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!

Local: Mission Eatery, revisited

It's official, I have a new favorite brunch place. Local: Mission Eatery/Knead Patisserie. I've posted about both of these places before, and I just can't get enough. I love that I can walk there, I love that it isn't too crowded, I love how low-key the vibe is. And have I mentioned that I love the food? 

This time we combined the best of both worlds - some eggs from the restaurant and some pastries from the patisserie. The poached eggs were exactly, perfectly the way I like them. We sat at the counter and I was excited that I could watch the chef make the eggs, so maybe I could learn her technique.  Turns out her technique consisted of cracking an egg directly into the not-quite boiling water, leaving  it alone to go deal with some other food, and then coming back to scoop the egg out.  My eggs must smell my fear.

The croissant was also insane - so crispy on the outside but so soft and buttery on the inside. I realize that just sounds like a description of any old croissant, but this is something else entirely. You just need to try it for yourself, ok?

Both egg dishes were great, but I particularly liked the one with farro and tomatoes. I'm on a roasted tomato kick right now, so this really hit the spot.

I loved this breakfast so much I'm already planning on returning this coming weekend for my anniversary brunch. Save me a croissant!

Local: Mission Eatery, Mission

Local: Mission Eatery has been sitting in my "places to eat" list ever since I tried the baked goods from Knead Patisserie.  I got to try it this weekend with a couple of  girlfriends, and it completely exceeded my expectations. I love when that happens.

The menu is broken up into "bites" and dinner. The dinner choices all come in two sizes, small and large. We started with a couple of the bites.  These dishes set the tone for the meal - just a few ingredients, but those ingredients really pack a punch.  

I love how pretty this is. They poured the soup table side. This wasn't a hit with my friends, but I really liked it. I love cucumber soup in the "summer" (summer in quotes because I live in San Francisco).

The entrees were also great. Simple foods prepared really well. I loved the flavor combinations in all the dishes. I kept saying "wait, what is that?"

One of the things that really appealed to me about this place was that all of the dishes, even though they were pretty simple, felt like that had been prepared with tons of attention and care.  Clearly there is a lot of effort placed on high quality ingredients, and what's even cooler is that all of the ingredients are local (hence the name). 

Even when I really like a place, I find that it usually takes me awhile to go back - not because I don't want to, but because there are so many restaurants in San Francisco that I want to try. I need to start a new list, restaurants to make sure to go back to - "go to" restaurants. This place would top that list.
 

NOPA, revisited

Finally. Finally!! We made it back to Nopa, this time for dinner - and it really was worth the wait.

We got there a little bit before our reservations, so we were able to sit at the bar and get a drink. Just as our drinks were served, our friends showed up and our table was ready. Once again, we got seated on the mezzanine level, overlooking the kitchen, which in my opinion is the best seat in the house. I spent a lot of time peeking down there to see what was happening.

We took a long time looking over the menu. I wanted to eat everything - and I feel like I did eat everything, considering that as I write this 12+ hours after dinner, I am still full.

We finally decided on four appetizers. 

I looooooved the warm goat cheese crostini. The goat cheese was incredibly creamy and spread on the crostini almost liked whipped cream and the pluot was tart and sweet and the perfect companion to the goat cheese.  It was a perfect "summer is nearly here" dish.

We had been to the Farmers' Market earlier that morning, and had seen lots of beautiful squash blossoms, which was what inspired us to order that dish. I think I didn't pay enough attention to the description on the menu though - I wasn't expecting the whole thing to be fried. It was good - but certainly not my favorite. With all the fresh produce right now, I haven't been wanting much fried stuff.

The roasted onions were more my speed - they had that same feeling of summer. We really liked the pea sprouts that were part of it too.

The last appetizer was the arugula salad. Clearly I was going to like this no matter what. And it had fresh strawberries. Delicious.

At this point I was 1) licking the goat cheese out of the dish and 2) ridiculously full and overwhelmed when my dinner arrived.

I ordered the seared duck, which was recommended to me by the bartender. The fact that it had grilled nectarines also sold it for me. It was fantastic and I had never had orach before, which kinda tasted a little bit like kale. I got about half way through and hit a wall - I could not eat another thing. The rest will be for dinner tomorrow.

Mark got the pork chop, which also could probably feed two. I had a bite and it was tender and juicy. I can imagine that next time I might order this myself.

Kev got the burger, which made me happy because I really wanted to try it. Like the pork chop, it was really juicy. He thought it had a bit of a bacon taste to it too, which was appreciated.  On the way home he commented that it was one of the best burgers he's ever had.

Britt got the homemade fettuccine with clams, tomatoes and peas. I took a bite and it was great. I love fresh made pasta.

All of us were way too full for dessert, which is disappointing because I would have loved to try it. I guess I'll have to save that for next time.

