The March Hit List: Rintaro, HK Lounge Bistro, La Société, and More

Fans of the late Hong Kong Lounge II on Geary rejoice: proprietress Annie Ho has opened doors to HK Lounge Bistro in SoMa. You’ll find a large menu of dim sum favorites during the day, such as crispy, lacy taro dumplings and powerfully delicious baked pork buns. Nighttime features larger Cantonese plates, as well as an optional multi-course chef’s special menu set with deluxe dim sum (think truffle shrimp dumpling and caviar siu mai). Yes, please.

Read more about HK Lounge Bistro here.

After almost three months of renovations from flood damage, Rintaro has returned. Our favorite seat is at the counter close to the yakitori station, where you can watch in awe as cooks expertly grill chicken parts over smoky, slow-burning binchotan. But there’s really no bad seat — the wooden booths, the back room, the beautiful courtyard. The intimate Monday night omakase returns too, which is worth a visit for something a little bit more deluxe and different.

Chef Alexandre Viriot serves up French fare with flair at his modern brasserie La Société. Duck a l’orange with a perfect pink center and crispy skin, grilled Berkshire pork chop with a potato mille-feuille, and an au poivre sauce covered steak with duck fat frites are just some of the deliciousness going on. Pair with a seasonal cocktail or share a bottle of Burgundy (white or red — there’s no wrong answer).

There’s so much to love about Penny Roma: from the seafood crudi to the perfect plates of pasta made in-house and the carefully curated wine selections — heavily Italian-leaning, of course. We also love visiting during the day, where you can order a daily changing hoagie from the adjacent Flour + Water Pasta Shop and sit inside the restaurant. A chopped salad (for the health) and a glass of wine wouldn’t hurt anyone, either.

Grab a glass or a bottle with your buds at Buddy on 20th Street. The natural wine bar also features a nice selection of low-abv cocktails with housemade seasonal shrubs and syrups, and the food from chef Sean Thomas strikes the balance between fine dining and comfort food. Gougeres with Gruyere and smoked trout roe make a nice light bite, while messy mortadella sandwiches with house American cheese are there to please.

Chef/owner Srijith Gopinathan of the modern-Indian Ettan in Palo Alto has taken over the old Dosa space on Fillmore and opened up Copra, a celebration of Cal-Indian cuisine with a focus on southern coastal Indian fare. As such, there’ll be plenty of seafood on the menu: spicy crab curry, banana leaf-wrapped black cod pollichathu with a shallot crust, spice-crusted hamachi collar with fish head gravy, and so much more.

Something special is happening at Sons & Daughters right now, and that just might have to do with its new executive chef Harrison Cheney. Cheney hails from London and spent a good amount of his culinary career at the two-Michelin-starred Gastrologik in Stockholm. He’s applying a New Nordic touch to northern California ingredients and then some, and the results are just stunning: thin strips of rutabaga with cured wagyu fat, poached skate with gooseberries and a bright buttery gelatinous sauce, duck with whey and verjus, and maybe 13 or so other courses to delight over the night.

Call 415-994-7933 for reservations.

We all need a handsome, tall-walled old-school steakhouse experience every once in a while, don’t we? Since 1984, Harris’ on Van Ness has fit that bill. Large leather booths. Dark wood paneling. Brass chandeliers. And don’t forget the adjacent dim-lit bar that doubles as a piano lounge — a nice place to start with a martini before you feast on dry-aged meats. Bone-in rib eye or a massive porterhouse could be nice, and the creamed spinach and off-menu fries make excellent sides.

Call 415-673-1888 for reservations.

Menlo Park is about to receive a flood of new and notable openings — and Greg Kuzia-Carmel’s Canteen is the first. The menu leans Northern Spain (GKC lived in Spain and cooked at the famed avant-garde Mugartiz). You’ll find plenty of nods to well-loved San Sebastian institutions like mushrooms “a la Ganbarra” with griddled mushrooms and an XO aioli in the center, in lieu of a raw egg yolk; or a massive bone-in NY strip, a nod to the txuleta at the standing room-only Bar Nestor. There are plenty of pintxos and txakolina, too.

The menu at Fort Point Valencia’s beer hall is on fire right now. The fare comes care of chef Cecile Macasero, formerly of Kin Khao, and is very seafood-centric San Francisco. You’ll find Louie salads, Dungeness crab rolls, fried clam rolls (a rarity in the city) with Celery Victor-inspired tartar sauce, big cups of cioppino, and more. Grab a pint or a flight and stay a while.

Find more info here.