8/3/11 – It was tough to get past the hideous sausage chandelier at the new home of Brats Brothers. Thankfully brothers Roland and Peter Radler offered other points of distraction, including a slew of sausages both exotic and traditional. We went with Hungarian pork sausage, which came with spaetzle and fried bacon cheddar balls.

8/3/11 – Cognoscenti Coffee owner Yeekai Lim popped up at Royal/T in Culver City for the second time, pairing hot and cold coffees with pastries, cheese and SQIRL jams, surrounded by pop art and Japanese maids/waitresses.

8/3/11 – Hallie Beaune and Christina Perozzi, collectively known as The Beer Chicks, previewed the 2nd Annual LA Craft Beer Crawl at The Golden Gopher, filling tap handles with craft beer, lending a forum to local craft brewers like Craftsman’s Mark Jilg, Eagle Rock Brewery’s Jeremy Raub, TAPS’ Victor Novak and Cismontane’s Evan Weinberg. They also announced the arrival of the 8th Street Bottle Shop, which they’ll curate near the bar’s entrance.

8/4/11 – My first Bay Area coffee stop with Matthew “Mattatouille” Kang was at Four Barrel in San Francisco’s Mission district. We sipped cappuccinos while overlooking the company’s coffee roaster, flanked by bike racks, welcoming a key mode of transportation in the Mission.

8/5/11 – For the past few years, Four Barrel and Ritual have been the talk of the San Francisco coffee scene, but now, the focus is on SoMa and what brothers Justin and Jared Morrison are up to at Sightglass Coffee, which just made the jump from kiosk to a fully formed coffeehouse. We grabbed coffee and walked upstairs to take in the bird’s eye view of the Sightglass bar.

8/6/11 – Ryan Farr has become a butchery celeb with his Mission-based 4505 Meats. He appears at the Ferry Building Farmers Market on Saturdays, selling bacon hot dogs and burgers, but it was his fried chicken breakfast plate that made the biggest impression during my most recent visit to the 4505 booth. The crispy dark meat chicken came with green beans, fried egg and a salad of cherry tomato, peppercress and pesto.

8/6/11 – The food at Piccino was fairly good, though the pizzas didn’t stand out. However, they probably have one of the best coffee programs of any restaurant in the city, since a coffee bar is located in the building, and a full-time barista prepares each drink to order. Piccino recently switched from Blue Bottle to Sightglass and makes pastries in-house.

8/8/11 – When visiting Tomales Bay, there’s little doubt what the local specialty is: oysters. Outside of Nick’s Cove, drive cautiously as the entrance resides right near an oyster crossing.

8/8/11 – Tomales Bay’s primary bivalve destination for decades has been Hog Island Oyster Co. bar, which just last fall added an outdoor bar that faces the picnic area and bay. Yes, it’s a boat planted that they planted in the ground.