Student Meal

Can't beat beans on toast.  Toast some bread, don't forget to butter the toast, add the beans, salt, pepper and grated cheddar cheese and you're set. 

Birthday Brunch!

Had a fun post-birthday picnic-brunch with the girls this morning.

Thanks you guys!

Cyrus, Healdsburg

I don't know where to begin writing this post. I'm really apprehensive about it, because I know that 1) words can not do this meal justice and 2) There is no possible way for me to remember all of the amazing components that were part of this meal. And so, I'm starting with a disclaimer: there's a good chance I'm leaving some stuff out, the stuff that was so far beyond my food vocabulary and comprehension that I was not able to retain.
 

Cyrus is the kind of place you go to for a special occasion, and Kev booked this meal as a birthday present for me.  It was a great idea really, because while I love food, this isn't the kind of thing I'd have ever booked for myself. 

When we got to the restaurant, we were promptly seated and no more than a minute had passed before the champagne and caviar cart rolled on over.  There's probably a whole lot that can be said about both of these items, but we didn't partake in either - I was more excited about the cocktails and caviar just isn't my thing.  The presentation of the cart though did signal that this was going to be a dining experience unlike any other. 

We got our menus and tried to decide between the 5 or 8 course Chef's Tasting Menu. I was partial to the 5 course meal because I was worried the 8 courses would just be too much for me. Kev convinced me to go for the 8 courses ("It's your birthday!").  Our waiter then upped the ante and told us how the chef loves to cook with black truffle, and for a small fee we could also add it to one of the courses.  He recommended the poussin and we agreed. Go big or go home.

We began our journey with the canapes. This was not part of the 8 courses - this was just the first of the precursors to our meal. The idea behind these items is that there is one bite for each of the five tastes: bitter (eggplant with coffee bean); salty (manila clam with powdered chorizo in a gelée); sour (spring roll in a tamarind glaze); sweet (a strawberry bubble-like sphere); umami (shitake mushroom broth). I'm skipping a whole lot of ingredients here - don't forget that disclaimer I mentioned above.  I really enjoyed this whole presentation and it was a great, fun way to start off the meal - and a good indication that this dinner would really be more than just dinner. 

Our next non-course course was the Amuse Bouche.  I'm really embarrassed to say I don't remember what kind of sashimi this was. I know it was flown in from Japan. I know it was incredibly delicate and flavorful and probably one of the best pieces of raw fish I've ever had.  I think it was kampachi. It was served with a small slice of plum and more gelée, and the whole thing was outstanding.  

 

Oh, would you like some bread? There is something like 8 different varieties of breads that are baked  daily at Cyrus, and are served along with two different types of butters (a salted cow's milk and an unsalted goat's milk) and two different types of salts (a red salt and a maldon sea salt from England - Kev liked this one).  We chose three different breads: bacon cheddar scone, feta and olive pinwheel and a whole wheat roll. The bacon cheddar scone was our favorite. The whole wheat roll was probably the only thing I ate all night that I was underwhelmed by.  I could have made an entire meal out of just the breads and butters - and I would have loved to try them all -  but I was holding back, as we still hadn't even gotten to the first course. 

Ah, the first course. This was the Thai Lobster 2.0.  Our waiter told us it is 2.0 because it's the second incarnation of the dish. While the menu at Cyrus changes frequently, this is one of the dishes that always remains - though now in a slightly different form than the original. I loved this dish. Lobster topped with hearts of palm, with avocado puree, cubed melon and a cilantro/basil/mint marinade.  I wanted a bowl of that marinade to have like soup.  I recently commented to a friend I only like melon when it is room temperature and the perfect level of sweetness, and of course this was that.  All of these flavors together worked perfectly and I was really disappointed when it was gone. It's hard to pick a highlight in a meal like this, but I think this was one of my favorite dishes.

I haven't mentioned my cocktail yet. While Cyrus is also known for it's extensive wine list - and wine pairings - we skipped that part since wine isn't really our thing. I ordered the Peachy Keane - Buffalo Trace bourbon, peach puree, lemon juice, brown sugar-black peppercorn syrup and egg white.  I wouldn't normally order a bourbon cocktail but I'm so glad that I did. It was light and refreshing and probably didn't really go with our meal but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The second course was a choice between foie gras torchon with cherry and pistachio and a buttermilk biscuit or scallop with rice noodles and pickled green papaya with a coconut milk froth. We split the two dishes, and  I started with the scallop which was perfectly seared and succulent and the coconut froth and noodles complimented it perfectly. 

The foie gras.... so this was my first time having foie gras and I really had no idea what to expect. I did not expect to love it as much as I did. It was creamy and smooth and rich and I loved it paired with the cherry compote and biscuit.

Courses three and four: 

3: Turbot with sweet corn and scallions, lemon verbena 

4: Chanterelle ravioli with slow cooked bantam egg and parmesan

The turbot was nice and light, with a crispy outer layer. The corn puree was sweet and was a nice contrast to the fish. 

