At Eater, our jobs leave us with some leftovers, both literal and figurative. Here’s a mix of recent dining observations, recommendations, and other fixations from across the Eater crew. |
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Photo credit: Hilary Pollack |
A few months ago, I wrote about the $375 Nobu “omakase” that was being served in the Red Bull pyramid at this year’s Coachella; my argument at the time was that festival food — or at least this specific, wildly overpriced example of it — had lost the plot, becoming less a functional part of the concertgoing experience and more of a TikTok-mukbang flex. When you’re sashaying from stage to stage, food should ideally provide delicious sustenance between encounters with the central, unifying force of the weekend: music. The sad-looking Nobu sushi set, meanwhile, seemed designed more for bragging rights than actual enjoyment. But the food I ate this past weekend at Outside Lands offered a compelling counterpoint: Festival food can be genuinely excellent without losing its utility as fuel for a weekend of cultural immersion — or veering into eye-watering price territory.
Returning to San Francisco’s premier music festival for the first time in 14 years, I was nearly as excited about the food and beverage lineup as I was about the musical roster — which was, I promise, also excellent (my personal schedule included Charli XCX, Turnstile, the XX, Snow Strippers, and Tinashe, among others). With more than 100 Bay Area restaurants serving everything from pastrami dip sandwiches to Indonesian garlic noodles, it was difficult to limit my food itinerary to just a couple of meals per day (thankfully, my colleague Dianne de Guzman of Eater SF made a superbly curated cheat sheet that I studied like a syllabus before heading to Golden Gate Park on Friday). Even with high expectations, I was blown away by the breadth, quality, and ingenuity of the food on offer — and by the well-oiled operation required to feed 75,000 people per day this well.
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Photo credit: Hilary Pollack |
I arrived hungry on Friday and started with a Nikkei hand roll set from Kaiyo, with salmon avocado, spicy tuna, and crunchy breaded ebi, and caffeinated with Poorboy Coffee’s North Breach cold brew, fragranced with vanilla, nutmeg, and orange and topped with cold foam and shaved cocoa. (I would drink one of those every day if they had a location in Los Angeles.) Later, I unapologetically wolfed down nearly an entire Vesuvio pizza from Michelin-recommended Marina mainstay A16, fired to blistered perfection and topped with spicy soppressata, smoked scamorza, and caciovalla. At $26, it was my most expensive dish of the weekend — and I’d consider it a steal.
Over in Cocktail Magic, a collection of pop-up bars serving drinks elaborate enough to make their $20 price tags feel wholly justified, I started with a spicy cherry margarita, and later ventured to Beer Lands for guava cider from Far West. The next day, I returned for the Martini Alla Puttanesca, a briny, savory concoction of gin, tomato water, olive brine, and sherry that landed somewhere between a dirty martini and a Bloody Mary. When a watery tequila soda can easily run $20-plus at an LA music venue, there was no reason these cocktails had to be this clever or this good — but they were.
My favorite meal of the weekend came from a collaboration between beloved Arab street food eatery Reem’s x Oakland’s Lion Dance; La Gringa, a juicy lamb quesabirria wrap bundled into flaky, doughy flatbread with molten cheese. Sweets consumed throughout the weekend included a salted brown-butter chocolate chip cookie from Sandy’s Muffalettas, and a crab rangoon kouign-amann and ube salt bread from Tano.
Outside Lands managed an impressive balancing act: Its food program felt ambitious without becoming precious, encompassing an enormous range of cuisines while keeping prices reasonable enough that eating well didn’t require a VIP wristband or a sticker-shock headache. And yet, some of the longest lines I saw all weekend were for simple smashburgers. You can lead a bunch of drunk concertgoers to crab rangoon kouign-amann, but sometimes they’re still going to want a burger.
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Stephanie Wu wants to drink her fish sauce: “I’ve had two excellent fish sauce drinks in the past few weeks: a Fish Sauce Vesper at Smithereens, the New England-inspired seafood restaurant in Manhattan’s East Village, and the Dirty Fish at Malaysian restaurant Kelang in Greenpoint, the latter of which combines gin, vodka, fish sauce, and green onions for a savory but still refreshing drink. Fish sauce has played a role in making dirty martinis even dirtier, but I love seeing it make the jump into other cocktails as well, particularly at restaurants that go heavy on the seafood and even heavier on the umami.”
Emily Venezky checked out the newest Agora location in Maryland: “I love picking out a new dip to try every time I visit. While I will be back for the seared halloumi with fresh figs, my favorite bite of the night was the manti. The flavor was totally on point. The spiced beef is encased in chewy dough, and the dumplings swim in tangy garlic yogurt and a light tomato sauce. I was fascinated by how small they were: You could easily fit four in a bite, and the glutinous texture of eating a few at the same time gave me childlike delight. Our lovely waitress told me with a smile that in Turkish culinary traditions you should be able to fit 40 manti per spoonful, and you could feel that craftsmanship here.”
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Photo credit: Celste Noche |
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Kaitlin Bray tried two iconic Portland, Oregon, restaurants in one dinner: “Last week, Eater hosted its first Bang Bang dinner party in Portland, and I was lucky enough to emcee the event. The roving series brings two restaurants together in one space for one night only, in this case Han Oak and Kachka, to serve back-to-back dinners. Diners were welcomed with Kachka icons like Herring Under a Fur Coat and Baltic Sprat Buterbrod before moving on to Han Oak classics like fried chicken with ‘essence of instant ramen’ over a seafood pajeon waffle and mentaiko spaghetti. But my favorite dish of the night was the collab course, Pelmeni Under a Tiger Salad, which united Kachka’s beloved pelmeni with ‘kimchili’ oil and tiger salad. It was a beautiful summer evening I won’t soon forget.” (The next Bang Bang is coming to Austin on August 19 — grab reservations here.)
Francky Knapp hit one of Santa Barbara’s most beloved taquerias: “I popped into La Super-Rica in Santa Barbara, CA, on a Monday afternoon (less mobbed with tourists) and really enjoyed one of the summer specials: the tamal norteño de puerco. The shredded pork tamale was filled with seasoned vegetables and herbs, but the star of the show was the creamy tomato sauce.”
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