Foodie Digest

So, just skipping over the reviews that didn’t get written for Mission Chinese Food (not a good experience) and Cotogna (could be great; what we ordered was just good), I’ll jump straight to Perbacco.

We had an out of town guest visiting and started his visit with a late dinner at Oola. Big mistake. Service misses all around (3 hours for a meal with a lot of plates waiting to be cleared and really mediocre food). More on that later. Tried to make it up the next night with a meal at Perbacco and I have to say, this meal surpassed any previous experiences I had there and stands at the top of any meal I’ve had in SF.

We arrived for our reservation an were mildly disappointed to be shown to the upstairs dining room. It lacks the restaurant ambiance of downstairs but it ended up being a good thing (the downstairs always has a large arrangement of flowers including lilies. Seems like something that should appeal to some people but not to me — I’m allergic). That said, if you aren’t and care about restaurant ambiance, you may want to request downstairs seating.

We started our meal with shared appetizers and a trio of pasta tastings, cocktails and a fantastic nebbiolo recommended by our upstairs bartender/sommelier/person extraordinaire.

For appetizers, we had:

• Carne cruda di vitellone - tartare of pastured veal / truffled lardo crostino. This was a sophisticated version of a steak tartare. The tartare came with the requisite quail egg on top. On its own this was velvety and luscious. Combine it, though, with the truffled lardo crostino and you had a complex balance of flavors and textures accompanied by some peppery sprouts for a little kick. I would easily order this again.
• Salumi misti — a chef’s assortment of maybe 9(?) different salumi. Some of these were great representations of basic salumi; others were inventive, flavorful and different. There was a steamed salami and pate-like blend with pork belly. The plate was accompanied by house-made pickles.

So far, we’re off to a great start. Our starters were rich and substantial. We followed this course with a pasta tasting. Here you can choose two or three pastas to be plated for each person at the table. We chose:

• Langaroli al brasato - pasta filled with short rib brasato / sugo di cugna
• Tajarin - handcut tagliatelle / 5 hour pork sugo / porcini mushrooms
• Coujette - Occitaine potato gnocchi / devil’s gulch rabbit ragu / golden chanterelles

What we actually received was the Langaroli, a butternut squash tortelli, and a rabbit agnolotti. We recognized the mistake with the squash right away and mentioned it to the server who delivered our food. He apologized immediately told us to keep eating and offered to bring us out a portion of the 5 hour pork sugo (which was the one we missed). When our other server stopped by we realized we had 2 wrong orders. She swept our plates away (after offering to leave us one to nibble on) and promised a swift return with the correct plates. Apologies were abundant and the correct plates were brought to us quickly.

I would highly recommend the trio of pasta tastings. All 3 of us were quite fond of 2 out of the 3 pastas (and they weren’t necessarily the same ones).

The pasta filled with short rib was a favorite of mine and the least favorite of the other 2. The sauce was reduced and slightly sweet; the texture of the pasta perfect. Each ravioli-like bite was rich with the short rib filling but not overly stuffed.

The tajarin was probably the table favorite. A perfect rendition of a spaghetti and meat sauce the 5 hour sugo had a complexity of flavors that combined to deliver a perfectly simple, rustic and satisfying dish. Again, the pasta was cooked beautifully. The texture provided some resistance to the sauce and again, a very well balanced dish.

The gnocchi with rabbit was my least favorite of the 3. The gnocchi themselves were light and perfectly textured. The rabbit was in larger chunks rather than blended into a sauce. The flavors were earthy with a delicateness not found in the other dishes.

At this point I’m glad I’d opted for a salad as my main entree. My dining companions had the scallops and duck. I didn’t try either of them but the scallops were declared “wonderful”. The duck “this is the best prepared duck I’ve ever had”. They both looked amazing. I had the chicories salad. The salad was fine and a good balance after all the rich starter courses.

You’d think by now we’d be full. We were, but, well, there’s always room for ice cream. And cheese apparently.

We ordered the burnt caramel gelato with vanilla sea salt and a cheese course with a selection of 3 cheeses. We got:

burn caramel gelato

selection of 4 cheeses

lemon poundcake.

Perbacco wanted to apologize for our pasta mix up so sent along an extra cheese (a chestnut-wrapped beauty that was new to them) and a new dessert.

The cheese plate is incredibly generous portions of well-selected cheese. Had we skipped some of our courses it might actually have been finished. The lemon poundcake (meyer lemon limoncello cake) was moist, flavorful and served with a lovely huckleberry puree. The burnt caramel gelato was well accompanied by the vanilla sea salt.

The service of the evening was outstanding. We felt very well taken care of the entire evening. Did we visit Perbacco on just a spot on amazing food evening, or is it always this good? Either way, highly, highly recommend.

Happy new year! Clearly I have a resolution to revisit foodie digest, so here we go.

New Year’s Eve/New Year’s day let me try 3 new to me places. We went to:

Thermidor for New Year’s eve dinner

Mission Chinese Food for New Year’s day brunch

Cotogna for New Year’s Day dinner.

Sure, it’s a lot of eating. It’s the holidays; time to be excessive.

First pleasant surprise was Thermidor. I say a surprise because New Year’s eve is risky any where. Thermidor had same day reservations, and the atmosphere stayed relaxed and calm most of the evening.

We started the night with cocktails, including a stellar Old Fashioned.  This was so well made that when our friends joined us for dinner, one of them ordered it right away.

Because it was NYE we had a prix fixe menu to choose from. Because there were four of us, we got to taste many things.

First course

Choice of:

• Oxtail Croquettes These were served 2 to an order and basically were mini-corndog size croquettes filled with, surprise, oxtail. It was a really interesting presentation, hearty and flavorful.
• Crab and citrus salad A huge portion of fresh dungeness crab with a great balance of citrus and fennel. This was my dish but declared by other tasters as the winner of the course.
• Lobster bisque I didn’t try this but it appeared to be enjoyed. Bisque along with chunks of lobster.
• Goat cheese and pear napoleon Nobody at our table ordered this so no comments.

Next course, choice of:

• Sweetbreads coated in panko bread crumbs and lightly pan fried. I liked this but it wasn’t my favorite. It was the favorite of the diner who ordered it.
• Crab and artichoke newburg My course and my favorite. This was very delicate and not overly creamy. The presentation was lovely; served in a scallop shell.
• Salsify “pasta” with mushrooms Nice umami flavors but lacking the promised mushrooms.
• Pork belly I think I tasted this but don’t remember it. Still, we enjoyed all of these four courses.

Main course had 4 choices, but we skipped the veggie course and and the duck a la orange. We had:

• Butter poached lobster, scallop and shrimp Prepared well and tasty but not overly inspired.
• Filet mignon served with braised short ribs and potato puree This was good BUT they needed a second chance. One of our filets was a beautiful cut of filet mignon; the other was random end pieces (and decidedly not tender). We asked nicely for a replacement and the freshly fired steak was tender and perfectly prepared.

A bit of comedy when the new steak came without the short ribs, but the comedy ensued because it followed a glass of champagne dropped and shattered by the server. All good natured and resulted in the restaurant buying us a round of cocktails. We requested a house-made egg nog which was boozy, not creamy with just a touch of egg white at the rim.

The meal was really overall very good until dessert. There was a choice of 2 and both fell flat.

Milk n cookies was a vanilla bean panna cotta with fresh baked cookies. This was OK. I wouldn’t go out of my way to order it but it was the final course included in the meal

The other option was a chocolate parfait that had an overwhelming coffee flavor.

All in all it was a great night, fun company and friendly service.

Next up, Mission Chinese Food