Bar Crudo

We had a genuinely good dinner tonight. In fact, I would even venture to call it great. Every bite we ate was good, right on, well done, and a few bites were even genius. It wasn't the kind of food that jumps out and grabs you by the gullet, but sometimes that's the best of all.

After an afternoon of work for the both of us, we were on our way home and stopped at the light near Sutter and Mason when we decided going out would be vastly better than going in. A quick mental scan of the 'hood revealed a proximity to Bar Crudo, which food blogger friends had raved about at the Saturday farmer's market, so Mr. Food Musings rang them up while I deftly executed a right-hand turn.

I guess on Mondays no one likes the bar because when we walked in we had our choice of seats (upstairs was packed in like sardines). We plopped down and proceeded to order about 25% of the menu: fresh Beausoleil and Kumamoto oysters; half a crab with drawn butter and homemade cocktail sauce, thick and sweet like tomato confit; lobster salad with fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes and fava beans; yellowfin tuna with pink peppercorns, lemon zest and olive oil; plump, fried soft shell crab with avocado mousse and a fava bean succotash with fresh mint; and a quartet of crudo including tuna with sesame and ginger, black bass with radishes, arctic char with fresh dill and wasabi, and scallop with fennel and oranges. All fresh, all pristine, all exquisite. Some things -- the thick homemade cocktail sauce, the mint in the succotash, the pairing of sweet lobster and creamy mozzarella -- were breathtaking.

In a fluke of bad luck, I had to reject dessert -- local XOX truffles -- because of a chocolate eating orgy this morning for an article I'm working on. Ah, well; the fresh seafood lingered longer in my memory, and so much the better.

Comments

[Mom]

Sounds great! Chocolate eating orgy??? Sounds even better!

[Joy]

I LOVE Bar Crudo...haven't gotten around to writing about it yet, though:).

[Alison]

my favourite place - love the crudo, and the cheese plate and the chowder...mmmmm might go there tonight!

[Susan]

Mike Selvera was the opening chef at Cafe Maritime when I first reviewed it. He was the best thing about that place, and I was sad when he left. Then he told me that he was opening Bar Crudo with his twin brother. Bill and I stopped in right after they opened and I loved the place. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Incidentally, he didn't have any intention of opening a crudo bar. They got the space and realized it wasn't going to work for a full service restaurant, and the rest is history.

[sam]

SO glad you liked it - but you didn't have the tuna confit (my absolute favourite) or the chowder (rich but good). We had the lobster salad last week too. yum. When we had it - they used burrata though, instead of mozzarella. Sounds like they have changed the menu since we were there only a few days before you.
But you know what - they never gave us an XOX truffle. Hmmph, I'd forgotten they were meant to do that. Now I feel short changed.

[tanvi]

Chocolate eating orgy? I wish I had your job ;-)

[Alison]

p.s. Susan, mike's brother is named Tim - although I'm not sure which one is which - i'm always getting them mixed up!

[Catherine]

Sam - we didn't have the confit but it was close. Mr. FM really wanted to have all 3 specials and our tummies are only so big! The cheese could have been a burrata, come to think of it. The waiter called it a mozz, but I remember thinking in the back of my mind that it was really soft and oozy. Finally, the truffles are by request -- it's the only dessert they serve.

[sam]

Aha - I see - the first time they just gave me one, but then I was dining with a VIP that time so we got special treatment.