Richmond Roundup

Shakespeare Festival Moves to Presidio
After 21 years of performing outdoors in Golden Gate Park, the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival has announced they are leaving the park to perform at the Presidio Parade Ground, located near the Officer's Club.

"This was a soul-searching decision," said festival Executive Director Toby Leavitt. "We positively adore Golden Gate Park and have fond memories of our years performing there.

"However, performing 'Love's Labour Lost' last year to the unintended accompaniment of Duran Duran suggested it might be time to move on," he said.

This year, the festival will produce Twelfth Night directed by Kenneth Kelleher. The play will be performed on Saturdays and Sundays, from Sept. 4 - Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m., with an additional performance on Labor Day. All performances are free and accompanied by a four-piece musical ensemble.

For more information about the festival, call (415) 865-4434 or visit the website at www.sfshakes.org.

Big Boxing Bout at USF
On Sept. 17, at 7 p.m., the University of San Francisco will host the first-ever USF Intercollegiate Hilltop Cup at the War Memorial Gymnasium, located at 2335 Golden Gate Ave. The event will facilitate fights between more than 20 boxers from seven universities, including UC Berkeley, Stanford, USF and City College of San Francisco.

The event is intended to be a fundraiser for the USF scholarship fund, "Saber es Poder," which helps pay the tuition of low-income Hispanic students.

Admission is $10 for students, $20 general admission and $50 for VIP tickets. For more information, call 422-2945 or visit the University of San Francisco website at www.usfca.edu/hilltopcup.

Conservatory Wins Numerous Awards
It has been only one year since the Conservatory of Flowers reopened its doors to the public after the severely storm-damaged Victorian landmark was closed in 1995. The Conservatory has proven popular with tourists, with 300,000 visitors walking through the doors since its reopening in September 2003. It is projected to reach 350,000 visitors by the one-year anniversary date.

In the year since the $25 million rehabilitation campaign's completion, the Conservatory has received seven awards for excellence, including the Governor's Historic Preservation Award and the Friedel Klussman Award from San Francisco Beautiful. The California Heritage Council, the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California and the California Horticultural Society have also honored the Conservatory.

This fall the Conservatory will introduce the Jungle Guides program, in which docents lead tours for fourth grade classes. Interested volunteers are currently being recruited and are encouraged to visit the Conservatory's website.

Also in the works are a holiday display of unusual winter flowers and a new exhibit called "Nature's Drugstore," featuring live medicinal plants used by doctors and healers around the world, including a Chinese herbalist, South American shaman and an African sungoma.

For more information, call 666-7001 or visit www.conservatoryofflowers.org.

Lafayette School Kicks off New Fundraising Drive
The Lafayette Elementary School's Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is kicking off its fall FACT fundraising effort. The acronym FACT stands for Families, Alumnae and Community Together.

Monies raised will be used for curriculum and school enrichment programs, including grants for teachers to provide materials for their classrooms.

The goal for this year's drive is $40,000, which is slightly higher than last year's fundraising drive, the first the school has held to support school programs.

Send contributions to: Lafayette PTA/FACT; 4545 Anza St., SF, CA 94121.

Local Student Wins Scholarship
Christopher Quock, a freshman at SF State University, has won a distinguished Presidential Scholar award.

Quock, a Richmond District resident pursuing a career in biological sciences, is one of 23 students to win the scholarship. He will receive about $17,000 over four years.

Richmond Democrats to Honor Civic Award Winners
The Richmond District Democratic Club will hold its annual dinner Sept. 10 at the Lee Hou Restaurant, located at 332 Clement St. Every year, the club honors a man, woman and organization or program that has made a great contribution to the community.

This year, the club will honor Shirley Hansen, Richard Hansen and the Richmond Village Beacon, an afterschool and continuing education program at George Washington High School.

For more information, call 668-0997. All RSVPs must be in by Sept. 5.

Back-to-School Shopping Spree
Last month, the Sports Basement, located at the Presidio, and the Salvation Army both offered patrons discounted prices on back-to-school items. The Sports Basement reduced prices on all items by 10 percent one evening in August, and then donated 10 percent of the event's proceeds to the Hamilton Family Center. Likewise, the Salvation Army sponsored a three-day giveaway of clothes and school supplies for low-income families in an event partially sponsored by Sears and the Gap.

