10 culinary delights we’re most excited about.
At Outside Lands, there’s no shortage of exceptional comestibles. But what to choose? Heaven forbid you gorge yourself at the first food booth you see on, say, the Ramen Burger, only to turn the corner and find the aroma of Rich Table’s porcini doughnuts fresh out of the deep fryer. To help you avoid buyer’s remorse, we propose a game plan. Check out these 10 culinary delights we’re most excited to inhale at Outside Lands’ 10th anniversary:
Octopus takoyaki from Izakaya Sozai: Think of takoyaki as a Japanese hush puppy — except unlike hush puppies, these fried, battered dough balls, filled with minced octopus and ginger, actually have flavor. The Sunset District restaurant’s version is topped with umami-rich tonkatsu sauce.
Larceny cocktail from PCH: Pacific Cocktail Haven owner Kevin Diedrich’s cocktails were made for day drinking. The bright, fruit-forward concoctions have me salivating already, particularly when thinking of PCH’s Larceny cocktail, with bourbon, calamansi lime liqueur, pineapple, shiso, coconut cream and li-hing mui (a.k.a. Hawaiian dried plum powder, soon to be your favorite cocktail garnish).
Grenache: It’s not every day you find yourself in a tent with so much California Grenache, the luscious red grape native to France’s Rhone Valley (and one of my favorite grape varieties). Check out Keplinger’s 2014 Basilisk (100 percent Grenache from the Russian River Valley) and Unti’s 2014 Grenache (from the winery’s vineyard in Dry Creek Valley). Unti’s 2016 rosé is also Grenache-based.
Refreshing wines from Reeve and Rootdown: Healdsburg-based wineries Reeve and Rootdown are sharing a booth at the festival’s popular Wine Lands. In the unlikely event that the weather gets hot, or the likelier event that you’re not feeling like red wine, look for Reeve’s crisp, dry Anderson Valley Riesling and Rootdown’s floral Grenache Blanc or pomegranate inflected rosé of Sangiovese. Reeve’s Anderson Valley Pinot Noir is on the lighter side, too.
Jarobi White, Chris Cosentino and Jazz Mafia at GastroMagic: Big Freedia, the New Orleans bounce artist, is by now a GastroMagic standby, and she’ll be back for a beignet-filled performance with Brenda’s Soul Food. But my money this year is on No Ham N’ Eggs, a spectacle starring Jarobi White of A Tribe Called Quest, Cockscomb chef Chris Cosentino and San Francisco’s own Jazz Mafia.
Pink Crush from Lady Falcon Coffee Club: Most Instagrammable Food Truck Award has to go to Lady Falcon Coffee Club, which operates a seafoam-green espresso bar from inside a 1948 GMC bread truck and gives #vanlife a run for its money. Owner Buffy Maguire will be serving up her sinful mochas made with homemade ganache, as well as the truly singular Pink Crush: Cascara (dried coffee cherry skins) steeped with hibiscus, topped with homemade Mexican vanillainfused whipped cream.
Sticky wings from FOB Kitchen: If you haven’t visited chef Janice Dulce at Gashead Tavern, from whose kitchen the chef offers her menu of polished Filipino food every week, try her sticky chicken wings here. They’re irresistible with Thai caramel chili sauce.
Miso tofu bao from the Chairman: The Chairman’s bao (get it?) is a welcome sight in any San Francisco food truck lineup. May I suggest ordering your bao on the smaller, supple steamed bun, rather than the larger, breadier baked bun? And while you can’t go wrong with the pork belly bao (that turmeric-pickled daikon, mmm) or the sesame-rich spicy chicken bao, I can’t get enough of the miso-cured tofu bao, sloppy with just the right amount of mayo.
420 ice cream sundae from Humphry Slocombe: Free of cannabinoids, Humphry Slocombe’s 420 sundae is rather a paean to stoner food in all its saltysweet glory: potato chips, frosted peanuts, pretzel sticks and hot fudge, all heaped onto the creamery’s Tahitian vanilla ice cream — my favorite vanilla ice cream in town.
Beer from Alvarado Street Brewery: This Monterey brewery quickly gathering buzz around the Bay Area for its idiosyncratic beers is an Outside Lands firsttimer. What they’ll be pouring specifically remains a mystery — they brew new beers too often, and go through kegs too quickly, to plan ahead — but I’ve got my fingers crossed for their Contains No Juice double IPA.
Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine, beer and spirits writer. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob