There's nothing like the "Bauer Bump."

Blogs, Tweets, Yelp write-ups, email newsletters, check-ins on Foursquare-- the new social-media options may be the shiniest, coolest toys on the block right now, as evidenced by the full house attending The Future of Food Media, one of several industry seminars presented as part of SF Chefs 2010.

But after a 90 minute discussion between Oracle corporate chef Robbie Lewis, Yelp executive Ruggy Joesten, Marlowe owner Anna Weinberg, PR specialist Andrew Freeman, and moderator Paolo Lucchesi of San Francisco Chronicle's Inside Scoop SF, it came down to this: A great review from Michael Bauer, the Chronicle's longtime head restaurant critic, is still the golden ticket that every restaurant dreams of, the one sure-fire way to guarantee a full house for months to come.

For the longtime print writers, editors, and public-relations folks in the audience (as well as, presumably, Bauer himself, who was seated unobtrusively near the back of the room), it was satisfying to hear Anna Weinberg, owner of Marlowe, insist that Bauer's dubbing their lamb-laced bacon cheeseburger the best in the city had an instant, and huge, impact on her business.

(And that burger was no accident; Weinberg and her chef Jennifer Puccio did loads of food trend research before opening, looking for what local diners really get passionate about. Which turned out to be, unsurprisingly, pizza and burgers.)

For all that Yelp's Joesten had to say about his company's proprietary, scam-searching algorithm for rating and ranking user reviews, a smart professional critic whose palate and judgment you trust is still a more reliable guide than a blogger hoping for perks and freebies, or an anonymous poster with any number of axes to grind.

And there's the other bonus: good writing! Among all the long-winded digressions about data mining and statistical analytics (which got many of the industry types and interested foodies fidgeting in their seats and yes, probably checking their tweets), no one mentioned the enjoyment value of professional criticism until the closing minutes, when audience member Jan Newberry, food editor of San Francisco magazine, noted that no one goes to Yelp for the prose, whereas good criticism is also good writing--entertaining, informative, able to put a restaurant, its chef, and its scene into a social, gastronomic, and cultural context.

(As a former restaurant critic for both the Bay Guardian and San Francisco magazine, I was often asked how I "got paid to eat." My response? I didn't get paid to eat, I got paid to write. Eating was just what I happened to write about.)

Still, there was lots to say about how a restaurant, or a chef, can build a community and a brand through judicious use of Twitter, blogs, Yelp, and more.

As Weinberg noted, "It's a free 24 hour a day focus group. Looking on places like Yelp, you can start to see trends. If 10 posts in a week tell you the soup isn't so great or the bartender was rude, you know that maybe it's time to get a better soup, or a better bartender."

Said Lewis, "You can use to engage your customers, start a direct dialogue with guests, ask for feedback rather than it getting blasted all over the internet. It can be great for customer touch-back, especially when they've given you positive comments. Thanking someone for a positive post builds loyalty instantly."

According to Lewis, customers love to get a glimpse "behind the velvet rope," and hearing that the sommelier is really jazzed about a new Cab or that the pastry chef is doing something fantastic with the season's first pluots can galvanize these would-be insiders into showing up that very night.

But how much transparency is too much?

Said Lucchesi, to much laughter from the audience, "You know, Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin in NYC just started tweeting. Now, he's James Bond suave, with an olive-oil French accent, probably one of the world's most respected chefs. But his tweets read like a 12-year-old girl is writing them!"

The Mayor was a no-show to the Grand Tent's grand ribbon-cutting shortly after the panel concluded, but that didn't stop the crowd from oohing over the dramatic sabering of a magnum of Domaine Chandon, or the star-studded posse of chefs and restauranteurs clustered around the thick orange ribbon. And with a scissor and a snip, the crowd surged forward to check out Friday's main event, "Hog in the Fog," a food-and-cocktail walk-around under a big white tent in Union Square.

It helped to like pork in all its myriad forms, since besides the figs, grapes, and Cowgirl Creamery cheeses offered at the CUESA table, there was almost nothing for vegetarians, save a lot of tasty cocktails. Table after table offered pork cured, pork braised, pork shredded, or pork confit'd.