The ravioli was more like a deconstructed ravioli - which seemed to be a theme for the night. This was a dish that we would have missed had we gone with the 5 course menu and for this dish alone I'm glad we went with the 8. I always enjoy a gooey, runny egg and loved the different textures of the pasta, egg and parmesan crisp.

Course 5 was a choice of either:

Crispy poussin with potato mousseline, haricots verts, fine herbes with shaved black truffles or

Striploin of beef with daikon, ginger-tomato broth

We ordered both dishes. I started with the poussin and while it was good, it wasn't a stand out dish to me - even with the truffles. Had I ordered this in any other restaurant I think I would have felt differently, but at this point I had grown accustomed to the more outrageous dishes and while this was an excellent piece of meat, it didn't blow me away. It also felt like such a huge portion, especially knowing that there were so many more to go. I only ate a few bites of this before passing it over to Kev. 

The meat was a piece of wagyu beef, and they pour the ginger-tomato broth table side. The beef was tender and well seasoned. 

The next course was the cheese course. After you are thoroughly stuffed from all the previous dishes, the cheese cart shows up at your table. The cheese cart looked like art. It was a beautiful display of colors, textures and shapes and I couldn't stop thinking about how much my father-in-law would love this.  Our waiter asked us questions about what kind of cheese we like and don't like (no stinky cheese for me please) and then served us each a piece of goat, sheep and cow's milk cheeses.  Along with the cheese from the cart, we were also presented with a three tiered display of cheese accompaniments -sliced baguette, walnut raisin bread, crackers, pear butter, and a spoonful of date gelée.  The cheese was excellent and our waiter did a great job of choosing suitable cheese for our palate, but I had to leave much of mine on the plate, as there were still two more courses coming. Or so I thought. 

Turns out there were actually three more courses. Good thing I love dessert. As a very special treat, the chef sent out a what I'm calling the birthday course. I won't be able to do justice to the presentation, and it all happened so fast that I wasn't able to get a picture. The waitress who came to our table brought with her a wood platter of sorts. On one side was a bell jar that contained two fresh chocolate chip cookies. On the other side (not in the jar) was a blown up balloon attached to a nozzle. When she let the air out of the balloon, it caused a cocoa confetti explosion in the bell jar, showering the cookies with cocoa powder. I am so bummed that I didn't take a photo. 

If that wasn't enough, a second waiter was also at our table, preparing us egg creams! Growing up my great-grandmother always had the blue glass bottles of seltzer and we frequently had egg creams, but it has been years since I have had one.  This was not the U-Bet's chocolate syrup/milk version from my childhood though. The Cyrus version is way more decadent, with homemade chocolate syrup, cream and their own carbonated water.  I'm totally going to steal this idea for a future party at my house. How awesome are those metal straws? 

Here's dessert part two, and I think my favorite of the four(!) desserts we had, and another item we would have missed had we not had the 8 course meal (here's where I point out that two days later, I am still full). This is passion fruit gelato with miso custard and sesame sable.  There's also some olive oil drizzled on top. It was sweet and tart and creamy and a little salty and just... amazing. One of the best desserts I think I've ever had.  Also I would love to watch the person in the kitchen who lovingly places each leafy green on the sesame sable, so delicately. I actually thought about that a lot through the meal, with all of the dishes - every single thing that is on the dish is put on there so thoughtfully and artfully. I'd love to stand in the corner of the kitchen and just watch them work. 

Here is dessert part three and four. This was the official 8th course of the night and we had a choice of: 

Tiramisu with espresso gelato and toffee crunch or

Red velvelt cake

I started with the tiramisu. At this point I really could have been rolled on out of the restaurant but I had to try both of these. Normally I'm not a big fan of tiramisu, but this was presented as a deconstructed version, different than any other that I've had, and I really enjoyed the three bites I was able to handle. 

The red velvet cake was even more unusual and also deconstructed - two cubes of cake presented with cream cheese frosting, slivers of beets and a little cup with a beet....cream? We loved this too. 

After this it was all sort of a haze. Another cart was rolled over with lollipops, chocolates, salted caramels, shortbreads and more for the taking. We tried a bite of the shortbread and took a lollipop to go -  I couldn't possibly have had another bite of food.  More treats - brownies - were brought over to take home.

It's been 2 days since this meal and yet I can't stop thinking about it - it was more than just the food.  Earlier today I called Cyrus to ask a question about one of the dishes we had tried. The woman who picked up the phone asked me to hold on, and a moment later the Chef was on the line! I repeated my question to him, and not only did he walk me through the ingredients, he asked, "would you like me to email you a copy of the recipe?"  This accessibility was prevalent throughout our whole meal. I didn't spend any time here talking about the service, and how knowledgeable the entire wait staff was, how efficient and unpretentious and how much they seemed to enjoy what they do. Or how fun it was to watch the choreography of all the servers together, setting the food down simultaneously, picking up the finished plates within moments of your fork and knife setting down. 

This dinner was more than a meal, it was an event and not only the best meal I've ever had, but also the best restaurant experience.  Thanks for taking me, Kev!

