Foodie Digest

I’ve loved southwestern food since I lived in Denver. The smokiness of red chile and the great flavors of the green. Always a decision I can’t make so I inevitably get my dishes in Santa Fe served christmas style — the red and green chile served side by side.

On my recent trip I was traveling with a mixed group of dining tastes.. Some like it hot (me!) and some did not (mom). Our first dinner was at Santacafe which was tasty and accommodating to the non-spicy eaters. Of course, it left me hungry for my chile!

Enter breakfast at Guadalupe cafe. I had the huevos rancheros and my sister had the casey enchiladas. To say we enjoyed our dishes is an understatement; we returned the next day and ordered the exact same thing!

My dish:

blue corn tortillas with cheese, covered with beans and eggs to order (over had to me) topped with — you guessed it — red and green chile. The red was perfectly smokey; the green was flavorful. I admit the next day I came back and had red only and regretted it. I love the combo of the two.

The service was adequate; people were friendly and on Saturday there was no wait. Sunday (Mother’s day) had about a 15 minute wait. Not bad. 

The casey enchiladas were filled with egg and chorizo. I didn’t get to taste them but again, so good they were ordered the next day.

We ate dinner at Tomasita’s (disappointment!) I wished we’d gone back to Guadalupe Cafe for dinner too. If I’m in Santa Fe again, I know I’ll be heading here again.

We’d been to Axis cafe once or twice before. They’ve got a great patio in back of the restaurant. Weekday service has been order at the counter and wait for service. We drove by with the dogs and noticed they had 2 tables out front. I also remembered reading the patio was dog friendly (even tho you walk through the restaurant).

and.. it is! We arrived 11 or so on a Sunday. I walked in the to host stand and responded to the “how many” question with “2, but we also have 2 dogs”. “Not a problem” she said with a smile. I beckoned to the outside crew and in we went. Through the restaurant! to the wonderful back patio complete with wind protecting walls.

We were presented with a menu with a great mix of breakfast and lunch type items. On this visit I had the oatmeal and he had the bison burger. In the past I’ve tried the soup (great!) and have repeatedly had the tuna/avocado salad. Mmm. still one of my favorite salads.

the oatmeal was a generous portion (half for tomorrow!) of slow cooked oats with currants and pecans and topped with fresh strawberries. A cinnamon stick was buried in for flavor. This was really hearty and tasty.

the bison burger is served on a flavorful rosemary bun with avocado, roasted peppers and garlic aioli. It’s served with a side salad.

The dogs chilled out in the patio completely oblivious to the other dogs chilling out.

I really love the atmosphere here, and the food is quite solid and reasonably priced. Plenty of great options on the menu and really look forward to returning.

Overall thumbs: Up. While the charm in this place really is the patio, the inside is pleasant. 

Tastiness rating: High. Their food is good. Not swoon-worthy, but good.

Service rating: Good. We had a dog water bowl with us that they offered to fill as they sat us. Our server was friendly and efficient and our water glasses were refilled regularly.

Another winner.

We’d been fans of Couleur Cafe in Potrero Hill for the great outdoor patio and consistent food. And while the food was decent, it wasn’t food we craved week after week.

Apparently we weren’t the only ones; the owners revamped Couleur Cafe and reopened it as PizzaNostra. Ahh, a friendly neighborhood pizza place.

We’ve been twice now; once for dinner with just the two of us, and once in the patio with the 2 dogs. Each time our food has been great (and this place has only been open a week!). Friendly service and as an added bonus they had an abundance of dog water bowls.

So far we’ve had:

• burrata with fava bean salad: The burrata here is good. Fresh but not mind-blowingly pillowy. Still, great flavor and a generous portion.
• Eli’s meatballs: really great sauce, dense and flavorful meatballs.
• Grilled octopus salad: served with chickpeas. This was decent. Not enough octopus to make me order it again but was fine.
• Rock shrimp and white bean salad: rock shrimp served over fennel and white beans with a lemony mint dressing. This was really bright and refreshing. 
• Gnocchi with meat sauce: again, a great sauce. tender gnocchi. 
• Pizza caprese: fresh prosciutto parma and arugula. This was wonderful. The pizza is cooked with great cheese and parma, then pulled out of the oven and topped with 2 more types of cheese and tons of fresh arugula.
• Pizza cannibal: with bolognese and a fresh egg. This was our brunch pizza. Definitely a fork and knife pizza but also very good.
• TRONCHETTO NUTELLA AND BANANA. This was a dessert pizza. They also do a tronchetto with savory ingredients. A tronchetto is basically a rolled pizza, but not folded like a calzone. The dessert one is cooked with marscapone cheese, nutella and banana, then dusted with sugar and cocoa powder. It’s very delicious.