No pork crudo was in evidence, but there were plenty of jiggly slices of "head and hoof" terrine topped with pickled mustard seeds. (Made by Chris Cosentino of Incanto, as if you had to ask).

Poggio's Peter McNee laid out a lavish spread of salume, all made from a single pig, including sliced "pigstrami," mortadella, chocolate-brown "bloodella," and more, plus poached cotechino sausage over lentils (a classic Bolognese pairing) and fermented summer sausage on sauerkraut.

Homer Simpson would have been in heaven ("Porkchops and bacon, my two favorite animals!") but after the sixth or seventh porky bite, the octopus tentacles made by A16's Liza Shaw starting looking mighty good.

Nicolette Manescalchi, Liza Shaw and Ross Wunderlich

Why octopus? "Well, I love squid, octopus, all that stuff." said Shaw. Sometimes you have to choose between cooking for the people or cooking for chefs. Today, I decided to cook for the chefs. The people will follow!"

And her octopus tentacles on a stick, with slippery onion and a vivid, herby green-tomato salsa verde, were double-plus good.

You could wash down all that pork with many different cocktails, as long as your taste ran to tart, dry, and spicy. San Francisco bartenders continue to love their bitters, from the aromatic bitters (made from cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, and cassia) in the Rye Buck (Wild Turkey, house-made ginger syrup, lime) from Rye to the orange bitters in the cayenne sugar-rimmed Smoking Gun (Combier orange liqueur, Hennessey Black cognac, smoked peach puree) from Otis.

Everything seemed to have lemon or lime, ginger or cinnamon, plus a dash of herbal/anise flavor, in the form of Chartreuse, Herbsaint, or absinthe. Acknowledging that bartenders have their groupies and their name-brand just like chefs, each bar table had a board announcing the bartender's name and his (yes, they were all male) liquor of choice above the table.

The next morning, it was time for the Anolon Chef Challenge: Restaurant Family Feud (Delfina vs. Spruce), hosted by the Food Network's Aida Mollenkamp and judged by Jan Newberry, Steffan Terje (Perbacco, Barbacco) and Chronicle editor Miriam Morgan. The same conference room was now a Top Chef-style kitchen, with portable cooktop (but no running water), myriad bottles of wine and olive oil, and both a secret ingredient and a mystery basket of seasonal produce, courtesy of CUESA.

The secret ingredient? Local sustainable seafood, including Monterey Bay squid, sardines, and sole. The produce basket had just about everything you could find at Ferry Plaza: tomatoes of all sizes and colors, new potatoes, corn, herbs, figs, nectarines, melons, plums, onions, leeks, and more. The challenge? Three courses, one hour, two chefs on each team.

Mark Sullivan from Spruce

As you might imagine, chefs know how to focus, and halfway through their allotted time, you could hone a Wusthof knife off the single-minded attention beaming down from Delfina's Craig Stoll and Anthony Strong and Spruce's Mark Sullivan and Ben Cohn.

Craig Stoll from Delfina

They had little time or energy for chit-chat, which left Mollenkamp to carry the show, without TV's benefit of tomato-chopping close-ups or suspense-building commercial breaks. But the judges did chime in here and there, as when Mollenkamp asked Terje about his favorite summer produce.

"Summer is hard for me," Terje admitted. "It's like culinary ADD. Winter is more forgiving. Now, when something hits the market, you have to be ready for it right away."

Delfina dishes

The final menus? For Delfina, handmade tonarelli pasta with sardines, fennel, grapes, capers, and toasted breadcrumbs, followed by an impromptu toss of charred peppers, anchovies, and poached squid with pureed and diced tomatoes, lemon, capers and olives, and finally rolled sole poached with fish fumet, white wine, and herbs over tomatoes stewed in tomato juice and camomile tea.

Spruce dishes

For Spruce, the meal began with a clear tomato-water gazpacho with diced tomatoes and mint, followed by seared sardine over a pork-and-tomato broth with peppers and smoked paprika, then poached sole and squid with leeks, potatoes, and a basil pistou.

The winner? By just the smallest of margins, Delfina. The audience cheered, the chefs toasted each other with well-deserved beers, and the audience, tantalized by unbearably delicious aromas (but no tastes) during the past two hours, headed to the Grand Tent for another chef-and-cocktail go-round.

