OK, I know that lists like this are supposed to come out at the beginning of the year. So, I'm late. Sue me.

Here's what bugged the crap out of me during 2008:

1) I understand the concept of trends but the me-too-ism of San Francisco restaurants is getting way out of hand. Case in point...I walked into a restaurant owned by a Well-Known Chef a while back and pasta with octopus Bolognese was on the menu. A few days later, I walked into another restaurant owned by a different Well-Known Chef and calamari Bolognese was offered. Now, I'm going to put aside the incredible yuck! factor associated with tentacled-sealife Bolognese. Clearly, somebody's copying someone. (I have my suspicions about who cribbed off of who but I don't really know so I'm not going to speculate.) Stop it! There's a fine line between being trendy and being a copycat. Don't cross it.

2) Following hot on the heels of my first grump, this whole offal thing needs to stop. It was bad enough when it was limited to Chris Cosentino. But now the idea is seeping out of Incanto and threatening to pollute the entire City. Someone call the hazmat crew for containment before we're all contaminated! I get the idea of honoring the life of the animal by using the whole thing. But evolution imbued humans with a revulsion of guts and I tend to think that evolution does things for good reasons. Like preserving mankind. If you're bound and determined to use everything a) grind it up so it's unrecognizable (I love scrapple, which is basically pig parts and corn meal) or b) make pet food.

3) Offal leads me to my next complaint, bone marrow. Bone marrow as a topping for a steak, good. Bone marrow as a dish unto itself, no good.

4) Many millenia ago, man harnessed fire. One of the main reasons we did so was to cook food, especially meat. Now I don't mind going retro once in a while but retro to before the last Ice Age is a bit excessive. So, what's with the tartare obession? Steak tartare is bad enough. The last time I saw someone eat it, in France, topped with an egg, my immediate reaction was you get your E. coli and your Salmonella in one serving — how convenient! Now we've moved beyond raw ground beef to salmon tartare, tuna tartare and hamachi tartare. Sushi is also bad enough — I only eat the kinds that are cooked. Do you really need to go the extra step and grind the raw fish??? And do half the restaurants in town really have to offer something tartare???

5) It seems that the half of the restaurants in town that don't offer something tartare instead vend ceviche or its cousin, crudo. Don't go trying to convince me that raw fish marinated in citrus juice, salt and spices has somehow been "chemically cooked." That ain't cookin'. Ixnay the uncooked, juice-soaked seafood.

6) Speaking of something that's on way too many menus, where did the current obsession with bread pudding originate? It's the new creme brulee! (See The Tablegrumper Redux and The Tablehopper's original post. Also note that Marcia was on top of the tuna tartare thing two years ago. Sorry, hon, but it's gotten worse, not better.) I don't mind a good, traditional bread pudding. But we're seeing too many fancy-schmancy variations — chocolate bread pudding, mocha bread pudding, yada, yada, yada. Here's a clue — if you're bread pudding is any more involved than Paragon's, you've gone too far. Gussied up comfort food isn't comfortable.

7) Despite what Michael Pollan, Empress Alice, Gavin Newsom's Victory Garden and Slow Food Nation might think, the whole hyper-local/localvore thing is just plain dumb. The idea that food typically comes from 1500 miles away is a myth, especially in California. The idea that fewer food miles mean fewer carbon emissions is a myth. And did these people all cut class the day comparative advantage was taught in Econ 101? Here's a hint — an area that excels at producing a good does so because it can produce that good with better relative efficiency than other areas. Efficiency is a good thing for the environment because doing things efficiently uses fewer resources. Now, I'm all in favor of buying local (and do buy local) because it helps my neighbors and I like to be neighborly. And I'm not opposed to gardens. I have very fond memories of eating corn and tomatoes from our garden as a child (not to mention much less fond memories of the yellow wax beans.) But don't go trying to tell me that I must buy local or grow a garden for the sake of the planet. Puleeze!

8) Joseph Marzare's restaurants annoy the snot out of me. They should be good, really good. They're not. Zuppa is terrible except for the salumi and the pasta with the award-winning sauce (I don't remember which one it is and I'm 2500 miles away from San Francisco right now so I can't exactly run over there and find out. Ask them if you go. They'll tell you. That's how I originally found out which one it is.) Globe is wildly inconsistent. One night about a year ago, Mackie had a pizza from Globe that she liked so much that she went back the very next night and ordered the very same thing. The second night the pizza was inedible. (OTOH, Globe scores points because it's open late.) Tres Agaves slipped from 2 1/2 Bauer stars when it opened to 1 1/2 Bauer stars a mere year-and-a-half later. Still Mr. Manzare insists on opening more restaurants. A bit of advice — do fewer things better. People catch on to that old "the restaurant is good while the star chef is in the kitchen and sucks after he leaves" routine pretty quickly. If Joseph Manzare doesn't get his act together, he'll end up being known as Manzare the Mediocre.

9) My final two grumps are repeats from last year that the industry had not deigned to fix. In fact, things got worse. First up is cocktail pricing. Last year when I wrote, "Double digit cocktail prices are simply absurd." I was thinking about prices in the $10-ish range and I was talking about a typical cocktail, not the bar's highest-end offering. In the past year, I've observed something like a 20% rise in cocktail prices at joints with "cocktail programs." (This, by the way, is a purely anecdotal observation — I didn't do the kind of data collection on cocktails that I did when I wrote The Bauer Curve.) I could kind of understand this last summer when gas was at $5 a gallon. But cocktail prices have stayed high even though energy cost have been cut in half and the economy has gone into the toilet. Peeps, at those prices, I'm drinking iced tea. What part of recession do you not understand?

10) Burgers in the City are also stupidly expensive. Last year, I picked on Eos and their $18 cheeseburger with fries. Things at Eos haven't gotten better but they haven't gotten worse so I'll select another victim, namely Joe's Cable Car. In round numbers, Joe's charges $10 for a burger, $1 for cheese and $2.50 for fries. Total = $13.50. Now, the resonable person might say, "Grumpy, $13.50 is way less than $18. Why are you pickin' on Joe's?" Loyal readers, here's the kicker. We're talkin' a 4 oz. burger. Sure, you can upgrade your burger to a 6 oz. patty or an 8 oz. patty but that's gonna cost you. Specifically, the 4 oz. to 6 oz. upgrade costs $3.50. That's $3.50 for an extra 2 oz. Do the math. We're talking the equivalent of $28 per pound for hamburger!!! Are you kidding me??? $28 per pound for hamburger at a joint with zero atmosphere in a sketchy neighborhood??? Rip-off. And I really don't care that Guy Fieri stopped by.

Someone out there, please, show the Grump some love and correct these egregious sins!