Archive for September, 2008
Orson revisited
Since our first visit to Orson we’ve heard it going through some ups and downs. I’ve now gone back 2x and have to say, I’m impressed.
Our first visit was for drinks and appetizers with an out of town guest. We had a fun time in our neighborhood—oysters and drinks at Bacar, drinks and snacks at Orson, more drinks at Tres Agaves, and then dinner at Coco500. We do live in a great dining ‘hood. I went back again with a friend who moved out of the Bay area and needed a good meal when she returned.
For drinks and snacks, we had:
- pork belly, pizza, & tempura egg.
- crab cakes this is part of Orson’s retooled menu. There were three to the order served with edamame and I forget the sauce. These were moist, flavorful, and quite good.
- smoked tempura egg this is served with a broth poured tableside. Use a spoon to split the egg and let the tempura soak the egg and broth. The smoky flavor is a delicate surprise. Again, a hit.
- grilled tri tip, bloomsdale spinach, espresso, potato fog, horseradish this is prepared sous vide, so the meat is incredibly tender and presented medium rare. The potato fog is really a potato foam; perhaps they’re avoiding the word “foam”. Also very very good.
- farro, grilled peach, crescenza, scallion Like a nice risotto almost, with the lovely addition of peaches.
- corn dumplings, sungold tomato, rye this first time we were here we had carrot dumplings that were airy with just a hint of carrot. I was thinking of these when I ordered them. These were not light and delicate, but were actually small fried corn dumplings. More like chunks of polenta. And also, really good.
- a quick glance a dessert comprise of pluots, honey ice cream, olive oil cream. This was just OK. The pluots were nice. The honey ice cream was interesting with an incredibly soft texture. Probably would order something else instead of this next time.
Overall thumbs: Up. I thought all of the food was quite solid. Service and ambiance were also great.
Tastiness rating: High. All of our selections were tasty and filling.
Service rating: From the moment we walked in our service was outstanding. Manager types stopped by a couple teams to see how everything was and our server was friendly and great at answering questions we had on the menu.
Da Beef
I’ve been educated on the wonders of Vienna beef over the past decade. I was hailed as a hero when I discovered (the now defunct) Chi-Dogs in Santa Clara and have facilitated treks out of SF to find the coveted Chicago dog and italian beef throughout the Bay area.
Imagine my glee when I received my latest Tablehopper newsletter telling me about Da Beef. Not only is it in SF, but it’s blocks from our house. Bummer is it’s only open M-F until 6, and on Saturday until 5.
We walked to Rocco’s for dinner on night and start looking for Da Beef. Tablehopper and Da Beef’s web site said 300 7th street. Um, that’s an Oil can henry’s. We were confused until we looked into the garage of Oil Can Henry’s and saw a hot dog cart.
A hot dog cart! This new food find, this restaurant carrying the highly sought after vienna beef is a hot dog cart! This could be good news (low overhead) or bad news (they might move out of our neighborhood at any time).
Either way, we decide to give them a shot. The web site said they will be carrying italian beef shortly, so we headed over to get some chicago style hot dogs. Made with vienna beef.
The good
- the dogs are Vienna beef. Be warned they are the jumbo size (why oh why is everything super-sized!)
- the buns are imported from chicago. They are steamed and perfectly prepared.
- the have nuclear green relish!
- they use celery salt, have chopped onions, pickles, sport peppers and mustard
- they were giving out free samples of the soon to be available italian beef
- the dogs were prepared perfectly; definitely solved a chicago dog craving.
The “needs improvement” (I’m not going to say bad. This is what’s preventing Da Beef from being perfectly perfect).
- no tomatoes! They aren’t currently set up to have fresh cut tomatoes but it’s coming
- no official italian beef yet. Because they don’t have the sweet peppers or the giardiniera, they are waiting before they sell this. Good move. We also thought the italian beef could be “wetter” but again, it was a free taste.
- they need better hours! I’m not sure which crowd they are catering toward yet. I hope they get enough business to stay in business but it’d be great to be able to swing by there after work. ‘course maybe it’s better for me—healthwise—that they aren’t :).
Overall thumbs: Way up! There were 3 of us and we all thought our dogs were great.
Food tastiness: Perfect.
Service rating: The two women who run this cart are friendly and knowledgeable. They definitely researched the market and area and knew all the places we knew they served vienna beef. We only wish they had lawn chairs or something to sit in while we ate.
