Feast Blog

I joined my hairdresser for a post-coif meal on Tuesday to much delight. We both ordered cocktails to start; he a Cosmopolitan and I, an “Aviation” with Gin, lime juice, and maraschino liqueur (quite tangy!) We both ordered salads to share; a grilled Romaine which was served with St. Agur blue cheese, hazelnuts, and sliced apples with a champagne vinaigrette and a baby spinach salad accompanied with pomegranate seeds, toasted pumpkin seeds, sliced Black Mission figs, persimmon, and a vinaigrette. The grilled Romaine was stunning — I had not ever had grilled lettuce and the smokiness from the char was a nice complement to the melting cheese. Having the two salads side-by-side was nice as we could go from hot and melty to cool and refreshing, both well-dressed and nicely plated.

Again, we decided to share entrées – ordering the rib eye steak and duck confit. The rib eye was pan-grilled and served with “a twice baked white truffle scented potato, yellow wax and blue lake beans, and Oakville Ranch cabernet butter.” This was a really great steak. The beans were very fresh and the steak, perfectly grilled rare and tender. I didn’t even mind the clichéd truffle scent on the potatoes. The duck confit was served on butternut squash risotto with huckleberry gastrique, prosciutto, Brussels sprout leaves and toasted pumpkin seeds. This was an interesting combination, if not a bit on the salty side. Most of it was eaten as a left-over breakfast the following day and perhaps the saltiness was accentuated at that point.

For dessert, we decided to share an apple/blueberry crisp served with dulce de leche ice cream. This was a really stellar example – served in a shallow-enough dish to give an equal portion of warm, roasted fruit to a lightly buttery crunchy top. I thought the dulce de leche might be too sweet but it worked well.

I can see this restaurant as a great neighborhood establishment, moreso than a destination restaurant. The ambience is both slightly futuristic, with its metal mesh drapes and moderne lighting. I noticed a nearby table being given better glassware than we were offered. I asked for more decent glasses for our Havens syrah and a little scrambling occurred as I guess they just recently started to upgrade their wine service. Make sure to ask! The serving sizes were ample, the plating and timing worked well, and overall, a reasonable meal. Two cocktails, two salads, two entrées, a bottle of wine, a dessert with a small glass of dessert wine and tip came to just over $200. I wouldn’t hesitate to visit again!

Benu has been the most anticipated restaurant opening in recent memory. Without a question. I was pretty thrilled to get one of the first seats on its second night. Unfortunately, it was a 9:00 seating so I knew it was going to be a late night considering I was going in for the full tasting menu. Walking up to the restaurant, there is an array of light beaming from the kitchen as large panels of glass separate the kitchen staff from the street-side gawkers. An austere and elegant courtyard welcomes the visitor, with the interior of the restaurant clean and similarly somber in its muted, beige and cream tones. For future bloggers, be warned that the ambient lighting late in the evening is not conducive to great natural photography so I apologize for the darkness of the images.

Sesame Lavash – served in a specially carved box which separated out the dark, crispy thin rectangles. Black sesame and salt was the predominant flavor and it would be a precursor to the evening that sesame was one of the most-used Asian ingredients.

2008 Alzinger Grüner Veltliner – Showing a tremendous amount of mineral and spicy qualities, I enjoyed this wine tremendously, but found it a bit too strong with too many citrus components for the following two dishes.

Thousand-year-old quail egg, black truffle, ginger, scallion – Our first taste and somewhat disappointing. I could not detect any black truffle and the extremely texture of the egg masked its flavors. Moreso than any ginger or scallion, it was the flavor of citrus oil with predominated.

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In all honesty, I’m not sure why this received a Michelin star…

There were two omakase offerings on the menu; one with meat and one vegetarian. I was intrigued with the vegetarian until I was told it was two courses with a dessert. That’s it? I’ll take the meat omakase which was five courses.

An amuse was brought out – a sandwich of tuna rillette between two crunchy crackers which were actually toasted slices of their house bread. Putting *some* rillette on a single slice would have been sufficient but an amuse (which in my mind should be taken in one bite) of two dry hunks of bread with not-enough fish just made for too big of a mouthful.

Sadly, there is no wine pairing with the omakase and so I was on my own in determining wine pairings for dishes that I had no pre-knowledge of. Big mistake. The waiter did tell me the first few courses were fish so I was fairly certain a white would work and ordered a Riesling (sorry, lost my notes on which one specifically). Also, this wine was served in a Pinot Noir glass… Bad.

