Inspection Delays Opening of Chain Restaurant That Promises $240 Kobe Beef

The opening of a chain restaurant that promises $50 cocktails and $240 beef has been delayed

Mastro’s Steakhouse is a restaurant chain from Landry’s, the folks behind a slew of questionable concepts including Joe’s Crab Shack, Bubba Gump’s, and Morton’s Steakhouse (the site of former Chron food critic Michael Bauer’s most ruthless review). The newest Mastro’s was supposed to open for business today at 399 Geary Street, the company initially said, where it will serve four ounces of Kobe beef for $240 and a $50 cocktail called “The Baller” comprised of gin, caviar dust, shaved black truffle, and white truffle oil. That opening has been delayed by “a last-minute inspection,” the Chron now reports, but it’s presumed that by month’s end, the city’s newly minted tech zillionaires will be dining (or not?) under its 4,000-pound chandelier.

Sumac is slinging Turkish street food on Russian Hill

Hoodline has word that Sumac, a fast-casual spot that serves (per its website) California-inspired Istanbul street food, has opened for business at 1096 Union Street. Expect Anatolian staples like wraps and kofte (Turkish meatballs), as well as the seemingly mandatory West Coast offerings of rice bowls and seasonal veggies.

Despite a recent relocation, the Tenderloin’s Lafayette Coffee Shop is doing just fine

Depending on who you ask, the Lafayette Coffee Shop opened in either 1925 or 1953, but either way, it’s old. Back in 2016, it was forced out of its 109-year-old building at 250 Hyde Street, displaced when their landlord turned the structure into tourist accommodations, Hoodline reported at the time. Now in new digs at 611 Larkin Street, the diner “has remained true to itself and its regulars, serving the same prime rib, western omelettes, and corned beef sandwiches that they have been since the 1960s,” SF Weekly food columnist Ryan Basso reports, saying that it has “old-timey decor and a menu to match.”

Dominique Crenn is running a pop-up just outside the Transbay transit center

Dominique Crenn, SF’s Michelin-starred, pescatarian chef, just launched a pastry and bread focused pop-up just outside the Salesforce Tower (which is where Crenn is expected to eventually open a spot called Boutique Crenn). It’s called Boutique Crenn X Cubert (Cubert’s a mobile kitchen operation from food truck event org Off The Grid), and it’s open on Mondays–Fridays from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 415 Mission Street.

The Chron’s restaurant critic was bummed out by Dear Inga’s music

Soleil Ho, the SF Chronicle’s restaurant critic, has raves for Mission Eastern Euro joint Dear Inga’s endive salad, sausages, and desserts, and says that “sentimentality is what the restaurant aims for.” She’s less patient when that sentiment is devoted to four-year-old pop songs, saying “I do wish the music at least was a little less generic — less American and British indie rock from 2015 and more tunes from the Eastern European diaspora.” Alexa, play Slavic dirge station, please.