When Straw opened in Hayes Valley in January 2011, the carnival-themed restaurant excited foodies and trendsetters alike. The menu, which includes cotton candy and funnel cake, filled a void the San Francisco food scene didn’t know it had. Straw’s unique take on hip comfort food seemed endlessly entertaining, but how does it stand up a year and a half later? Read More

Giving proof that celebrating LGBT Pride is a year-round affair, and cannot be contained to a single mammoth parade, Acuña Danza Teatro brightens up this post-S.F. Pride weekend with performances of “Same Amor.” The show’s longer title, “Prehistorically the Same Love/Prehistóricamente El Mismo Amor,” gives more than a hint that the new work by the “flamenco company with attitude” speaks to the theme that love is all the same, regardless of gender or ethnicity. Read More

“Pollution touring” doesn’t have a ring to it, but that doesn’t stop New York journalist Andrew Blackwell from recommending it in his new book, “Visit Sunny Chernobyl.” “Every city or location has a place that is supposedly too polluted to enjoy,” says Blackwell, who reads at Book Passage in San Francisco on Thursday. “I think these spots are often the most interesting.” Read More

When photographer Richard Misrach and his wife moved in to their Berkeley hills home in 1997, they stumbled on something that became an iconic project for Misrach.“We didn’t know about the view when we bought the house,” says Misrach, who appears in a City Arts & Lectures presentation Monday at Herbst Theatre.The home, where they still live, was engulfed in vegetation. After a week’s manicuring, Misrach and his wife saw the full span of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and San Francisco’s sparkling skyline. Read More

Los Angeles underground electro mogul Steve Aoki supercharges the lineup at the I Love This City music festival this weekend at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. Hosting more than 40 DJs and producers — including Afrojack, Sebastian Ingrosso, Tiësto, David Guetta and Laidback Luke — appearing over two days on three stages, I Love This City producers LiveNation and Skills were smart to feature Aoki, head of the widely influential dance label Dim Mak. Read More

The Parisian avant-garde hits the San Francisco stage this week in a one-of-a-kind, three-day event featuring three freshly translated, contemporary French plays. “Des Voix … Found in Translation” opens Friday at Z Space with a whirlwind kickoff show called “Bal Littéraire” — a popular French entertainment that includes a no-host bar, club dancing and “flash” play performances. “It’s nightclub theater,” says Amy Mueller, artistic director of the Playwrights Foundation, a “Des Voix” co-presenter. Read More

Darth Vader doesn’t have the best reputation as a dad, but “Darth Vader and Son,” a new book by cartoonist Jeffrey Brown, sets out to change that. In it, dad Darth Vader trains little Luke Skywalker in lightsaber baseball, gives him a timeout and bandages a tiny scrape on his son’s arm. He is visibly disturbed when Luke pretends to be a Jedi and wants C-3P0 cereal, not eggs, for breakfast. An amusing 18-piece show featuring illustrations from the book is on view at the Cartoon Art Museum through Aug. 5. Chicago-based Brown will be in town Thursday to sign copies. Read More