Best Bay Area Sourdough Bakery?
HFK
Hi,
I'll be in the Bay Area (Milpitas) for a week in the first part of
January. My days are booked up (except for Sunday, when I arrive at
SF International) but I'll be free in the evenings. I'm going to be
scouring the Bay Area for some of the things I can't get here in my
hometown of Oklahoma City, one being good quality SF sourdough bread.
Others incluse hot wings, wine stores with an extensive selection of
Italian wines, beer stores with a wide selection of UK/Irish imports,
and irish-style pubs, particulary those with the big-three irish
stouts-Beamish, Guinness, Murphy's-on tap. Yes, it's going to be
hectic, which is where the group comes in. I've done a bit of
research and am hoping that you can help me to narrow my focus to a
few of the best sourdough bakeries in the Bay Area. I don't mind
making the trip to SF, I'll likely be going up there anyway in the
course of doing the tourist rounds.
Here are the bakeries that, based on my Google Groups (formerly
Deja-News) search, are most reccomended. Hopefully we won't end up
with 9 replies, each reply recommending a different bakery :)
1. Boudin (Bodini?)
2. Artisan Breads
(Sonoma, probably a bit out of the way, unless they deliver to Bay
Area stores)
3. Tonscana
4. Alfaro's
5. "Le Boulanger":
(not to be confussed with La Petite Boulangery)
6. Tasahara Bakery
7. Parisian
8. Colombo (Colombio?)
9. Acme
Many thanks for your help,
Frank
sorefeet
I grew up in Contra Costa county, an hours drive to SF.
"THE" Irish bar in SF is Harrington's at 245 Front Street, in the heart
of the financial district. On St. Patrick's day they used to close
Front St. to traffic and throw a block party that has no rival.
In "CoCo" county in the town of Pittsburg, there is a bakery that IMHO
is the best family run bakery ever, called Cardinale' it's better than
Colombo which is the most consistent and the most prevalent.
I now live in NW Montana and the Bay Area's sourdough is the only thing
I truly miss about California.
Hope this helps,
TK
--
T.K. Rice
sore...@digisys.net
N 48* 29.172'
W 114* 29.128'
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people...to disarm
the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason, during Virginia's ratification convention, 1788.
Bob.B.
refer to sourdough) lover. Here are my thoughts on the list you posted.
1. Boudin. A very good bread, one of the oldest in San Francisco. Can be
found in downtown SF and at Fisherman's Wharf.
2. Artisan Breads. An excellent sourdough. We eat it all the time now
that we live in the Sonoma Valley where it is made, and SF breads are mostly
unavailable. Bakery is on Highway 12 in Sonoma. Craig Ponsford,
owner-baker, was on the US team that won the world's championship bakeoff in
France for baguettes.
3. Toscana. Used to be fabulous bread half a century ago when I was a kid
and would watch them baking it in San Francisco's Marina District. One of
the all time best. Last I tried it years ago, it was lousy -- same name but
not the same bread and ( I would think) same owners.
4. Alfaro's. Never heard of it.
5. "Le Boulanger": Never tried it.
6. Tasahara Bakery. Tried it a few times a few years ago and did not think
much of it.
7. Parisian. At one time this was a superb bread -- one of the best. So
good they started selling it by the tens of thousands at SF airport, and
people carried it around the world. Then someone got the bright idea of
putting it in plastic bags to keep it "fresh". These sog balls were the
first step toward ruination. Now the bread, even in papers sacs, is a poor
facsimile of its former self. Forget it!
8. Colombo. Not very sour or crusty. Kind of airy. Tasty but hardly a
great sourdough.
9. Acme. Excellent sourdough. Very tough, crusty crust. Sour. Chewy.
Good teeth required. Originally baked in the East Bay (Oakland or
Berkeley?). Now shipped throughout the Bay Area
Two great sourdough bakeries that no longer exist were Laraburu and Royal
just for the record. Hope this helps. If you visit the Wine Country,
Artisan will be on your route.
Bob
Dick Adams
"HFK" <hfk-TAKE...@email.com> sez in message
news:amcc2ucuqisv98dha...@4ax.com...
that he is
< ... hoping that (we) can help (him) to narrow (his) focus to a
few of the best sourdough bakeries in the Bay Area.
Several years ago my family members scheduled with Acme in
Mountain View to be given a bit of their mother sponge. It was a
complicated endeavor in that they were asked to bring ice and a
Styrofoam container, since an transcontinental air trip was
anticipated. When they arrived to make the pickup, they were
given a partial tour and short lecture on the process. It was
entirely gratuitous, and much appreciated.
