时尚女人。可爱孩子。美丽家居。男人爱车: Revisiting the 47 local dishes to eat before you die

I'm still eating my way through our list of chefs' favorite local meals

I had a sausage revelation last weekend.

I was at Wursthall, Kenji López-Alt's German-ish restaurant in San Mateo, and restraining myself from inhaling the porchetta wurst in one fell swoop. Inside the snappy casing was a juicy pork, rosemary, fennel, garlic and lemon filling. The whole thing was held afloat by a split-top bun whose texture reminded me of Japanese milk bread.

Here's the funny thing: I actually went to Wursthall in pursuit of a totally different sausage that's no longer on the menu. I've been working my way through the 47 Peninsula dishes to eat before you die, a list of where and what local chefs eat that I put together in 2018. (Greg Kuzia-Carmel of Camper recommended Wursthall's cheddar bratwurst.) The list was a way of answering the perennial question: Where do my favorite chefs eat on their days off? What are the local dishes they can't stop thinking about?

The result was a diverse list with as many standbys (Zareen's, Sundance the Steakhouse, Vesta) as surprises (pork knuckle in Foster City!) from throughout the 650 area code.

While I couldn't try the cheddar bratwurst, the list got me out of my house on a Sunday and into a restaurant I've been meaning to try for a memorable meal. If you missed the chef's bucket list the first time around, it's great motivation to return to old favorites or get to know new restaurants and parts of the Peninsula.

Whoever beats me to all 47 gets dinner on me...

Stay hungry,
Elena

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Farewell, Village Cheese House. Hello, omakase and gluten-free cupcakes.

In the final days of 2019, we bid farewell to another longtime business. Village Cheese House suddenly closed after 60 years at Town & Country Village in Palo Alto. The shopping center has put out calls for a new owner to reopen the much-loved sandwich shop.

Sushi Shin, a nine-seat omakase bar with fish from Japan, soft opened last night in downtown Redwood City. The chef comes with experience at top sushi restaurants in New York City.

Noodle King is now slinging biang biang noodles, dumplings, lamb soup and other fare at 841 Villa St. in Mountain View, last occupied by Sweethoney Dessert.

Stanford Shopping Center's newest dining option is Pacific Catch, a Bay Area seafood restaurant with a focus on sustainability. The restaurant opened Monday after a lengthy renovation of the massive Max's Opera Cafe space.

Sweet Diplomacy is now baking gluten-free madeleines and cupcakes made from sweet rice flour, plus a range of other diet-sensitive sweets at 209 1st St. in downtown Los Altos.

If $120 dry-aged porterhouse steaks are your thing, look no further than Taurus Steakhouse, which opened in San Carlos (727 Laurel St.) in late December. Local owners brought in chef Vural Aydogan, who reportedly worked at Nusr-Et Steakhouse in Miami, a.k.a. the home of the infamous Salt Bae.

What I'm eating

If you, like me, live in a constant state of anguish and desperation because you are 355 miles away (I checked) from the best stateside Japanese egg salad sando at Konbi in Los Angeles, I have good news!

San Mateo's Suruki Supermarket offers a worthy stand-in. The egg salad is fresh, with hints of mustard; the halves in the center are perfectly jammy; and the bread is 100% white and basic, as it should be. It will tide me over until my next Konbi pilgrimage ... or that dream trip to Japan.

What I'm reading

The Willy Wonka of Silicon Valley. I was going to dedicate this newsletter to the robot overlords, but I'll let you read my story about a local entrepreneur's chocolate-making machine instead. (He insists algorithms will enable more connection with craft chocolate making, not less!)

Words that defined dining in 2019. I was fascinated to read Bay Area food writers' (including yours truly) picks for an Eater year-in-review list of the words that defined the local restaurant world in 2019. They don't paint the rosiest picture.

Down with the italicization of foods. The Los Angeles Times will no longer italicize non-English food words like al pastor and shawarma in restaurant reviews. "The sense of exoticizing foods through typography felt less like we were helping readers but rather signaling that one of these things was not like the other," critic Patricia Escárcega wrote. I couldn't agree more.

'The Midlife Crisis of the American Restaurant Review.' This Los Angeles Review of Books piece goes deep into the state of the modern restaurant review. Should critics stick to food, or do they have an obligation to take on cultural, social and political issues in their work? For New York Times critic Pete Wells, national restaurant criticism is "as healthy as it's ever been," but the real crisis, he tweeted, is the dearth of local reporting.

About the Peninsula Foodist

Elena Kadvany covers restaurants and education for Embarcadero Media. She's a Peninsula native, thinks In-N-Out is better than Shake Shack and is already planning her next meal.