1. Bix
2. Mission Beach Cafe
3. Marlowe
4. Slow Club
5. Orson
6. Magnolia
7. Mos Grille
8. Custom Burger
9. Bistro Burger
10. In-n-Out

As a bonus, the most overrated burgers:

1. The Burger Bar in Macys—the Las Vegas one was OK, but the SF one is a wreck, far worse than even a McDonalds, with inedibly gristly meat the one and last time I had the misfortune to go.
2. Zuni Cafe—the shoestring fries are lovely, but the burger itself blah
3. Joes Cable Car—OK, but nothing to write home about

The founder, Art Pollard (photo taken 2 years ago at Fog City News in San Francisco) claims he gets superior results from roasting at high altitude in Salt Lake City, but I think superior conching technique is primarily to credit.
They recently introduced milk chocolate bars, the Jembrana and Ocumare. Despite its lovely green wrapper, the Jembrana leaves to be desired — it just doesn’t taste chocolatey enough. The Ocumare Milk comes through with wonderful texture, a rich, complex cocoa flavor while avoiding over-sweetness, the downfall of too many milk chocolates, specially in the USA.
It also avoids the harshness of some bars made by chocolatiers new to the world of milk chocolate — the abysmal Scharffen-Berger 68% cocoa “dark milk” bar comes to mind.

Another gourmet treats shop joined the burgeoning scene in the Mission. Anthony’s Cookies opened today to a line that stretched around the corner.

As one of the officials present said, it takes courage to start a business in this economic climate. Specially in as business-hostile a city as San Francisco, if I may add.

Inside the store was a buzzing hive of activity, with the eponymous proprietor busy preparing batches of free cookies for the awaiting hordes. At $5 for a half dozen, these cookies are a steal. I tried the double chocolate chip, it came fresh from the oven and had a strong chocolate aroma and the right texture. All in all, a great addition to a neighborhood that already has more than its share of good places to indulge a sweet tooth. I added him to my Google map of recommended bakeries, ice cream parlors and sweet shops in San Francisco.

The restaurant is named after the chef-owner’s father, Robert Miner, a co-founder of Oracle. The food was so good I am almost ready to forgive Oracle for their sleazy extortion tactics…

I started with the Parisian style tuna tartare with waffle chips, microgreens and a quail egg, a very classic dish (and one too often botched by careless chefs), given a little pep with a slight acidity. It was followed by an absolutely outstanding pan-roasted local halibut on ricotta gnocchi with asparagus and morel mushroom ragout, meyer lemon vinaigrette and mâche. The halibut was crisp outside, flaky inside. The ragoût was simply wonderful, a deep, rich and tangy broth, also slightly acidulated, with a generous helping of precious black morels. To top it off, the dessert, a Peach and cherry crisp with home-made blueberry gelato combined two of my favorite summer fruit in an unbeatable combination.

Be advised the parking situation in that neighborhood is particularly nightmarish, even by SF standards. If I had realized they offer valet parking, I wouldn’t have had to park halt a mile away (after seeking a place in vain for nearly half an hour).

They sell moderately expensive chocolate bars (the No. 10 41% milk chocolate with hazelnuts is pretty good), drinking chocolate, and bouchéees. The latter are a little too bleeding edge for my taste (spices do not belong in chocolate), but the Bourbon Pecan is to die for, a light and moist, pecan marzipan, almost creamy despite the deliberately roughly chopped texture, and topped with ganache. Not surprisingly, it is usually sold out at the other outlets..

The real draw, as far as I am concerned, is the hot chocolate. Dark, rich, creamy and thick, specially if you ask them to blend it with genuine praline, it is absolutely delicious. You can enjoy it in the twee little salon in the corner of the store before a concert at the nearby Symphony, or shopping in Hayes valley. If you are in the neighborhood, try also Miette Confiserie.

• Chocolate tablets: Fog City News, an impressive lineup tended by the knowledgeable owner, Adam Smith.
• Honorable mention: Chocolat (2801 Leavenworth, in The Cannery, 415-674-8852). You wouldn’t expect a decent chocolate shop in the lurid wasteland that is Fisherman’s Wharf. You would be wrong, however. This store has the requisite stands of insipid Ghirardelli and Jelly Belly confections for the tourists, but also a decent selection from the likes of Michel Cluizel or Fran’s
  Update (2006-11-24): the place apparently went out of business
• Chocolate bouchées: Cocoa Bella. This shop is a chocolate integrator: it collects chocolates from small chocolatiers across the world and brings them under a single roof. They also make hot chocolate.
• Honorable mention: Michael Recchiuti makes scrumptious confections, and his hazelnut praliné bar is to die for.
• Chocolate maker: Guittard. This fourth-generation family of chocolatiers, originally from France, have been supplying professionals like Recchiuti for a century and half. The best dessert I ever had in America was a Guittard chocolate and cherry cake at Eno in Atlanta, of all places. They now have a retail line of very high quality.
• Honorable mention: Scharffen-Berger. Everyone raves about their chocolates. While I love their natural cocoa powder, I have always had mixed feelings about their dark chocolate bars, and their milk chocolate seems like a half-hearted effort, too sweet and malty.
• Hot chocolate: Bittersweet on Fillmore has a good selection of hot chocolates, pastries and chocolate bars.
• Honorable mention: Blue Bottle Coffee, a tiny hole-in-the-wall place off Gough street near Hayes Valley, makes rich creamy hot chocolate from Sur del Lago dark chocolate.
• Chocolate pastries: Citizen Cake is a pastry chef’s pastry shop. Wildly imaginative cakes (although you can get cut by the bleeding edge), a favorite among Opera or Symphony-goers. They also have a small satellite, Citizen Cupcake, on the top floor of the Virgin Megastore on Market and Stockton.
• Honorable mentions: Cafe Madeleine, a.k.a. Jil’s Patisserie, formerly of Burlingame, now made in their Second Street shop (with two additional locations on California and O’Farrell). The Bay Bread boulangeries, specially those on Polk and Pine. Miette in the Ferry Building.

A new specialty chocolate store, Bittersweet Cafe, opened recently on Fillmore Street in san Francisco. They have a good selection, almost as good as Fog City News, with some brands I haven’t seen before. One of those was this bar made from Venezuelan Chuao criollo beans, with a mix of chopped almonds, hazelnuts, and interestingly, pistachios. It is made by Chuao Chocolatier, a small artisanal company based in San Diego (but we won’t hold their unfortunate choice of location against them).

The bar has a rich, deep flavor, and is not over-sweetened as is unfortunately too often the case with milk chocolates. The cocoa content is not indicated, but I would estimate it at around 40%. The nuts are crunchy and fresh, with no hint of rancidity. This is no small feat, hazelnuts and pistachios spoil easily and are tricky to work with. Fran’s, based in Seattle, won’t even ship some of their Oregon hazelnut confections outside Washington State out of fear they will lose their freshness by the time they arrive. At $6.50 ($6 if you buy direct in packs of 4), this is by no means cheap, but at least they give you an unusual 110 gram portion, none of that wimpy 75 gram size companies like Scharffen-Berger (now a part of the despicable Hershey group) are turning to in order to increase profits.

Merry Christmas to all, hopefully one rich in cacao…