crosparantoux

I hit this problem 3 years ago in our kitchen remodel. The hoods they showed in the appliance store seemed weak. I also heard stories from friends who fell in love with a fashionable hood, only to rip it out later because it didn’t move enough air. I bought a Wolf 4 burner with a grill--a model made just before SubZero bought Wolf and dumbed it down to the home market. I called Wolf directly and asked their recommendation for level of cfm (the amount of air sucked). Wolf gave me a figure per burner (I think it was 200 x 4 burners + another 400 for the grill) that was far higher than the hoods being pushed by the store’s sales guys. Thinking about the full power of all four burners, the serious heat from the grill, along with the convection feature in the oven, I chose to increase the manufacturers’ recommendation by 50%. It was the right decision. The noise issue was solved by putting the motor outside, on the roof. The exhaust line goes straight up, without turns, which probably makes the vent even more efficient. The vent screens pop out easily and can fit in the dishwasher (w/ no other dishes in it), making cleanup a breeze. Another factor: our hood extends 2” past the left and right edges of the range top. Again, an intuitive choice: nothing gets away from the vent when it’s on. I thought about putting a heat lamp in the hood, but that meant a rack above the stove, which would probably entail extra cleanup, so I decided against it. I don’t know if that was the right decision, however. I’m still trying to figure out a good way to hold warm plates… Bottom line: call your range manufacturer to get their recommendation, then measure that against your style of cooking, and of course, your budget. A friend who bought a hood just six months ago found a great price and surprisingly high quality at Best Buy.

The classic breakfast in Hawaii is sliced linguica and fried eggs, over white rice (sticky, short grain), topped with onions melted with the linguica juices. Linguica in Hawaii comes in various degrees of spiciness: hot, mild, and fake claims in between. I've found this breakfast in some of the So.CA surfer hangouts, which is maybe where Kitwilliams (above) found it.

Back in Seattle again for a few days, some locals took me to Matt’s. The place is high on the list of locals’ faves, but for all my overnights in Seattle, I’d never dined there. Matt’s is tiny! Only a few tables scrunched together near the window overlooking the Sound. I mean REALLY scrunched together: the chairs didn’t match, leaving me sitting 3 inches below my 6’3” friend; it became a slapstick routine to rotate chairs, bumping into other diners and sending jackets and purses to the floor. We had reserves for 8pm but after lots of explanations from Matt himself, we didn’t sit until sometime after 8:30pm. Since they serve wine and beer only, we nursed cocktails next door at Chez Shea. Matt periodically ran over to us from his little kitchen to tell explain away the delays. What a relief it was for everyone to finally get settled! (Chez Shea, by the way, is cozy/romantic. Generous pours at the bar, judging from the fat two fingers of Macallan 12. The tasting menu looked good, hitting all the right buttons: dungeness, foie gras, halibut, and duck. I should go back to eat.) Matt’s kitchen, plopped right up front, shoving tables aside, consists of only a few small counter spaces for finishing dishes, and three little plug-in burners, like you’d see in some SRO hotel room. Matt was assisted by a quiet tall guy, whose mellowness offset the about-to-blow enthusiasm of the owner/chef. Only one waitress, with deep dimples and perfect teeth, delivered all the food on time. Everything arrived on the same thick, Walmart-style, unbreakable plates and bowls. Spare folksiness is exactly the charm of the place. It’s one of a kind, and full of such honest-to-goodness PNW hippie soul, that you can’t help having a good time. But in a city with stellar food like Union, Lampreia, Carmine’s, etc., can Matt deliver? Well, here’s the wierd part: I (and most other foodies) can cook this stuff at home. Beer steamed clams with spices was a throw-together dish. Soothing, delivered in what looked like a kid’s cereal bowl, it hit the spot, but was it a restaurant dish? What raises Matt’s up to the level of Seattle’s best, I think, is the extreme quality of the ingredients. If Matt deals with his purveyors in the same friendly and generous way he treats his own customers, then he’s got to be at the top of the Seattle market picking order. Those clams, so elementarily prepared, were also the finest clams I’ve ever tasted: sweet, tiny, ethereally light. The same with the seared tuna on lentils. Again, it’s something you can whip up at home. But the quality of the rare/raw tuna was spectacular—the kind of tuna I’ve only found in top notch LA sushi bars. If Matt’s burners could pump a few 1,000 more BTUs, the searing would have been a bit more flavorful, sending this dish into the stars. But it was pretty damned good anyway—perfect with our mature La Mission Haut Brion. Other dishes were just as good: simple preps of perfect ingredients--fat halibut or a meltingly braised duck leg that was so huge, it appeared to be the offspring of some turkey/duck one-night stand. Desserts, however, weren’t anything special. Bread pudding was just the usual trick of what to do with old bread. Hard chocolate pot de crème lived in the fridge too long. No espresso, but drip coffee, served in late-night diner mugs was perfect. The bill: suspiciously comfortable. No corkage for our own two bottles of wine. The glass of (really good) Nebbiolo suggested by the waitress-beauty was comped. We stayed way past Matt’s cleanup, but no one appeared bothered . So: cheap plates, mismatched furniture, haphazard booking, home-cooking, etc. Why in the world is Matt’s at the top of Seattle locals’ lists? Why would I recommend it without hesitation? (It’s easily worth a flight to Seattle.) ONE: Ingredients. Those clams! That tuna! TWO: The soulful, generous energy at Matt’s is an extremely rare thing in any business these days. To wrap that goodness around soothing food and garnish it with a nighttime view of Puget Sound is a very special thing that Matt does for Seattle. Unlike any other restaurant I’ve visited in the city, Matt’s has a true sense of place. The guy loves the sea, the fish, the people, the wine. I’ll be back. Next time I’ll sit at the counter, and close my eyes and point to whatever he’s doing to shells or fish. It’s going to be great. (edited to clarify time)

