All stories about "Simone Davalos"

Everyday on Gridskipper we give you a new map. Some are new, some are fetched from our archive, newly updated. Happy Gridskipping. Nothing converts otherwise civilized gwailo into ravening gluttony-obsessed oinkers than dim sum. Or maybe that's just me. San Francisco has one of the largest Asian populations on the West Coast, and with that comes excellent pho, superlative lumpia, and of course, dim sum. My intrepid group of investigators sacrificed their time to accompany me to these hallowed havens of gustatory glee. Dim sum, for those not in the know, involves sitting down in the middle of a crowded dining room surrounded by ladies with little carts. When the cart comes around, you giggle and point at things that look interesting. Chao siu bai, siu mai, har gow -- one's knowledge of various aspects of Chinese languages expands immeasurably. Traditionally good for large groups and weekend brunch, dim sum tends toward the cheap side for a meal that's big enough to kill a yak. Make sure you don't show up too late, as most places stop serving with the carts at 11 a.m. or noon.

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"Hard Core" and "knitting" don't often turn up in the same sentence, but in this era of makers and doers and DIY, knitting has gained prominence as the pseudo-ironic pastime of choice for urban hipsters and their grandmas alike. I say "pseudo" because it's very easy to get sucked into this hobby until you dream earnestly of purls and puke circular needles. That's the other side of hardcore here, along with sweaters with knit skulls on them and people who store their needles in their piercings (I kid you not).

Here are a few places where you can see such stitch witchery in action, and possibly partake. It could be the first step in a long road of wool perdition that will include stealing your mate's bingo money to buy more yarn. I would have included more knitting groups, rather than classes, but all the people who knew about such things were too busy knitting to answer my queries. That's hardcore. (photo: Punk Rawk Purl)

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So, enough about meat markets -- let's explore actual meat. Unless the object of your affections is some species of vegetarian (or you are), a good way to impress is to prepare a delicious piece of bloody, well-cut flesh. Yes, meat. Here's a rundown of San Francisco establishments that specialize in meatly products that haven't been adulterated by chemicals, hormones, or bad karma.

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New Year's Eve is, traditionally, what the experienced party goers call "amateur night". Non-party-goers who spend the rest of their year parked on their couch watching "Desperate Housewives" put New Year's Eve on a pedestal. It MUST be the bestest night it can possibly be, and they usually drop a huge wad of cash for a roomful of ruinously intoxicated suburbanites and a "free" cheap champagne toast somewhere in the vicinity of midnight. True partygoers like yourselves, esteemed readers, naturally do a teensy bit of research and make sure the event they grace with their presence is actually *fun*.

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Coffee is one of the four food groups among most of the types I hang out with, cocktails, free bar popcorn, and mini-meals from Trader Joe's being the other three. Sadly, there is a lot of bad coffee in this world, and some of it is even in San Francisco. To arm yourselves with a few places to go where you won' t be served sludge (unless you like it that way) I've compiled a list of coffee places that aren't Starbucks that will fill the need for your favorite morning fuel.

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Avoid the fussiness and indecision of hard alcohol by indulging in the completely different fussiness and indecision of a refined and well-run wine bar. Wine bars have been gaining in popularity in San Francisco (mostly because it's the Devil himself to get a new hard alcohol license in this city) and there are several that do not disappoint. When I think of wine bars, I used to think of pretentious yuppie wine snobs swirling their glasses and making up flavors like oak, coal tar, grapefruit, and creosote, but these places have raised my opinions.

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Or maybe that's in the wrong order. Anyways, the holidays are coming up, and instead of those little artsy crafty holiday sweaters with the jingle bells and the sequins (which I know you are all just dying to get out of cold storage), why not try something a little silkier? Maybe buy a little something for yourself to help you get through without a surfeit of pharmaceuticals (or make the holidays more fun by taking that surfeit of pharmaceuticals, whichever puffs your pantaloons). Check out our first San Francisco lingerie guide, then peruse this new roster of underthings purveyors.

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It's that time of year again, when your seasonal affective disorder starts popping up because of the dark, those bulky sweaters you wear to stay warm are not as figure-flattering as you hope they would be, and there's occasional precipitation of some kind that makes walking down the street even more depressing than it already is. The only saving grace is mom's meatloaf, but who wants to go home to their parent's place every weekend? San Francisco has a cure for what ails you: lots and lots and lots of primo high-end comfort-food joints, where no one harangues you about not being married yet, and you can drink alcohol without sneaking it into the house.

