San Francisco - September / October offline???

While the November truffle and barolo offline is shaping up nicely, there is still September and October in between !!

Anyway, I am not really volunteering to organize the offlines for these months, but someone from the SF group can step up and get the ball rolling. I will delete this post once someone starts a thread to get these offlines for September and October going. Any volunteers?

• J

In the interest of having a September offline, shall we do it at Bella Trattoria? How about 9/15 or 9/16? I’m not picky on theme… how about a generic: bring something delicious.

Ashish,

Can’t do the 15th, maybe 16th. I am open to pretty much anything but I do not have any Jura . Depending on people’s interest, might make sense to combine September with the October offline, I will modify the dates in my OP.

Also btw, what happened to the other post in this thread?

Hi Joel,
I deleted it because I realized that Ashish had suggested something completely different plus no one responded to my question about the food at Canela (Ana made a face when I asked her at the offline) and whether anyone wanted to return there. I feel a little shy in the group as I’m so much older! I would say that a “generic” tasting doesn’t much appeal to me though.

Hi Leonard, sorry didn’t get to check the forum in the past few days so didn’t realize you posted something about the food @Canela. Yea we probably shouldn’t go back there again.

Is anyone interested in this for food?

Happy to organize if we can come to an agreement on the potential dates. Can anyone do dates btw Sep 23-25?

Thx,
Anna

Great to see this thread going again. Leonard - yeah sometimes people don’t respond as some SF members don’t check the boards as often. A few months ago I tried to organize an offline, a blind tasting of sorts, very few responded and it didn’t materialize in the end. So it is sometimes like herding cats Anyway, we have some time as we will probably combine September and October as it might be a bit late already to do a September offline. From experience, it takes a few weeks for enough people to see the posts and start responding with the schedules.

Ana - not really sure if I got this eatfeastly thing, do I get it correctly that these are people opening their homes (or pop-up location) to whoever is willing to attend and pay a fee for the meal? Have you ever tried this out? The only challenge is the reliability of the event, what happens if not enough people sign up for that meal? Does it still push through? As for the date, I am good most of the time except for the 15th of Sept. (also Thursdays and not good for me).

Anyway lets hope other people respond so we can get this going.

I can do the 23rd or 24th.

eatfeastly- and so how do we maintain a group status for a wine offline in this setting? Ana find us a place in the City with no corkage. I’ve hosted an offline in the past at Bacco in Noe Valley- I met ahead of time with them and we came up with a menu (with options) and no corkage. I’m not so sure they would do this again as Bauer in the Chronicle just mentioned a dish he liked there in Inside Scoop. I missed the offline at Bella- what’s the corkage fee there? So nobody has suggested a theme- again, last group we’d talked about Spanish wines and I’d talked about Rioja.

I forget exactly what Bella Trattoria charged us for corkage, but I think it was ~$10/bottle. Most places in SF have corkage, so as long as it’s reasonable (<$20), I’m OK with that. Obviously, lower is better, but it’s difficult to find places that don’t have any corkage at all.

Mel & I are in town Oct 22-28, only night we have booked so far is Sunday the 26th for State Bird. Staying @ Ritz Carlton.

Glenn,

Good to see that you guys are visiting SF. I will start a new thread with a proposed date of October 22-28 (sans 26th). If this does not materialize, would definitely still like to meet up during the time you are here, maybe dinner at one of the new places in town.

• Joel

Mel & I definitely want to see you both. Let’s plan a lunch and a dinner!

I haven’t tried Eatfeastly but the concept is to have your own private chef. I guess this would work when we can have a firm # of headcount & date, but let’s not experiment with this group for the time being. Let me work on coming up w/a restaurant tomorrow and let you guys know.

Thx,
Anna

Quick update. Finally got around to calling Bacco (and got a response!). I asked if we had a party of 8 and what we can do to waive corkage. The proposal was:

• $55 prix-fixe menu (appetizer, small pasta, meat, dessert)
• We can bring up to 5 bottles, and we have to order 3 from them
• They will provide stems

So it is probably somewhat similar (or slightly better value) deal to the dinner at Absinthe 3 months ago.

Let me know what you guys think. Tues & Thurs are now tough for me, restaurant is not open on Mondays which leaves Wednesdays…

No problem with the prix fixe, but the 5 bottle limit and 3 from their list may be troublesome depending on what their list looks like. I took a look at their website, and they don’t have a wine list…

+1 on having to order 3 bottles from their list, would rather pay $10 corkage… However this might all be moot as September is ending already…

Agreed, though in future I could go in personally and they would most likely waive all corkage, with no bottle purchases from them (presumably, as they did last time).

you guys are a tough crowd!