Drinking in SF

We managed to hit up a few great bars in San Francisco.

We went to the Slanted Door for two lunches, but I'll post those later with photos.

Bourbon and Branch is a bit of a pain in the neck if you want to sit at the main bar, since you have to make reservations, but the woman I talked to never called back. However, the library didn't require reservations, and was a nice room through the back of the bar. Lots of dark wood, old books, and candles.
We started with the traditional Revolver and a tequila drink (El Diablo). Then, we got an old fashioned and a Genevieve drink that also had lemon juice, orange juice, sweet and dry vermouths. Finally, we finished with a negroni variation: aperol, gin, and lillet. All were really good, but I think our favorites were the Genevieve drink and the "negroni".

On another day, after a long walk through the city to Golden Gate Park, we stopped at The Alembic for some refreshment:

Perfect Storm: Goslings rum, tawny port, and beer, served in a tea cup with a clove-studded lemon. Cute presentation, and very tasty.
Bolo tie: silver tequila, miso white peach puree, sparkling wine. Interesting twist on a bellini.
Macanudo: anejo tequila, apricot eau de vie, Qi smoked black tea liquor, and agave. This was soooooo good and very complex.
Vow of Silence: Wild Turkey rye, benedictine, creme de griotte (like cherry), and bitters.
Boutonniere: Scotch, nocino, and orange bitters.
Old Fashionista: aged cachaca, smoked maple syrup, house-made sasperilla bitters, soda, and lemon. Very funky and interesting.

We then went off-menu with excellent bartender Thomas Waugh, and got a drink with stone pine liquor, an attempt at a Hierba Buena (his entry in the Averna competition that won him a trip to Sicily--the glass wasn't right), a different Averna drink with simple, lemon, ginger beer, and mint (so delicious), a vieux carre, and a nightcap whose ingredients I can't remember.

At Alembic, we also snacked on za'atar potato chips, crispy tripe, octopus carpaccio, beet salad, and tomato burrata avocado salad. Yum.







Of note was that despite SF's reputation as an expensive city, we found food and drink prices to generally be lower than Boston, and certainly lower than NY.

Fleur de Lys, San Francisco

We're in San Francisco for a few days, and are busy eating and drinking our way around the city. Last night we had dinner at Fleur de Lys, where we opted for the four course menu.

Amuse:
Butternut squash soup with lentil salad.
A nice tasty bite to start the meal

Course 1:
a. Tasting of Alsatian Choucroute: Choucroute soup, toasted spaetzel, and paprika oil; Choucroute fondant with Osetra caviar (so yummy, like a cauliflower flan); Choucroute strudel with sauteed foie gras (wow, this was amazing).
b. Sweetbreads with morels, sauteed leeks, farm egg, and veal jus. Just delicious.

Course 2: Fish
a. King salmon with marcona almonds, sweet and sour radicchio, grapes, scallion oil, and polenta (very good flavors, but the fish was a bit overcooked for our taste)
b. Sea bass with pimento butter, leeks, olive oil mashed potatoes, purple olive jus, and spicy fried artichokes (so good, the potatoes were spectacular!)

Course 3: Main
a. Buffalo strip steak, vegetables, and lemongrass sauce (great flavor, and the sauce was delicious)
b. Wagyu beef cheeks with butternut squash and celery root puree (amazing beef, and the celery root was so smooth and creamy).

Course 4: Dessert
a. Pistachio cake with apricot (roasted with grand marnier), amaretto ice cream (good, but not spectacular)
b. "Fleurburger" a dark chocolate patty with strawberry and kiwi garnish on a bun, banana shake, kiwi "pickle", fennel ice cream "frites" (very cute and fun)

Overall, we thought this meal was a very good value. The food was generally very tasty and interesting, while very French. We had a good Trimbach Pinot Gris, a couple glasses of red, and a Quarts de Chaume dessert wine. Service was nice, although the main course came out way too fast. I don't think we would have been disappointed with any of the menu items--they all sounded really good!

Soups and a salad

I totally love soups. They change with the seasons, and you can serve them hot, cold, smooth, silky, lumpy, etc. Almost any ingredient can find its way into a soup, and there's so much room for variation.

Zucchini mint soup
I'm not sure why I keep buying zucchini, since it's so disgustingly bland. It grills up okay, and isn't bad sauteed or in pasta, but it has no real virtues that I can think of. Except this one: cold zucchini mint soup. I first had this at Via Matta many years ago, and it was the first time I liked the vegetable. For this version, I also added a handful of basil, a few dollops of Greek yogurt, a squeeze of lemon, salt, pepper, and olive oil.


Tomato, watermelon, cucumber, and goat cheese
aka, variation on this summer's most trendy salad (tomato watermelon and feta). There's a slice each of watermelon and tomato, topped with cucumbers and Tomme de Fleur goat cheese, which is possibly my favorite. It's coated with tarragon, rosemary, and pink peppercorns, among other spices, and has such an elegant balance of tang, creaminess, goatiness, and spice.


