Tag Archives: dinner

Le Papillon

Tis the season for fancy food, apparently. Shamiq invited me to join him and some of the SJ Redditors to try out Le Papillon. Because what’s the point in waiting for special occasions?

Salmon Roe & Creme fraiche

Keeping my priorities straight, I got a picture of the dessert menu, but not the dinner menu. Good job me.

Chestnut dumplings with oats, and roasted squash. Delicious and very hearty.

Quail over some sort of grain, topped with a quail egg. I love quail.

Salsify soup with duck royale & truffle. Shamiq’s appetizer. He let me steal his truffle pieces.

Hamachi tartar with avocado, lemon and peasprout emulsion.

Noisettes of red deer with huckleberries, oyster mushrooms and a parsnip tart over in the back.

Sturgeon Wellington with Chanterelles and a potato mille-feuille over in the back. And some turnips in front, but they didn’t fit in the picture.

Carrot cake with sasin molasses, walnut streusel, and cream cheese ice cream.

Chocolate-coconut terrine with chocolate and crisp caramel. I found this dessert tasty, but too rich. Also, the chocolate completely dominated the coconut.

The last treat — raisin and almond… I’m not sure what. I think toffee is the right term.

13 North

Filipino inspired food by Bayani Inclano.

Dinner was at the old Saison space. It was pretty cold.

And the menu.

Pinakbet jelly over squash puree.

Bread with cultured butter.

Coconut milk with bay leaf and palm sugar.

Banana hearts, coconut milk, monggo and a coconut curl of some sort. It looks like chicharon, but it’s not.

Sinigang with clams and turnips.

Kare kare.

Halo halo.

Sans Rival. Deconstructed.

Overall, the food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t Filipino food, just vaguely inspired by. As a meal, I found the food under seasoned. If it had been one course of this food, it would be okay, but taken as a meal, it left me a little hungry (thank god for the bread) and not quite satisfied.

Liholiho Yacht Club

Despite making it to Liholiho Yacht Club over a month and a half ago, I’ve been procrastinating writing this up. So here’s something quick. (Went on 1/20/2013)

Tombo on a nori chip. I love crunchy things and this was no exception.

Fried pig ears garnishing a papaya salad. Did I mention I love crunchy things?

Seasoned boiled peanuts. Not much difference from the boiled peanuts my mom buys in China town…

Salmon roe and fried potato skins, over potatoes. I liked the sauce and the garnishes, but the potatoes were too starchy so the dish was a bit bland.

Miso dressing on iceberg. If you like miso, delicious.

Baby octopus with kimchi radishes. I really liked both, but not particularly together.

Sticky rice in lotus leaves, cooked with mushrooms. I wish more places served it with mushrooms… It was a nice change from the traditional fatty pork.

Manila clams in tofu. Pretty solid, but nothing to write home about.

And the mains! Pork belly to the left and fried quail to the right. I’m honestly not a huge fan of pork belly… So it wasn’t bad, but not mind blowing. The quail, however, was absolutelyfreakingamazing. Crisp, moist and slightly honeyed. The second time I went, I found that I could order an extra serving for $12. It seems a bit steep… but oh SO worth it.

Bacon apple malasadas with coconut cream. Greasy & delicious. Just like malasadas should be.

Like the host restaurant, Liholiho serves things in small portions. It’s really cute and photogenic… But my one big complaint was that the food wasn’t served hot enough. I found myself eating faster than I’d like to in an attempt to eat all the food (especially the mains, the apps were fine cold) while still warm. Service aside, the food was varied, unique and (for the most part) well balanced. I’d go back.

Oh wait, I already did. This is what happens when you finally post pictures really, really late.

Atelier Crenn

After reading about coworkers’ glowing recommendations of Atelier Crenn, Shamiq and I ate there this last Saturday. We opted for the shorter 5-course, $95 menu. Overall I found the food satisfying, inventive and well matched.

I did have a major case of menu-envy as I watched the tables around us enjoy the longer Chefs Grand Tasting Menu ($160). I’d like to go back and try the longer menu since the presentation seemed more whimsical and over-the-top. Four of our five dishes were from the longer tasting though, so I’ll wait till the menu changes, perhaps to spring or summer.

Amuse Bouche: White chocolate shell filled with apple cider.
I managed to explode the first one on myself, so they brought me a new one. Lesson learned, keep your mouth shut.