Wow. Thanks for this thread and links. We’re headed to Lombok and Bali in August with two kids, 9 and 12. The circuit: Lombok, Candi Dasa, Ubud, Singapore, then home to California, where school starts 8am the next morning. Any tips would be appreciated. Food sounds great. (Where’d you find that roast pig?) Since we’re Asian-mixed we’ll be in heaven. But, what about costs? In this thread and other sites, people say, “Cheap.” What does that mean in USD? Of course, our last family trip was in London last year, so anything is cheap after that!

You guys are already into the meat dishes! Did anybody do the sauce that reduces 3 bottles of Cote du Rhone? I’ve been working through the vegetables, most recently the asparagus ones, since they’re really in season now. I’m not a pro chef either, and taught myself from cookbooks and dining out. But I was pleasantly surprised to learn Ducasse’s trick of whipping the cream before incorporating it in sauces. I used to just bring cream to the same temp as the other part of a sauce, then reduce the combination if needed. There’s a better texture on the tongue with the whipped cream version. Is this the same technique as the “broken cream” that was discussed in the ADNY-Delouvier thread?

The area around Los Gatos/Manresa does indeed have treasures. In the Santa Cruz hills, there’s Castle Rock, with really world class climbing. If you blur your eyes, it looks like the forests and boulders of Fontainebleu, France. Doesn’t Ridge Vineyards have a tasting room up there too? There’s also a good branch of the Wine Club nearby (is it still in biz?) where occasionally, victims of the internet bubble unload their cellars at decent prices. Manresa sounds wonderful; haven’t heard anything otherwise.

I totally agree that there’s a lot of unnecessary silliness and bad cooking on the edges of new cuisine, but I stand by my basic point--SF cuisine seems to be stalled. Laugh at Antidote’s test tubes but travel to other cities and wonder, How far is Antidote’s silly delivery system from the precious shot glass amuses that appear in multistar, established restaurants? Here in SF, at a recent Campton Place dinner, I received shot glass amuses at the front and end of the meal. In the first tiny glass there were three complex cooking techniques going on, with three different kinds of shell fish. Intense! In the second, pre-dessert glass, two techniques, with a flower infusion and a froth. Absolutely fabulous. But look up from the food: CP’s dining room, as always, was only half empty. (I, however, appreciate the serenity.) Yet SFers stand in line outside other places that serve food that most people can cook at home. I’m just trying to figure out why. We are now way off thread so I’ll shut up. Good luck to Patterson and others who are trying to nudge SF forward.

In the brief mention of Patterson’s leaving (in SF Chron?), Frisson’s owner talked about how P wanted Frisson to be like an El Bulli with aromas, plating tricks, etc. Curiously, he implied that El Bulli only succeeds because it has volunteer labor and is on the Costa Brava. But what’s the real undercurrent of Patterson’s leaving? What does it say about SF tastes? Wasn’t Patterson doing a book on aromas, infusions, etc. in cuisine? Why can’t SF’s diners support someone like him? Note that Antidote, another constructivist experiment, failed in Sausalito recently. Yet in NY, WD-50 does well, in Chicago there’s Moto and the Trio/Alinea morph—they don’t have volunteer brigades or sexy coastal locations. SF has a rep as a cuisine capital, but FL’s out in Yountville, Manresa’s down in Los Gatos; here in the city...? Look at all the fuss about A16—you can cook that stuff at home (except for that perfect crust!). At the other end Mina pieces out courses of familiar tastes into a dozen cute little plates. Those places are popular, but really, what’s innovative there? Of course, Patterson may just have been a bad cook and he got fired. But I don’t think so…his old Elisabeth-Daniel was pretty good. Sadly, I think there’s something about SF tastes. What do you think?

