Head Over Hills for San Francisco: Part II

After a few days of technical challenges in getting the rest of my photos from the trip uploaded, I think I am back in business. Thank god for tech-savvy husbands who are patient and care about their wife's blogging.

Here is round two of our fabulous food aventures in SF. It includes the only disappointing meal we had (which was far away from being a bad meal), the benefit of being on vacation when you can’t decide what to have for breakfast, and the most delicious chicken I’ve ever had.


When giddy turns to disappointed @ Chez Panisse

Anyone who loves food knows about Alice Waters and her restaurant Chez Panisse. She's a legend. And I've been looking forward to going to Chez Panisse for months. Months. You have to be on top of your game to get in. They only take reservations up to one month in advance, and you pretty much have to make the reservation exactly one month in advance for any hope of getting in. Check, thanks to reminders on my Outlook calendar at work.

We showed up, I was beyond excited. I even took a picture of the entrance. I was completely giddy.

We made our way up to the bar on the second floor, got a glass of wine, got a little bit of snobbiness from who I'm guessing was the manager, and waited patiently to be seated. (We were early of course.)

We did the tasting menu--four courses of promised seasonal goodness.

Spring vegetable salad with lemongrass vinaigrette

Local rockfish in a bouillabaisse broth cooked in the fireplace with rouille and toast

Spit-roasted Becker Lane pork shoulder with star anise and coriander, potato and green garlic galette, and garden greens

Meyer lemon meringue tart

Was the food good? Yes, of course.

Did I like it? Think so.

Was it what I expected? Mmm, not really.

To be completely totally brutally honest, I was disappointed with Chez Panisse. Maybe (surely) I had unfairly high expectations. I went in expecting to be blown away and just wasn't. The actual restaurant was charming, a craftsman-style house, with a few romantic nooks and crannies that you'd pay extra for to be seated in. And of course the food was expertly prepared. But have I had similar food before? Sure have. Waters may have invented seasonal cooking in Berkeley, but she isn't the only one doing it anymore. I think I just made my pilgrimage too late in life. Sigh.


Fishies out of water in search of coffee and burritos

As I've said before, I do my research before a trip. I enlist the help of my foodie loving friends and countless reviews and articles. My previous SF resident friend Emily hooked me up with a thorough list of places we needed to try. Philz Coffee and Pancho Villa were on the list, and were definitely two places that we probably would have missed without her. They were both on blocks that I wouldn't have gone to on my own. I was slightly out of my element. But good food awaited. I was sure of it. And there isn't a whole lot that will stop me when that is the case.

Philz was like a totally grunged out version of Uptown (but somehow in a good way). Great coffee, great personality. And the best part? The mint leaves that they place in your coffee with cream that steep and give off an amazing aroma. Will be doing this at home for sure.

Pancho Villa was our burrito fix. After all, we were in a land much better known for its Mexican than Mpls is. I knew as soon as we parked the car that we'd have a good burrito. Probably everyone inside Pancho Villa besides us spoke Spanish: a good sign. Carnitas, black beans, rice, cheese, pico. All wrapped up in foil. Yum.


The most delicious chicken I've ever had

I was planning to score some major brownie points with Zach at Zuni Cafe. They are known for their roast chicken for two served atop a warm bread salad. Zach loooooooooooves chicken. "It's so versatile," he says. Versatility isn't what I judge foods by when deciding how much I like them, but okay, I roll with it. I knew he'd love this roast chicken for two. And I decided ahead of time that I'd be a good wifey and have the roast chicken with him.

As a result, I will be dreaming of this chicken for a long time. What came to our table was not your average chicken. It was delicious. So moist, so flavorful. And the bread salad that laid under it, soaking up its chicken juices was amazing. Big chunks of grilled bread, pine nuts, tiny little currants to provide the faintest hit of sweetness. All soaking up in a vinaigrette that was packing a vinegary punch. It was amazing. Truly a memorable meal.

Drive-by cake purchasing

So we had actually changed the time of our reservation at Zuni to an hour earlier that day. It was our last full day in SF, and I was getting antsy about not having crossed all of the places on my list off. Citizen Cake still remained. And this cake eater was not about to miss it.

So we ate our beyond delicious chicken for two, hailed a cab, and worked our way over to Citizen Cake for dessert to go. I wisely chose a chocolate banana peanut butter mousse tart. Riiiiiiii-diculous. And very much over the top. Zach not quite as wisely chose a s'mores brownie that I didn't really think tasted anything like s'mores. But to each their own.


I'll have one of each, please

What do you usually do when you can't decide what to order when out for breakfast? You suck it up and pick one, hoping you won't regret your decision.

What do you do when you're on vacation and you can't decide what to order when out for breakfast? You order one of each. It is vacation, after all.

One morning we really got adventurous and decided to try somewhere besides Tartine for breakfast. We decided to try Zazie.

Ironically, as we'd come to find out, we picked a particularly difficult day to do this. As we pulled into a parking spot on the street, we saw a sign that said "No parking 1st  Friday of the month." Oh, we're fine, I thought. And then I did the mental calculation. Nevermind, we weren't fine. It was in fact, the first Friday of the month. Of course.

