rhiannonstone

Great review! My boyfriend and I were actually there the same night as you, and we also thoroughly enjoyed it--in fact, we've both said it was one of the best dinners we've ever had there (we live two blocks away and try to go once every couple months). I think it was the pasta that set it over the edge for us; it was one of the best things I've put in my mouth in a long time. I do wish I'd noticed you there taking pictures so I could have pointed you out to my boyfriend--he never lets me bring my camera to Chez Panisse!

The boyfriend and I are spending a long weekend in the Point Reyes area, and need suggestions for places to eat. We've already got reservations for dinner at Manka's one night, and are planning on getting oysters from Hog Island and cheese and other goodies at Tomales Bay Foods for a picnic lunch the next day, but those are really the only places I know about that are supposed to be good (because those are the only places people mention when they talk about Point Reyes and food). There've got to be other places worth eating! I'm especially interested in recommendations for a really good breakfast, and at least one place that doesn't have "California Cuisine" stamped all over it (because CA Cuisine is fabulous, but variety is also good!).

I just got back from my first dinner at Oliveto. The food was delicious (my porchette--pork belly and pork loin in a light spicy sauce--was especially wonderful), but I found the service lacking. The server was laconic and drink refills were incredibly slow in coming, and the biggest offense was that the server plopped down both our salumi tasting and our cheese plate on the table and left without telling us what anything was. I was able to figure out the cheeses since there were only three, but I had no clue what was what on the salumi plate. As I'd been looking forward to the salumi tasting for awhile and it was a totally new concept to the others at my table, this was pretty disappointing. We enjoyed it, but had to spend the rest of the meal talking about "the round fennel-y one from the middle" and "the big fatty one on the end." Also, as good as the food was, I didn't feel the high prices were quite justified. I don't mind paying well for good food, but at those prices, I expect a slightly higher caliber of food plus better service.

Nice! Thanks.

What is this index of which you speak? I've looked around the site and can't seem to find it. Forgive me if I'm missing something obvious, but that sounds like exactly what I'm looking for, because trying to use the search engine generally just results in frustration.

Yep. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about Ruth's Chris, and now I know--nothing! ;) Learn by doing and all that.

I actually ended up forgoing fondue and having an unsatisfactory birthday dinner at Ruth's Chris, which I found to be overpriced and over-atmosphered for the quality of food. :/ We'll be going to a show at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga in a couple months, though, and I plan on checking out La Fondue then.

Here's my account (crossposted from my LiveJournal) of my first dinner at Chez Panisse since we moved back to the Bay area (no pictures, sadly, because I haven't quite yet convinced my boyfriend--or, to be honest, myself--that taking pictures in nice restaurants isn't weird or rude): Despite calling as soon as they'd opened on January 14 (they begin taking reservations a month in advance), Paul was unable to get reservations at Chez Panisse for Valentine's Day, or the weekend before. So we settled on a Thursday reservation instead, because Chez Panisse is Chez Panisse, and it doesn't really matter what day you go. :) I've never had a bad meal there (and only once did I have an item I didn't like, and that's because not even Alice Waters could make me enjoy whole anchovies), and we certainly weren't disappointed this time, either. The evening began as always with a basket of wonderful bread (I could seriously live off this stuff) and a little plate of marinated olives. Every other time we've been, it's just been a mix of olives, but this time there was just one type of olive along with baby radishes. I remember Dad making me eat radishes all the time when I was little and I don't remember liking them much, but I tried them, and they were tasty, as were the olives. Next time I really need to remember to ask the server what kinds of olives they use, because they're the only olives I've ever actually liked. We debated over whether to order a full or half bottle of wine, and finally settled on a full bottle, which we drained. :) It was a Pinot Noir from Broadley vineyards, and it was wonderful--I liked it even more than the Navarro Pinot Noir we usually order from CP (and which was missing from the wine menu this time), which is a shame, because it costs twice as much. Dinner started with risotto fritters with black truffles and fontina, served atop a little chicory salad. It was, of course, wonderful. The risotto fritters were very lightly fried, so they were just barely crispy on the outside, and the cheese made them creamy on the inside, with the rice giving them a nice texture. There was the tiniest hint of black truffle flavor, which really pushed the dish over the edge from being comfort food to something more elegant. We each got two small fritters; I think I could have eaten ten. This was probably my favorite dish of the whole meal, and something I'm going to try to reproduce at home, even though there's no way I'm going to be able to make them as perfect as these were, especially without the black truffles. Next was a winter minestrone with cardoons, cavolo nero, and Tuscan olive oil. Completely unlike any minestrone I've ever had before (which makes me wonder: What makes it minestrone?), with lots of greens and a clear, flavorful broth, and tasty bits of something I was surprised to identify as barley. I've only recently begun to appreciate olive oil used as a main flavor component rather than just something to sautee the veggies in or top the salad with, and this soup was an excellent example of that, with the (presumably house-made) oil stirred liberally into the soup, giving it a fresh, slightly fruity taste. The entree was grilled Wolfe farm quail and garlic sausage with caramelized artichokes, chenterelles, new garlic, and crispy potatoes. I could smell the quail grilling as I was eating the soup and it drove me crazy, it smelled so good. I love grilled meat and I can't wait until Spring gets here so I can go buy some charcoal and start grillin'! The skin was perfectly crispy, and the meat had a wonderfully smoky flavor. The little garlic sausage that came with it was amazing, and I wanted two or three more. The veggies were excellent, too, especially the chanterelles; when I do get to start grilling, I'll definitely be picking up some wild mushrooms from the farmer's market to throw on with whatever else I'm cooking. CP now offers an optional cheese course with their prix fixe dinner, which they didn't have when we lived here before. Of course we opted in. :) Three small wedges arrived, with a couple pieces of dark brown bread (in addition to the bread that was still left on the table). The only cheese I recognized was the spicy Jasper Hill Blue; there was a cow's milk and a sheep's milk, too, but I don't remember what they were. Unfortunately I don't think we'll order this next time, though, unless we have more people with us, because while it was tasty, it was too much food, and after demolishing the plate, we barely had room left for dessert. Dessert was a Meyer lemon tartlet with creme chantilly. My boyfriend took one bite, looked at me, and said (jokingly... I hope), "OK, I'm leaving you for this tart." It was seriously that good. The lemon custard was soft and sweet (Meyer lemons are far less tart than standard lemons), and the tart shell was thin and crisp, and the creme chantilly was perfectly light and airy, and OMG, it was just a wonderful taste and texture experience. I think that even if the cheese course had filled me up, I'd have made room for this dessert. So all in all, a wonderful welcome back to Berkeley. :)

