Bar Jules, Hayes Valley

Will you be insulted if I don't write much about this brunch? I've been sitting on these pictures for awhile and in an effort to finally get them up I am going to sacrifice having much text.

This was Halloween at Bar Jules. Good food, good friends. Enjoy!

Mission Cheese, the Mission

We've been walking by the Mission Cheese storefront for what seems like months. I loved the drawing and font they had on the sign in the window, and I love cheese and I couldn't wait for them to open. I figured though it would just be a cheese shop, so I was even more excited when I heard they serve food and wine and beer.

When we walked in at around 2:30, the place was full.  I loved the palette they chose in designing the space, and the Heath ceramic bar is just awesome.  We ordered two grilled cheese sandwiches: the Cheddarhead (2 types of cheddar with apple and ale chutney) and the Pork and Cheese (Gruyere, salami, mustard and cornichons).  Oh, and some coffee.

We loved our food, the coffee was great and it reaffirmed my love for this neighborhood. We spoke  to the owner, who was very sweet and also totally inspiring in that she opened this place in a year and a half without any previous cheese-shop or running-a-business type experience.  

I'm now plotting my return to try that mac n cheese. Yum.

Mission Cheese
736 Valencia Street
San Francisco, California

Canteen, Nob Hill

Some pictures from a recent dinner at Canteen - which turned out to be one of the better dinners we've had recently. We were both super impressed with the meal.

The restaurant is tiny, and we sat at the counter. The very bright green counter.

Amuse bouche - avocado with bay shrimp. Fresh and tasty.

Fresh rolls, spicy crab soup and sea scallops.  The soup was super flavorful and not too spicy. The scallops were ok - but I think the weakest point of the overall meal. One of the highlights of the meal was watching the three guys in the tiny kitchen. The way they maneuvered around each other was amazing. Our waitress told us they had all been working together for years.

I ordered the lamb loin with sesame-chickpea puree and pepper relish. It was excellent. It was like  fancy lamb and hummus.  

Kev ordered the halibut poached in olive oil with green garlic, baby leeks, grits and spicy ham. Really light and nice flavors. 

For dessert, we shared the chocolate pot de creme with chicory and the vanilla souffle. The pot de creme was different than most - it didn't have the same thickness that I'm used to. I liked it - but not as much as the souffle, which was amazing.  The menu at Canteen changes weekly, but the souffle is always on the menu, for good reason.

The cool thing about this place is that it doesn't seem like it's trying all that hard - the food they make isn't anything crazy or fancy - it's all just done really well. 

Nopa

Finally! Nopa! I think this was my fourth time making reservations at Nopa, and all the other times I wound up canceling for one reason or another. Today Sarah and I made plans for brunch, and luckily I had been sitting on these reservations from weeks ago, so we got to try it out.

We got there at 11AM, which is when they open and before they filled up. They seated us upstairs so we got this great birds eye view of the place. I love those yellow stools at the bar.

I loved getting to watch the chefs prepare the dishes. How are they so tidy? Why does my kitchen never stay that neat when I'm cooking? 

Sarah ordered the oven baked farm egg with smoked tomato and pecorino. I love eggs baked in tomato and she was very happy with her order. We also ordered some fun drinks.  I ordered my usual -bloody mary (hold the vodka, hold the ice) and Sarah got the cardamom grapefruit juice.  The non-bloody mary was just on the edge of being too spicy for me, but in a good way (me = spice wimp). I loved how Sarah's drink was presented.

Sarah also got a piece of the goat cheese bread pudding, which was rich and delicious. Nice combo with the eggs.  I got soft scrambled eggs with potatoes and leeks which was great but my picture wasn't so just imagine what it looked like, ok?

Great brunch, awesome service (I forgot to mention I loved our waiter).  I will definitely be coming back here soon. In March, in fact - I just booked another reservation for dinner. Hopefully we won't have to cancel that one.

nopa
560 Divisadero St
San Francisco, California 94117
(415) 864-8643

Bar Agricole, SOMA

Last weekend we headed over to Bar Agricole for dinner. After Michael Bauer's Top New Restaurants of 2010 article came out, I made reservations at a few of the places he mentioned that we hadn't tried, and Bar Agricole was one of them.

Our waiter told us that the concept of the restaurant is that all the dishes are served in the center of the table to share, and for four people we should order five to seven dishes.  Done.

Because this was last week, and because the online menu has changed since then, and because I was lazy and didn't write down what we ate, I can't exactly remember what we ate.  I'll try my best.

This was the crab salad with farro.  It had a really light, flavorful dressing and lately I've been really into farro lately so I was happy.

This was an artichoke and arugula salad.  We're so predictable, always going for the arugula pick.  We liked this one as well, it also had a nicely balanced dressing.

Check out this poached egg with beans.  Egg was perfectly cooked and we liked the beans but this dish wasn't outstanding.

