast residents understand Puerto Ricans or

Pig & Pie Last week I wrote up La Palma as being a paragon of a Mission District 24th Street that is fast being drowned out by higher-end cafes and eateries that cater not to the longtime residents, but to the recent influx of wealthy tech boomers.  This week, I figured I’d

When December’s cloudy coldness is nipping at your nips, the last thing that conjures up in your mind is sitting on a curb in a suburban retail shopping plaza to roam from food truck to food truck. When I saw Go Streatery’s menu options online, I immediately strutted down to

I’m sure when Louisiana-born Dale Hawkins wrote Susie Q in 1957, the last thing he thought it would spark was a Nola, Louisiana food truck (with a name that literally gives new meaning to the word food porn: Susie Q’s lunchbox, indeed) that sat in a parking lot in the

Brunch: it’s not just about tofu scrambles and hash browns anymore.  At Souley Vegan in Jack London Square in Oakland, they’re servin’ up classic, cheap, Southern-style soul food that’s strictly vegan (do I sound like Guy Fieri yet?). For $10, you can get a whopping plate of food which includes

What’s sweet, savory and crunchy all over? That’s right, chicken and waffles with maple syrup. For those of you dying to take it to the next level above dipping your bacon in your syrup, try a crispy-fried chicken breast on top of a golden waffle smothered in hot, sticky syrup.