Lastly, because this is my 100th post (!) and because we had seats overlooking the kitchen, I'm including a little video (in case you want to see what the kitchen is like for yourself).  Hopefully the chef doesn't mind that I was sneakily filming him. Enjoy!

dinner @nopa from tastingsf on Vimeo.

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

Bistro Aix, Marina

Last week, my parents were in town and I wanted to book some reservations for while they were here. Finding restaurants for my parents is a semi-daunting task: it can't be too loud, it shouldn't be too trendy, they should serve Diet Coke, and the food needs to be very accessible (read: American or "red sauce" Italian) for my dad.  

I didn't know much about Bistro Aix, but it had been recommended on the Top 100 Places to Eat list, and although it is considered French (not American or Italian) everything I read about it, including the menu, seemed to fit the above description.  I booked it.  We sat in the front room which was comfortably chatty, so that was perfect (the back room however, is quite noisy, so make sure to request the front if you don't like noisy).  The bar accommodated everyone, with both Diet Coke and this awesome beer. Love the label. 

We ordered a couple of appetizers: burrata on crostini with arugula and pea shoots, which doesn't fall into the "accessible" category for my dad, but wow, was it good.  The cheese was super creamy and the whole thing was seasoned really well,  in a light vinaigrette.  There was some coarse salt on it that added a little crunch that I liked. More accessible was the spaghetti with San Marzano tomatoes and basil.  Everyone loved this, and I'd be tempted to order it next time as my entree. 

Kev ordered another pasta dish, as recommended by our waitress, for his entree. This was tagliatelle with shrimp and clams in a spicy tomato broth.  It was a good dish, but not quite as good as the spaghetti.  My mom ordered the duck, which was great - juicy and tender. 

My dad and I both ordered the crispy chicken breast with baby red potoates: he was sold on "crispy" and potatoes; I was sold on the Patricia Unterman review describing the chicken.  It lived up to the description: the skin was really crispy and the meat was really juicy.  I was also eyeing the burger at the table next to us, which looked amazing. As good as the chicken was, I was having food envy.

At this point we were all pretty full, but they had tarte tatin. I had been thinking about tarte tatin just before we went to dinner, because I had read this Smitten Kitchen post and was thinking 1) I want to make that and 2) mmmm, tarte tatin.  And it really was lovely - warm and gooey and perfectly caramelized.  Even my dad ate it, and that is saying something (no warm desserts, either).

Moral of the story: bring a date or bring your parents.  And bring me, too.

Bistro Aix
3340 Steiner Street
San Francisco, CA 94123-2707
(415) 202-0100

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

Il Cane Rosso, Ferry Building

Last week I had a vacation day so we headed over to the Ferry Building to have lunch at Il Cane Rosso - Daniel Patterson's rotisserie/sandwich shop. 

I really love the Ferry Building, even if it is a huge tourist destination with really expensive food. But the thing is, the food is really good. And you can't beat it on a warm, bright, sunny day when you can sit outside and watch your favorite 1 year old show off her brand new walking skills. 

We were lucky to score a table outside - and even luckier that we didn't need a jacket. I love October in San Francisco. It really is my favorite time of year here.

All of the food here is straight from the farm - this is the Marin Sun Farms roast pork sandwich (with jalapeno pepper relish and cracklins’).  Don't be fooled by the look of this sandwich - it might look very basic, but the meat is juicy and tender and super flavorful. 

This is the beef tagliata sandwich (meat also from Marin Sun Farms), with aged cheddar, roasted onions, rosemary, lemon aoli.  I liked this one - but preferred the simpler pork sandwich in the end.

And what does a one-year-old from San Francisco eat for lunch? Iacopi Farm baked beans and polenta with sage brown butter and parmesan, of course.  Luckily this one-year-old is a good sharer, and she didn't mind me reaching in and helping myself. I'm normally not a huge fan of polenta, but this one was super creamy and lovely.

And, to make this meal even better, it was 50% off. Have you seen Scoutmob? It's awesome. Just download the (free) app and you can present your iPhone to the cashier and voila - 50% off at Il Cane Rosso through December.  And no, they aren't paying me to say that.

Il Cane Rosso
1 Ferry Building # 41
San Francisco, CA 94111-4231
(415) 391-7599

Commonwealth, Mission

I wanted to try Commonwealth because I can't stop reading about it. It seems like every local food site has had some mention of it since it opened a month ago.  If you've seen any of these articles, you know that the new restaurant is the product of Jason Fox (Bar Tartine) and Anthony Myint (Mission Street Food) and that it donates $10 from every tasting menu to local charities.  We didn't order the tasting menu last night though, and instead ordered a bunch of different dishes and shared them amongst the four of us.

Instead of bread, Commonwealth serves homemade chips with vinegar foam.  I liked that it was something different, but I'm not hugely into chips so this wasn't really my thing - I would have preferred some rustic bread and butter, but that's just me. 

