hyperbowler says that Sandbox Bakery in Bernal Heights gets it right. "The quality of the baked goods is always stellar," hyperbowler says. The pain au chocolat succeeds by nailing the balance between flakiness and chewiness, and the finished product is remarkably consistent.

The savory curry bun and sweet banana–chocolate heart bun are also must-haves at Sandbox, though hyperbowler warns that experimental flavor combinations don't always succeed. "My experience has been that if it sounds weird, it's probably not that great," hyperbowler advises.

Sandbox Bakery [Bernal Heights]
833 Cortland Avenue, San Francisco
415-642-8580

Discuss: Sandbox bakery and 903 (Bernal Heights, SF)

As for the menu, it's a mishmash of favorites from near and far, including red snapper ceviche, spicy collard greens, and the charmingly named "Someone's Grandmama's Fried Chicken Wings."

Thomas Nash visited recently and recommends Abu's West African Peanut Butter Stew, a coconut milk and chicken concoction developed by a young café worker from Sierra Leone. Another winner is cheesy grits loaded with plump, spicy shrimp, and the sweet potato pie is great. The small-plates menu prices most dishes at $10 or less, which encourages diners to sample widely while allowing them to not run up a bill as rich as the food.

Cora Jean's Old Skool Cafe [Bayview]
1429 Mendell Street, San Francisco
415-822-8531

Discuss: Old Skool Cafe

"Just got back from it and while the butter chicken was of course up to par, a lot of the other items weren't as good as they usually are (lamb wasn't tender, tandoori chicken was bland)," vulber says. vulber adds that normally the buffet dishes here are less heavy than at competitor restaurants, but this wasn't the case during the most recent visit.

Amber India Restaurant [SOMA]
25 Yerba Buena Lane, San Francisco
415-777-0500

Discuss: Inconsistencies in Amber Lunch buffet?

And a word to the wise: Seating in the hallway space made our reporter feel like an afterthought—consider requesting a table in the main dining area.

Range [Mission District]
842 Valencia Street, San Francisco
415-282-8283

Discuss: Short Report on Range

"Their mozzarella was exceptional!" Keesey marvels. The pie is loaded with basil and a decent sauce, though Keesey wishes the crust had been left to crisp in the oven for just a minute longer.

Del Popolo [Mobile]
No formal address, based in San Francisco, see their website for location info
415-967-1853

Discuss: Del Popolo Pizza Truck – Anyone Tried It?

After one visit to the newly opened Café Jolie, annec says that the kitchen needs time to work out kinks in the execution. Beignets were greasy, and the menu options looked a little too conventional. However, the takeout section of the menu seems promising.

The details count at Café Q, which touts its delicious, high-quality eggs that our reporter admits are indeed delicious. A hint of vanilla is present in the waffles, while the zing of fresh orange zest lifts the French toast to new heights. Also important for early birds: quality coffee.

Red Onion has giant breakfast portions and an endless wheel of choices and add-ons. Hash browns or home fries, omelets or scrambled eggs, any size of pancake: annec reports that they have it all.

Café Jolie [East Bay]
1500 Webster Street, Alameda
510-523-4500

Café Q [East Bay]
2302 Encinal Avenue, Alameda
510-521-8848

Red Onion [East Bay]
1222 Park Street, Alameda
510-521-3288

Discuss: Report: Newish Alameda Breakfasts

Other than the solid food, Malcolm mentions the décor: a "Fairfax-sort-of-funky" with wood and glass accents that have remained unchanged despite the list of restaurants that have called that space home.

Sorella Caffe [North Bay]
107 Bolinas Road, Fairfax
415-258-4520

Discuss: Sorella Caffe in Fairfax

Joan Kureczka loves Gilberth's "real winner": a burger made with a mix of lamb and chorizo, served with excellent fries and smoky chipotle aioli. It's moist, flavorful, and monster huge, cut in quarters and certainly large enough to share. The lightly pickled vegetables served on the side are divine, "especially the crunchy, raw pickled beets."

That burger is only $12, a relative bargain compared to Mission Bowling Club's much-praised and time-intensive $15 burger, served sans frites.

Gilberth's Rotisserie and Grill [Dogpatch]
2427 Third Street, San Francisco
415-913-7163

Discuss: Gilberth's Rotisserie and Grill -- looks like this is the first report [San Francisco]

A "sweet, crispy" pineapple turnover (three for $1) was loaded with fruit, as was a crispy, 15-inch-long stick-shaped pastry, "sort of like a diet palmier." On Saturday, Salvadoran tamales sell for $2 each. "Worth a stop if you're in the neighborhood," wolfe says.