While I like all the food here, the stars are definitely the pizzas. A blistered crust with high quality toppings. Our first visit we sat at the counter overlooking the kitchen and chatted with both the pizza chef and the head chef. The head chef is responsible for the phenomenal sauces we had and both of them were incredibly friendly.

I’ve been very pleased with the meals and service here. The outside patio was wide open when we got there at 11:30 on a beautiful Saturday but was fully packed when we left at 12:30. 

Overall thumbs: Up. Extra points for the great dog friendly patio.

Tastiness rating: High. I could live on pizza every day. Especially really great pizza with such high quality ingredients.

Service rating: Very good. We were there the 2nd night it opened and the chef made certain we got the service we needed (waitstaff was a little sluggish that eve). Our 2nd visit had good service.

We’ve heard good things about Gary Danko for years and have always had it on our must try list. A gift certificate helped push us one step closer to going, but we needed a reason to remember to plan 2 months in advance for a reservation. Finally we went last night.

You can choose the set tasting menu or build your own with 3, 4 or 5 courses. You can choose what courses you like and how many from each category (you could, for example, have 5 dessert courses). We went the traditional route but might take a different trip next time around.

We had:

amuse bouche of local crab over grapefruit this was a very cute presentation. It was an odd combination with the crab on a stringbean on grapefruit. If you liked grapefruit and crab you’d probably like this dish (I did). If you only like one (crab, not grapefruit) you’d find the dish a bit astringent. The stringbean was an added texture but an odd accessory.

Appetizer course

Lobster Salad with Persimmons, Pistachios, Chestnut Mousse and Pomegranate Seeds We deemed this the easy winner of the two appetizers and probably one of the most interesting dishes of the night. The chestnut mousse was very unique and was a nice complement to the pomegranate. Really a great dish.

Seared Sonoma Foie Gras with Caramelized Red Onions and Fuji Apples This dish lost the appetizer battle ground. The caramelized onions were a bit too flavorful against the foie gras and overpowering. The foie gras itself needed something with texture to balance against. I wish I’d gone for the lobster risotto this course instead.

Seafood course

Seared Sea Scallops with Parsnip Purée, Maitake Mushrooms and Sauce Maréchal we had a clear tie between these two dishes. The scallops were well prepared but a teensy bit overdone. The mushrooms had hidden bacon which is ALWAYS a bonus. Very tasty.

Pancetta Wrapped Frog Legs with Garlic Purée, Potato, Lentils and Parsley This was served in a sea of parsley sauce. The frog legs were easy to eat and smoky from the pancetta. The lentils were nice. A pleasant dish.

Meat and game course

Herb Crusted Tuna with Crème Fraîche Spaetzle, Toasted Pine Nuts, Belgian Endive and Orange I took advantage of the design your menu how you’d like option and went for tuna instead of meat here. The tuna was prepared exceedingly rare (as requested). The spaetzle was a crunchy delight. I declared this dish a winner; we ended with a split decision.

Guinea Hen Breast with Braised Leg, Chestnut Gnocchi, Brussels Sprouts, Apples and Pancetta The braised leg was the highlight of this dish. The gnocchi didn’t really have chestnut flavor. A well prepared dish, but not overly interesting.

Dessert (we swapped the order between this and the cheese course)

Lemon Soufflé Cake with Crème Fraîche Panna Cotta and Pomegranate Sorbet This was the dessert we both wanted to get and really was the star. The panna cotta was fantastic and the cake itself light. Would definitely get this again.

