Bite Club

<p>Feel the love: Food made with hate can leave a nasty taste in your mouth. Especially eggs, according to Joshua Norwitt of the recently opened Humble Pie in Penngrove.</p><p>It's a sort of mantra that he and fiancee Miriam Lee Donaldson (the chef) have repeated to themselves since opening the homestyle eatery attached to the Black Cat Bar. Food made with love just goes down a whole lot better than food that isn't. He says the couple came up with the idea for Humble Pie while sitting in a diner in Southern California. "You could just tell the food there was made with hate. The chef was back there sweating and cursing," he told Bite Club. When their eggs arrived, the couple suddenly lost their appetite. "You could just taste the hate," Josh said.</p><p>After working in restaurants up and down the coast (Josh is a Petaluma native and worked at Della Fattoria), they took over the tiny kitchen at Penngrove's famously eccentric bar when its chili-making owner recently retired. Armed with a handful of family recipes and some serious sibling togetherness (his sister Brook McCann and her chef husband Dan are also helping out), they're serving an opening menu of locally sourced comfort food with an emphasis on pie -- from tater tot to banana cream.</p><p>Everything is made from scratch, from the ketchup to the hand-formed tots. The tot pie is a motherhood classic, done with shredded taters and cheese. Despite needing a bit more seasoning, it brings a huge smile of childhood familiarity.</p><p>Bite Club fell in love with The Fungus Among Us ($12), two buttery baked polenta cakes slathered with shiitake ragu and a side of refreshing sesame draped greens. It's dead-on delish.</p><p>Dessert is, not surprisingly, pie. Homemade banana cream was the dessert of the night, though we caught a fleeting glimpse of peach.</p><p>Sitting in the tiny candlelit restaurant feels a lot like sitting in someone's dining room. You can hear every joke in the kitchen. An old record player belts out scratchy vinyl, and the plates and tables are adorably mismatched. You can't help but love the folksy vibe.</p><p>Humble Pie, 10045 Main St., Penngrove, 664-8779. Open Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday 5 p.m. to "late" (12-ish), Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.</p><p>There's always more delicious Wine Country dish waiting at biteclub.pressdemocrat.com.</p><p>-- HEATHER IRWIN</p>