Thanks jchyun—for some reason, I trust your opinion. Manresa is a puzzle. Is it just another quirky suburban place that the locals are excited about or is it a destination restaurant? In my travels, I’ve been sucked into a few such provincial “gems.” In the Alinea thread, the owners discuss the idea that the restaurant experience begins when the customer first makes the decision to call for a table at a particular restaurant. It’s the whole package: the trip to the front door, the greeting, the whole evening door to door. If one is a good cook at home, a restaurant has to provide something way better: food and wine that teaches and amazes, gracious pampering, a calming space. There’s lots of ways to spend $100-$200 close to home and in the cities we travel to. I can’t figure out from this forum if Manresa is really worth it. FL is a romantic overnight in wine country, not just a special meal. But Los Gatos, where the landmarks (according to the website) are a local mex restaurant and a bank parking lot? I’ve done the Berkeley to San Jose drive at dinner hour on a Friday and wouldn’t call it a pleasing beginning to a special evening. Oh well, the locals and fans will say, keep your money in SF, stay home. But aren’t we all looking for that perfect meal? Is it Manresa?

This thread has recently been swept clean, but we’ve endured months of postings from insiders raving about 4+ hour parades of cutely packaged, tasty amuses. To me, that doesn’t justify the 1.5 hour commute through nasty choked highways to get there. Can someone, an outsider, a basic customer with no connections, tell us if this place is really any good? There’s a regular menu on Manresa’s website. Can the kitchen actually create a main course that sustains interest for more than three bites? How fantastic is a three course meal ordered ALC by a stranger? How does the FOH treat those unconnected to the place? Is there an interesting list of good bottles to enjoy on their own, or does one have to mix red, white, sweet, sparkling, and four countries to “get” what Manresa is supposedly doing?

On a quick biz trip in Seattle, I had dinner at Oceanaire. Maybe you locals stay away from a place like this, but hey, it was raining: I was hungry, I could walk from my hotel, and I wanted white wine with fish. What I found was an incredible surprise. Wine: 2002 V.Giaradin Corton-Charlemagne. Wow! Not as rich and overripe as a Latour version, but still, the kind of wine that makes you swear off boutique California chard forever (maybe). What gets me is that Oceanaire, a mass market restaurant, had two Corton-Cs on the list. It was clear from the diningroom and the more crowded bar that none of the typical customers here would appreciate the choice. App: Oysters Rockefeller. Nice, oceanic tasting, small oysters under a well balanced spinach puree with a hint of cayenne. Good presentation on hot rock salt kept this classic at the perfect temp throughout the eating. Main: There’s lots of good fish to choose, but the preps were kind of boring. Sand dabs with a white wine, truffle pan sauce sounded interesting, but as the waitress pointed out, who wants to wrestle with bones when you’re drinking grand cru burgundy? So she offered me Alaskan line caught ling cod served the same way. A thick fish in place a delicate little one? What the heck… I went for it. What was delivered was easily one of the top five truffle dishes I have had in my life. The fat filets of cod were crisped all around just perfectly, with the flesh flaking apart all juicy. The fish sat in a puddle of the kind of white wine, butter, parsley pan sauce you could make at home, except that, shaved all over the dish—over the fish, over the sauce—was a ton of incredibly fragrant fresh truffle. At a place like this, I would expect canned or maybe that fake truffle oil. Uh uh. Not last night. Who ever cooked my dish went all out. What’s even more surprising is that this ping pong ball-sized fresh truffle came from Oregon! I’ve never encountered an Oregon truffle with any flavor or fragrance before. The taste was more perfumey than classic fresh Perigords or white Albas—touching you in back of your nostrils, not grabbing the back of your throat They didn’t have the earthy depth of a woman’s privates that you taste in the best Italian or French truffles, but these Oregons stood up and duked it out with the Corton-C. The fat cod, all golden crispy was right there too, threatening to bring the folding metal chair down on one of them. As the truffles curled up and melted in the heat from the sauce and fish, the aroma and flavour just kept on blossoming. How in the world could I find such a wonderful dish in some empty, mass market Seattle restaurant? Go immediately to Oceanaire. You have to eat the truffled cod before the chef gets fired for being too generous. The other stuff at Oceanaire was only standard. (I had a way better dessert at Brasa the night before: spectacular hot Spanish donuts all dusty with cinnamon sugar.)