Anza Library Hosts Reading Program
The Anza Branch Library, located at 550 37th Ave., hosts an adult reading program for those ages 18 and older. The program, running from Saturday, Sept. 4 through Saturday, Oct. 23, encourages participants to read books from the library's collection in any language.

Prizes will be distributed to those who read two, six and eight books.

For more information, call 355-5717.

Martial Arts Academy Wins 3 Medals
The Richmond District's Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy participated in the fifth Pan American Kung Fu Championships held in July at Annadale, Virginia. This was the first time this prestigious biennial event was held in the United States.

The Pan American Championship brings together the best martial artists from many countries.  This time, the Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy represented the United States. Each country's team may only have one fighter from each weight category. The Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy held 3 of the 11 available positions on the US Sanshou kickboxing team. 

Master Tat-Mau Wong, the founder of the Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy, was selected as this year's Pan American Chief Officer in charge of Sanshou.  Sanshou is being considered for inclusion in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In the end, all three Tat Wong  Kung Fu instructors were victorious, including Felipe Godoy (gold), Leandro Manabe (silver) and Meng Wong (bronze).

All together. the U.S. team brought home 3 gold medals, 2 silver medals and 1 bronze medal. Matt Cataleta and Brian Madigan, from Brent Hamby's EBM Kung Fu Academy in Oakland, won two gold medals.

Cliff House Reopening to Feature Award-winning Chef
Award-winning South Bay chef Patrick Clark has been selected to head the forthcoming new incarnation of the Cliff House's main dining room, which is set to reopen in September.

The two-story restaurant, Sutro's at the Cliff House, is located within the Cliff House's new Sutro Wing, which is currently receiving its finishing touches under the direction of local architect C. David Robinson. The new restaurant, which offers panoramic views, will open in early September, in advance of the original 1909 dining room renovation, which will become a casual bistro and open shortly after the new wing. 

"The hiring process for the chef was extensive, and I feel that we got the perfect match for our fine-dining restaurant," said Cliff House general manager and partner Ralph Burgin. "He not only is a gifted cook, but also shares my philosophy about focusing on organically grown ingredients."
Clark has been at the helm of a number of prestigious kitchens, among them San Jose's Silver Creek Country Club, Cupertino's Santa Barbara Grill and Palo Alto's California Cafe, which he left to become chef at Sutro's.

"I'm excited to have this opportunity to be in one of the greatest food cities in the world - San Francisco," he says.

The move is something of a homecoming for Clark, who served as the Cliff House's banquet chef from 1989 to 1991 while he was studying at the California Culinary Academy where Burgin, who is also a chef, was teaching at the time.

"Since Patrick left the Cliff House 13 years ago, he has evolved into a top-notch professional with a mature style of cooking," Burgin said.

Though he trained in classical and modern French cuisine as a member of the San Francisco Ritz Carlton's opening in the early '90s, Clark's culinary influences come from all corners of the world.

"I love Thai food, and I love Mexican and all Latin American cuisines," he says.

Clark's menus at Sutro's will no doubt also be influenced by the Cliff House's stellar location, where the sea crashes against the western tip of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area's historic Sutro District.

"We're sitting right on top of the ocean, so seafood is going to play a major role in the menu," Clark says.

Plus, with its seating capacity of just over 100, Sutro's at the Cliff House "is a lot smaller than pretty much every place I've worked," Clark points out. "It's exciting to really focus on quality and not be consumed with volume so much. When you write a menu for a restaurant that seats 100, you're able to have a little more finesse and a little bit more attention to detail in your dishes than when you're writing a menu for a restaurant that seats 250."

The Cliff House is located at 1090 Point Lobos. For more information, visit the website at www.cliffhouse.com.

New Name for Strybing
The SF Recreation and Park Commission recently approved the adoption of a new name for the Strybing Arboretum & Botanical Gardens. The new name, San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum, will be formally announced in October.

The name change is the result of a 2004 marketing survey, which revealed that 68 percent of San Franciscans deemed themselves "unfamiliar" with Strybing Arboretum - reporting never having heard of the garden or not knowing what it was called.

The new name aims to clearly identify the 55-acre horticultural oasis.

The SF Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum is located at Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way. It is open and free to the public 365 days a year, with free docent-led tours offered daily.

For more information, call 661-1316.