We ordered a few different appetizers, but I only got a picture of the soup.  This here is the "summer squash, chilled soup, fried blossoms, shaved salad, vadouvan".  I liked the soup - it was refreshing and flavorful, but I didn't like the fried blossoms as much as I did at Cafe Des Amis.  We also ordered the tomato salad (nice, ripe tomatoes with olive, cheese and basil),  shisito peppers with goat cheese and the gnocchi (with corn, maitake mushrooms, sage, parmesan and truffle oil). We all loved the gnocchi and agreed that if we were to come back we'd all want our own - no sharing this dish again. 

We also ordered the halibut, hangar steak and the young hen with spot prawns in a chocolate-almond emulsion. I really enjoyed the halibut, which had a nice coconut flavor to it, and the hen, which was really tender.  The spot prawns freaked me out a little - I don't like seeing their eyes - but once we removed their outfits (love that phrase, thanks Britt!) I felt much more comfortable. 

For dessert, we ordered the White Russian (coffee ice cream, vodka gelée, raw milk mousse,  génoise cake) and the Cinnamon Mille-Feuille (cardamom marshmallow, chocolate ganache, and burnt honey ice cream). Both of these were really different and complex, and I really liked certain flavors but not others. The vodka gelée was like a fancy vodka jello shot, and I could have done without it, but I liked the rest of the dish.  I really liked the ice cream in both desserts as well, and it seemed extra cold and creamy.

It was a good meal, with some great dishes, but I didn't leave feeling as excited as I felt leaving Frances, for example. 

As a side note, here's a little behind-the-scenes shot from our dinner -  it was really dark in there, but thanks to some strategically placed candles (and some brightening in Photoshop) I was able to salvage a few photos.

Beretta, Mission

I was feeling a little stir crazy in our apartment this afternoon so Kev agreed to take a little walk with me.  We had both just eaten some cereal and weren't all that hungry, but like my mom always says, you don't need to be hungry to eat. We wandered on up Valencia Street and noticed all the new restaurants that have recently opened. We first tried to go to Heart, but they were about to close for an event. Instead we headed over to Beretta for some small plates.

We ordered the beets with ricotta salata and the eggplant caponatina with burrata.  The beets were nice and earthy and the cheese was really mild - I would have liked it with more cheese, but I think that about everything. The eggplant dish - which is composed of eggplant, tomatoes, basil, olives, capers, celery and pinenuts - was on the 2009 7x7 100 Things To Eat list.  I've ordered this before and I remember liking it more. It's really interesting, because some bites (tomato+basil+eggplant+burrata) are excellent, while others didn't work for me (any bite + olive and/or caper).  With fewer ingredients,  I think I would have really enjoyed the dish, but next time I'll probably order the pizza.

Beretta
1199 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 695-1199

Boulette's Larder, Ferry Building

I've been wanting to try Boulette's Larder for approximately one million years but they don't do breakfast on the weekends. I finally made it there during the week and had breakfast for one.

I'm convinced the Blue Bottle coffee they served tasted better than getting it at the Blue Bottle store, which is just down the hall from Boulette's. I had a hard time deciding what to eat,  and was torn between poached eggs and the scramble with nettles, burrata and olive oil.   I picked the scramble, mostly because I will order anything that is served with burrata.  It was good, and I liked the combination of flavors and textures, but for the price I wanted them to be the best eggs of my life, and they weren't (those would be from either Mama's or La Note, in case you're wondering).  But if I happen to be at the Ferry Building between 8 and 10:30 Monday to Friday, I'd definitely go back.

Frances, Castro

Way back in April, the night of our dinner at Ad Hoc, we returned to San Francisco with Mark and Brittany and got on the internet to book dinner at Frances.  We were excited about it because after being open for only a few months, it had already been nominated as one of the best new restaurants in the country.  And though it was only April, the first weekend reservation we could get wasn't until July. We booked it.

Tonight we finally cashed in that reservation (with different friends, since M & B had gotten double booked) and ate at Frances for the second time. The first time was about a month ago when we had lucked out when some friends from work had reservations and asked us to join them. I had so thoroughly enjoyed our meal the first time and I couldn't wait to go back.  Luckily tonight's dinner did not disappoint - it was just as great as our first meal there.

Don't you just love that logo? It reminds me of doodles in a notebook for some reason.  

The menu is broken into four parts: bouchees, appetizers, entrees and sides. All the bouchees are $6.50 each and it's really hard to decide what to pick. So you can do what we did (on both visits) and order all of them. 