Angie's Bakery [East Bay]
12889 San Pablo Avenue, Richmond
510-776-4759

Discuss: Turnovers at Angie's Bakery [Richmond]

Other interesting items on the menu include pig's stomach with preserved mustard, steamed head and stomach of live fish, and a coconut dish with sweet hasma (a traditional Chinese ingredient made from frog fat).

Yuet Foo Seafood [East Bay]
10350 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito
510-528-6847

Discuss: Yuet Foo Seafood in El Cerrito

"I usually order gun lo mein with wontons and duck with choy sum. I've been having it for 15 yrs or so. I now also order the crispy noodles with beef and choy sum. It's kinda like oyster sauce chicken over cake noodle from Hawaii, which I adore. Everyone does seem to order the fried fish." – mikeylikesit on B & M Mei Sing in SF's South of Market neighborhood

"Bevmo has the best selection. They usually have Abita, which you should definitely include. I also like and they have Sioux City and Sprecher's. Faygo is sweet but good. Sioux City also makes root beer variants birch beer and sarsaparilla. These brands are superior to the bigger commercial brands that I have tried like Thomas Kemper and IBC. ... Bevmo also has a 12 can pack of assorted root beer brands." – chocolatetartguy on the root beer selection at BevMo!

He and his party ordered the $30 set menu for six. The star was "spiced salted silver fish"—fried loose whitebait with diced Chinese sausage—which was "delicious and out of the ordinary" and would have paired well with beer; unfortunately, the restaurant doesn't serve beer. Robert also liked "spice salted fish ball," a salt-and-pepper-style dish that worked well with chile, peanuts, and onions, though the fish balls themselves were somewhat bland.

"Chiuchow beef (hot)" wasn't hot enough; Robert would ask for more chiles if he ordered the dish again. Stuffed eggplant and curry squid were both unexceptional.

Most exceptional: the $50 tab for more food than four people could eat.

Menkee Wonton [Outer Sunset]
1701 Noriega Street, San Francisco
415-566-2203

Discuss: Menkee Wonton - Chiuchow – Sunset

VaderSS spotted kolaches at a Valero gas station in Benicia and reports that all corporate-owned Valero stations with bakeries sell savory kolaches with meat or cheese fillings.

The Valero kolaches are pretty good—they seem to be baked fresh every morning, says VaderSS, who compares the bread to slightly sweet Hawaiian rolls, with a salty, buttery crust. After sampling a few, VaderSS liked the jalapeño sausage and cheese flavor best, followed by the regular sausage. The bacon kolaches lack flavor.

Valero
Multiple locations

Discuss: Kolaches at Some Valero Gas Stations

Photograph by VaderSS

Joel usually orders a small plate of cold lentils and injera as starters, knowing it will take the kitchen a while to prepare his group's order. After three visits, he's already selected his mainstay: dulet, an entrée of chopped lamb, lamb tripe, and lamb liver cooked in spiced butter. Like all meat dishes here, it comes with a tomato salad and stewed collard greens.

If you're not a fan of heat, beware. Joel warns that a fellow diner who specified medium spiciness found the dish too hot for her taste. The kitchen readily replaced it with a milder version.

Ahadu Restaurant [East Bay]
6430 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland
510-879-7591

Discuss: Ahadu: good Ethiopian (Telegraph Av, Oakland)

"While there I had a scoop of spumoni and a scoop of strawberry granita. The granita was sweet and intensely berry flavored. I had that swooning sensation when I first tasted it." – chocolatetartguy on Romolo's Cannoli & Spumoni Factory in San Mateo

"Speaking of the fries, they were actually the best part of the meal. They were perfect bite size half domes with an incredible crisp skin and soft center. Great flavors, even without the sauces. We also ordered the French onion casserole, which was ... a mild disappointment as it came lukewarm, and very one dimensional, both in flavor and texture." – ricegeek on Mission Bowling Club in SF's Mission District

Last seen: at a dinner party, where the hostess couldn't recall the cheese's name.