There were three Acme bakeries, and probably still are. One of
the others was in Berkeley. I would not know if they are still so
generous with their mother sponge, or if it is available other
than in Mountain View. My understanding was that, at that time,
in Mountain View, they worked two shifts. So evenings might work.
I was expecting the mother sponge to be sour, but is wasn't.
Today I do not expect sponges to be sour, but I know how to make
bread so sour as desired from a"sweet" sponge, which I think is
what is usually done.
--
Dick Adams
<firstname> dot <lastname>at bigfoot dot com
Brian Mailman
> 9. Acme. Excellent sourdough. Very tough, crusty crust. Sour. Chewy.
> Good teeth required. Originally baked in the East Bay (Oakland or
> Berkeley?). Now shipped throughout the Bay Area
Absolutintootly.
Acme or Semifreddi's.
B/
HFK
reply to some of the things you've written:
On Sun, 23 Dec 2001 22:30:15 GMT, "Bob.B." <rob...@sonic.net> wrote:
>I'm a San Francisco native and "French bread" (as San Franciscans used to
>refer to sourdough) lover.
This is interesting. I'm originally from California (Visalia) and I
don't recall ever hearing the word 'sourdough': however, what I now
consider sourdough my family called French Bread, just as you've
described. I remember some of the fine cooks in our family mentioning
the difficulty of finding good 'french bread'. This solves a bit of a
mystery: I've always wondered if I misunderstood just what bread my
family was talking about.
>1. Boudin. A very good bread, one of the oldest in San Francisco. Can be
>found in downtown SF and at Fisherman's Wharf.
The last time I was on the Wharf (Spring 2001 I think) we ate at a
little restaurant on the east side of the pier that specialized in
clam chowder in bread bowls, and I believe the bowls were sourdough.
Delicious chowder and the bread was good too (although I'd just begun
to develop an interest in sourdough, so mabe it was the shock of the
new). Might that have been Boudin's?
>2. Artisan Breads. An excellent sourdough. We eat it all the time now
>that we live in the Sonoma Valley where it is made, and SF breads are mostly
>unavailable. Bakery is on Highway 12 in Sonoma. Craig Ponsford,
>owner-baker, was on the US team that won the world's championship bakeoff in
>France for baguettes.
Don't think I'll make it to Sonoma, although I'd like to. There's an
old winery there (one of the earliest that's still operating) that
I've enjoyed visiting. I've been there twice: it's well off the
beaten path, a bit hard to find actually, at the end of a windy
acequia-bordered, narrow, two lane road. It's a beautiful setting.
On both occasions we were entertained by an eccentric gentleman that
works with several others pouring the vineyard's wines for the guests.
I'm fairly certain he was half-soused both visits. He had a tendency
to describe the nuances/combinations of tastes in wild hyperbole:
between swishes he'd say things like "I taste a touch of rose petal
highlighted by lemon with a hint of pine sap". All I tasted was some
decent wine, but I'm a peasant. Wish I could remember the name of
that place. I enjoyed that one winery more than an entire tour of
Napa, which we made later that day: Napa seems so commercail now, not
at all as I remembered it from the tour my family went on when I was a
boy (mid-'70s). That winery, and Viansi, are enough to bring me back
to wine country, but I'm afraid I'm not going to have the time this
trip.
Frank
Bob.B.
You remember rightly. Sourdough was simply called "French Bread" in the
Bay Area years ago, even though most of it was made by Italians. Boudin was
the first, I believe, hence perhaps the moniker "French Bread". We referred
to it as sweet or sour French bread, i.e., yeasted or true sourdough ,
although we had no idea why one was sweet and the other sour.
I'll digress and bore you with a story. A few years ago my wife and I on a
trip to Italy were in Rome enjoying a nice meal on the Via Veneto. I was
experimenting with my Italian and boldly asked the waiter to bring us some
"Pane Francese" (French Bread), unconsciously reverting to my childhood
days when we all called sourdough or artisan breads "French Bread." The
waiter looked at me with a mixture of disdain and hurt because here was
this American jerk asking for French bread of an Italian waiter in a fine
Italian restaurant. My faux pas didn't dawn on me until moments later. I
them tried to explain things to the waiter, but I'm sure I only botched it
all the more. Oh well!?
Regards,
Bob
HFK wrote in message ...
Mike Avery
> I'll be in the Bay Area (Milpitas) for a week in the first part of
> January. My days are booked up (except for Sunday, when I arrive at
> SF International) but I'll be free in the evenings. I'm going to be
> scouring the Bay Area for some of the things I can't get here in my
> hometown of Oklahoma City, one being good quality SF sourdough bread.