This was the pork and fennel sausage with roasted potatoes.  We all really liked this one, nice texture and flavor.

We ordered one more dish, a guinea hen - which we liked - and passed on dessert.  I wish I had more to say about this place but as I mentioned, we shared each of these dishes between four people so we only got a bite or two of each one.  What we tried all tasted good, but there just wasn't enough.  I'm all for smaller portions, but not when divided by four people.  

The environment is really cool and the outside space looks amazing, but I think if I were to come back I'd make sure to go with only one other person.

Bar Agricole
355 11th Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 355-9400

Spruce, the Presidio

If you ask me for my top three (higher end) restaurant picks in San Francisco, I would quickly be able to tell you: Range, Frances and Spruce.  While the three are all pretty different in terms of atmosphere, the food at all of them is consistently amazing.  

The first time we went to Spruce was because we had been given a gift certificate for our wedding (clearly these friends know us well!).  After that meal, I couldn't stop gushing about the experience.  I've been a few times since then, but usually just to the bar area. You don't need a reservation, you can order off the full menu or the bar menu (which features one of the best burgers I've ever had) and have amazing cocktails.  The drinks menu also features an enormous selection of wines and spirits, if you're into that kind of thing. 

The design of Spruce is definitely part of the appeal for me. It's really dark and masculine, with lots of dark wood, leather and velvet.  It's a very sexy vibe.

Last night Kev and I booked a table for his birthday and the meal was just as good as I remembered. I wish we had gotten there slightly earlier so we could have had a drink at the bar, just because the bar is so lovely.  Instead we ordered drinks at the table.  The pink drink is the Bitter Berry Bramble (russian standard vodka, lemon, raspberry, bitter lemon soda) and the other drink is the Harrington (vodka, cointreau, garnier yellow chartreuse).  I love that pink drink.

The gougeres is an amuse bouche sent by the chef. I hope he never stops sending these because I love them.

We ordered the beet and pear salad with hazelnut vinaigrette and warm goats milk cheese to share.  They were nice enough to portion it out for us individually. I loved how the arugula was shaped around the cheese, it reminds me of Roman headpieces.  This dish was my favorite of the night. It was perfect, especially since Kev doesn't really like goat cheese so I got his serving as well.  All the flavors and textures went together so perfectly. You really wanted to get a little bit of everything on your fork.  I probably could have had the full order of this and called it a day.

Instead, Kev ordered the tuna with Italian broccoli, pinenuts and warm olive vinaigrette and was really pleased with the dish.  The tuna really felt meaty - I thought it was slightly dry, but he disagreed, especially with the addition of the olive vinaigrette.

I ordered the grilled bavette steak (I know, how shocking!) with duck fat potatoes.  The steak was excellent - the outside was a little peppery and the meat was tender and juicy.  Certainly as good as the steak at Range. I loved the duck fat potatoes as well - crispy outside, creamy inside, what's not to love?

We were too full to order dessert, but we did get some cute little treats with our check.  The fruit jelly was pear (it was like they knew we were coming) and the cookie was maple with tangerine marmalade.  We weren't too full to eat the additional cookies our very nice waitress brought us.

Excellent meal overall and a great way to start our 2011 food adventures.

Spruce
3640 Sacramento Street
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 931-5100

Sunday Night Dinner: Slow Cooked Brisket + a Whole Lot of Other Stuff

Hello Internet! I took an unintended break from writing/photographing, for no real reason actually, but then one week became two then two became... six and then here we are. So annnyway...

Here's a meal from a few weeks ago that makes me super happy.  It was our turn to cook Sunday Night Dinner, and it was a cold and gray day, so I took the opportunity to spend the day in the kitchen, something I really wish I would do more of.  The starting point for the meal was that I wanted to slow cook something, and I thought that this pulled brisket recipe sounded pretty good.  But that didn't take all day, because basically you just brown it, add some spices and let that thing sit in the slow cooker all day. And by all day I mean, all day - a good 8 - 10 hours. Make sure you start early. 

What did take all day were the accessories.  The Smitten Kitchen recipe suggests serving the pulled pork with pickled onions and some slaw. Those things all sounded good to me, so I got to work on that.  Because we weren't going to be eating though for another 8-10 hours, I just prepped what I could ahead of time, which meant getting those onions pickling, making the dressing for the slaw and chopping up a bunch of cabbage.  Also, because we were transporting all of this stuff over to our friends' house I got to use our fancy new glass storage containers, which I highly recommend.

And then the baking began. I wanted to bring some cookies into work, and I frequently check out the Smitten Kitchen cookie section and think, "I wish I had time to make those" about pretty much everything on there. And since I was already having a love affair with Smitten Kitchen, and spending the day in my kitchen, I decided to make two different types: Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip and Pecan and Chocolate Toffee.