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Roll the dice, spin the wheel, and get ready to experience the perfect replacement for Hipster Bingo. This game celebrates gobs of big-city snottyness and attitude squashed into a teeny, tiny, tourist-choked peninsula. Navigate your way through a series of venues that have no business in the customer service industry. Be abused, ignored, and mistreated! Gape at the sheer incompetence on display! In the Bad Service Board Game, the play never ends, and everyone's a loser. Cheating is not only encouraged, it's mandatory.

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After turning in last week's backstage gallery at Vienna's cocktail-bot RoboExotica fest, our international robot affairs correspondent sent in a few follow-up shots before jetting off to Tokyo's 2007 International Robot Exhibition. Drunk-making bots yielded to serious industrial droids and other robots that though they couldn't make you a drink, could at least clean up after you, or perhaps even talk you through a good bender. Simone Davalos' gallery starts below, with word-report after the jump.

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Greeting from lovely Vienna, Austria, where I am corresponding from the RoboExotica Festival, the annual festival and symposium on cocktail robotics. Cocktail robotics is a nascent field, a vast unexplored territory of great philosophical and artistic importance. As the organizers say, "Until recently, no attempts had been made to publicly discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication." A few preliminary shots:More details after the jump.

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Post-Thanksgiving letdown is always fraught with inertia and too-tight pants. Why not combat that gravy-spattered feeling with a few special events? They have more than enough alcohol to soak up all that starch, and a little distraction will take your mind off the fact that there are still more holidays looming on the horizon.

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Something mysterious and delightful happens in San Francisco and environs around the holidays. I am not speaking of jolly old elves in little hats and those $#^%& bell ringers out side of Safeway, I refer, of course, to the sweet, juicy, delicious bounty that is the winter Dungeness crab season. Nothing says Christmas or Kwanzaa like ornery little pink alien-looking foodstuffs. This winter kind of sucks because some yahoo went and crashed an oil tanker into the Bay Bridge, causing commercial crab season to be postponed and making the Baby Jesus cry. Because of this, you should call ahead to make sure there is crab available. But when the season officially starts, do what the natives do: stuff yourself silly on these succulent shellfish until you swear you'll never eat one ever again, ever. Until next November, of course.

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So you're in San Francisco, and you've hit all the beautiful places with the pretty people, but what about the beautiful places that tend to fall off the pretty people's radar? I personally like going to museums that have something a little bit different -- they make good dates, and if they're super cheesy, you can bond about them afterwards over coffee or drinks. San Francisco has a lot of weirdness in its history, and nowhere better can you see it in action than our very own homegrown museums.

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Who doesn't like a bit of slick, slippery, delicious tongue play? Rich, sweet, creamy offerings abound in San Francisco, but the only one sexier than the cupcake is that delightful substance from which most good confections flow: chocolate. This city has a heritage of artisanal delights and careful attention to the best ingredients, and our chocolate is no different.

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Donuts are yummy. This is an undisputed fact. Forget about the carbs, the fact that they are largely deep fried in animal rendering, and that all that refined sugar will completely ruin your hippie diet. Sometimes you just need a delicious treat on a cold morning. The decor in these places is usually functional at best, but at 7 a.m., all you can see are the glazed toppings anyway. Grab your coffee somewhere else and gorge on what theses donut shops have to offer; other worthies may be nominated in the comments or via tips.

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San Francisco has had its share of tragedies, catastrophes, underhanded doings, and mysterious circumstances since its foundation. The city's rep for wild times, bloodthirsty criminals, and eccentric citizens should lead to a whole bunch of scary happenings, right? Maybe. Get your infrared camera and a bottle of bubbly and have a picnic in these spooky locations.

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Is your house stuck in a rut? Is your present living situation a bleak and dreary world of autumnal Ikea? Do you cringe upon your return home every evening, knowing that your space could be ever so much cuter? If your life is long stretches of harvest gold and avocado, punctuated by brief stint to other cities festooned with cerulean and eggshell, here's a few places in SF where you can bring a little beauty home with you.

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