Cyrus Restaurant
421 Healdsburg Avenue
Healdsburg, CA 95448-3814
(707) 433-3311

Food Crawl Part 3: Oakland and Berkeley

For the third installment of food crawl, we headed over to the East Bay. Heather planned this round which was great because she knows all the good places to hit in Oakland and Berkeley. We were supposed to start at Bakesale Betty's, but they ran out of chicken sandwiches before we got there (at 2:15 - they close at 3).  Big huge bummer. Especially because we must have only just missed it because we saw  plenty of people unwrapping or just starting their incredible looking sandwiches.

So instead, we walked down the road and started at Burma Superstar.  I had never attempted to try Burma Superstar because I've been intimidated by the lines. If you feel the same way, I highly suggest you check out the Oakland location at about 2PM because it was empty. We ordered the  tea leaf salad and rainbow salad and you should too. 

This is the tea leaf salad, and the leaves really do come from Burma (or so says the menu).  I loved the presentation of the salads at the table - they arrive with all the components segregated to a section of the dish and then the waiter (very quickly) goes through all ingredients and then tosses it table side. Besides the tea leaves there are tomatoes, lettuce, peanuts, fried garlic and a whole bunch of other stuff. It tastes like nothing else I've had before and I loved those fried garlic pieces. 

I wanted to try the rainbow salad when I saw that it had 22 different ingredients.  How can you pass up a salad that has 22 ingredients? I wish I could remember what was in it besides noodles (4 different types) more fried garlic, tofu, papaya, pepper, fried onion and 11 other ingredients I now can't remember. I actually liked this salad better than the tea leaf salad. All the different textures and flavors came together to make a really distinct and fun dish. I believe the menu called it "a party in your mouth".

Our next stop was over in Berkeley at Vik's Chaat Corner. This place is part grocery store, part restaurant. The restaurant is no frills: order at the counter, sit at tables that are reminiscent of a high school cafeteria, and eat your food with... biodegradable sporks.

At Vik's we ordered a couple of mango lassis and a veggie kathi and then tried to figure out how to eat the kathi with the sporks.

The four of us quickly devoured both the drinks and the food. The kathi (which is only served on the weekend) was really nicely spiced and flavorful and the lassi would have been perfect to drink with it if I hadn't finished it before the food arrived.  I also liked that nearly everything that was left when we finished eating - plate, cups and sporks - were compostable and the restaurant has a big green bin to allow you to do just that.

Next up on the agenda was the Imperial Tea Court, also in Berkeley.  They have a huge variety of different teas and also a decent selection of food. We decided to try a white tea and an herbal tea as well as some veggie dumplings.

Imperial Tea Court allows you to experience different types of tea service, and we chose the Gaiwan tea presentation.  Both teas were really mild and subtle and though it wasn't my most favorite tea I've ever had, I really enjoyed the presentation of it as well as just hanging out and talking with my friends over tea.

Next up on our list was ice cream. We drove over to Ici in Berkeley and waited in line and debated which flavors to get. We were only going to get two, but we couldn't decide between them all and in the end picked three: toasted almond, chocolate caramel and orange rosemary toffee.

Ici is another shop I would love just for the design, but the ice cream really holds up. My favorite of the three flavors was the orange rosemary toffee - three flavors you wouldn't think to put together but tasted amazing. Everyone else picked the toasted almond chocolate almond as their favorite, but really everything we tried - including the flavors that we sampled before ordering - were great. I have to say, I much prefer Ici to Humphrey Slocomb, and I think it's pretty comparable to Bi-Rite Creamery.

After ice cream, we decided to take a little digestion break and headed over to the Berkeley Rose Garden which is now in full bloom.

We wandered around here for awhile, building up our appetites for our final stop, Boot and Shoe.  Boot and Shoe is a pizza place and the sequel to Pizzaiolo (the name is held over from the former tenants of the location).  We hung out for awhile in the bar, drinking sparkling rose, while we waited for a table.

The bar is tucked away in the back of the restaurant and after awhile we decided to stop waiting for our table and commandeered the back corner of the bar and started ordering food.

This is the farro salad minus the burrata but plus the ricotta. I only had a small bite of this one - at this point our group had grown to six - but I liked what I tried.

We also ordered a couple of pizzas: potato, pancetta, fontina and rosemary and a margherita pizza topped with arugula.

I loved the potato/pancetta combination but wasn't overwhelmed by the margherita.  The atmosphere was fun and I liked the weird paintings on the wall and I would totally go back to hang out there. 

This food crawl was the super-sized version of our previous food crawls and a really good time. Thanks Heather, for picking out such great spots. Now, when can we go back to Bakesale Betty?


(for restaurant addresses and phone numbers, click below)  

Favorite Summer Meal for Reasonably Lazy People

Lately we've been obsessed with this salad. While it may seem like all we do is eat, during the week we are pretty lazy about making dinner. This salad is SO good and all the ingredients are so fresh and in season right now that it's become our go-to meal after work.  If you have some good bread around you can also do it as a sandwich.

I give Kev full credit for this as it was all his idea. All you need is some combination of arugula, nectarines or peaches (we've also used raspberries), avocado, tomato, prosciutto. I also put crumbled goat cheese on mine.   A little salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil and you're set.

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