These are the Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, Pecan (but you knew that). I forgot to take pictures of the Chocolate Toffee cookies, which is just as well because I didn't think that they looked nearly as pretty as they should have.  I highly recommend these oatmeal ones though, especially for this time of year. They taste like fall, due to the orange zest, clove, nutmeg and cinnamon, but still have that good old fashioned chocolate chip texture thing going on. These are a keeper.  I personally didn't love the chocolate toffee cookies, but others preferred them, so go figure. 

After all the cookies finally finished baking, we transported ourselves, the glass containers, and a slow cooker full of brisket over to our friends' house.  We plugged the slower cooker back in for another two hours, and got back to work - next up was Mac and Cheese.  I decided to use the Jamie Oliver version, because well, I love Jamie Oliver and also I liked that he used tomatoes in his as well as breadcrumbs on the top.  We also added in what we like to call "cheesy nuggets" - basically the rinds of the parmesan that are set aside when the cheese is all done.  These little bits add lots of chewy, cheesy surprises in the dish. While that was baking, we assembled all the other ingredients.. and then had ourselves a feast. 

The only low point of the meal for me were the rolls - they just weren't very good.  The brisket was excellent, and super super easy.  The verdict on the mac n cheese was: More Cheese! (and that was after we had added well more than was called for) but I'd still make it again. 

It was a long day and in the end, I wasn't very hungry - somehow being around all the food all day just completely made me lose my appetite - but it was extremely satisfying. I am very much looking forward to having some time off in the next few weeks to get back to making some more big meals.

25 Lusk, SOMA

When I saw a reservation on OpenTable for 25 Lusk, it seemed obvious that I should book it. That week I had read about the opening several times (emails from Daily Candy, Urban Daddy and TableHopper) and Kev had told me that the owner is the brother-in-law of his friend. 

The restaurant is located down a small alley (Lusk Street, to be exact) that I had never noticed before, near AT&T park.

The space itself has been written about tons, and it is really impressive.  They've kept a lot of the original structure (beams and brick) and added modern details, some really warm lighting and lots of rich looking woods.  The upstairs is the main dining room and I liked how spacious it was. At so many restaurants in San Francisco, you're on top of the tables beside you and can't help but feel as though you are part of the conversation of people at the tables next to you. The booths here are roomy and private and it's easy to forget that there are others in the restaurant too. Someone later asked me what the crowd was like the night we were there, and I had no idea - I hadn't even noticed them. 

There were four of us at this dinner and we ordered a whole lot of stuff for all of us to try. 

Cauliflower crème brulee, sunchoke escabeche, truffled wild arugula.  This was my favorite of the appetizers. It sounds crazy - but it was amazing.  Imagine taking cauliflower soup then brulee-ing the whole thing and adding truffled arugula on top and this is what you get. It was savory and smooth but also sweet and crunchy. 

 

Wild Arugula, watercress, cucumber, grilled fig in a champagne vinaigrette.  Fresh and flavorful, but nothing to write home about.

Braised pork cheek terrine, with roasted quince and apple compote, swiss chard and spiced cider reduction.  I had texture issues with this one - the pork texture didn't work for me, but Kev really liked it.

Lobster ravioli, saffron lobster nage, shaved thai basil.  It looks like soup, but hidden in that creamy broth are ravioli, stuffed with lots of meaty lobster. We all really enjoyed this one. 

We also ordered four entrees to pass around between us.

This was the braised short ribs with roasted sweet potatoes and wilted escarole in a syrah demi-glace.  The good part about sharing is you get to try everything. The bad part is you only get a little bit of everything. I really liked the short ribs, they were perfectly tender and were barely hanging on to the bone.  The sauce was rich and a good match to the meat.

 

Verbena steamed pacific halibut, sea beans, tomato, eggplant, lemon-lobster vinaigrette.  The fish tasted incredibly fresh and the citrus-y sauce made the dish feel really light.   We liked this one a lot. 

Grilled top lamb sirloin, roasted garlic, potato rosti, apple-spearmint demi-glace.  I love baby carrots.  This lamb didn't have that super-distinctive lamb flavor, which meant that Kev would eat it (whoever heard of a Welshman that didn't like lamb?).   I liked this one, but it's been a week and I can't remember much more about it!

Pappardelle, grilled treviso, roasted baby fennel, braised artichokes, parmesan.  Pappardelle might be my new favorite pasta, there's something about those fat ribbons that I always enjoy. This dish had a really smoky flavor, and while I didn't think it was as successful as the other dishes, I still enjoyed it. 

Somehow after all of this food, our waitress convinced us we needed to order not one, but two of the dessert sample platters. We agreed.

There's a whole lot of stuff on this plate, but my favorite by far was the dulce de leche cheesecake. I'd definitely just order that if I were to get dessert here again. Not too sweet, creamy and light, it was the perfect dessert. 

