Lower Haight

Read more about the article Mike Winston’s Best Meals of 2015

Mike Winston’s Best Meals of 2015

Yes, I know this year-end list is beyond belated. Actually, I’m probably over a month late. Normally, I’m not one to make these kinds of excuses, but my life has been pretty hectic lately.

As you may or may not know, I’m getting married in a couple of months, so my time has recently come at an extreme premium and I haven’t been able to commit as much attention as I’d like to this little publication obsession. With that being said, over the next couple of months, I’ll be playing around with post style and formatting a bit in an attempt to find new ways to rapidly pump out awesome food articles with fewer publishing limitations on my end. Please feel free to give me feedback on the new content — I’m planning to review this little experiment in a few months and we can take it from there.

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Read more about the article Wing Wings: Hands Down the Best Chicken Wings in SF

Wing Wings: Hands Down the Best Chicken Wings in SF

I was completely certain I was gonna love everything about Wing Wings. I absolutely love crushing buckets of chicken wings and I had heard such great things about the many unique varieties at this Lower Haight hole-in-the-wall and hot spot.

They’ve been featured in 7×7 Magazine’s The Big Eat 2013, on Grub Street’s Best Places for Wings in SF, on Epicurious’ America’s Best Chicken Wings List, and in plenty of other high profile publications. To put it simply, their reputation precedes them. Beyond what I had read about online, I’d had already had the chance to experience their impressive chicken-preparation skill via the transcendent Fried Chicken served at their Off The Grid Picnic at the Presidio pop-up stall. I knew this was gonna be good.

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Read more about the article Mike Winston’s Top 10 Best Cocktails of 2014

Mike Winston’s Top 10 Best Cocktails of 2014

You guys know I eat a ton of food. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I’m also quite passionate about my cocktails. Some would even go so far as to call me a lush.

Well, this year provided no shortage of impressive and outstanding cocktails (and obviously food as I’ve already recapped). And since the end of the year is rolling around, it only seems fair to look back and remember the best of the best cocktails as well. I’ve even inclcuded a list of ingredients for each drink recipe so you can try to whip them up for yourself at home… if you’re particularly talented.

Warning: there are some really obscure ingredients in a lot of these, a lot of them are rather complicated to concoct. Also, I don’t have any of the proportions for the different parts… so good luck!
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Read more about the article Mike Winston’s Best Bites of 2014

Mike Winston’s Best Bites of 2014

What a year!! I did something like this last year too, but oh boy was 2014 a doozy. I started off living in NYC, then a started a new job that whisked me off the San Francisco and Silicon Valley for a few months before ultimately relocating to San Francisco permanently. And along the way, I squeezed in a couple of vacations too.

Sooooo, I did a LOT of epic eating this year. And truth be told, I found it particularly difficult to narrow down my list as concisely as last year’s, but I somehow managed. So, without further ado, I present the winners (and runner-ups) broken down by category. I tried to cluster similar dish types together, but really they are in no particular order. Let’s begin!

And if you wanna hear about the 2014’s Best Cocktails, read more here.
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Read more about the article A Quiet, Classy, and Impressive Brunch at Maven in Lower Haight

A Quiet, Classy, and Impressive Brunch at Maven in Lower Haight

One of my favorite weekend city pastimes is to just pick a direction, wander aimlessly (get it? Winston Wanders), and see where my feet take me. This is also one of the many ways I find new places to eat – I just walk unfamiliar streets and routes and see if I can stumble across something new and interesting.

On this particularly long wander, I started at home in Lower Nob Hill, headed down to Hayes Valley, then over across the Panhandle, through Haight-Ashbury, up Divisadero, across Alamo Square, and down to Lower Haight before I finally decided on a place to sit down for a quality brunch with my buddy, Corey.

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Read more about the article Snappy Sausage Sandwiches at Rosamunde & Killer Craft Beer Next Door at Toronado in SF
Sausage Sandwiches at Rosamunde & Killer Craft Beer at Toronado in SF

Snappy Sausage Sandwiches at Rosamunde & Killer Craft Beer Next Door at Toronado in SF

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What could be more perfect than the combination of beer and sausage? It’s an old-as-time classic pairing, but I think I’ve found the solution to this basically unanswerable question. How about gourmet game meat sausages eaten with a ridiculously good craft draft beer?

In the Lower Haight neighborhood of San Francisco there is a spot where you can have the best of both worlds, together. Butted literally right up against each other are Rosamunde Sausage Grill and a bar called Toronado. It’s a fairly well known fact that you can order sausages at Rosamunde and bring them right next door to eat in Toronado and this was precisely the plan. Ultimately though, it was pretty packed in Toronado, so we just ate our links in the sausage shop before heading right next door for some brews after.

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