First course: Grains & Seeds, Dashi, Yuzu Kosho

I wish I could eat this for breakfast everyday. I found the broth very slightly too salty, but I tipped the bowl away and the mix of grains was both interesting and delicious.

A palate cleanser of hibiscus and some sort of sorbet. I don’t remember. :( But it was lightly flavored and I love the flavor of hibiscus.

Second Course: The Sea. Grilled shellfish, fish, uni & fennel.

The seafood was perfectly grilled, the uni was super fresh (none of that hint of sewer) and the fennel was a great pairing.

Brioche. I found it lacking. The crust was a bit… mealy, I’m not sure why. It was warm and soft, so not too many complaints, but I thought it was the weakest part of the meal.

Course Three: Walk in the forest

A mix of mushrooms, pine meringue & lots of other subtle but unique flavors. Most interesting was that it was a horizontal plate, and the flavoring of the mushrooms seemed to go from savory to sweet from one end to the other.

The other side of the walk in the forest. One mushroom tasted like steak.

Course Four: Ocean & Land

Quail, squid ink, black sesame and sea grapes. The quail was perfectly cooked, medium rare with crisp skin and appropriate garnishes. The sea grapes were a novel and interesting touch, textually… but they don’t seem to taste like much.

Our Cheese course, a $20 add-on. Three cheeses, walnut bread and wild flower honey.

Course Five: Betterave (Dessert)

I’m not sure why the course is called that on the menu… But, beet sorbet, grains (a nice book ending touch with the first course) and a chocolate beet root. I love beets. I want more beet sorbet. But less chocolate roots.

Mignardises: Strawberry gelee, some sort of citrus marshmallow and a salted caramel that didn’t fit my Santa-Gnome theme so I didn’t include it in the picture.

And an obligatory slightly creepy photo of Crenn from a distance. She did stop by our table twice, make small talk with us and was really nice (and told us all to eat more).

State Bird Provisions

State Bird Provisions serves most of it’s food dim sum style — on carts that are pushed around.

State Bird is super, incredibly popular right now. Shamiq and I were lucky to get a table in September and I’m going back tomorrow! It seemed like a good time to revisit what I ate last time and do something with the pictures…

Avocado something, tortilla chips, seafood salsa

Salmon & corn salad with heirloom tomatoes. I really liked the flavor combination in this dish.

Guinea hen dumplings in broth. Good, but very mild. Probably the dish that stood out to me the least.

Fried bread with burrata, one cannot go wrong with carbs and fat.

Short stack: corn pancakes, garlic chives, mt tam. I’m stealing this flavor combination.

Cocoa nib flatbread, chantrelle paste, cured yolks. This was magic. I’ve since tried to cure my own yolks, but I have no hope of recreating the flatbread or the chantrelle paste. Must go back.

State Bird with Provisions. I guess this is the dish they’re named for. It was good, but not as good as some of the other dishes. I propose they rename themselves to “Short Stack,” or “Magic Flatbread with Stuff.”

Steak tartar with shishitos.

Yeasted sesame pancake with bocalones.

Fried eggplant with avocado aioli. I love eggplants.

Japanese cheesecake with strawberries and tomatoes. Good, but paled in comparison to…

Fig ice cream sandwiches of amazingness. I think it’s both the flavor combination and being really, really well made.

Favorite dishes: Salmon + corn, Flatbread, Short stack & Ice cream sandwiches
Total cost for two, ~$110 (all of the above + a $6 pot of tea)

Black Cod?

This weekend I bought a piece of fish labelled as “black cod” from Monteray Market (Fish market?) in Berkeley. I cooked it up in a little soy, black bean paste and sesame oil… But I was surprised to find that my fish reminded me a lot of Patagonian Toothfish/Chilean Sea Bass, which I try to avoid eating. It was fatty, slightly flakey and mild flavored. My dad got suspicious and pointed out that maybe “black cod” was a name for a scarier sounding fish, the same way Patagonian Toothfishes are marketed as “Chilean Seabass.” Wikipedia tells me that there is a black cod — complete with anti-freeze proteins in its blood. But also, that “black cod” is sometimes applied to sablefish, and Wikipedia even adds that sablefish is similar to Chilean Seabass. Now I’m wondering, which fish did I eat?

raccoon*

adventures of a cosmic procyonid