San Francisco Chronicle Food & Home - Spoken Edition

A lot of things could not have happened if we hadn’t moved to California, and one of them was my first taste of passion fruit. Living on the East Coast, passion fruit was something that I had heard about, and when I did find it in the stores, it was way too expensive to purchase on a student budget. I even tried to grow one; to much dismay, it yielded flowers on occasion but never any fruit.

Shake Shack, the upscale hamburger chain founded by New York restaurateur Danny Meyer, has finally chosen a site in San Francisco: the former Real Food Market at 3060 Fillmore St., in Cow Hollow. The natural-foods market, on the corner of Fillmore and Filbert, closed in 2016 after 19 years in business and has remained vacant since then.

Hotel San Francisco, the new Financial District restaurant and bar named after the Eagles’ 1976 song, opens today in the former Mercedes Restaurant (653 Commercial St.). The menu cover features the words “such a lovely place” on it. The restaurant and bar comes by way of three Australians — Thomas Glenwright, Paul Schulte and Priscilla Dosiou — who have several all-day food and drink spots in Sydney.

It’s officially safe to say 2018 might once again be the year of Ayesha Curry . Just like 2017 . And 2016. Actually, her 2015 was pretty solid, too. It seems like any goal that the culinary superstar, burgeoning restaurateur, walking lifestyle brand and all-around renaissance woman sets her sights on these days, she achieves. Next on the list: conquering the wine world with her own brand — Domaine Curry.

Almost a year after the former Phil’s Sliders space was scooped up by the Comal team in Berkeley, the popular East Bay Cal-Mexican outfit opens its fast-casual spinoff today ... called Comal Next Door. With a compact menu of burritos, tacos and tortas, Comal Next Door is a more simplified and streamlined version of the flagship operation only feet away.

Inside and out, the new Chow in Oakland is impressive, with its high-beamed ceiling, concrete floors, wood railings and dozens of what resemble picnic tables. It feels something like a Tahoe lodge. Under this one roof there’s an impressive produce market, with bins of fruits and vegetables spilling out around the entrance; a takeout hot-food counter that includes pizza, roast chicken and organic vegetables; curated packaged products; meat; seafood and wine.

Tuck some cheese between two slices of bread, cook until the bread is crisp and the cheese is melted, and voila! — you’ve got yourself a grilled cheese sandwich. There may be no such thing as bad grilled cheese, but like so many seemingly simple dishes, the devil’s in the details. Achieving golden crisp and gooey nirvana can be harder than it looks. So what constitutes a truly superior grilled cheese sandwich? Well, it depends on whom you ask. For Michael Davidson, a.k.a.

Hog & Rocks’ Scott Youkilis is still adjusting to the idea of not owning a restaurant in the Mission. The role is the only thing he’s known for more than a decade, going back to his Maverick days. Since 2010, when he and partner Dave Esler remodeled a run-down building on the corner of 19th and San Carlos, Youkilis has run Hog & Rocks there, a neighborhood hangout known for oysters, whiskey and a lively late-night crowd.

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers swept across Northern California earlier this year, arresting more than 150 undocumented immigrants, the Bay Area restaurant industry watched closely. “Everyone is fearing a day that ICE could show up at their doors,” said Gwyneth Borden, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. For restaurateurs and their staff, it’s more than just speculative anxiety.

It isn’t often gardeners get to hear the word “caviar” used in the context of a plant in their garden, but that is a valid association when one is talking about the unique citrus tree called finger lime. Right away, throw out everything you know about limes. Finger lime (Microcitrus australasica) is a small, shrubby and thorny tree native to the eastern coastal rain forest of Australia. Trees vary in height from 5 to 12 feet, with a spread of as much as 6 feet.

Verve, the hit New York wine shop from master sommelier Dustin Wilson, coming to S.F. Lucky us: San Francisco is getting an outpost of Verve Wine, the New York shop owned by master sommelier (and “Somm” star) Dustin Wilson and partner Derrick Mize. The new shop at 2358 Fillmore St., formerly the footwear boutique Gimme Shoes, will open May 12. Sommelier Eric Railsback will be the S.F. shop’s director of operations. Wilson, a onetime RN74 sommelier, is no stranger to our city.

The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control indefinitely suspended the license of La Oficina after department agents discovered a number of violations at the Mission Street bar, including the purchase and sale of illegal narcotics.

San Francisco Brewing Co. is roughly one month away from opening the doors to its sprawling 12,000-square-foot project at Ghirardelli Square, a mammoth venture meant to revitalize an iconic tourist destination in need of new life.The project’s tap room and on-site brewery will open in the square’s West Plaza sometime in late April, the team said, bringing with it a full-service restaurant, an outdoor patio with fire pits, and family-friendly games, among other things.

This is Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer’s Between Meals column, an update of the restaurants he visits as he searches for the next Top 100 Restaurants. His main dining reviews, which include a ratings box, are written only after three or more visits.It’s been more than six years since I made my last visit to Jackson Fillmore Trattoria, the tiny southern Italian restaurant opened by Jack Krietzman in 1985.

Salt & Straw asked local kids to invent new ice cream flavors. Here’s what they created. Would you eat an ice cream flavor invented by kids? What if it was made with cheddar cheese? Portland-based ice cream shop Salt & Straw, which opened outposts in San Francisco last year, is no stranger to outlandish flavors. And, starting in April, the ice cream maker will debut five new flavors created by students at San Francisco’s Dr. William L.