Well like I said, I'm certainly not cooking on my birthday, and my bf doesn't cook, so fondue at home just ain't happenin'. :) I actually quite enjoy making a meal out of the fondue experience, not for any dietary reasons (because my god, how I love carbs!), but because I really enjoy the food. Our standard Melting Pot meal whenever we go with friends in NC is usually a salad, a cheese fondue, a flavored cooking broth, and a chocolate for dessert. Although honestly, I could live without the chocolate fondue for dessert and just have a normal dessert--or another pot of cheese. ;) Thanks for the suggestion for the Matterhorn. I'll definitely have to check it out sometime, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for for my b'day dinner.

I really really want fondue for my birthday, and since I absolutely refuse to cook on my birthday and my boyfriend just plain refuses to cook, this means we've got to go out for it. :) I'd planned on going to The Melting Pot in San Jose, but I didn't realize until I just looked at the website that it (or the proposed SF location) isn't open yet. The website says "sometime in March 2005," and my birthday is the first of March, so I imagine it's not going to be open in time. So, any other fondue resturants we can go to? A Google search has turned up Fondue Fred's here in Berkeley (with terrible reviews) and La Fondue in Saratoga (with not many reviews). What do y'all think of either of those places, and are there any others? I'm definitely looking for a restaurant that specializes in fondue, not just a place with one cheese and one chocolate fondue on the menu. I'm also willing to expand my request for fondue to include shabu-shabu places, which I'd like to eventually check out anyway, as I very much miss Shabu Zen in Boston.

The ice cream shop I used to go to in Cambridge, MA sold Boylan's Cane Cola, and I was excited to try it because I love sugar cane sodas for both the taste and the lack of HFCS. But when I finally got around to trying it, I was disappointed--it tastes like rootbeer! And I can't stand rootbeer! :(

Well I've finally gotten a chance to try the diet version, and it's surprisingly good. I normally can't stand diet drinks, not even Diet Dr Pepper (although it is the least horrible of the bunch), but the cherry and vanilla flavors in Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper do a good job of masking the diet-y taste for a bit. This is not to say that the flavors are overwhelming--unlike the vanilla- and fruit-flavored Cokes and Pepsis, they actually work pretty well with the drink, and don't have a strong, syrupy, artificial taste (well, no more so than any other HFCS-containing cola). I keep searching for non-diet, but despite the fact that the Dr Pepper rep I spoke to a couple weeks ago said I should be seeing it in my area now, I'm not--the few places I've been able to find the new drink (7-11 and some random little corner store here in Berkeley), it's been diet only. Oh well. It's not like I haven't already been making my own flavored Dr P here at home for years.

I know a lot of restaurants offer tasting menus, but it's been my experience that some of them just do it because it's expected of them, and they don't really put a lot of thought or care into it. So which Bay area restaurants offer tasting menus that are worth the time, effort, and price? I'm especially interested in ones that offer a well-thought-out wine pairing option, since my boyfriend and I are looking to expand our wine knowledge beyond our insatiable love for pinot noir and sangiovese.

Most definitely. It's a good way to get your guacomole fix for cheap (and without the precarious arrangement), and it's taqueria prices for way-better-than-taqueria food. I just noticed they've expaneded the takeout menu considerably since I was last here, too--my only complaint about it when it first opened was the lack of variety.

I haven't eaten there since I moved back to the Bay area, but when I lived here before Maya was one of my favorite restaurants. I worked nearby and had lunch there at least once a week (and I was so happy when Maya Next Door opened and I could get their wonderful guacamole on the go!), and it was always the first place I took visiting friends for a moderately priced tasty dinner and a few pitchers of sangria. I admit I never really tried more than a few dishes there, but the guac, the sangria, the enchiladas mole, the rajas potato gratin, and the mango sorbet all stood out to me as simple, well-done dishes. We always got great service there, too; after just a couple visits, the staff started recognizing us, and more often than not, they'd bring us a free app. They even recognized us after we moved away and came back to visit a year or so later. I'm very much looking forward to going back sometime soon.