Sunday Night Dinner: More This and That

Another Sunday, another random assortment of food for dinner. This time though there was a main dish, which was an herb crusted salmon from an old issue of Blueprint magazine.  It is ridiculously easy and quick to make and it's one of those recipes that you really can't screw up.  You can find the recipe here.

I also had some ricotta cheese left over from the penne frittata  that I didn't want to go to waste, so I was very excited when Smitten Kitchen posted this recipe for zucchini and ricotta galette.  This is much more complicated to make in that there are a ton of steps - but it turned out very well and I'd make it again. 

We also made a jicama salad that my friend Lex has been raving about - it's just jicama, tomatoes and green apples, tossed with lime juice and goat cheese (Lex had it with cotija cheese but I had goat cheese at home so used that instead).

And last but not least... yup, more tartine bread and a simple green salad.

(click on picture for better viewing)

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

Sunday Night Dinner: This and That

This was an untraditional Sunday night dinner. We invited a couple of friends over for what I have been calling "snacks".  It wasn't really intended to be dinner, since it was more just some stuff thrown together. I love these kinds of meals. 

I had made a couple of things earlier that day that we snacked on:

That is a cauliflower and carmelized onion tart, from Smitten Kitchen. I had made this once before, a long time ago and had forgotten about this recipe. I'm hoping that by posting it here I won't forget it again. It's pretty time consuming but the results are fantastic. 

I also made this penne frittata with basil and ricotta which I found off of Sunday Suppers. I love how the cross section of this looks. Kev insisted that it "tasted like Christmas".  I still can't figure out why that would be.  I think we all liked the cauliflower tart better - I'm not sure that I would make the frittata again. It was good - just not anything special.

Throw in some cherry tomatoes, avocado and the famous Tartine bread that we love and you've got yourself a meal. 

And if you're still hungry you can always make some (very rustic looking) ice cream sandwiches.

Paulette Macarons, Hayes Valley

Hayes Valley is kind of the mecca for those with a sweet tooth. We've already covered Christopher Elbow and Miette.  And if you aren't satisfied with the options at these two places, there's always Paulette Macarons.

If you go to Paulette, you should know that they have a picture taking policy. The policy is this: you have to ask. You can take a picture but if you don't ask first they will say to you, "excuse me but you have to ask". And then you will say, "I'm so sorry, can I not take photos in here?" and they will say, "yes, you can. But you have to ask". 

I prefer the non-fruit flavored macarons. These here are some combination of espresso, vanilla, chocolate and coconut.  And while they were all excellent, the macarons at Bouchon Bakery remain my favorites.

Absinthe, Hayes Valley

Yesterday morning we made our way over to Hayes Valley for brunch. The original plan was to go to Suppenkuche but it turns out they don't do brunch on Saturdays - just Sundays. Good to know.  So we made our way down the street to Absinthe instead.

We got there about 15 minutes before they opened and no one else was waiting. About 2 minutes before they opened the doors people started lining up. About 10 minutes after we were seated, the place was full. Moral of the story: get there early or make a reservation, as it seemed like most of the crowd had reserved.  

We ordered two egg dishes: the wild mushroom omelet with caramelized onions, gruyere and truffle butter and the fried green tomatoes with poached eggs and wilted chard in a ham hollandaise sauce.   Both of these came with their breakfast potatoes, but we didn't realize that so we also ordered some fries.

Overall, I liked the omelet the best. All of the food was good, but I didn't think any of it was great.   The poached egg and tomato didn't seen to have all that much flavor and I like my fries to have more... potato. These fries had a nice exterior but not so much going on inside. I think looking back we should have gone for a sweet as well as a savory - the ricotta-stuffed french toast or the banana-blueberry souffle pancake is sounding very enticing to me as I type up this post.

If you're in Hayes Valley and want some breakfast, I'd still go here over say, Stacks. What I was most impressed with at Absinthe was the cocktail menu, which I fully intend to go back for.

Absinthe Brasserie & Bar
398 Hayes Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 551-1590

Sunday Night Dinner: Jamie Oliver Style

I love Jamie Oliver. His recipes are always straight forward and even better, so so tasty. Last Sunday, Kev and I made his Spanish Roast Chicken as well as his peach and mozzarella salad. We've made the chicken before and I don't know why we don't make it more often -- it was better than I remembered. 

Kev had fun decorating the chicken with chorizo.

This salad is perfect for summer. Here's how you make it: take a whole bunch of mint leaves, combine it with whatever salad leaves you have on hand, throw in some slices of ripe peach and rip up some buffalo mozzarella. Oh and prosciutto! Tear off some pieces of prosciutto and throw that in there as well.  Top with salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil.  We used the Nudo lemon olive oil and it worked really nicely with this.

 

You might want to click on this picture to fully appreciate the potatoes. They cook with the chicken and the chorizo and absorb the flavors of both and cook for long enough that they get almost caramelized on the outside.  The chicken stays incredibly juicy thanks to the whole lemons that are steaming inside it as it cooks. 

If you're having a small dinner party, I highly recommend this recipe - it is so simple but a big crowd pleaser. 

Sunday Night Dinner: Steak and Potatoes

I've been delinquent posting about Sunday Night Dinners. This dinner took place on Memorial Day and was a great way to welcome in the summer.  The barbecue was bought earlier that morning and these steaks were the perfect thing to christen them with. 

Some drawings and drinking were done while we waited to eat.

(UPDATE: you can vote on this as a t-shirt design here).
 

That's chive cream cheese on those steaks. That was not my idea - but now I think all steaks should be accompanied with cream cheese. Try it.

 

Happy Summer!