After dinner, Kev and I debated where this restaurant fell in terms of our favorite places to eat. I liked it - and I'd put it on the same level as my meal at RN74 or Commonwealth - but wasn't blown away like I was at Frances, which is now my high bar.  Kev disagreed and thought it was up there with Frances. Either way, it was an impressive meal, especially considering they had only been open six days when we ate there. I'll be curious to return in a few months when they've really established their rhythm. 

25 Lusk
25 Lusk St
San Francisco, CA 94107
415-495-5875

Universal Cafe, Mission

It seems that no matter how many new (to me) places I eat at in San Francisco, I still haven't scratched the surface.  Every week I'll read about a place, or someone will mention a spot that I haven't tried, and then I go home and add it to my "Eat Here" Google doc.  Universal Cafe (like Bar Tartine) is one of those places that I somehow had never managed to try, even though people frequently mention how great it is. And so this past weekend, I headed there with the girls for breakfast.

This place is clearly popular, as we arrived there at 9:30 and even though it was raining out, there was a thirty minute wait.

We started with the beignets in a raspberry sauce (or were they doughnuts?).  They were good, but not my favorites - a little too cakey for me, I wanted them to be lighter.  The raspberry sauce also seemed a little thin. 

Heather and I both ordered the soft scrambled eggs with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella.

The eggs were cooked the perfectly and the tomatoes gave it a nice sweetness. The salad was good too -  fresh and crisp and perfectly dressed.  The coffee was also really good, and surprisingly, not from Blue Bottle, Ritual or Four Barrel, where it seems most of the rest of the city gets their coffee (they serve Equator Coffee, if you're wondering).

Sarah ordered the veggie burger which I think she liked.  I liked that it had a giant slice of heirloom tomato on top and lots of avocado

It was a solid brunch overall and I'd go back - though I don't know that I'd wait 30 minutes in the rain.


Universal Cafe
2814 19th St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 821-4608

Bar Tartine, Mission

Yesterday for breakfast we went on a hunt for the best poached egg. The hunt consisted of me doing doing some googling for poached eggs in the Mission. We landed on Bar Tartine and I'm so happy we did.  I've posted a few times on this blog about Tartine the bakery (see: here) but somehow, up until yesterday, I had never been to Bar Tartine. 

When we walked in I became almost overwhelmed with how much I liked the interior.  Before we had even touched the food I knew I wanted to come back because I liked the space so much.  It's kind of like... deconstructed elegance.  It's an amazing combination of classic (marble bar + mirrors), rustic (wooden tables and floors + antler chandelier), artsy (huge bouquets of flowers + eclectic groupings of artwork on the walls) and I love how high contrast it is  (white walls + dark floors + pools of light).

The menu was different than what we had seen online, which was disappointing because there were two poached egg choices that I had read about and was really excited to try.  While there weren't any replacement options, they did offer a side of two poached eggs, so I ordered that with a couple of slices of toasted Tartine bread.

I had high hopes when they put the eggs down in front of me.  I like the whites of the egg to look  fluffy and almost like balls of mozzarella, and these looked perfect. I fully expected when I put my knife in the yolk would ooze out, but it didn't - it was cooked pretty thoroughly inside.  Nevertheless, my undying love for the bread made it all ok and I enjoyed it well enough - though it wasn't the perfect poached egg I was looking for.

Kev's food, on the other hand, was even better than I expected and it also was made with Tartine bread so I was very  happy when he offered to share with me.

This was the Croque Provencal - gruyere, ham and heirloom tomato, topped with a fried egg, and it was so good. All of the ingredients they use are farm sourced and you can taste how fresh and flavorful it all is. One of the best breakfast dishes I've had in a long, long time.

My only complaint about eating here was the noise. Besides all the oohing and ahhing, we spent a lot of time saying, "What?" which gets kind of annoying.  Nevertheless, I fully intend to go back - and soon.

Bar Tartine
561 Valencia St. 
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 487 1600

Camino, Oakland

I love brunch. And I loved this brunch, in particular, with two of my favorite ladies, Sarah and Heather.  This was another case of wanting to go somewhere (900 Grayson) and then finding out last minute that they don't do brunch on Sundays. Happily, we went to Camino instead.

I really loved the way this place looked. Lots of brick, worn wood and antique furniture.  Not to be too California, but I was really feeling the vibe there.

Heather and I did our usual and shared some things - including these homemade doughnuts with apple and the french toast with fruit compote, hazelnuts and crème fraiche.

 

The french toast was insanely filling - I could barely finish my one slice. I also love that they give you a choice of still or sparkling water - and leave a carafe of it on the table for you.

Great meal, great company and now I'm ready to try dinner here as well.

Camino
3917 Grand Ave
Oakland, California 94610
(510) 547-5035