Bye bye Brasil BBQ, hello Magdelena’s Savories & Sweets

Sadly, Brasil BBQ is set to close its doors on Nov. 21, so stop in before then to wish owners Cristina and Anthony Faga the best on their new adventure. News of the sale of their restaurant came by way of a of a notice of sale in the newspaper that eagle eye Sarah Bee saw and posted to social media asking if anyone knew the inside scoop. In reaching out to Cristina and Anthony, I did find out that after six years in Petaluma, they have decided to sell their restaurant.

As many restaurateurs are finding, landlords are raising rents back up to pre-pandemic levels, while business has not yet returned in full, and what with the continued aftereffects of the area’s fires, likely won’t for quite a while. The Fagas moved to Petaluma from Philadelphia, and plan to return there to open an Italian restaurant and pizzeria. The prospective buyers of the Brasil BBQ space are listed in the newspaper as Magdelena’s Savories & Sweets out of Cotati, who did not respond to my email request for comment in time for this deadline. According to their website (magdelenas.com), “We are a family run business that offers locally sourced vegetarian eats. We specialize in hand crafted cinnamon rolls, focaccia pizza and other, grab-and-go, delectable eats.” It appears that they are strictly vegetarian, which will certainly make a lot of Petaluma diners happy.

Of course, the sale isn’t final until it’s final, but Cristina was nice enough to take the time to leave me a wonderfully warm “goodbye and thank you” message, in her adorable Brazilian accent, and asked me to pass it along to Petaluma diners. “Thank you very much for all the support. This is truly a great community and really help me out a lot, not just supporting the restaurant but also its spiritually. People here are very kind and very good to be around. I have a lot of gratitude for Petaluma. I am very thankful to have been here for the past six years. I made great friends and have a lot of love for the area. We’re sad to leave but moves on and everything changes. We thank you for all the support.”

Cristina also said she would be posting some of her popular recipes to Facebook as a thank you to her guests who have supported her all these years. “I know there are a lot of people with favorites, so we thought it would be nice to share our recipes with them.” These will include her chimichurri, cheese bread a few other favorite items.

Julbord is back

Last year’s Julbord, a Scandinavian holiday banquet, was put on hold at Stockhome Restaurant here in Petaluma due to the pandemic. We were lucky enough to have friends coming through the city on the night of Plaj’s take-home Julbord, so still got to enjoy the tradition last season, but nothing really beats the festive and community feel of attending a Julbord in person. Now that they have closed sister restaurant Plaj, owners Andrea and Roberth Sundell are going full bore with this year’s Julbord, offering three dates and six times for dine-in, as well as one to-go date option for those that prefer.

If the term Julbord sounds similar to the term smorgasbord, that is no coincidence as the word “bord” in both Norwegian and Swedish means “table” and basically represents food served buffet style. And although this year’s Julbord will not be served smorgasbord-style, due to COVID safety, the family-style service will still include all the same great menu items as us Julbord veterans have come expect. And with three hour time allotments for each seating, there will be plenty of time to sit, relax and enjoy all the great food and company.

Being the only Swedish restaurant in California (I believe), Stockhome’s fans flock from near and far so these dates are going to fill up quickly. We have already purchased our tickets, to make sure we wouldn’t miss out, and highly recommend you do the same soon if you too want to give Julbord a try.

Dates and times are Sunday, Dec. 5 (noon or 4 p.m.), Sunday, Dec. 12 (noon or 4 p.m.), and Sunday, Dec. 19 (noon or 4 p.m.), with the only to-go date being Monday, Dec. 20. Tickets are $80 for adults and $40 for kids 12 and under and need to be purchased in advance at stockhomerestaurant.com. And don’t forget to add some glogg, a Nordic mulled wine, which Stockhome has in a non-alcoholic, gluten and GMO free black currant flavor. (They also offer beer and wine for sale.)

Miracle Holiday Bar

Brewsters Beer Garden will again host the Miracle Pop-Up Bar, which is the insanely uber-decorated holiday bar makeover that a handful of bars participate in around the country. If you haven’t seen this before, you definitely should. Even this semi-Scrooge takes great pleasure from seeing what the crew comes up with at Brewsters each year. The festivities kick off Monday, Nov. 22, but once you see the amount of work and creativity it takes their staff to put this project together, and how joy it brings to everyone, even those of us who general like to wait on Christmas until after our Thanksgiving turkey has been digested give them a warm-hearted pass on the rule that Christmas shouldn’t start prior to Thanksgiving. Once I get in there to see and photograph the new decorations and give a couple of the holiday-themed cocktails a try, I will report back with more.

