-- Season premieres Thursday, July 7 at 7:30pm on KQED Public Television 9 --
June 14, 2011, San Francisco, CA --- Foodies, make your culinary viewing reservations for Thursdays with KQED! In July, Check, Please! Bay Area, KQED's Emmy Award-winning restaurant review series, returns with a whole new crop of local diners and their favorite Bay Area eateries. The sixth season kicks off with a lively episode featuring a celebration of food from Mexico, “taking tea” in a unique setting, and exotic dining with Yemen-Arabic fusion cuisine. Winner of the prestigious James Beard Foundation Media Award for Best Local Television Food Show, the new season of Check, Please! Bay Area premieres Thursday, July 7 at 7:30pm on KQED Public Television 9.
From San Jose to Sonoma and from the Sunset to Saratoga, the new guests share their favorite dishes from eateries around the Bay Area. Rooted in places like Burma or East Germany or Mexico, and with flavors ranging from cracked crab and Po' Boys to Middle Eastern tagines to real Chicago pizza, the food this season is as diverse as the Bay Area itself. Four shows, each with three guests, will air in July with the other new episodes following in the fall. July episodes will feature the restaurants: Don Pico’s Mexican Bistro and Cevicheria, Lovejoy’s Tea Room, Saha, Nettie’s Crab Shack, Dragon Rouge, Walzwerk, The Elite Café, Grand Oaks Restaurant and Sports Lounge, Risibisi Italian Restaurant, Mandalay, Cafe Gibraltar, and Al Hamra Indian and Pakistani Restaurant.
Every week, Check, Please! Bay Area features three guests who are local diners, not professional restaurant critics. Each guest chooses their favorite eatery and the other two guests visit under total anonymity – the restaurants are not notified that Check, Please! “reviewers” are dining there. After trying each other's recommendations, they join host and moderator Leslie Sbrocco to discuss, dispute, and celebrate their dining experiences with lively commentary. Leslie Sbrocco is an award-winning author, wine connoisseur, newspaper columnist, and speaker. The series is produced by Tina Salter.
The show’s website, kqed.org/checkplease, continues to be the online destination for Bay Area food lovers, with full episodes, downloadable video podcasts, guest reviews, restaurant information and recipes, discussion areas, and an online application for new reviewers. Check, Please! Bay Area fans can also connect with the program on Facebook (Facebook.com/KQEDcheckplease).
Support for Check, Please! Bay Area is provided by Amici’s East Coast Pizzeria, Charitable Auto Resources, and Integrated Resources Group.