French Macaroon Ice Cream Sandwiches with Three Sauces Had we been thinking we would have opted for another appetizer course instead of a second dessert. Yes, these were all tasty (3 different flavors of macaroon with different ice cream flavors). But the cake as outstanding and blew this away.

and the cheese course.

The presentation of this is impressive. They roll out with the cheese cart and describe the dozen or so cheeses on it. You get to choose 4 of them (which meant we got 8). While I enjoyed this, I’ve been spoiled enough by eating plenty of great cheese from Whole Foods and Cowgirl Creamery, as well as from Bin36 in Chicago. 

Bonus dessert

Because we were celebrating our anniversary they brought us out a lovely plate of mini desserts. Most of them were chocolate based (so for us only just OK). They also sent us home with pumpkin cream cheese muffin.

Overall thumbs: Up. The combination of highly considerate service and very consistent food make this a sure bet.

Tastiness rating: High. The food was consistently good but nothing was amazing or inventive.

Service rating: Among the best. From the moment we walked in we were well taken care of. We were offered drinks upon seating, a sommelier was sent over as we were making drink decisions, and all of the staff were unobtrusive in helping serve and clear. The only weak spot — our water drinks were close to empty and the non-wine drinker wasn’t asked for drink orders whenever his glass when empty.

We finally dragged ourselves out in the sunshine today for an urban hike and errands. Up Powell (you need one steep hill to hit an urban hike) we started looking for outside seating for lunch. We wandered past Danilo Bakery’s BaoNecci, and I remembered I’d read good things about this place. In we went.
You order at the counter here so we order two of the daily specials and a focaccia sandwich. We had:
Cannelini soup A mostly pureed white bean soup served in a substantial bowl with a drizzle of olive oil. Really nice comforting flavors.
Roasted pork with white beans There was an option of potatoes or beans with this dish. A good lunch sized portion of thinly sliced pork. Incredibly tender served in its own juices.
Proscuitto and fresh tomato focaccia sandwich The focaccia is thinly sliced and crispy. Really delicate flavors with just a touch of olive oil.
All in all, a really satisfying lunch. They also sell pizza whole or by the slice. While we were there a table near us had a pizza made to order. It look fantastic with a crispy thin crust. Would definitely go back to try the pizza. Glad to know they are open on Sundays but daylight hours only.

Overall thumbs: Up. The service was warm and friendly, the food excellent, and the atmosphere bustling. I  look forward to going back.

Tastiness rating: High. Really great lunch. Not too filling or rich but just good honest food.

Service rating: Good. Very warm service. You order at the counter and they bring food to you. We bought some desserts to go and paid for everything as we were leaving.

On a recent visit to Chicago we were lucky enough to score a reservation at Schwa. If you’ve ever tried to get a reservation here, I’d say don’t give up! We called about 6 weeks in advance and left a message, then played telephone tag when the return call came 3 weeks later. Each time Michael (the chef!) called he was incredibly nice and just, well, cool.

We’d have a few recent letdowns in Chicago at both Avec and Volo so it was with hopeful expectations we arrived at Schwa on Saturday night. Walking in the door the small — 26 person — dining room felt like we were intruding until we were warmly welcomed and shown our table. Schwa is byob and they took away our wine to open and our beer to chill, then asked us if we were open to trying some other wines and beers their friends had dropped off. We were happy to try whatever they suggested.

From the Schwa website, let me list the current tasting menu.
amuse: this was white anchovy and I can’t remember what else (oh! grapefruit) served on a cube. Single shot. Incredible. I restrained myself from taking photos which means that you’ll have to imagine the white anchovy as almost a light mousse with other flavors. A great start to the meal. They poured me a nice sparkling wine.

henricks gin: cucumber, rose, coriander. So I admit I had low expectations of this. I thought it’d be a gin tasting shot — and I don’t even like gin! Instead this was a rectangular plate spread with a delicate gel. This was topped with cucumber and “gin” balls about the size of large fish eggs. Baby coriander sprigs as well as cucumber flowers filled with other flavors. This was fantastic (so I’ll keep saying about each course we had). This dish was delicate with a great infusion of deconstructed gin flavors.