SF Chefs. Food. Wine. Ribbon Cutting: Linda Lim, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Kevin Westlye, Tyler Florence

To quote Mayor Gavin Newsom, "Aspen, eat your heart out."

An epic event 2 ½ years in the making, SF Chefs. Food. Wine. was like a food-lover's Disneyland with over 200 of the Bay Area's finest chefs, 450 wineries, and mixologists aplenty strutting their stuff.

Over the past four days, Union Square was transformed into a playground of tastings, seminars, and demonstrations from a who's who list of culinary legends, rising stars, artisans, and experts.

View from the top: Charles Phan, Thomas Keller, Douglas Keane

Sara Moulton and Cindy Pawlcyn

Martin Yan, Yan Can Cook

Top Cheftestants Jennifer Biesty and Ryan Scott

It sometimes feel like a blessing and a curse to live in a city with so many amazing restaurants to try because let's face it, who can afford to try them all? One can read about them, drool over descriptions and photos of them, and then place them on an ever-growing bucket list of places to try. The Grand Tasting Tent at SF Chefs provided the rare opportunity to hone that list, allowing participants to really taste, touch, see, and feel for themselves, a sliver of what some of these heralded restaurants are all about. The air was electric and the excitement palpable, as the wine flowed and the bites were dished out.

Monterey Squid, Chef Justin Simoneaux, Moss Room

Thai Wrap, Chef Toi Sawatdee, Lemongrass Thai Cuisine

It was interesting to see the chefs do riffs on many of the same ingredients that are in peak season right now: corn, heirloom tomatoes, melons, figs, and refreshing preparations like gazpachos and ceviches.

Bruleed Fig with Kaffir Lime Oil and Vanilla Salt, Chef Jenn Puccio, Cortez

And, there was no shortage of parties…all benefiting good causes of course: the Golden Gate Restaurant Association Scholarship Foundation, Meals on Wheels, Project Open Hand, and the San Francisco Food Bank (a member of Feeding America).

Thursday night reunited Rising Star Chefs and Bar Stars named by the San Francisco Chronicle, and a special dinner prepared by Arnold Eric Wong (E&O Trading Co.), Charles Phan (The Slanted Door/Heaven's Dog), and Martin Yan (Yan Can Cook).

Friday night honored America's Culinary Pioneers, Emily Luchetti (Farallon/Waterbar), Judy Rodgers (Zuni Café), Patricia Unterman (Hayes Street Grill), Joyce Goldstein (author and restaurateur), and Chuck Williams (Williams-Sonoma). There was also Out in the Fog, a celebration of the diverse LGBT community, at Elizabeth Falkner's Orson. It was chic, it was sexy, and it had a giant projection of Julia baking a cake on the wall.

Party time went strong through Saturday night, and the tasting tent was bumping with DJ Chef Hubert Keller laying down some beats at the Urban BBQ. Rock Star.

DJ Chef Hubert Keller

God forbid that dancing put anyone in a negative calorie count. The night continued at a Chocolate Enchantment after-party, complete with a floor to ceiling spinning display of chocolate decadence.

SF Chefs chocolate enchantment

This weekend's festivities were a true celebration of the unique culinary spirit of San Francisco, bringing together a community of both industry and non-industry people through a common love of food. It was a treat to have executive chefs live and in person, serving their dishes and chatting about their food, or seeing them interact with one another and catching a glimpse of that intriguing "chef's world" that has captured our imagination. We are a city that loves our food, and by direct association, honors the craftsmen and -women who bring joy through food.

SF Chefs. Food. Wine. hit on a winning combination of accessibility to hometown celeb-status chefs, utterly delicious food, fine wine, education, and awareness of important issues in food politics. It was fun, multi-faceted, and full of passion. It was, in a nutshell, San Francisco.

Ding-ding

10:30 a.m. on a weekday morning is not my usual cocktail hour. But with a cheerful SF Chefs. Food. Wine volunteer saying "Breakfast is served!" as he placed a cute pink drink in front of me, well, what could I do?

