Wonderful Anniversay Trip to SF

[little ms foodie]

Well my husband and I had a fantastic time in San Fran over the weekend, thanks in part to all of your suggestions!!!!

We stayed at the Omni, across from the BofA tower. Very nice hotel and the staff is quite personable. Right on the California cable car line which is convienent too.

As soon as we landed and checked in we headed over to Belden Ln. We wanted to eat at Plouf! What a cute street of restaurants. Got a great table outside, under the heat lamps and had a kir while we checked out the menu. Of course we were having the mussles but which ones??? Decided on a bottle of Sancerre, 1 dish of mariniere and one of poulette both with frites. Very good especially the poulette. More than enough food. Espresso after, bill was $105 before tip. Back to the hotel to drink the champagne the manager had sent up and eat the chocolate covered strawberries!! FYI the kitchen at Plouf closes at 10:15pm on weeknights.

Lunch the next day after the Alcatraz tour was at Hog Island Oyster Co. YUM!!! We got the dozen sweetwaters with a bottle of wine. Really good oysters! Then we decided to split the cowgirl creamery grilled cheese sandwich. Because it took the kitchen a while to make it our server Tabitha comp'd us 1/2 dozen mixed oysters. Very nice. And the sandwich was wonderful too!

I really like the Ferry Market. We picked up cookies at Miette, chocolates at Riccheul (sp), had some wine at the Wine Market, and poked around the other shops. Didn't go on a saturday as I knew that I would want to buy yummy produce that I couldn't use!

Drinks that night at the Top of the Mark, very nice but we had to wait 20 mins to be seated. Maybe they take reservations? Anyway we were a bit rushed as we needed to catch BART to berkeley. The hotel gave us the use of their towncar to take us to the Embarcaderro station at no cost, very nice. Very easy to take Bart and then a cab to Chez Panisse.

Wonderful dinner but not what we were expecting. Very 'casual' and the food was great but not over the top. Started with an aperitif and ordered a wonderful CA pinot- Barham. The first course was our favorite! Slow roasted salmon with tarragon creme fraiche with caviar on cucumbers. Oh this was really good!! We are going to try to recreate this at home. Next was ravioli with sheeps milk ricotta, nettles and walnuts. I honestly thought that the flavor was very bland, the bite of the homemade pasta was great though! But I actually had my husband finish the ravioli. Main course was lamb 3 ways- leg of lamb, tenderloin and rack. All done perfectly with a nice au jus, but again the flavor was what lamb always should be, I thought a nice finishing salt or something would have been good here.

We added the cheese course and the stand out here was the Red Hawk, I am going to search for this here in Seattle! so tasty!

Dessert was an amazingly simple and perfect apple tart. Oh this was really good!!! They invited us to walk through the kitchen and check out the pastery area as well as the wine cave, very fun. 2 glasses of dessert wine and the bill was $303, 15% included, almost didn't see that! But of course added a bit more. Very nice evening and experience.

Sat night we started off with drinks at the Carnelian Room (?), there was a wedding reception going on so we were in the very small Bankers room I think it was called? Is there normally a larger cocktail room? Anyway it was nice but looked a bit old and tired. People were dressed very casually which surprised me. And our cocktail waitress didn't know what premium gins they had to the disappointment of my husband. Anyway we walked down to Aqua for our 7:45 reservation. They had placed an anniversary card on the table before we arrived which was very nice. The restaurant was full and moderately loud but in a nice "everyone is having a good time" kind of way.

We started with a glass each of Laurent Perrier NV Grand Siecle champagne, oh my that is sooooo good! The amuse bouche was an amazing chantrelle soup with lemon creme fraich. I wanted a whole bowl of this! Also there was a risotto ball with a light sauce which was just ok.

Bottle of 96 Burgandy, sorry I can't recall the winery but they steamed the lable off for me and put it on a card so I could take it with me, it's at home.

My husband had the tuna tartare appetizer and I had the trio of foie gras. Uh, can we say amazing??? Each foie gras was exceptional, my favorite a tie between the pepper and the syrah poached. The tuna was awesome and prepared on the table which is fun.