Somewhere, either with this dish or the one after it, I was given a sparkling french cider.
french onion soup: again, this was a dish I was thinking would just be OK because too many onions do me in. But again, I was greeted with a delightful surprise. A small container of a hearty onion broth. The side was a gruyere crouton and I wish I could remember what else was on the plate. Also perfect flavors.

phad thai: the noodles in this pad thai were jellyfish. An inventive take on a traditional thai dish. Again, you guessed it, fantastic.

Surprise Dish!: Not on the menu (and I can’t remember exactly when it arrived). This was a dish I’d read about and hoped we’d be lucky enough to receive. Quail egg ravioli in a white truffle sauce. Eat in one bite. And oh, what an amazing bite it was. I do think this will go and remain on my list of top 10 bites ever. 


whitefish roe:white asparagus, black garlic, bacon. The white asparagus was presented as a spear as well as julienned. The bacon was both in puree smoky form as well as paper thin crisps. The plate arrive with artful smears of bacon, black garlic, and salmon colored roe. Again, an amazing combination

At some point I had a glass of vouvray (sp?) white as well as a glass of the Bogle phantom red I brought. Oh, and a cab, I think. I won’t try to remember the pairings.


cobia: smoke, watermelon, red pepper. This was great. The watermelon was an agua fresca-like shot. 


pickled beef tongue: fig, natto, tea: Great flavor of fig. The fermented natto added a nice balance to the pickled beef tongue.
 

rabbit peaches, gumballhead, wheatgrass: We learned that gumballhead is made at an amazing 5 person brewery in Indiana. Oh, and it’s a beer. This plate came with the peaches mandolined and spread across the bottom. The rabbit shaped in a perfect disc as well. It’s incredibly tender and inventive. (the entire meal of course is inventive)


cheese: this is creamy and is served with a spoon. I remember really loving it. But by now they’ve poured me a lot of wine so as much as I could tell the flavors while eating it I can’t quite recall them now.

another surprise dish! this was a green curry ice cream with a cone made of um, I can’t remember. Really great and bright flavor. A lovely surprise.


dessert: and this why I can remember nothing else. The dessert is also in my top ten things ever. Candied sweetbreads served with parsnip in a rectangular almost gelatin form. Candied sweetbreads. They were unforgettable. All I thought about on my way home.


Throughout the night the chefs who brought us our food were incredibly knowledgeable, friendly, and just cool. You can tell they love what they’re doing and we so loved the experience.

If you can get reservations here DO. It will be one of your most enjoyable evenings.

Overall thumbs: Up. The highest up I can imagine.

Tastiness rating: High. By far the best tasting menu I’ve ever experienced. The first time I can think of where every item was perfectly conceived and executed.

Service rating: Great and very cool. Everyone had time to stop and talk to us. The pride in their menu shows with every conversation about it and everyone — absolutely everyone — was someone you’d want to hang out and chill with. 

My highest recommendation.

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.

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…

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.

As much as I love fine dining (for the interesting food rather than the interesting place settings) I’m a big fan of extremely casual dining. Extremely casual but tasty dining. Such bring me to one of my favorite Indian/Pakistani places in SF –Lahore Karahi. I like it because:

• No liquor license so BYOB
• Casual, usually no wait
• Really cheap and extremely tasty Indian food
• Friendly service
• In the tendyloin!

I will say I couldn’t tell the difference between the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Butter Chicken, but it didn’t really matter. They were both good. The tandoori fish had a nice hit of spice. The saag paneer also was good.

All in all, nothing disappointed. Good food and a lot of it. We fed 5 hungry people for $60.

Overall thumbs: 5 up.

Food tastiness: Very good. I like it best of the different places I’ve gone to in that neighborhood (naan n curry, chutney).

Service rating: Decent. As soon as we sat with our brown paper bag they brought over wine glasses, then brought over a bottle opener when they realized the paper bag contained beer and not wine. Food was prompt. Our server could have been warmer/friendlier but I think we were a bit intimidating as a group.

Would definitely go back (and I have !)

ww points: Indian is not a very WW friendly meal. Naan is like 4 points for a piece. Saag Paneer is 7 points (I think) for a half cup. But save your points, work out, then splurge here. (or go for ethiopian. It’s a little more WW friendly. Injera is low point!