It was, after all, educational. The drink was a raspberry rum daisy, made with white rum, lemon, and raspberries, an olden-days cocktail made artisanally up-to-date through the use of small-batch Caribbean-style Baptiste rum and a locally made fruit syrup sweetened with raw cane sugar and thickened with gum arabic, that secret weapon of molecular gastronomy. And the occasion was Cocktails Get Into the Mix , an exploration of the past and present state of West Coast cocktail culture, moderated by Alcademics editor Camper English. In conversation with English was Duggan McDonnell of Cantina and Thad Vogler of the upcoming Bar Agricole.

Drawing a contrast between the technique-obsessed, traditionalist, authenticity-driven New York style of places like Milk and Honey, Death & Co. and the more free-wheeling, flavor-inspired California vibe, Duggan laughed, admitting, "We're more of a hot mess behind the bar." But both Vogler and McDonnell gave New York City its props, saying they'd both learned a tremendous amount about how even the simplest decisions--what sort of ice to use, whether to double-strain (using a cocktail strainer first, a fine tea strainer second)--can make a dramatic difference in the final result.

But, much like our restaurants, the current West Coast cocktail scene is driven by the extensive, year-round availability of amazing produce. "We eat and drink incredibly well here, we're tasting things constantly," noted McDonnell, who connects this vibrant, terrior-driven food culture with the rise in inventive, market-driven cocktail menus.

These drinks may look simple, but much of the work happens after hours, with bartenders simmering their own herb- or spice-infused syrups, amassing collections of quirky amari (the bitter digestive liqueurs beloved by true cocktail geeks), even growing (or bartering for) herbs, fruits, or seasonings. For bartenders less interested in getting in touch with their inner chef, there's Small Hand Foods run by Jennifer Colliau, a bartender at the Slanted Door, whose Berkeley-based company creates "classic ingredients for pre-prohibition cocktails," including grenadine, gum syrup, orgeat, and pineapple and raspberry syrups. All are made in small batches using raw cane sugar (no corn syrup) and no artificial ingredients.

As the group of us sipped our rosy daisies (flavored with Colliau's raspberry gum syrup), Vogler pointed out the difficulty of sourcing spirits that haven't come though the big industrial distillers. Even small-batch labels often buy their base spirit--neutral alcohols usually derived from grain--from big producers, then redistill, infuse and flavor it to their own specifications. This, he noted, was behind the simple but surprisingly inflammatory decision of Oakland's Camino restaurant to yank vodka from their bar menu, instead carrying only a small selection of spirits and seasonal ingredients. (They've since found a small distillery that meets their standards.) When California-grown limes weren't available, the bar used lemons. This caused quite a stir in the press and blogosphere around town, as diners happy to dig into free-range rabbit and sustainable sardines were incensed at not being able to order their usual vodka tonic.

"You have to throw out a lot of stuff if you decide not use anything with artificial flavors or colors, or high-fructose corn syrup," said Vogler, who worked on Camino's cocktail program. That meant no Campari, no maraschino cherries, almost none of the usual fizzy mixers. It's annoying sometimes, admits Vogler, but also fun, more like being a pastry chef with 5 or 6 creations a day than a typical bartender.

Another difference in the East Coast/West Coast throwdown: the pervasive Latin and Asian influences here, and the predominance of tequila, sake, soju and other similar liquors here in lieu of the whiskeys, bourbons, port and sherries more popular in New York. At Cantina, McDonnell noted, the two most popular cocktails are Asian-Latin mashups: the 5-Spice Margarita, and the Latin Buddha, which blends Buddha's Hand citrus vodka with serrano chiles and ginger beer.

A lengthy cocktail competition during the midday food-and-wine tasting seemed to prove nearly all these points. In an Iron-Chef-styled move, the 3 bartenders had to whip up, on the spot, an original cocktail featuring a secret ingredient. The ingredient? Fresh herbs, from dill and rosemary to purple basil and fennel flowers and sage. The winner, Nick Varacalli's "Pass me the lemon, honey" matched lemon thyme with honey-sweetened bourbon, a bit of Canton ginger liqueur, fresh lemon, sweet vermouth, and bitters. A little fresh, a little sweet, a little bitter, and some herb to top it off: what could be more Californian?