Kaygetsu in Palo Alto was absolutely delicious!

Kaygetsu is located in a strip mall on Sand Hill in Palo Alto near 280 which is surprising as I wouldn’t normally expect a great restaurant in such locations. It is unpretentious located and the decor is very simple, but the Kaiseki style is anything but. Kaiseki has its origin in tea ceremony, but has evolved in the 19th century as restaurants in Japan began to serve this sytle in a less formal way. According to Kaygetsu, it “is designed to delight the mind and the spirit as well as to satisfy the appetite”.

Here’s the 9 course menu:

Sakizuke (starter): red-bell pepper “tofu” with sea urchin, avocado, chive, dashi sauce and wasabi.

Sashimi: we had Alaskan wild salmon and other fresh daily assortments.

Takiawase (slow-cooked dish): shrimp, jpaanese eggplant, snow peas, sato imo potato cooked in clear fish broth with bonito flakdes and rated ginger and kinome.

Hassun (assortment of flavors): soft-shell crab with spaghetti squash, anago (sea eel) roll with burdock, cucumber with kinzanji miso sauce, lotus root stuffed with mustard, seasonal fish,  miso marianted and grilled seared kampachi (amberjack) sushi

Agemono (deep fried fish): bamboo shoot and kobe beef (American), yuba (tofu ski), hajikami giner, shiso leaf

Yakimono (grilled dish): organic petaluma chicken roll with minced fish, corn and carrot, endive and orange salade, truffle oil dressing

Gohan mono (rice dish): rick cooked with vegetables, dark red miso soup, house picked vegetables

House-made original desserts: black sesame kudzu mochi, green tea/banana roll cake

http://www.kaygetsu.com/

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Spruce was good, not great

Located on a charming street in Presidio Heights, Spruce is a beautifully decorated restaurant with a contemporary look and feel. At dinner, our friend told us that this restaurant used to be a car repair shop. Unbelievable as it definitely been transformed into an elegant and non-pretentious space. Voted by Forbes as one of the top 50 new restaurants in 2008, we were all trying this place for the first time. It is contemporary American cuisine serving locally and organically grown produce.

Overall, the service and ambience were great. We all especially enjoyed the servers’ simultaneous and rhythmic placing  of our dishes in front of us. It was quite a treat. For appetizers, we shared a charcuterie plate which is always a nice starter, ravioli with sweet corn which was pretty good and the potatolings cooked in duck meat fat which was the absolute best. I ordered a braised short rib which was decent, but  overcooked. It did however had an interesting pairing with peach wedges. It was a really nice complement to the short ribs. Our friend Danny had the duck breast with grilled foie gras. The fois gras was absolutely delicious: crunchy skin and tender inside that just melts in your mouth. My husband ordered seared tuna with wild mushrooms which he said was uneventful, but is always a safe dish. I thought the wild mushrooms were really good. Overall, Spruce was good, but not great.

http://www.sprucesf.com/

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Napa Rose is a gem in downtown Disneyland

 

One of my top 5 favorite restaurants in the United States, Napa Rose was a surprisingly wonderful experience when we were first introduced to it a year ago. All I can remember was the most fabulous, juicy and tender short ribs I’ve ever had and the variety of delicious bread they serve. So during this Disneyland trip, we definitely wanted to go back to Napa Rose, located inside the Grand Californian Hotel. Executive Chef, Andrew Sutton came from Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley to create a Californian cuisine with French and Asian flair. The restaurant is beautifully decorated with earth-tone woods, 20-foot-high vaulted ceilings and an impressive wine cellar. It’s floor to ceiling windows provide you with a serene garden view that’s both tranquil and beautiful.

The basket of different kinds of bread started off the dinner on the right note. I wish I could eat all the bread and still have room for dinner. It was that good. Our server recommended a wonderful Pinot Noir from Ambullneo Vineyards of which only 4,800 bottles were produced. I asked for a glass of which he filled and with a little less than another glassful left in the bottle, he volunteerily left the remaining for my enjoyment. That was a really wonderful and sweet gesture. 

We shared an ahi tuna tartare dish as appetizer that had a nice contrasting taste of creamy sauce with mango, green salad and seaweed; somehow all of these unique tastes came together wonderfully. For my entree, I ordered an Osso Bucco dish. I honestly am not crazy about Osso Bucco at all, but the description was so yummy and the server highly recommended it, saying that they marinated the Osso Bucco days ahead and assuring me the meat will smell and taste great and that it will fall off the bone easily. I think it speaks volume when a chef can prepare a dish that completely changes someone’s dislike for that dish into loving it. I loved it! I wish I could finish it, but as you can see from the picture, it was a generous portion. Luckily, my husband was kind enough to finish the rest for me along with his nut encrusted halibut which he said was one of the best halibut he’s ever had.

Dessert was a trio of house-made sorbetto and fresh raspberries. It was so good that we dived right into it and forgot to take a picture until we were done. So if you’re interested in finding out, I guess you’ll just need to go to Napa Rose!

http://disneyland.disney.go.com/disneyland/en_US/hotels/dining/detail?name=NapaRoseDiningPage

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