The first course was a layered monstrosity of a giant wasabi leaf, champagne-poached oyster, blue fin tuna tartare, some coconut-based hollandaise, fresh uni, and American sturgeon caviar. I say it was a monstrosity as there was far too much going on and either the oyster or the tartare (or both?) could have been entirely left out. The flavor of the uni, caviar, and coconut was predominate so something as delicate as a champagne-poached oyster (which couldn’t be seen so maybe it WASN’T there!) was irrelevant. As was the tartare.

The next course was a composed salad of fresh heirloom tomatoes, topped with dressed frisée, and surrounded by slices of sashimi of Arctic Char. Recalling my disastrous visit to Valentino in Los Angeles, I wonder why chefs insist on pairing tomatoes with raw fish — the textures and flavors are so disparate and I’m curious if there exists any good examples of this sort of pairing as my two sojourns into that particular pairing have been exceptionally bad.

The Riesling finished and not remembering what was coming next, I ordered a glass of Pinot Noir (standby knowledge – it usually goes with everything).

The next course was a hot fish dish of grilled Red snapper with crispy skin on ratatouille and hollandaise. This was a real hollandaise but there wasn’t quite enough of it to pair well with the grilled vegetables and dry fish.

The last savory course was American Wagyu, perfectly rare, served atop sliced Yukon Gold potatoes and baby shiitake mushrooms. There was a very good sauce with it but I’m afraid I don’t exactly recall its components. Regrettably, the sauce did not make up for whatever was done to the mushrooms which were stridently sharp and peppery. I didn’t bother finishing this course.

Dessert was an Orange “parfait” which was actually a scoop of creamy orange sorbet in some orange soup and topped with a small tuille cookie. This was paired with a sparkling sake which was a relatively nice pairing.

Overall, the service was very good but I question many things about the menu. For starters, in reading through the standard offerings, there doesn’t seem to be any evolution in the menu. Similar to my Gary Danko complaints, nothing is different than what I read when I first visited, 18 months ago. The addition of the omakase is week in its lack of wine pairings and I found the dishes overall to be ill-conceived although well-prepared.

I don’t need to go back.

One of my biggest challenges living in one of America’s most expensive cities has been to discover tasty, affordable eateries. As much as I enjoy dining out, there is no doubt that even those earning six-figures and above still enjoy a bargain. And my criteria for a bargain is the discovery of the $10 lunch; a lunch so ample as to provide left-overs for dinner or one so substantial as to make a later meal irrelevant. Café Zitouna is such a place for me. Located on the corner of Sutter and Polk, This is a little corner place with table seats for about 20 and counter seats for another six or eight. And on a Wednesday afternoon for lunch, it was packed with people waiting to get in — for very good reason.

My companion and I started with Breek (Tunisian crepe), listed as “Tissue-thin malsouka filled with potatoes, parsley, onions, egg, tuna and capers, fried in vegetable oil. Served with lemon.” For $3.95, it was a fabulous starter and I thought it a bit charming that the waiter looked at me with concern, indicating that the egg inside was raw and that I might not eat it. No problem, I assured him. Perfectly golden and plump, the malsouka is house-made and perfectly thin.

I instructed the chef to bring me whatever he thought I should eat and I was served the Vegetable Couscous, enough for two of us to share a separate platter of couscous is topped with a few roasted peppers with a side bowl of earthy, chunky vegetables in a seasoned broth. My companion ordered the Chakchouka Bil Merguez, sautéed fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, onions in olive oil with house-made merguez, eggs, and Tunisian sausages. For $7.95, this dish was a winner as I got a few bites from that dish and am looking forward to returning for a platter of it for my own. I saw a neighboring table get the $9.95 B’stilla which — while thick — looked a bit small (about 6″ round) for the price. But considering how great the rest of the food was tasting, I’m sure I will plunk down a sawbuck at some point in the future.

Dining alone, I will be sticking to the under $10 dishes or ordering a couple of appetizer or salad dishes (most priced in the $4.95 range), but we went a little above my ascribed budget with the inclusion of the Moroccan mint tea — a single 20oz at $1.95 and the large pot that we shared for $4.50.  The menu also includes a handful of Shawarma, Kebab, and Merguez sandwiches in the $6.50 range, to which one can add fries for $1.95.