WW points: Do you really want to know? The jumbo vienna beef dogs are 7 points (bun not included). I need to lobby the Da Beef folks to include the regular size…
Avec or dining in chicago take 1
We’ve had some phenomenal meals in Chicago, some OK meals, and some oh why did I waste the calories on that meals (usually because we’re in chicago and alcohol is involved. Or family. Either way, some random excuse. Usually alcohol).
Our first night in we decide to check out Avec. It’s the sister restaurant to Blackbird and we loved our meal at Blackbird.
Anyway, there are a few things to note about Avec:
- No reservations. In our case a bonus since we didn’t know when our flight would get in
- Small and big plates, but all good for sharing and not coursing to yourself
- Communal tables. Usually a good thing; here they are communal to the point you’re trapped in your seat by complete strangers who can control whether or not you can get up/go to the restroom/leave the restaurant.
Anyway, get meet our friends there on a Saturday night. They did the first half hour of table waiting w/out us and we joined them for the next hour. Was fine; we sat outside and enjoyed some beverages and the nice weather.
We’re finally seated (at a communal table where I have to ask some random strangers to get up whenever I want to use the restroom. I guess I could have sat on the outside seats but then my friends would have had to ask random strangers to get up to use the restroom).
Anyway, the random strangers sitting to the left of us offer menu suggestions. Our server comes and we order away. As in seriously did we miss anything from the menu? Oh yeah. the pork belly. because when we tried to order it they said they were out.
We order:
- house-marinated mediterranean olives: these were a nice variety, plump, and juicy. They also came with bread to sop up the extra olive oil.
- chorizo-stuffed madjool dates with smoked bacon and piquillo pepper-tomato sauce This is a signature dish and it’s clear to see why. Really fantastic flavor. The dates and chorizo are nice balance and the bacon is just a bonus.
- Housemade baccala with red and yellow watermelon, cucumber, pickled watermelon rind, mint aleppo pepper and olive oil This was just OK. The baccala was a bit stringy. The watermelon was lovey but not enough to make the dish a winner.
- mixed salumi platter Very nice assortment. Came with 4 types and 4 pieces of each so perfect for sharing.
- pan-roasted hanger steak with rapini, roasted corn, smoked paprika lima beans and beans herbed butter Ugh. This was inedible. Like chewing steak flavored gum. Don’t get me wrong; the flavor was nice. The lima beans were great. The corn tasted a bit tired. But the steak? Terribly awful. We mentioned this to our server who responded with “Well, hanger steak is a tough cut”. Sure, we know that. But even as novice chefs we know it’s low and slow to make hangar steak taste good. It shouldn’t be on a menu if it’s not. She did say she’d have the chef try it. 10 minutes later she reported back that it was taken off our bill. I’m going with the belief that we just had a flukishly bad serving. Which should never happen in a great restaurant but…
- slow roasted crispy duck with marinated market plums, tarragon, grilled onion and savory streusel I don’t eat duck so I didn’t try this. I was told it was good but very salty.
- wood-fired pizza with blistered tomatoes, grilled sardines, fresh ricotta and basil This was interesting. The sardines were in chunks rather than whole pieces. The flavor was nice, though.
- “deluxe” focaccia with taleggio cheese, truffle oil and fresh herbsTHIS was fantastic. Worth going back for. Imagine your most favorite grilled cheese sandwich. Then add truffle essence. There’s a truffle cheese we love that melts like this. I would stop by for drinks and order just this and be happy. Actually, if we’d ordered just this I probably would have been happy.
- 6 cheese selections (which I can’t remember) We ordered these after being underwhelmed by the dessert choices and because they had a large cheese selection. The portions of cheese were nice and all were good. A couple were outstanding (alright, one was outstanding). We also got the quince paste which was nice.
- sorbet We didn’t actually order this. It came as a gift from our server after she stabbed my friend. Or accidentally dropped a knife off a plate that COULD have stabbed my friend. I think she missed. Or my friend was properly anesthetized from the multiple bottles of wine that she didn’t know if she was stabbed. Either way our server was nice to bring it and it was a nice flavor.
Would I go back? probably not. If I lived in Chicago I might. My friends who live in Chicago usually have enjoyed their meals here but found tonight’s menu not as interesting in as some of the ones in the past. I think we just landed on an off night so…Overall thumbs: Sideways. We had a great time but were underwhelmed.
Food tastiness: What a range. From fantastic (focaccia) to inedible (steak).
Service rating: Pretty good. We had to ask for water 2x when we were outside. Our server needed to confer with the chef before giving credit for an improperly prepared dish. But she did try to compensate for dropping a knife and she helped conspire with us to steal the bill away from our friend. I found her helpful and attentive.
