San Francisco, CA
Alaska Airlines Adds Taste Of San Francisco To Popular Route
Airplane food often has a pretty dicey reputation, as it’s known to not often be all that creative or high-concept…and doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being delicious. But over the years, airlines have tried to change all that by bringing on top sommeliers to revamp their wine list or celebrity chefs to upgrade their menu. Now, one airline is trying to do that in a pretty big way that is sure to get some attention.
Celebrity chef Brandon Jew is at the helm of an exciting Alaska Airlines menu upgrade.
Alaska Airlines has joined forces with a chef who has tons of star power – James Beard award-winning to Michelin-starred are among his credits – to add a serious punch of flavor to its first class menu on the airline’s popular San Francisco to New York City route.
Brandon Jew is a chef based in San Francisco, and is both owner and executive chef of Mister Jiu’s, a Chinese restaurant nestled in the heart of Chinatown inspired by the chef’s Cantonese heritage and local Bay Area ingredients and flavors. However, those who are on this flight route and who have not visited his Michelin-starred restaurant will now get a chance to experience some of his most famous dishes, from classic Chinese breakfast congee to slow-braised duck.
Brown rice congee is served with soy cured eggs and braised pork belly.
As airline food, even in the first class cabin, is often associated with dried out and over salted meats and carbs (not to mention sad variations on breakfast omelets), it’s worth noting that these dishes will also feature the same level of ingredients as those as Chef Jew’s restaurant. For example, the duck dish available on the lunch and dinner route will use poultry from Liberty Farms in Sonoma County, which is actually the same place the duck for Mister Jiu’s Peking Style Whole Roast Duck is sourced.
Braised duck leg with sesame egg noodles and gai lan.
The revamped first class menu featuring Chef Jew’s dishes will be available beginning August 28, exclusively on routes between SFO and JFK, and feature a breakfast option of brown rice congee with soy cured eggs and braised pork belly that comes with turnip cake, pickled cauliflower, hoisin and a hot chili sauce. There’ll also be lunch and dinner choices that include a braised duck leg with sesame egg noodles and gai lan that comes with with wood ear mushrooms, tofu skin and cucumbers or roasted black cod that comes topped with ginger-scallion sauce and silken tofu and mapo sauce, paired with a quinoa and farro blend with roasted shiitake mushrooms.
“I’m so excited to partner with Alaska Airlines on their First Class flight menu, connecting my hometown of San Francisco with New York, a city where I’ve always dreamed of living in,” said Chef Brandon Jew in a press release. “Luxury begins with quality ingredients, which underscores our shared values. At Mister Jiu’s we are always evolving and defining Chinese American cuisine in the Bay Area while advocating for the global recognition of Chinese food — the partnership with Alaska Airlines elevates Chinese cuisine from coast to coast.”
Well, that’s certainly a way to start a trip off on the right foot.
As pickleball popularity grows, so does the demand for courts – and the debate over the sport’s noise factor.
NBC Bay Area’s Sergio Quintana shows us how San Francisco is trying to meet the demand without upsetting residents in the video report above.
A growing group of skaters is pushing to preserve the Vaillancourt Fountain after the City of San Francisco announced a multimillion-dollar renovation plan that would remove the structure made of concrete square pipes.
Zeke McGuire started skating at the age of 10, and he grew up skating at the plaza and near the fountain.
“To see it go would be devastating,” McGuire stated. “I’ve been coming here my whole life. I’ve skated those stairs. I’ve been injured on those stairs.”
He’s skated on every inch of the Plaza, including the ledges of the Vaillancourt Fountain, which was completed in 1971. It’s impossible to miss, with its boxy concrete tubes that stand about 40 feet high.
It’s been the backdrop of more skateboard videos than anyone could count.
“It’s extremely awesome,” McGuire said. “There’s people all across the world that come to San Francisco to skate here specifically. So for it to be gone, people would come here to visit and it wouldn’t be here anymore, so I would say get it in before it’s gone.”
San Francisco Recreation and Parks announced the Embarcadero Plaza Renovation Project last year. It is a plan to construct a new waterfront park, which would tear down the structure.
Tamara Barak Aparton with Rec and Parks says that after years of deterioration, the fountain is unsafe.
“The structure is unstable,” Barak Aparton stated. “Hazardous materials are present, and we can’t allow the public access to a space that poses safety risks.”
Historical preservationists, landscape architects, and skate enthusiasts, like Bay Area professional skateboarder Karl Watson, are now pushing back and saying it’s a part of that sport’s history in San Francisco.
“A beautiful monstrosity that needs to stay,” said Watson, describing the fountain.
He says except for a few exceptions, people didn’t skate into the fountain, just around it.
“The fountain was integral for when we were tired after skating, we needed a place to relax and just enjoy the water flowing and the fountain definitely did that for us,” Watson said.
Now, the fountain is stagnant. The water stopped flowing years ago. In June 2025, it was fenced off.
Feldman was disappointed to see it like this.
“I came down here last week just to see the fencing and I was like ‘oh, they really don’t want us skating here anymore’,” Feldman explained.
In August, the Recreation and Parks department formally requested permission to remove the fountain from the city’s Civic Art Collection.
But McGuire is hoping people like Watson, and the artist keep fighting. Armand Vaillancourt’s lawyer recently sent a letter to multiple city departments demanding the city cease and desist all efforts to remove his work.
No final decision has been made yet, but if it does go, McGuire hopes they’ll leave something.
“Even if it was to be fully demolished, I think it would be really nice if they kept a little bit of something,” McGuire said. “Or maybe make a part for people to skate.”
San Francisco is set to host the 2025 Laver Cup at Chase Center from September 19 to 21, marking the first-ever tennis tournament held at the arena and the return of major men’s pro tennis to the city in over a decade. Steve Zacks, CEO of the Laver Cup, says this event showcases tennis like fans have never seen before, featuring a unique team format created by Roger Federer.
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