Took the waiters suggestions and went with the brioch crusted halibut. My husband said it was much better than he expected it to be, with a nice sauce and on a bed of dungeness crab and tomato. I had the skate which was done perfectly with a light butter sauce.

Cheese course...I gotta have my cheese!!!

Dessert.....ok here it is..... Tahitian Vanilla souffle with blueberry pomegrante sauce. Perfectly done, hot to the table...the waiter breaks the top and in goes the sauce! yeah, heaven! We actually spent our honeymoon in the Tahitian islands so it was a fitting dessert. Glass of port for DH and a glass of dessert vouvray for me. $380 without tip and a very memorable meal. This restaurant should get more attention, the service, the sommelier, the chef...all top notch!

Thank you all for your recommendations! A weekend just isn't enough time to eat around SF. We will be back soon and look forward to trying more restaurants!

I'm in Seattle so if anyone is ever looking for info on my town, I'm just a PM away! Thanks again for helping me plan such a great getaway!!!

[tanabutler]

Happy anniversary, again, LMF. I'm so glad to hear you had such a wonderful time.

Edited September 20, 2004 by tanabutler (log)

[jschyun]

Wow, that was one hell of a weekend!

[little ms foodie]

Happy anniversary, again, LMF. I'm so glad to hear you had such a wonderful time.

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Thanks! and I thought of you when I was at the Ferry Market...I remember on my original post you said you would cry if I didn't go! Well no worries! We had a ball

And jschyun, we really wanted to have gellato at the market but we were STUFFED to the gills! So we decided we will wait until the next trip. Also saw Gary Danko restaurant on the trolley, surprised at the location. We couldn't get ressies this time but it's on the list for next.

Edited September 20, 2004 by little ms foodie (log)

[kiliki]

LMF: You can get Red Hawk (and the equally delicious Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam) here in Seattle at Whole Foods and sometimes at PCC (I've seen it at PCC Greenlake once or twice). I believe I've also seen it at Beecher's. I've been a huge fan of these cheeses ever since living at Point Reyes last summer.

[tanabutler]

Y'all keep your eyes peeled for Bravo Farms cheddar. It is at Cowgirl at Ferry Plaza market, and is distributed elsewhere. It's some of the best cheddar I've ever had, especially the sage.

[Hest88]

Thanks for the reviews and a belated happy anniversary!!!

[little ms foodie]

LMF: You can get Red Hawk (and the equally delicious Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam) here in Seattle at Whole Foods and sometimes at PCC (I've seen it at PCC Greenlake once or twice). I believe I've also seen it at Beecher's. I've been a huge fan of these cheeses ever since living at Point Reyes last summer.

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YEAHHHH! I'm in Whole Paycheck (as we call it) weekly so I will scout it out, thank you!

[little ms foodie]

was trying to load some photos but just realized I have to put them in my album first. will try this weekend!

Edited October 15, 2004 by little ms foodie (log)

[little ms foodie]

Just a few shots from the Ferry Plaza!

Hog Island Oysters in the Ferry Plaza Market, San Francisco

chocolate and wine at the Ferry Plaza Market in San Francisco

And we just polished off some Red Hawk we got at whole paycheck last night. thanks for that lead kiliki!

Edited October 22, 2004 by little ms foodie (log)

[docsconz]

Sounds like a great anniversary weekend. I actually liked Aqua in Las Vegas better than S.F.

Any photos from Chez Panisse or Aqua?

[little ms foodie]

When I ate at Aqua in LV Mina was in the kitchen, it was very good. We were treated a little better I think because Thierry Rautureau from Rover's in Seattle had told us he was friends with Mina and we relayed a hi to him. Anyway the meal was great. I specifically picked Aqua in SF because now Mina has left and Laurent Manrique has stepped up. The dinner was very different which was nice. Not like he was trying to imitate Mina IMO.

No pictures at the nice restaurants as we forgot!!

[docsconz]

Some restaurants are definitely easier to photograph in than others. I need a fair amount of ambient light to get good shots. then again, if it was my anniversary weekend, i don't think I would have focused on food photography either I tend to reserve that less for the romantic occassions and more for the purely gastronomic ones.