We brought desserts homes; a moist pistachio-topped spice cake that had been soaked with orange blossom water and a second dessert, ladyfingers also soaked with orange blossom water, topped with a rich custard and ground pistachios. The bottom line is that Café Zitouna is all about taste and authenticity. The flavors are rich and aromatic, well-integrated, and enticing. The menu is extensive enough that I can easily see myself returning on a weekly basis to eat through the menu, always knowing I’ll be taking home left-overs. And I am quite happy knowing that when I get a tagine craving, I don’t have to do all the work myself for a solo diner.

Mission Street Food is a rare restaurant anomaly in San Francisco. Strike that. It is a rare restaurant anomaly anywhere. You see, it is not a full-fledged restaurant (although they are striving towards becoming one). They only operate two days a week — Thursday and Saturdays — out of a dinky and understated Chinese Restaurant, Lung Shan. If you don’t have reservations, you are likely to be presented with a line of people, waiting for a table.  It is worth the wait. $5.00 corkage is one of the cheapest in the city, but bear in mind that you are drinking your quaff from tiny Chinese teacups.

The menu changes every week and the prices are incomparable. The dishes are served family style and easily feed two or three people each. On the evening I finally got my dining buddy, Lisa, to join me, we were intensely lucky to have the menu be geared entirely around Beef Seven Ways (meaning for us – mostly OFFAL!)

Our first course, priced at a mere $10.00, was Mosaic of Carpaccio; New York strip steak and honeycomb trip with a slow-cooked egg, violet mustard, fried capers, and potato chips.  The selection of meats were sliced wafer thin, tender and rich. The only downside of the dish was the accompaniment of the rather pedestrian potato chips. There are easily half-a-dozen different, EASY ways to present a carbohydrate other than opening a bag of Lay’s.

Next up was an Oxtail Terrine, with fines herb gelée, root vegetable brunoise, truffled egg, mixed chicories, puffed barley, and spring herbs. Here is my confession; it was a posted picture of the chef making this very terrine which enticed me to this meal. Despite the varied flavors, this was a very balanced and well-made terrine; fresh and surprisingly light. It made me miss creating my own terrines. Quite a deal at $9.00.

Lisa is a sucker for marrow bones and their presentation of Beef Consommé with marrow butter toast and persillade might very well have been the dish of the evening. Two long croutons were presented with the broth poured tableside. Pacing ourself because we had ordered the entire menu (and, admittedly, packed up some of the terrine to take home), this was a course we finished easily and eagerly. $8.00.

Based on the menu description, the Surf and Turf was quite possibly destined to be Lisa’s favorite; simmered Atlantic skate with crispy sweetbreads with asparagus, crushed pea, and sea urchin emulsion. We both adore sweetbreads AND skate but this is the one dish which somewhat faltered for me. The sea urchin emulsion on the sweetbreads worked extremely well but the crushed pea and asparagus sauce for the skate was heavily spiced with something that bit back. I was happy with the few bites of pure fish I could get, but it was a discordant flavor against the light, engaging foam on the sweetbreads. There was nothing that brought these two main ingredients together. But Lisa liked them both; $12.00

Tongue and Cheek — hilariously entitled and delectable to behold — continued our beefy endeavor. Seared tongue, braised cheek, savoy cabbage served with a demiglace and fresh grated horseradish. The intense richness of these meats precluded us from taking much more than a few bites, reserving the bulk for left-over status. The cabbage was a brilliant, somewhat palate-cleansing attribute which helped cut through the fatty texture of these meats. $11.00

Served last in the bovine extravaganza, was Aged USDA Prime Ribeye with potato espuma, charred scallion pickle, and béarnaise sauce. While Lisa is a sucker for all things with sea urchin, for me, it is all about a good béarnaise sauce. The potato espuma was almost non-existent in its fluffiness, practically disappearing when it hit the mouth. I was ready to scrape my fingertips through the béarnaise but thankfully, the meat was an excellent tool for job in lieu of my fingers. This was the most expensive dish of the evening, a whopping $14.00

This was a rare evening at Mission Street Food in that the only “dessert” which was offered was Sweet & Sticky Glazed Habañero Jerky. I suppose they wanted to stay within the Beef theme, but our server advised us that as opposed to a delightful sweet finish, the habañero predominated the flavors, providing a mostly spicy finish which we opted to avoid. When all was said and done, with tip and wine, the cost of this meal PER PERSON was around $60.00. Had I thought to bring a wine from my collection, we would have gotten it around the $50 per person mark. For the quantity and quality of food offered, there truly is no better deal in town; as long as it is a Thursday or a Saturday. Oh, and of special note, they serve late. Up until midnight!