food, and other musings

Pie oh My!

Got a hankering for freshly baked organic pie? Find out where to get a slice over at KQED's Bay Area Bites.

Piqueo's

My latest addiction? The picadillos served at Piqueo's, San Francisco's newest Peruvian restaurant. Read all about it at KQED's Bay Area Bites.

Surprise!

My friend D. called me about an hour ago.

"Listen," she started, breathless, "my company has a killer dinner reservation Sunday night that they can't fill and they're opening it up to employees. Are you guys interested?"

And that's how it is that Mr. Food Musings and I will be eating dinner this weekend at The French Laundry.

Nearly 4 years after our first and only visit, we are going back. Mr. FM's suit went to the cleaners this morning, I just found us a last minute hotel, and I'm picking out my best dress. French Laundry, here we come.

Cafe Majestic Lives up to its Name

Curious about the newly reopened Cafe Majestic? Read about my dinner over at KQED's Bay Area Bites.

quick shout-out

As much as you surely enjoy my restaurant write-ups, sometimes it's important to compare notes. The next time you want a few more opinions from the blogosphere, you don't have to click around and around and around -- all you have to do is click over to Blog Soop SF. Love it!

Presidio Social Club

Get down with PSC (yeah you know me!). Check out my latest dinner at Presidio Social Club over at KQED's Bay Area Bites.

GO TO CAFE MAJESTIC!

Last night, we had the best "new restaurant meal" we've had all year. When a media invite for the reopened Cafe Majestic in Sutter Street's century-old Hotel Majestic popped into my inbox,  I admit I was nonplussed. But it's time again for me to start eating my way through the Northside in preparation for our  3rd annual Best Food issue, and CM is definitely in the 'hood. So I accepted the very nice invitation and in we went last night.

Well.

I mean, wow.

Or, like, SHAZAM!

That was one fine meal. Chef Ian Begg (CM's second, for the record) has been flying under the radar in our fair City (or at least under mine). He is a master of combining flavors -- bitter, sweet, salty, sour, you name it -- as well as textures -- smooth, crisp, chewy, creamy. Nearly every dish hit three or four notes in each category, most in refreshing ways, and each dish was beautifully constructed.

Think soft, pink Hawaiian ono with slightly bitter, julienned pea shoots, sea urchin cream, and chili oil.
Think gnocchi with roasted cippolini onions, asparagus tips, and white truffle oil.
Think raspberry-fleshed venison, tart marmalade, firm fiddlehead ferns, creamy pine nuts.
Think lime in the mignonette for our Marin Miyagis -- a small, but magical change.

Okay, it wasn't a perfect meal from head to toe -- I thought the amuse was too lemony and the dessert far too sweet (dates and honey together just sent it over the top) but the other five courses were about as lovely as it gets in this town.

I fear that being so excited and so exclamatory may backfire on me. It has before. I went in with no expectations -- a local, seasonal Cal/French menu (yawn) in a restaurant I'd never heard of (hm?) with a chef I'd never heard of -- but everyone who was there last night was buzzing about it. The couple next to us even offered us a bite of chocolate cake on the way out, just so we could  enjoy the same pleasure they were. It was a talk-across-the-tables kind of night.

Several of the staff, including our waiter, chef Begg, and the manager, the very enthusiastic Ryan Maxey, have worked together for years (previously at Vignette, I believe).

The interior has been redone, and it's not hip. It's not lime green and orange. It's not loud or retro or modern. It's not even allergic to dresses and heels. HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH, PEOPLE! Is anyone else as weary as I am of exposed brick and being bullied by SF's slackadaisical dress code to always wear denim?

Cafe Majestic won't be for everyone, I guess. Some people only want to eat frozen bubbles filled with molten seaweed, others are allergic to settings where salt is served in a glass sleigh bed and suits aren't out of place, but the rest of you, the next time you'd like a really nice meal? You go.

Pres a Vi

Does this make you hungry? It wouldn't if you ate it. Find out about my recent lackluster meal at Pres a Vi over at KQED's Bay Area Bites.

TWO

Lately, TWO has been the talk of the town. Find out what I thought about it after two visits in my first post for KQED's Bay Area Bites.

Recent Nibbles

It's been a slow week here at Food Musings. I didn't get stuck on a jury, but I did spend a day at the courthouse listening to bar bouncers and attorneys debate the relative merits of a defendant testifying or pleading the fifth. I've barely cooked a thing, other than a grilled ham-and-cheese from Easter leftovers for Mr. Food Musings last night after his recording session, followed quickly by his first BLT of the season (singing makes you hungry, I guess), but I have been out to eat more times than you can say "bye-bye slim thighs." As many of you may be making dinner plans for the weekend, I thought I'd offer a few of the week's best bites.

> Sweet baby lobster, black cod with kiwi, and white salmon sushi from Sushi Sam's. My friend S. finally got me down to the Bay Area's sushi mecca -- ask Gary Danko and Thomas Keller if you don't believe me -- and man, was it worth the short drive.

> Baked-to-order chocolate cupcakes dusted with powdered sugar and served with thick whipped cream to slather on to your heart's content at PSC (that's Presidio Social Club to you).

> A divine cocktail made with Buddha's hand-infused vodka, limoncello, sugar syrup and a splash of Campari, also at PSC. Who says pink lemonade is for sissies?

> A slice of whisper-thin, housemade pancetta and an entire plate of salumi at CAV wine bar.

> A bowl full of spinach-feta dip. (Hint: add a few heavy-handed dashes of Tabasco sauce.)

> The season's first strawberries.

Happy noshing, folks.