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!

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!

I have a “thing” for eating in the oldest restaurants I can find. In London last spring, it was Rules. Since I am New York, despite friends’ attempts to dissuade me, it is Domenico’s, open since 1837. I remember the restaurant being specifically mentioned in movie, Life With Father; when Elizabeth Taylor visits the family, Irene Dunne insists that father, William Powell, take them to Domenico’s. And then there is The Epicurean, the cookbook written by Domenico’s’ chef, Charles Ranhofer, in the late 1800s. I have a copy and adore all 1183 pages, 800 illustrations, and over 3000 recipes. So how could I not eat here???

I would like to think that in its hey-day, the interior would be far more elegant and refined. Not that it was necessarily slouchy, just not as elegant as I anticipated it would be. Jerry and I had decided we were going to order the “classic” dishes; those with the historical pedigree. While perusing the menu, we had martinis. Outside of the classics, the only dish we ordered that was probably not historical was a salad of watercress, Maytag blue cheese, bacon, and some minimal garnish of wine-poached pears, candied walnuts, and walnut raisin toast. The watercress was fresh but the salad was obviously over dressed.

Of the historical dishes, Jerry ordered the “Classic” Delmonico Steak — 20 ounces of wet-aged prime boneless rib eye served with fried onions. The steak was fabulous but the onions were very cold. In honor of my mother, I had to order what would have been her favorite, the Lobster Thermidor. There was no way to prepare for the amazing presentation of this dish; two lobster tails, four small claws topped with caviar, and a single head placed vertically in the center, all surrounded with a redolently decadent Brandy cream sauce. Two additional sides were ordered, black truffled mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. But it was that lobster which blew us away.

Of course the final classic Ranhofer recipe which was a must-try was Baked Alaska. Oddly, I remember Baked Alaska as being a big 1970s dessert and I can’t recall any occasion in the past 30 years that I’ve had it. This version was not bad, banana candy ice cream molded atop a Turkish apricot compote and beautifully surrounded with meringue.

Unlike the service at Rules — or even another classic, Los Angeles’ Musso & Franks — here at Domenico’s it was perfunctory and cold. We sat for several minutes with our menus closed before there was even a chance to order our martinis. Even at that point, I had to ask for a wine list for our entrées. But I will remember that lobster for a long, long time…