Bottle shop

Street Social is opening up their exclusive wine bottle shop to holiday shoppers, starting Friday, Nov. 19, and continuing on Fridays and Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m. to “highlight small, organic to regenerative practicing new and old-world producers.” If you have yet to dine with Street Social, this is as good a time as any to make a reservation and kill two birds with one stone. Street Social is located at 29F Petaluma Blvd. N., in the breezeway beneath Old Chicago Pizza. (streetsocial.social.)

Season of cocktails

Barber Lee Spirits will host their first event since the pandemic on Thursday, Dec. 9, from 7 to 9 p.m. Your ticket price of $55 includes food, live music and six different cocktails samples, followed by a big cocktail of your choosing. This is a great way to sample through Barber Lee’s wares, and probably pick up some holiday goodies for yourself and your loved ones. Spirit Club members get a discount, so this might be as good a time as any to sign up. Visit barberleespirits.com for more information.

Gingerbread houses

Jamison’s Roaring Donkey has announced their “Gingerbread House Deocrating Sunday Funday” for Sunday, Dec. 12, starting at noon. “Gingerbread house kits will be provided. Bring your own candy to decorate. Judging will happen and a prize for first place is up for grabs.” I believe the houses are being provided by Scone Rollin. It is unclear whether pre-registration is required but it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to either let JRD know you plan to attend, or maybe click the “going” button on their Facebook post.

Straus eggnog

I haven’t really thought about or craved eggnog for well over three decades now. I figured it either just wasn’t my thing or else maybe locked away deep in my psyche were unpleasant memories of making myself sick on the super gooey nogs of my childhood. With no real “full” to my appetite, especially with something sweet and drinkable, like Thai iced tea and eggnogs, it would not have been the first time that I “broke” myself of something through overindulgence. But then Kim Rolly Brothers posted this year’s first Straus Family Creamery eggnog post to the Petaluma Foodies page on Facebook, and that, along with all the positive responses, got me to thinking.

I’ve seen similar posts in the past, but as long as I was at Petaluma Market, I figured I’d check and see if they had any in stock. From what I was reading, this stuff seems to fly off the shelves so if you can’t find it at Petaluma Market or Penngrove Market, try Skippy’s or Jupiter Foods, both Petaluma hidden gems. I was lucky enough to find a half-dozen bottles at Petaluma Market that night and immediately posted to Facebook to let others know who might be in the vicinity and wanting.

We took ours home and gave it a try. The first sip had me puzzled and I wasn’t sure I liked it because it wasn’t as thick and sugary as the way I remember it from childhood. However, partway through my second of eighty-some-odd sips, I was sold. This is not the overly sugary nogs of my childhood. The flavor is subtle, yet totally satisfying. Without additives, it is not as think as others – it has a more elegant air to it. I might go so far as to call it refreshing. “The nog that doesn’t bog you down.” It helps that few things are as good as Straus milk. (I have been known to polish off a quart of their chocolate milk in a less than a full afternoon.) On the plus side, I discovered that cleaning out milk bottles is much easier if you empty them of their contents almost immediately upon arriving home. Let them sit around for a few days and they start to get crusty residue on them, but drink them in their entirety right away, and a simple rinse cleans them right up. That said, you should be able to return your Straus bottles to the store you bought them from. Personally, we tend to keep them as they make great flower vases.

Fall menus

As we move into cooler weather, many of our restaurants change up their “seasonal” menu items to match hunger for warmer comfort foods. This past week two restaurant changes caught my eye. The first was from Charley’s Wine Country Deli, who posted a photo of their hearty barley soup. On the other side of town, Dandy Sandos (formerly Mr. Pickles) posted their daily soup special too, which was Italian wedding soup.

Back over in downtown, Tortilla Real posted a couple of winter breakfast specials, including their Chilaquiles Divorciados (scrambled eggs, beans, cheese, sour cream and red and green sauce, over tortilla chips) and their Mexican brunch (café de la Olla, corn pancakes and grandma’s champurrado (fresh corn masa, cinnamon, piloncillo and Mexican chocolate).

Finally, Bay Laurel Culinary has announced the return of their Wagyu Beef and Guinness Pies. Normally a St. Paddy’s Day special, customers have been begging for these incredible pies all year so Bay Laurel brought them back for the winter. And always on the menu, their chicken pot pies are also a huge crowd pleaser.

Sol Food Update

Recently, Sol Foods posted a photo of the interior of Petaluma’s Theater Square location under construction, but the only caption was “Let there be light!” Shernaz Mejos called their San Rafael restaurant directly and was told they may open by, “…maybe mid-January.”