Sweet potato soup with chorizo shrimp
We flavored the soup with onion and smoked paprika, and used a chorizo, garlic, and scallion flavored oil to lightly cook the shrimp. Mmmmmmmm. We ate this with a Manzanilla sherry. Double mmmmmmmm.


Hey, a non-pureed soup!
This one has cauliflower, fennel, onion, and carrot. I added a parmesan rind and some prosciutto ends to the broth, along with bay leaf and Italian seasoning. The broth had a great flavor, but the cauliflower was a bit bland. Oh well.

Eating in the 'burbs

There was a review of Blue Ginger in Wellesley in the Globe the other day, and it generated a decent number of mixed comments from readers. One person mentioned that it was a "solid option" for those in the suburbs who don't like to go downtown. Do people in the 'burbs really settle more for lesser food? Many people on eGullet complain about chain restaurants and the number of people who love crappy food, but it seems that sub-par places in the city are just as popular as the good ones. PF Changs is packed, Cheesecake Factory has ridiculous waits, and I'm sure Olive Garden would attract hoardes of visitors if one existed in Boston.
In any case, I'd like to find the good neighborhood places outside of Boston. A number of Boston chefs have started opening restaurants in the suburbs, but there must be some good neighborhood places that just go unnoticed because they aren't in the city. I'll start keeping track of the good (and bad) ones as I find them. Here are a few places we've visited recently:

Blue Ribbon BBQ
Many people, even city folks, know about Blue Ribbon. They have really good ribs, pulled pork, burnt ends, and varied sides, among other items. Almost everything we've tried has been delicious.

Sweet Tomatoes Pizza
One in Newton Center and one in West Newton, this is one of my favorite pizza places. Super thin crust, but still nice and chewy, with fresh toppings. I think my favorite is spinach, garlic, and sausage. Mmmmmmm. The pesto veggie is also very good, but sometimes a bit oily.

Paddy O's
One drawback of the suburbs (in my opinion) is the lack of good bars within stumbling distance. Obviously, with the higher number of families and lower population density, this makes sense, but I still don't like it. The first place we tried, which shall remain nameless because I didn't bother remembering the name, was blah at best. We checked out Paddy O's the other night, and it was surprisingly good. It wasn't a particularly lively scene, but they had a decent selection of beer on tap, and the food was good for the price, if not great. The reuben had tender meat, good flavor, and came with crisp tasty fries, and the nachos were generously topped with real cheese, chili, good tomatoes, and sour cream and salsa on the side. (The olives and jalapenos were from a can, and not that great, so I pushed them aside.)

Do I like these places compared to places in the city? I'd certainly drive out to Newton for Blue Ribbon or Sweet Tomatoes, but I wouldn't go too far out of my way to drink beer and eat bar food.

Drinky...

A few drinks we've made recently:

Inspired by the Bijou:
2 oz Old Potrero 18th Century (damn, it's hot!!!)
1 oz green Chartreuse
1 oz Carpano Antica Formula
2 dashes Fee's peach bitters (thought they were orange, but grabbed the peach by mistake)
Stir with ice, let it dilute a bit.
Really good, and the peach bitters were a happy mistake.

Lil' jig (from Pegu club a couple years ago):
muddled basil leaves (recipe calls for thai basil, I only had "regular")
1.5 oz tequila
0.5 oz yellow chartreuse
0.5 oz simple
0.75 oz lime
Shaken and strained. Soooooooo good.

We've also been playing with the Plymouth Sloe Gin--it's pretty good stuff, very tart, nice flavor.

The "sloe vermouth" was quite good:
Equal parts sloe gin and dry vermouth (1oz each), with two teaspoons of lemon juice.

Capital Grille

Went to the Capital Grille in Boston tonight. I had been once a few years ago, and I remember that it was unmemorable, but I wanted to give it another try. I started with lobster bisque (super rich with large chunks of tender lobster, and topped with sherry tableside), and had the kona crusted sirloin as my entree. I normally have rib-eye as my steak of choice, but the sirloin came highly recommended. It was really delicious, very flavorful, and came with shallot butter. We had a side of steamed broccoli with red pepper sauce (where sauce=butter), also very yummy. Ravenswood Zinfandel went nicely with the steak.
We tried to skip dessert but our friendly waiter brought us a complementary flourless chocolate espresso cake. I was so full, but managed a few bites, and it was insanely good.

Duck duck...

The last few weeks I've been reading Jeffery Steingarten's "It Must've Been Something I Ate" on the train into work, and it makes me hungry! His essays frequently mention ducks and geese, so I've decided we need to eat more duck (goose is hard to find and much more expensive).
We bought a whole duck the other day ($2.99 a pound at Whole Foods, not too bad). We pan roasted the breast with some five-spice powder, and served it with Chinese chives, five-spice tofu, and hot peppers:


We had a bucket of duck fat in the freezer, and made confit with the legs and wings. For future reference, when you decide to crisp up the skin on duck confit, please use a non-stick pan. This hot mess is the result of all the skin sticking to the pan:

It was super tasty, and we served it on top of cabbage sauteed with onion, coriander seed, mustard seed, and finished with apple cider vinegar.