Healthy eating tips for the new year 🥬

A Stanford dietician’s tips to make healthy eating easier

The holidays are over, and that means calories, unfortunately, once again count. Cookie tins are put away and replaced with salad bowls, and many people, including myself, are resolved to hit the gym more regularly.

For those looking to eat more healthfully this year, you may find this week’s food feature particularly helpful. Assistant lifestyle editor Karla Kane talked with a registered dietitian with Stanford Health Care to learn what small changes can help people build or maintain healthy eating.

Meanwhile, I talked with Russell Savage of Pico’s BBQ about its sudden closure and with Armando Lacayo about his plans to expand his renowned bakery Arsicault to Palo Alto.

Stay tasty,
Adrienne

New year nutrition: A Stanford dietitian’s tips for maintaining healthy eating resolutions

We checked in with a local nutrition expert who said that making small changes, such as adding more servings of vegetables to your plate each day, can have a long-term positive impact.

A famous patisserie makes Peninsula plans, new restaurants at Serramonte Center and recent closures

• One of San Francisco’s most famous bakeries is expanding to Palo Alto’s Cal Ave. area.
• Breakout Peninsula barbecue star Pico’s BBQ permanently closed Saturday. Founder Russell Savage cited burnout as the reason for his decision.
• Palo Alto’s Town & Country Village gets a new breakfast spot, Hatched.
• Dr. Thomas J. Fogarty of Fogarty Wines has died. Here’s a look back at his legacy.
• Here’s the latest on the founder of a mental health startup who’s facing felony charges following an erratic episode at a Saratoga winery.
• After nearly 13 years in downtown Palo Alto, Tacolicious has permanently closed.
• New openings at Serramonte Center in Daly City. Marufuku Ramen is now open, and Onigilly Japanese Kitchen is hosting its grand opening Jan. 17-18, with the first 100 guests in line receiving a free Spam onigilly.
• Lira, a fine-dining restaurant in Campbell, permanently closed Dec. 31. It comes just six months after celebrity chef Tucker Ricchio left the restaurant and about a year after it first debuted.
• Often credited as the creator of the cupcake craze, cupcake chain Sprinkles closed all of its locations Dec. 31, including its Palo Alto outpost. Its planned Burlingame location is unlikely to open.
• Bici Coffee held its grand opening Jan. 5 in Menlo Park’s Rosewood Sand Hill hotel.
• Two new restaurants opened recently in Campbell: Local brunch chain The Breakfast Club at Midtown opened in the former Hash House space. La Jaiba Grill, an upscale sister restaurant to La Jaiba Taqueria Y Marisco, has also opened.

Cocktails and bar bites at Bar Underdog

The energy at Bar Underdog is infectious. It’s loud, bustling and always crowded, yet elegant and understatedly bougie. 

If you can, snag a seat at the bar to watch the bartenders – nay, mixologists – sculpt ice blocks with flaming hot metal rods, use tweezers to carefully lift heart-shaped jellies and deftly display all sorts of techniques I don’t quite understand.

The menu features 12 house cocktails ($18 each). I’ve tasted eight and intend to eventually try the remaining four. 

My unexpected favorite is the Pickle Juice, made with mezcal, lacto-fermented cucumber, nasturtium and Irish whiskey. The fact that I generally dislike both mezcal and whiskey is a huge compliment to the concoction, which tasted like neither to me. The serrano salt rim and notes of pandan and cacao yielded a balanced, flavorful and interesting beverage that was unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before.

For those not so adventurous, my other top picks are the Fru-ti’ punch with rhum (sugarcane spirit), beerenauslese (German dessert wine), papaya and lychee, and the Has Been with Japanese whisky, mango eau de vie (fruit brandy), verjus (tart grape juice), green cardamom and Thai basil.

But don’t limit yourself to what’s on the menu – the bartenders will happily invent a cocktail based on your request. My favorite cocktail I’ve had at Bar Underdog is off the menu and was made with sparkling hojicha and Maillard liqueur (a liqueur which aims to capture the rich, caramelized flavors of the Maillard reaction).

And while Bar Underdog is a bar, the food is just as spectacular as the drinks. Created by the same team behind Michelin-starred Protégé, Bar Underdog offers much more elevated fare than your typical bar food. 

The Korean corn-cheese puffs with smoked mozzarella and pickled jalapeno ($8) tasted like jalapeno poppers in profiterole form. And do not leave without trying the amberjack tostada with ponzu, pickled poblano and yuzu kosho ($15). It’s spicy, acidic, refreshing and has all the texture you’d want.

Bar Underdog is a much needed addition to Cal Ave. It’s fun, tasty and a vibe and definitely warrants more returns for me.

Bar Underdog, 299 California Ave., Palo Alto; Instagram: @barunderdogpa. Open Tuesday to Thursday from 4-11 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 4 p.m. to midnight.

It’s wine time: Elleary Wine opens in Los Altos and a² debuts in San Mateo
Learn about the newest wine bars along the Peninsula

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