Distinguishing characteristics: a cheddarlike flavor and large salt crystals on the rind.

chocolatetartguy tried the cheese and wants to track it down, so he put out an all-points bulletin to the board: What could it be? grayelf suggests Mimolette, an orange Edam-like cheese with a pocked gray crust, which is the work of cheese mites that burrow into the milky surface and leave a cratered moonlike exterior after they've departed this mortal coil. If you're not easily put off by the idea of bugs snacking on your cheese, check out this 100-times-magnification video of a mite going to town on Mimolette.

The OP says that Mimolette is not the cheese in question; the one he tried was sharper and white, with definite salt crystals in the rind and the cheese, and a creamy, slightly crumbly texture.

If you can identify the suspect, report to the thread linked below.

Bi-Rite Market [Mission District]
3639 18th Street, San Francisco
415-241-9760

Discuss: French? Cheddar? cheese at Bi-Rite

takuhead and a companion enjoyed a meal of "creamy and decadent" seafood clay pot rice with shrimp, clam, and kinki (a.k.a. kichiji fish); Tasmanian ocean trout with burdock and dried bonito; and a Japanese vegetable sampler that included spinach with sesame, warm carrot and burdock root, and hijiki with lotus root preparations.

While the chawanmushi's texture was too loose for takuhead's tastes, two desserts showed a skillful hand. Jidori tamago flan was creamy and rich, perfectly offset by the deep flavor of Japanese molasses. Ginger- and jalapeño-spiked yuzu sorbet earned a standing ovation; takuhead says the sorbet alone should be enough to compel a visit to Mitsunobu.

Restaurant Mitsunobu [Peninsula]
325 Sharon Park Drive, Menlo Park
650-234-1084

Discuss: Restaurant Mitsunobu in Menlo Park

The restaurant is La Mission in Berkeley, and it was rccola who loved the shrimp taco with freshly chopped cilantro, tomato, onion, and pepper on two corn tortillas. He also liked the price (only $4.99 for lunch) but thought the atmosphere a bit cold. majordanby points out that the menu is broader than at most taco shops, with Acme bread for their sandwiches and posole, but also higher prices because of the organic meat.

ernie in berkeley admits to being a big fan of the carnitas, while wolfe recommends the supersized chicken with guajillo mole burrito, which includes pickled onions. NativeCalGal stands out as a dissenter: She says the portions are big, but not flavorful enough. Sounds like she'll keep other taquerias on her speed dial.

La Mission Mexican Grill [East Bay]
1255 University Avenue, Berkeley
510-845-5898

Discuss: La Mission Berkeley

"I never really liked seafood chowder all that much until I had it at Bar Crudo. They made me realize what I had been missing all these years." – rebeccakinney on the rich, smoky clam chowder at Bar Crudo

"I've had the chow mein with hand pulled noodles a couple of times, and it is fantastic. Took a friend who loves noodles, and he, too, was blown away by the chow mein w/ hand-pulled noodles. (You have to ask for hand-pulled, and it costs a dollar extra, but worth it.)" – TopoTail on Ark Chinese Restaurant in Alameda

RWCFoodie wrote about a churros trailer that has appeared in the parking lot of El Mercadito Latino grocery store on El Camino Real in Redwood City. After finding favor with the parking gods, RWCFoodie was able to score both of the filled pastry options: vanilla custard and dulce de leche. After paying $1.50 per churro inside the market, you take your ticket out to the trailer to receive your goods. The fresh churros were "warm, crunchy and very sweet," according to our reporter, who preferred the vanilla custard version to the "diabetic coma sweet" dulce de leche.

For a higher-end option, Atelier Crenn in San Francisco's Cow Hollow now offers a six-course dessert tasting menu for $55. Juan Contreras's inventive desserts earned praise on earlier threads. In March, hound mariacarmen sounded the hyperbole alert: She had just eaten the best dessert of her life. It was Contreras's pear-shaped pear sorbet "painted" with pear, quince, and apple to resemble "a frosted, golden and rosy pear that had fallen from its wintry tree onto the forest floor." Each dip of the spoon brought sorbet with Greek yogurt and brown butter "snow" along with edible mud and leaves. "This was an unbelievably thought-provoking dish," mariacarmen says. "And I don't even care about pears."

El Mercadito Latino [Peninsula]
1726 El Camino Real, Redwood City
650-306-0104

Atelier Crenn [Cow Hollow]
3127 Fillmore Street, San Francisco
415-440-0460

Discuss: Atelier Crenn offers 6-course dessert tasting menu, $55
Mercadito Latino Redwood City - Churros Rellenos... Do Not Read if You're Avoiding Sweets!