Wednesday Whistle Wetter: Numero Cinq

Since I've been slacking (heavily) on the frequency of my blog posts, today I will take the time out to feature about 1000 different bars from those for the "food centric" to "dives," and everything in between. However, I will be cheating.

Throughout my culinary explorations and restaurant spelunking, I've loved the convenience and "quick fix" that customer reviewal services such as Yelp, UrbanSpoon, and CitySearch all provide when I'm in an unfamiliar place, or simply can't decide on what I feel like eating for a given meal. However, the problem with many of these services is that they often attract what I'll call, "one sided customers." These people have such a one sided experience, whether it be amazingly great or unbearably terrible, that they take to the internet to spew their uncensored feelings about how you should "run away from," or "immediately visit" an establishment. Not too often do you get the unobjective, bare boned and honest opinion of what to expect when visiting a restaurant or bar.

However, the people you should be looking to read an establishment review from are the professionals. Those who live and breathe food and drink, and who get paid to do it. Local critiques, writers, and foodies that can often be found writing for local magazines and newspapers are the people that you should trust. It only makes sense, right? Who knows the local area and has a more developed palate than a food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle? Exactly - no one.

The Oakland Tribune, East Bay Express, SF Examiner (just to name a very few) all have their own "food" sections with feature articles and professional restaurant reviews, however I've long been dedicated to digging through the San Francisco Chronicle @ SF Gate to get to their "food and drink" segment. Along with the inclusion of restaurants and bars from the entire Bay Area (from Berkeley to San Jose), the SF Chronicle also contains the Top 100 Restaurants list written by famous restaurant critique Michael Bauer - which I wait for every year like Christmas morning.

In recent years, the SF Chronicle has also written up a yearly list (updated every so often) of the Top 100 Bars in the Bay Area. With the drink culture just as prevalent as the food culture here in the Bay Area, it only makes sense, right? Here's the part where I write about 1000 bars at once:

http://www.sfgate.com/wine/article/Top-100-Bay-Area-Bars-Food-centric-3674577.php

Told you I'd cheat. This awesome list in particular is the SF Chronicle's list of Top 100 "Food Centric" bars in the Bay Area, however there are more categorized lists that I had no idea existed. The lists include:

Top 100 Bay Area Bars (general) 
Top 100 Bay Area Bars for Cocktail Masters
Top 100 Bay Area Bars for Beer Mavens
Top 100 Bay Area Bars for Spirit Curators
Top 100 Classic Bay Area Bars
Top 100 Bay Area Wine Bars
Top 100 Bay Area Dive Bars
Top 100 Bay Area Sports Bars
Top 100 Bay Area Tiki Bars (! Right?!) 

Now go out and enjoy, for your drinking pleasure. There's all kinds of bars, with even more drinks to be had and tried out there. If you have the right amount of drinks, who knows, maybe I'll see one of your drunken 1-star or 5-star reviews on Yelp later this weekend.

Cheers!