San Francisco Blog

Favorite Dish: Slow cooked Soul Food Farm egg with morels, pea shoots, and chive blossoms.

Least Favorite Dish: Monterey Bay abalone and fresh seaweeds with mushroom dashi, and lime zest.

The Skinny: Landing on Michael Bauer's Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants list is one thing, but being named one of the top 10 most significant new restaurants in the country by New York Times food critic Frank Bruni raises the stakes significantly. As partner and Sommelier Paul Einbund said shortly after the article appeared back in early March:

"Most of the time reviews don’t affect us much in terms of business, but the Frank Bruni review has been ginormous. Yet for all our cosmopolitan culture, San Francisco doesn’t dine out very late. We still have tables open for 9:30 p.m. and later."

And so it was, I saved my pennies for many days, and finally cashed them in for what was the most adventurous, artfully composed, and unexpected meal I've had yet in San Francisco. And for all that, it still tasted amazing.

The amuse bouche, called Milk and Honey: imagine a very large salmon roe egg bursting in your mouth, only instead of the intensely salty fish flavor, it's tastes like, well, milk and honey.

Two views of the apsaragus panna cotta with coconut milk, makrut lime leaf, and cilantro.

Kampachi sashimi with white soy, yuzu, and shichimi togarashi.

Andante Dairy fresh goat cheese tart with beets, dill and caraway.

Chilled English pea-nasturtium soup with creamy ricotta, and lemon.

Grilled artichokes with Carolina gold rice, fava beans and leaves, green garlic and mint.

Steamed hodo soy tofu mousseline with seaweed, aji chile powder, and a brown rice tuile.

Monterey Bay abalone and fresh seaweeds with mushroom dashi, and lime zest.

Anson Mills farro-chard agnolotti with parmesean broth, McEvoy olive oil, and lemon thyme.

Ocean trout grilled on the plancha with red endive, agretti, fresh shallots, and oxtail-smoked oil vinaigrette.

Slow cooked Soul Food Farm egg with morels, pea shoots, and chive blossoms.

Pozzi Farm lamb with baby turnips, Bloomsdale spinach, and chicory.

Heublumen (Stadelmann Family) cheese with mache.

Clementine shooters.

Carrot cake with carrot ganache, and celery sherbet.

Michel Cluizel "Los Ancones" ganache with albion strawberries, and wild licorice anglaise.

Vanilla bean milkshake with olive oil and a cookies 'n' creme truffle.

-- Brian Bernbaum