25 years ago I taught myself to cook, working through every single recipe in Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking. Living in the SF Bay Area, we have superb produce from tiny, conscious farms, great fish, meat, etc. I ate a lot at Chez Panisse back then and picked up their philosophy of simple treatment of perfect ingredients. The result: great meals, but boring (to me, not the guests). In the last two years, things changed dramatically. With years of travel and solid tech skills under my belt; a new, perfect kitchen; and kids who are now a little older; I’ve decided to create my own unique cuisine: something no guest would expect or make. It’s refining the Asian mix of my childhood with the Bay Area’s seasonal ingredients, all done with classic, very careful, refined technique. The El Bulli 98/02 DVD is a huge inspiration. There’s new ways to look at each piece that goes onto a plate. The actual act of eating has become an interesting thing to play with. My kids’ curiosity and naiveté helps to push creativity. It’s still ingredients based, but now the process of cooking and presenting food to friends has become really fun and new. A few weeks ago we started on Ducasse’s English version of the Grand Livre. Now the kids are learning the chemistry of classic saboyans and reductions, but with a 21st century twist. We’re using them on any strange new vegetable from Chinatown and the Berkeley markets, or under meats and fish cooked with new methods for which there is little guidance (sous vide, for example). The world outside my kitchen is changing rapidly. Realizing that and having fun keeping up with, and pushing, the evolution (while not forgetting the roots) has been the biggest change to my cooking in the last couple of years.

You could be right: employee sabotage, if it’s true that the owner acknowledges the incident. But I’m still betting on urban legend. If you’ve watched Napa Valley and the Highway 29 corridor grow over the last 20+ years, you’d understand the issue of V.Sattui vs. Old School Napa Winemakers. V. Sattui is not Heitz or Dominus. It is park tables and a booming retail shop, selling inexpensive wine to busloads of tourists. In Napa there’s always been grumbling about V. Sattui’s success and style of business. Just as KFC and McDonalds are often targets of rats-in-food stories because of their huge (perhaps obnoxious) success, I suspect Sattui may be a similar victim. I don’t personally like Sattui wines, food, or their business model, but they are a business. They work hard at what they do and believe in what they do. Lots of customers like them. Those customers may not be the discriminating types that redial French Laundry for three solid hours or who buy cases of Opus One for a baby’s 1st birthday, but they do spend honest money in Napa. All of us in the food biz are in small businesses, working hard, believing in our product. Why hurt someone, a fellow small business owner, with such nonsense as the old rat-in-the-food story, just because their chosen path to success does not meet our tastes? Let’s get some truth out of this amusing thread. Even better, some apologies may result.

Sounds like an urban legend. Did anyone really check with the Napa newspaper about the validity of the story. There lots of stories like this, with official sounding legal followup. And newspapers often get caught passing on such nonsense. Check www.hoaxbusters.ciac.org or other urban legend sites--there's lists of such funny stories. My kids trade them all the time about local restaurants. How can anyone making a sandwich not see the ends of a rat?

SF dining seems to be stuck in a rut these days. The popular recommendations tend to be Italian/Mediterranean/Cal variations—the restaurants may be new, the chefs young and happy, but the food is 1980s/1990s.. The thrills are found in the ethnic restaurants, but I’m really bad on the names. Walking in Chinatown, I can show you a terrific noodle place so many doors up from the fish shop on Stockton, but who’s the chef or what’s the name of that hole in the wall? I like Daniel Humm at Campton Place, but he seems trapped in a tiny hotel restaurant with an inconsistent supporting staff. Others have had mediocre meals. I’ve loved almost everything I’ve eaten there. Masa’s has a new chef I haven’t tried yet: Gregory Short, supposedly out of French Laundry: http://www.masas.citysearch.com/ Is this guy any good? There’s lots of talk about Michael Mina. Food is just ok, nothing new, but all the fancy little porcelain and the glamourama décor seems to impress people. I was in London last year; you’re not going to find anything on the level of a St. John or a Ramsey operation. Perhaps this thread can be used to discuss the almost retarded level of dining in SF. (no offense--I mean stuck in the past, unable to develop) I love the UK forum, by the way.

this link may work w/out registration: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,632-1475488,00.html (I'm in the Fat Guy camp. I haven't had a less than perfect meal from Ducasse.)

