Fifth Floor was very nice.

Recipient of one Michelin Star, Fifth Floor restaurant is located in the historic Hotel Palomar in downtown San Francisco. The restaurant has a really nice and cozy lounge feel. For a fine dining place, the restaurant gives a surprisingly relaxed vibe. The chairs are low, leather lounge chairs that invite you to just sit and relax. The art deco decor is contemporary yet warm.

The Sommelier recommended a really nice Pinor Noir, Byron Vineyard from  San Ynez Valley region. It has the nice balance with fruit forward quality that I enjoy in Pinot Noirs. The tasting menu is the chef’s selection of 5 courses that can also be ordered a la carte. One of the standouts that evening was the amazing heirloom tomato with sweet watermelon salad. The combination is mouth-watering refreshing and the balance between the sweet acidity taste of the heirloom tomato and the sugary sweetness of the watermelon is wonderful. This was my favorite dish next to the tea-smoked duck. Perfectly cooked with a very nice and tender texture. The Zen Salad was also interesting. The fresh vegetables were individually positioned on the plate as if the chef was giving each of them a chance to shine, yet allowing them to work wonderfully together.  

The amuse bouche was a single shrimp half cooked and smothered in Asian spices with hints of curry and pepper. It was nice.

The foie gras and the lamb were mediocre, but the other dishes were enough to create a nice and memorable experience.

Worth visiting.

www.fifthfloorrestaurant.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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Coi Restaurant – Creative inspiration on a meticulous canvas

Six San Franciscan gourmands shared an evening together dining in the private room of Coi Restaurant (pronounced Kwa), a contemporary, serene, and sophisticated oasis in a pool of the conspicuous neon-lit strip clubs on Broadway. 

Daniel Patterson, the self-taught chef, prepared a complex assortment of dishes using dozens of locally sourced ingredients to meticulously prepare his menu inspired by French, Japanese and molecular techniques.  Each of the 12+ dishes was an intellectual journey, with all the senses at play.  This was a special dinner not to be taken lightly.

 

The wine list was impressive.  350 wines selected from around the world, with a focus on France and California.  The list was eclectic and refined to accompany Patterson’s mastery.

 

The gastronomic evening began with a few dishes in which texture and scent were the main force.  We started with an amuse bouche of cold gelatin of milk with a tiny flower garnish.  Then, a solitary white globe arrived in an exquisite small ceramic bowl; the cold mousse-like creation was filled with pink grapefruit infused with ginger, tarragon, and black pepper. We were told to dab the perfume of grapefruit oil on our wrists as an accompaniment to the dish, (I kid you not).  The next dish was three small slices of sculpted beets of different colors perfumed with citrus oil and vadouvan, an exotic blend of Indian spices.  Fun and experimental, I was happy to try a few cold small dishes that kick-started the critiquing around the table.

 

The dinner progressed with a simple salad of chicories and a “sheet” of olive and cheese tart.  Next came the “Winter into Spring”, first of the season asparagus topped with shaved buttermilk ice, while others ordered the parsnip and green onion soup filled with local snails, pardon chile flakes, and radishes.  I particularly liked the sturgeon poached in smoked oil with a transparent small slice of pig’s head, decorated with caviar on a small bed of crushed potatoes infused with nasturtium.  The “Black and White Shellfish Porridge” of abalone, mussel, clam and broccoli di ciccio, and “Slow Cooked Farm Egg” on roasted farro, erbette chard in a brown butter parmesan sauce represented the true essence of the ingredients selected.

 

What is that I tasted in the dish named “Earth and Sea” (too sophisticated to be simply called Surf and Turf), the steam tofu mousseline, yuba, fresh seaweeds, mushroom dashi?  Is that UMAMI I sense in the French-influenced mousseline and in the Japanese-inspired dashi?  The savory course ended with Prather Ranch beef loin, a fine cut of pasture beef accompanied with a traditional French-style reduction sauce. 

 

A simple yet refined presentation of Andante’s Trio cheese arrived with some micro-greens.  The mignardises were placed on the table.  And the dessert course began.  First, a plate of blood orange curd, Douglas fir ice cream (yes, pine flavor) and walnut crumble.  Then, we partake in the richer course of chocolate mesquite cake and squash sherbet.  We were sipping our Sauternes, sharing our thoughts at what we believed to be the end of the meal, and just then, like in the final scenes of The Return of the King, to our delight, the meal continued on.  Exquisite, delicious truffles covered with a crumbly coating were devoured.  We dared to ask for another plate.  Before finishing the truffles, and a cup of warm vanilla crème anglaise drizzled with olive oil was served as the final dish of the evening.

