ANNOUNCER: THE BAYVIEW COMFORTS >>>
Comfort food should be pronounced dead because it's gone as far as it can go in the restaurant heavens. And yet it persists. Like reality TV and Britney's career, no matter how often some restaurant critic pronounces it DOA, comfort food keeps coming back. Restaurant owners dig the stuff, because it's great for their bottom line â€" imagine how much it really costs to produce that mac and cheese you just paid $16 for. There are restaurants that have corn dogs on their menus: high-end joints where the guys in the back are shoving sticks into hot dogs with a totally straight face, then giggling every time some poor sap plunks down 10 bucks for whatever ambiguous therapeutic value there is in feeding his inner child. It's only a matter of time before restaurants bring out Lincoln Logs and Slinkies with the dessert menus.
JAKE: I'm thinking about opening a joint where the minute a customer walks through the
door he'll be thrown in a crib, given a blanket and hand-fed spoonfuls of Gerber foods while Sesame Street blasts from the tube. I'll call the place Baby, and I'll bet the concept will crawl across the nation.
ANNOUNCER: Anyway â€" there are places where comfort food is still acceptable: cafes. Neighborhood cafes will always function as our cultural storehouses of home-cooking know-how, places where the devotees of slow food and traditional technique can gather for spaghetti and meatball sandwiches, such as the The Bayview in the Stadium District. Read Jake and Jason's review on the Weekly Volcano Web site.
Also in this week's Volcano:
The therapist will see you now
Bartenders get an earful between pints by Steve Dunkelberger
Spirits of the season
This Chrismahanukwanzakah treat your taste buds by Kris Blondin
All Seasons Sports Tavern
Its heart pulls it out of the dive category by Steph DeRosa
Food Matters
Pour at Four deals, Il Fiasco cooking class, and more by Volcano Staff
Sipping Out
Winter beer tasting, discounted drinking nights, and more by Suzy Stump