Thanks Keim Hwa! Locals, please continue sending restaurant recs for Hilo.

In July, I'm spending two days in the Volcano area (running the Kilauea marathon). Which of the B&Bs in Volcano Village are interesting? What are costs like? Any decent eating? I'd also like a night in Hilo. Are there any good restaurants that will show me current island food trends? Any interesting places to stay in Hilo? I could fly SF to Kona direct, bypassing Hilo. Or I could transfer from Honolulu to Hilo and spend the night there. I was born on the Big Island, so I'd really prefer Hilo to the tourist side of the island. Thanks for any advice you can share.

A couple of months ago, I posted a rave about Campton Place on another thread—answering someone who wanted high end dining in SF. I have eaten Daniel Humm’s food twice in the past three months and have rarely been disappointed. I’m not surprised to hear about your bad meal, however, Melkor. I’ve tried all four of the chefs that preceded Humm at CP and I’ve noticed that though they have all been great, they seem work on a highwire, dependent on the support of what seems to be a basic hotel crew that may not be as motivated as an FL or Ducasse crew (who, justifiably, may be religious fanatics for their chefs). Do you think it’s possible you drew the B-crew when you dined on a Sunday night? This would not be excusable in an FL or Ducasse, or any pricey restaurant, but unfortunately, CP is the small dining room of a hotel, serving breakfast lunch dinner and room service 365 days a year. I suspect that Humm and chefs before him are hampered by the arrangement. In my two dinners at Humm/CP, the amuses (plenty of them) were sparkling clear: if three different seafoods were put into a shot glass in three different textures, they danced perfectly together, wrapping around one another to deliver a complex, focused, and innovative taste—which is the true and often forgotten purpose of an amuse. I assume that Humm was on board when I dined. But as an experienced diner, with past kitchen experience, I took protective measures, as I usually do when I dine high. I dine on week days, when the kitchen’s purveyors are in full work mode. I also assume that on a Thursday, for example, the A-team is working, and since the audience isn’t a crowd of one-time weekenders, the cooks may take a little more pride in their food. A crazy assumption, but hey, I haven’t been proven wrong yet… The champagne: As you settle into your table, CP rolls out a cart of ice with 4 bottles of champagne to choose from. 3 are open, 1 is not. The diningroom is near empty or half full. Thus, I don’t know how long those sparklers were open: I ask them to open the new bottle. (By chance, on two occasions it’s been the Billecart-Salmon rose, which, I agree, is spectacular). Now, this doesn’t reduce the chance that the bottle may be corked, but when it is opened right before us, the wine steward and I will be able to spot and agree upon flaws. Wine service, by the way, has always been correct. I couldn’t spot a Spielgau Reisling glass, but different and appropriate glasses have matched my shifts from white Burgundy to Bordeaux to sticky. Ordering: I’ve only ordered the 4 course choices at Humm/CP, insisting on hot dishes, which I know will be cooked to order. A cold terrine-type dish was delivered once because I misread the menu description: minced rabbit and a parsley gel in a ying-yang design. It was disappointing. It probably sat in the fridge for a day until I ordered it. Fish has always been gently cooked. Lobster and scallops melted. A boullabaise-inspired sauce was translucent and scratched the back of my throat with all its wonderful, deep shellfish reduction. Plating is beautiful, with each element applied in a proportion that allows its flavor to be fully appreciated. (If there is a red dot, it is an intense, accenting flavor, clearly defined and not mere color). The parsnip soup I think, sums up Humm’s skill. This sounds so simple, but it’s really stunning. What gets me is how the submerged little croutons of sweetbreads can remain crisp as they sit in the bowl while I sip and moan; it means the soup was constructed and served immediately, with those sweetbreads leaving the sizzling pan for my bowl at just the precise moment. Service: I’ve dined off and on at CP for 20 or more years and the service has always been flawless and friendly. I dine alone, I don’t look like your typical establishment-type, and I have fun—maybe that’s why CP’s staff has always surprised me with special care. I would never dare to imagine, however, that they consider me a VIP. Campton Place is a world class little hotel, with a discriminating and international clientele. I am really shocked at the poor treatment you received. I’m sure CP management will respond quickly to your complaints. Try Daniel Humm again, when he returns. Melkor and Pim sensed something special despite all the mishaps. Maybe all the trash will be brushed away and you will find a genuine, fresh truffle of a restaurant.