After a lot of driving around and a very thorough tour of a new neighborhood by car, we finally found a spot, filled the meter with every last dime we had in our wallets, and got to eat. I had worked up an appetite by this point and both the crab egg benedict and the cornmeal pancakes with lemon curd sounded good. So I ordered both. And didn't for one second feel bad about it.

The crab was obviously a real treat. Light, rich, the perfect bed for a poached egg with holandaise running down it.

The cornmeal pancake was also a treat. Turns out lemon curd on a cornmeal pancake is a do, especially when you smear the pancake with butter first, and then also pour syrup over the top. I am so my father's daughter sometimes.

Are you hungry yet? I am. If you ever need a SF travel companion, you know who to call. I promise you'll eat well.

For the next and final installment, we'll move along to Sonoma (and the Radisson we stayed at the night before we left).

Head Over Hills for San Francisco: Part 1

We’re back from our week in San Francisco and Sonoma! And we’re ready to eat only vegetables for the foreseeable future (maybe…I did sense some slight disappointment when there was no dessert after dinner tonight). We ate like a king and queen, the two of us. I have fallen in love with San Francisco. It had me at Tartine. And then at Delfina. And then at Slanted Door. And then at every other place where we had something to eat over the course of the week.

So much deliciousness, to be recapped in experiences over the course of the next week. The first installment:

How you know you married "the right guy" (aka the 40 minute line @ Tartine)

Saturday morning I was reminded that I married a good egg. We pulled up to Tartine on our way out of SF, and there was a line out the door. Far enough out the door that it equaled a 40 minute wait. It was our third visit to Tartine for breakfast in the four days we were there. I got out of the car, got in line, and started mentally compiling the list of goodies to buy, and Zach patiently waited in the car, loading up the GPS with the day’s addresses, not complaining once. Not even appearing to be put out by this. It was excessive, perhaps, both the 40 minute wait part and the three visits in four days part. But this is what I do. Anyone who has traveled with me knows this. If I find a place I love, I go back as many times as I can throughout the course of the trip. And if it’s out of the way, I still go. If it takes $12 in cab fare each way and it’s the only thing we’re venturing to that part of town for, I still go. And we did.

Over the course of our three visits, I sampled a lot: an impossibly flaky and buttery croissant, a very very rich pain au chocolat, a cappuccino, eggy bread pudding topped with roasted apples, perfectly toasted and perfectly simple toast with butter and apricot jam, a latte, a slice of asparagus quiche, a totally fantastic morning bun that was moist and faintly scented with orange, a chocolate walnut cookie, and a smoked ham open-faced sandwich. (Don’t judge, there were a few things in that list that I had only a few bites of.)

A-mazing. I'll leave it at that. I love Tartine. Their cookbooks have been added to my Amazon wish list, and they will be purchased soon, and I will get busy making morning buns and bread pudding.

The Tcho Chocolate budino @ Delfina

Generally speaking, I think it’s hard to find good desserts in restaurants. This trip was so not so. The first hint of this came at Delfina, our first real dinner in SF. A totally cool restaurant. I knew the minute we stepped in and entered its coolness that I’d like it. Food was great, service was good, vibe was good, people watching was good. The highlight was dessert—the chocolate budino. We were sure we had to split it because we were so full when we ordered it. And then we were sure we shouldn't have split it after we tasted it. The chocolate budino was a cross between a chocolate cake and a bread pudding, not quite ooey and gooey, but definitely not as sturdy as a cake. Warm, chocolately, melt-in-your mouth. And on the other side of the plate was a cocoa nib gelato (gelato sat above actual crunchy cocoa nibs). We were off to a good start for the week.

The before dessert portion was great too: a grilled calamari and white bean salad and spaghetti with plum tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and peperoncini. And wine. Obviously.

I think it’s worth mentioning that Delfina and Tartine are on the same block, right next to each other. If / when I move to SF, I will live on that block and be happy for the rest of my life.

Marathon walking and making up for it with lunch @ Slanted Door

Slanted Door was recommended to me by tons of people, but after Zach told me he “doesn’t really like Vietnamese food,” we didn’t formally schedule it in (and yes, we had a schedule, and yes, it was formal). But we ended up there on Thursday for lunch after we had walked about 5,000 miles down the Embarcadero in the lovely hot sun. We were sweaty, in workout clothes, looking very touristy. “Can we sit in here like this,” I tried to kindly ask the host. “Of course, this is San Francisco” he said back. I'm pretty sure he only half meant it and was truly judging us quietly, but we were in.

Zach likes Vietnamese food now.

Completely delicious. We had outdone ourselves with the walking (another thing I’m known for on vaca), and we just sat there quietly, not talking, shoveling food into our mouths happily, once in a while remarking on how great it was. Cold lemonade, spring rolls, green papaya salad, and 5-spice chicken with jasmine rice. I wish I could have that for lunch tomorrow and every day.

And here ends installment #1. Stay tuned for installments #2 and #3, which will include but not be limited to: what we really thought of famous Chez Panisse, true trekking to get the best of the best, and being forced out of our Minnesota comfort levels by strangers at the bar.