<snip>
I was in San Francisco about a year ago.... and was on
much the same pilgramage.
> 1. Boudin (Bodini?)
A chain, with stores all over San Francisco and Chicago.
The soups and sandwiches were OK, the bread was,
well, ordinary. Even though I've gotten much better
since, my wife then said, "You do better". All in all, it
wasn't all that great.
> 9. Acme
I didn't make it there, but I have heard great things
about it.
Also, the Whole Foods store in town has a wonderful
selection of many from many of the better bakeries in
town.
Mike
>
> Many thanks for your help,
>
> Frank
> _______________________________________________
> rec.food.sourdough mailing list
> rec.food....@mail.otherwhen.com
> http://www.otherwhen.com/mailman/listinfo/rec.food.sourdough
>
--
Mike Avery
MAv...@mail.otherwhen.com
ICQ: 16241692 AOL IM:
MAvery81230
* Spam is for lusers who can't get business any other
way *
A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day:
Karaoke is a Japanese word meaning "tone deaf".
Bob
>
> 4. Alfaro's
>
>
When I left Santa Cruz (economic refugee) 3 years ago Alfaro's was the best sourdough in the area. The bakery was on the corner of Seabright and 7th (or 17th...I always get those two mixed up) behind Day's Market. If you get down that way let me know if it's still there. You can still find the bread in markets, but I'm not sure it is baked by the same people.
Pawnee
"HFK" <hfk-TAKE...@email.com> wrote in message news:amcc2ucuqisv98dha...@4ax.com...
Stephen Peck
HFK <hfk-TAKE...@email.com> wrote in message
news:amcc2ucuqisv98dha...@4ax.com...
>
Hartmut W. Kuntze
> Hi,
>
> I'll be in the Bay Area (Milpitas) for a week in the first part of
> January.[....]one being good quality SF sourdough bread.
Good for you Frank.
I just left the Eastbay a year ago and miss it already;-)
Now I bake my own.
> 1. Boudin
Used to be good and with Parisian Batard (that one first) and Acme was my
favorite.
Parisian has bought up most of the SF sourdough bakeries by now, anyway.
And I'm not sure if they still use the woodburning ovens, with the
Marincounty treehugging Envirofreaks breathing down their neck.
Although they try and preserve the individual styles, Boudin IMHO is not
like it was when I liked it, but than, they hav not baked in woodburning
ovens years ago.
Il Fornaio on Union Street (off Van Ness) still does it and their bread
is good too, although italian in style..
Anyway, a good sourdough bread (or any lean bread for that matter) is a
*fresh* bread.
Safeways Sourdough Boule is good bread, because it's fresh.
Say what you may about a supermarkets, but Safeway in the Bayarea (only!)
has great sourdough bread.
They bake it several times daily and the bread is fresh.
Unlike Albertsons or Lucky, their bread is for toothless fairies. It
sucks and blows at the same time..
Of course, if I live 50 yards from the Acme bakery, or another out of
Beserkely whose name I don't remember (Swabian Style Breads and great
Focaccia), I'll buy that one and grow fat on it.
Have fun out there, although I doubt in Milpitas;=).
-- C=¦-)§ Hartmut W. Kuntze, CMC, S.g.K. (_o_)
" Die einfachsten Dinge sind sehr kompliziert " Morgenroete
"http://home.earthlink.net/~hans48/index.html" --
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
Brian Mailman
> Say what you may about a supermarkets, but Safeway in the Bayarea (only!)
> has great sourdough bread.
> They bake it several times daily and the bread is fresh.
I'll give it a second as to freshness.
But sourdough? The "sour" is maltic and acetic acids. Unless they've
changed the procedures in the last couple years--I saw that on the
ingredients label (Church/Market is nearest me).
B/
Eric Ferguson
the son of the owners of Toscana bakeries. We lived in Concord, Ca., and
he'd bring us Hot and I mean "HOT" loaves of EXTRA SOUR DOUGH bread (plus
other delights). My dad and I would eat a whole loaf at one sitting,
watching that butter just melt into the bread. Man oh man was that good
stuff then. Also we didn't think about the calories or other bad things.
Didn't know Toscana was still around. Haven't seen their bread in years. But
the memories linger on..... Sigh..... Thanks.....
bithia
The others you mentioned are not really that good.
Bob.B.
of the American Automobile Assn., Calif., and it has an article in it
about Bay Area sourdough bakeries. You can read the article at their
webstie: www.viamagazine.com. Enter "sourdough" in their search window and
you'll get right to the article. Enjoy.
Bob