 

No doubt, the chef is a perfectionist.  Each dish was carefully crafted – the marriage of colors, the creation of contrasting textures, the balance of flavors, and the selection of each ceramic and porcelain plate – a canvas for a chef with a poetic and artistic vision.

 

The evening was special, most of all because a group of thoughtful and opinionated foodies shared an experimental multi-course meal together.  The secret to enjoying the meal at Coi is to enter with an open mind, and to simply enjoy the unique experience that arrives with every course.

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Nopa – Love the open floorplan more than the food

I love the self-proclaimed “urban rustic food” Nopa describes themselves as on their website. It just sounds cool even though I really don’t know what that means for the palate. A corner building on Divisadero and Hayes near the Panhandle, the entrance opens up to an open floorplan with very high ceiling and open kitchen. The place is cool with its rustic decor and wooden beams on the ceiling. The open floorplan makes this place very noisy, but I think that’s the charm of restaurant. So let’s go right into the wine. I ordered a glass of Pinot Gris and it was awfully bitter. I’ve had better Pinot Gris. About the food, this is what we ordered:

Warm marinated olives – YUM!

Oven roasted calamari – Not bad, nothing special

Flatbread with mushroom and sausage – this was quite good

Oven baked giant white beans – this was good too, but it’s only white beans…

French fries – very good because it’s crunchy and that’s the way I like it (though Bistro Elan’s fries are still the best!)

Steak – I can’t remember what kind. I didn’t try it but by the look of it, it seems to be a perfect medium rare.

Overall impression is that it was a good restaurant, but nothing special or spectacular. There are so many great restaurants in San Francisco to try that I’m not sure I would want to go back to Nopa anytime soon. I recommend trying other restaurants in the city.

http://www.nopasf.com

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Chez Papa doesn’t disappoint.

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to go back to Chez Papa for lunch a couple of days ago. I’ve been going there since it opened and have dined there more than 15 times, mostly for dinner. Their menu has evolved over the years, but a few dishes remain the same. They have one of the best pomme frites, almost as good as Bistro Elan in Palo Alto which I’ll blog about one of the these days. And this time was no exception. It was so yummy…perfectly fried to a crisp – just the way I like it. Their open-face ravioli was just as good as it always has been. I miss their tuna tartare though. I hope they’ll bring it back one day. However, my tuna sandwich was one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had. Inside the sandwich has sliced hardboiled eggs, anchovies, olives and peppers. It was the perfect texture and moisture. Oh, last but not least, their baguette with olive tapenade are so good. Sometimes they don’t offer the olive tapenade for lunch, but if you ask, they’ll give it to you. It’s a charmy neighborhood restaurant with exceptional French cuisine that’s simple but tasteful.

http://www.chezpapasf.com/

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Ame Restaurant in SF is quite delicious.

After researching on Opentable and Yelp for over an hour, I finally chose Ame Restaurant on Mission and Third Street in San Francisco to take my husband for his birthday, as it had received one Michelin star. As you walk into the restaurant, you are greeted by an L-shape sushi bar followed by the entrance to the main dining area on the right hand side. It’s very contemporary and I loved the overall feel of it already. Alvin decided on the 5 course tasting menu and I decided to pick off his plate as well as picking my own entree. First course was a sashimi trio, each with its own refreshing sauce. Second course was an asparagus puree soup with porcini mushroom that was just absolutely delicious. Third course is apparently the chef’s signature dish – Alaskan black cod over a clear broth with two dumplings. The broth had a slight citrus taste to it and the two dumplings were very ordinary, but oh, the Alaskan black cod was pretty awesome. We’ve been told that it was marinated 24-48 hours and had this perfect blend of sweet taste with soy sauce grilled feeling and the texture was perfect. Loved it! The fourth was a tenderloin over risotto which I only had a small piece and found it ordinary. But Alvin loved it for its tenderness and flavor. I then had my braised short rib which was very good. For dessert, we had a milk chocolate peanut butter mousse crunch with ice milk that was amazingly good. So five out of the six dishes lived up to my expectations. It was, in my opinion, deserving of one Michelin star. Oh, and their bread is really good.

The evening would’ve been perfect if the service was more refined. Our first and second courses came prior to my glass of wine and Alvin’s ice tea. I asked for hot water refill and was brought in a coffee pot that still had pieces of loose tea. And the butter for the bread was hard. The service was courteous, but not too attentive. If their overall service is more refined, it would’ve been deserving of its price tag. But the food speaks for itself and for foodies like me, it was still worth it.

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