Seriously this month's eating escapades have gotten a bit out of hand. The following things all happened in September, making it officially a month of gluttony: my birthday, a Labor Day weekend trip, a Napa visit, the monthly dinner club outing, a trip to Gary Danko to utilize a gift certificate and now a dinner at Saison, which was made long in advance, and happens to fall in September as well. Also, I am going to Hawaii in a few days, where I will end up eating out for most of my meals, since that's what happens when you travel and stay in a hotel.
I should probably have been fasting all month or doing a juice diet or something, in preparation for the upcoming donning-of-the-swimsuit-in-public, but instead I ate twice my body weight in butter-poached restaurant food. Oops.
Anyway, if I'm gonna sacrifice my waistline to boldly try all these restaurants, then I thought the least I could do is share the information with the world, so that others can benefit from my experiences. I know, so generous.
So, I kicked off this weekend with an excursion to the far northern edges of my neighborhood. And by that, I mean that I walked to Mission Beach Cafe for brunch. I had been there once before, for dinner, and was generally pretty pleased with the food and the overall experience, but seeing as it is so far (10 blocks!) and there are so many good places to eat around here, I had not since made my way back.
After a late start, and a long trek (again, 10 blocks!), I arrived closer to lunchtime, so I ended up getting the burger. I am writing about it, even though I don't have pictures, because I want to express that this is a very delicious burger. Possibly one of the best I have had in a while. It oozed meat juice all over my plate (+1). It had carmelized onions (+1). It had a thick slice of super-ripe heirloom tomato (+1). The bun was actually a roll, made of pretty decent bread (+1). It came with a giant side of crispy, salty, herb-y fries (+1). The whole thing was 12 bucks, with no stupid surcharges for the toppings - awesome! Sadly, I devoured the thing without thinking taking a picture, so you'll just have to go see for yourself. But the point being that it was really good, and you should definitely go there and get a burger. Oh, and the other stuff looked pretty good too.
Secondly, I went to a place called Saison last night. It's a "pop-up" restaurant, which means that it only happens once a week, and it's not an official restaurant. Saison serves dinner in the back of Stable Cafe every Sunday night, and you make a reservation through their website. Unlike Mission Street food, this pop-up dinner is really quite fancy, with several courses and an optional wine pairing. I got the wine pairing. Duh.
This time I took pictures, so you can see the beautiful presentation. The dining room is also adjacent to the open kitchen, so you can see the chefs working, and even interact with them before and after dinner. The whole thing was a bit long, with sort of long waiting periods in between courses, but the mellow atmosphere and friendly service made it seem like not a big deal.
The menu started off with an amuse bouche with two different watermelon preparations. Yummy, fresh little bites. The yellow one (above) had Indian spices, and the red one had a tiny bit of kalamata olive. Then we had a slow-cooked egg with caviar and egg custard, served inside an egg shell. It was super-soft and creamy, with salt from the caviar. Then a salad of thin sliced veggies on top of raw snapper and lemon creme fraiche.
Then a hunk of seared tuna in seaweed broth topped with dashi. This was smoky on the outside from being grilled, and sweet on the inside where it was still raw. The broth was salty and delicious, and hard for me to describe, since I am still fairly new to eating seafood.
Last, we had three types of pork: some grilled loin, some braised leg, and a slice of head cheese, which apparently includes all parts of the head, including brains and stuff. I have to admit, I wasn't excited about the terrine of head parts, but it actually wasn't bad. The flavor was pretty good, and it was only the texture of the various bits that was a little weird. At the end, we got a panna cotta with slightly syrupy peaches on top. The peaches were fantastic, although the panna cotta was nothing special. I almost would have preferred just a bowl of the peaches, but hey it was still pretty good, and I don't want to sound like I'm complaining.
The whole experience was fun, especially since you get to go to this place that isn't well known, and you enter into a back room through the courtyard. So it feels kind of special and intimate. I would definitely recommend the wine pairings too, since I felt like they really complimented the food. None of the wines were really my favorite types of wine, but they tasted amazing when I drank them with the food. I think that is the mark of a job well done by the wine director.
So, now I have three days to detox from my weekend of gluttony before I head off to Maui for coconut pancakes, fish tacos and loco moco. I'll try to take lots of photos and give a full report when I return.