We ate at TownHall a few days after Christmas. Noisy, but that's the point. Unfortunately, our vanishing waiter mumbled quietly through the noise and couldn't hear our requests to repeat himself. The fried oyster salad mentioned by Bauer was mediocre: the dressing was something anyone could make at home and the oysters were those fat snotty kind, without the fresh taste of the ocean. Entrees were winners, however. The thick porkchop topped with nuts was beautifully brined. Melting shortribs were served as a slab without ribs, sitting on a fabulous green herbed risotto, surrounded with glazed carrots. Wow! But the meal went off the cliff from there. We waited forever for the tiny dessert menu. Since nothing appealed, I ordered what they called San Francisco's Best Hot Chocolate, thinking it would be soothing on a cold rainy night. I got a bowl of cold chocolate milk. No waiters were visible, so I asked the hostess to replace it with a HOT chocolate. We waited and waited. Then the bill was served. I reminded the waiter about my dessert. More waiting. Then the bowl was slapped down on the table, splashing COLD chocolate on the table top. Now we wanted out. When the reserv was made, I noted that it was a birthday dinner. When the reserv was confirmed later, the birthday was mentioned. Early in the meal, a nearby table got a cute little sparkler for someone's birthday. At the end of our meal, nothing. Now, TownHall is a noisy neighborhood roadhouse kind of place, but for all the precious menu descriptions and the $110 we dropped for the two of us, you'd expect some basic service. We chose TownHall for a birthday dinner because we'd already been to all the other restaurants listed in OpenTable.com as open on that rainy night (Campton, Aqua, Masas). The Chron raved about it; management claimed to have a great lineage; we thought we'd try something new on the cheap. Should've stuck to the classics and left the newbie to the bar crowd.

I didn't read the original article that raised the issue of ethnic appeal of plate lunches, but I disagree that the term may refer to Asians. Here in Oakland, CA , on 17th St. there's a successful little hole in the wall called the Hawaiian Walk-In (as opposed to drive-in, get it?) Yeah, its run by Asians, but the customers who crowd in for laulau, boneless chicken, and teriyaki are black, hispanic, transplanted islanders, or homesick kamaainas (like me). At first I'd say it's working-class, rather than "ethinc" but I'm not working class. Maybe there's something else: this is soothing food that, from conversations I overhear at other tables, seems to touch childhood memories of family dinner. Rice, gravy, simple meat and a mayonaisy version of salad. This stuff is from a childhood that is not white-bread American. I ate food with a similiar amount of love and soul in East Oakland, served by the black grandmother of a friend. You don't see the Norman Rockwell American in Hawaiian Walk-In. Maybe to the original writer, the concept of ethnicity refers to others not like him/her. My haole wife isn't interested in plate lunches, but when I treated my mainland-born 8yr old son to a plate lunch after a hard soccer game, he understood--something genetic seemed to have clicked. Sorry to inject possible racism here. The bottom line is that plate lunches are comforting. The chicken cutlet at Oakland's Hawaiian Walk-In, by the way, is better than Rainbow's Boneless chicken. And I don't care about the geneology of mac salad, just give me an extra scoop and it's okay if you put gravy all over....

For the unbelivers, here is a review of Daniel Humm at Campton Place. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable SF needs more cooking like this. I'm tired of flying elsewhere to eat food at this level.

Yes! Acquerello is supposed to be a secret. Quiet, warm but subtle service, and I've never eaten the same thing twice!

I agree with the Manresa rec., but the question concerned SF restaurants. Why does no one speak of Daniel Humm at Campton Place? He is cooking his ass off for an empty dining room (only 3 tables filled, the last time I visited.) Humm is following in the Campton Place trend of great chefs and I think he's better than the previous four, which started with Bradley Ogden almost 20 yrs ago. I think Humm was a Michelin-starred chef in Switzerland? Highlights: a parsnip truffle soup with micro chanterelles and tiny croutons of crisp sweetbreads; lobster and scallop with saffron risotto. Humm is generous with the amuses (I counted 6 with my recent 4 course meal, not including all the little sweets). His cooking is Euro-now, not in the SF tradition of meat-and-starch variations or cal/med nakedness. The wine list is killer, with interesting half bottles (2000 Ramonet Bienvienue Batard Montrachet!) served up by an Anna Korkinova look-alike. Campton has a solid tradition of supporting great chefs, but the empty dining room these days is scarey. SF should really embrace Humm.