 

 

 

 (Row 1: Applewood smoked bacon beignets with maple creme fraiche & chive; Panisse Frites (chickpea fritters with meyer lemon aioli; Row 2: Grilled calamari with warm bean salad, preserved lemon, Sicilian olive; Roasted beet salad with ras el hanout, wild flower honey, cilantro and avocado; Row 3: toasted firebrand challah with stracciatella cheese and herb salad)

All of these dishes are excellent but I think the chickpea fritters are my favorite thing on the menu. I've been noticing this pop up on menus throughout San Francisco, but I've only eaten them here. The exterior has a nice crunchy texture and the inside is soft and creamy.  The beet salad is also fantastic - simple but so fresh and flavorful - thanks in part to the ras el hanout (I didn't know what that meant either, but our friends who we were with filled us in).

Kev ordered that fun little drink - it's called a Market Shot and "is whatever we find at the market that gets juiced, spiced, spiked".  I can't remember exactly what was in this, but it included peach, meyer lemon and the house white wine. And it was really, really good. It made us all want to make our own and drink it outside on a warm day. 

There were four of us at this dinner, so you might be wondering why there are only two pictures of entrees and it's because three of us ordered the trout.  I usually don't like to order the same meal as Kev, and I never order trout, but last time we were here he had the trout and once I tasted it I was jealous. Not that my pork wasn't amazing, but the trout was something else.  It's a smoked Steelhead trout served with fingerling potatoes, creme fraiche and grain mustard.  The one non-trout dish we ordered was the herb stuffed Guinea hen, with polenta, chanterelles, white corn and apricot. And it was also excellent. Even our friend who ate it thought so and she was being extra critical, "since it's Frances".

And then there was dessert. Kev got the bittersweet chocolate pot du creme with roasted bing cherries, which he ordered for himself, since he's greedy with his desserts. The rest of us shared the cornmeal pound cake with ricotta semifreddo, olive oil and berries. We forgot it was semifreddo and spent the whole time eating it saying "what kind of ice cream is this? It's sooo creamy".  The flavors of the cake, berries and cream all worked really well together and we worked hard to make each bite the perfect bite with bits of all three. The pot du creme was also excellent and not to sweet. The cookies it is served with were a little too salty and dry for our taste. 

All in all it was an excellent meal and I'm glad that we booked a third meal there back in May - we'll be returning for another dinner here in August. 

Frances
3870 17th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114-2030
(415) 621-3870

Range, The Mission

Last night we were fortunate to get last minute reservations at Range. This made for one very happy Kev, since this is his favorite restaurant in the city.  The last time we were there, we had reservations for 8:30. We didn't get seated until around 9 but they were so gracious about it - sending us extra appetizers and desserts to make up for it.  To me, a gesture like that really goes a long way, and I'm surprised that more restaurants don't do this when they keep you waiting.  

The menu - including the cocktail menu - changes regularly. Last night we ordered the Bottle Rocket - tequila, strawberries, chile, ginger, yellow chartreuse and  lemon.  The cocktails are always great here, and if you can't get a table, it's fun to sit at the bar and watch the bartenders create all sorts of fun drinks. This drink was interesting with the addition of chile - it gave it just the teeniest, tiniest little kick. 

Though the menu changes often, you can always find both a simple green salad and a stuffed pasta listed. While all of the food at Range is great, I think the thing I most look forward to when going there are the salads. Last night we ordered the little gem salad with fried capers, radishes and paremesan in a roasted garlic vinaigrette. It was our lucky night because they sent over a second salad as well: This one was with aprium (apricot+plum), goat cheese, amaranth and walnuts.  I'm really not sure which one I liked more: the little gem salad was a little salty and crunchy and full of flavor. The aprium salad was a little bit lighter and more summery and the leaves themselves had so much taste. The best thing about the salads at Range are that they are always perfectly dressed - never too much or too little dressing and they are always so fresh.  

The pasta was artichoke ravioli with fromage blanc, meyer lemon and olive oil.  It was perfect. They are really masters at putting different flavor combinations together. 

If you are eating at Range and they have steak on the menu, however it is prepared, you should order that.  Last night the option was pan roasted bavette steak with squash blossoms, basil, wheat berries and parmesan jus.  Kev ordered that and I was jealous. So was the guy next to us - I overheard him tell his date he had food envy when this arrived at our table.  The outside had a really nice crust to it and the inside was tender and juicy.  

I ordered the Alaskan halibut with English peas, morel mushrooms, baby turnips and horseradish.  This was a really nice, light dish and I liked the addition of the horseradish, but it wasn't nearly as impressive as the steak. 

The desserts here are also pretty spectacular and we particularly like the fruit based options. This one was a pluot and aprium tart, which I thought was pretty clever. It was served with cardamom ice cream which was a nice contrast to the tartness of the fruit.

On our walk home we were talking about our top five places in the city for dinner and Range is high on that list.  But don't go taking all the reservations now, it's hard enough to get in as is!

Range

842 Valencia St

San Francisco, CA 

415-282-8283