AQ, SF

This is another one of the restaurants I probably would not choose, if it was just me.  But Lingon likes these kinds of restaurants - more upscale, small plates with foam, Californian fusion blahblah, you get the idea.  And honestly, this restaurant is unique enough that I didn't mind.  The kicker for me was that I had a 1 for 1 Sosh deal, and we got a 4-course menu for 2 at less than $85.

The restaurant was AQ.  A beautiful space in a not so beautiful part of SOMA.  4 times a year, they entirely revamp the decor of the interior to reflect the current season.  Not surprisingly, the menu changes seasonally too.  They recently (or maybe not so recently) changed the menu to a prix fixe menu instead of a la carte, which I did not love, because it means overeating.

It was not bad, but we were not in love.  For the price we got, and a fun dining experience, it was a good buy.  I would not be in a hurry to go back, but will definitely peek in to see the new decor if I pass by.

Basik Cafe, SF

My new favourite place for healthy food is Basik Cafe in Russian Hill on Polk Street.  This summer has been especially hot, which has contributed to my constant desire to go back to this place.  Thankfully I do not live near this place, otherwise a lot of my hard earned moolah would be spent here.  They serve acai bowls and smoothies.  I honestly have no real idea what acai is, I think it is a berry, and it is really quite a hot superfood right now.  Antioxidants, super vitamins, blahblah.  I really do feel very good after eating it, not sure if it's psychological, or if it is the cold yummy goodness going down my oesophagus on a hot SF summer day, but either way, no complaints.  It is rather expensive, at $11 for a small bowl, and the $14 large bowl seems like a much more worthy investment.  I imagine myself going there with Lingon and sharing a bowl, but most of the time he's too busy and I'm not sure he digs the stuff as much as me anyway.  To date, I have tried 2 different bowls, both amazing.  A friend introduced me to this place when it first opened, as he knew of it from friends of friends.  Apparently the couple who started it are from Hawaii, and had tried this concept there, and brought it here.  I don't think the bowl itself is a new concept, but maybe their ingredients are super fresh or something?

Here is the menu.  I don't understand why I did not even try cropping the photo, so now it looks worse than my usual not-so-great-anyway photos, but here is.

Here are my food pictures.  I have tried both the forager and the banyan.  They use the Nature's Farm pumpkin seed granola, which is my favourite granola on the earth.  So that's great, right?  Except I have that all the time, bought in bulk from Costco, so honestly I feel a bit jipped, but it does taste really really good with the acai bowl.  The first picture is the Forager, and the second is the Banyan.  I think Banyan is really popular.  Oh gawd I could use a bowl right now, looking at these pictures.  Yum.

Kabuto Sushi, SF

This post is almost 6 months ago, wow.  We decided to go to Kabuto Sushi in the Richmond one February weekend, and lo and behold they had their Valentine's Day menu.  OK, it really was not that surprising, since it was the weekend after Valentine's Day, but still, big yay!  I had been here eons ago, and had always wanted to come back, but Lingon and I are so lazy that we rarely get out of our immediate neighbourhood to get some good grub.  The dishes were not served in the same order as the menu, so I reorganized the photos and made them match the menu, but I thought that was really weird.  I thought the food was very innovative and delish.  I would DEFINITELY go back, but if only it was not so far away...  I want to say this cost about $80ish/person before tax (just the food, we didn't get anything to drink except maybe tea), really good price for so much food.  So innovative, and the ingredients were pretty amazing!

Tomasso's, SF

Tomasso's.  Does not take reservations.  More than an hour's wait at 5.30pm on a Sunday.  Boo.  We went to a nearby bar to get a drink.  When we came back, we ate like hungry people too.  We got a risotto with mussels, gnocchi, and 2 pizzas.  All very delicious and decadent tasting, but for the wait time, I'm sure there are other places that will serve us just as yummy without having to hang around longer than necessary.

Crystal Jade Jiang Nan, SF

Crystal Jade Jiang Nan opened in San Francisco late last year.  As this is a Singapore chain that I go to quite often when I am in Singapore, I was naturally curious about it.  After the first few weeks/months of reviews, it became clear I would not venture there on my own.  Overpriced with horrific service was my takeaway.

Every year, for Chinese New Year, Lingon gets taken out for work to some Chinese restaurant, and I get to tag along.  Usually this dinner is at R&G Lounge, but this year they had it at Crystal Jade!  Happiness!

So off we went to see the restaurant that cost $14m to build.  It looked like it could have cost $2-4 million to build.  I did not see the opulence that this $14m should have given.  Seriously disappointing.

For dinner, we were served in the high-end Chinese restaurant style, where your dish brought out and displayed, and then served.  We got rather high-end looking stuff.  Started with hot and sour soup, which I have not had for ages and certainly is not high end but totally hit the spot.  Then prawns, abalone (or maybe mushroom?), black pepper beef, scallop, eefu noodles, and for dessert tang yuan and some kind of kueh seeming thing.  I really loved the food.

The service was a lot better than I expected, probably coz it was a pre-ordered dinner meal.  However, I was really annoyed with service, due to the disgusting amount of waste generated by the restaurant.  They pre-poured wine at every single seating, though one whole table of perhaps 20 people were not even there.  I had picked my seat already, so I had specifically told them no wine for me, but then another waiter came by and poured wine in my glass anyway.  So, 21 glasses of wine, very generous pours, no one drinking.  I was very upset and told the service staff that, but they claimed they did were not wasting.  I mean, HUH?  At least they boxed up the rest of the meal, so I took some home and gave it away.  As I reflect on this dinner that took place a few months ago, I'm also annoyed at either the people who RSVP'd and did not show up, or the organizer who did not manage head count properly.  I hate waste.  Thanks for listening to me rant.

The surprise of the evening came at the end.  I was looking for the bathroom, or maybe my phone which was charging at the bar, when I came across the service staff making lots of noise.  I went by, and realized they were doing this thing called lo hei or yusheng that I had done during previous Chinese New Years back in Singapore.  The dish is made of a bunch of shredded vegetables and sashimi grade salmon.  According to Wikipedia, "all diners at the table then stand up and proceed to toss the shredded ingredients into the air with chopsticks while saying various "auspicious wishes" out loud, or simply "lo hei, lo hei" (撈起, 撈起, in Mandarin lāoqǐ, lāoqǐ, meaning "scoop it up, scoop it up"). It is believed that the height of the toss reflects the height of the diners' growth in fortunes, thus diners are expected to toss enthusiastically."  I got to practice a custom that I had not done for the past 13 years (wow!), and that was truly special.

In conclusion, I'm not sure I would ever go by myself to Crystal Jade in SF.  The dim sum looks way too high-end, and in general the place is too expensive.  I believe we had super exceptional service since we were there for an event, but I think any other circumstance would be a let down.

Plaj, SF

We took my FIL to Plaj to celebrate his Swedish heritage for his 65th birthday.  I had resisted going here, just coz the menu looked rather unexciting and I had heard mixed reviews about this place.  But it seemed fitting for a Swedish man to celebrate his 65th at a Swedish restaurant, so here we went.

We ordered the herring, smoked salmon and meat platter for starters.  They were all good, but I felt these were things we could obtain on our own.  The presentation was great though and definitely something I would not to to replicate.  Then we ordered a full portion of meatballs and the gnocchi with mushrooms.  Again, the meatballs were good, but I felt I could get them really cheaply at the Nordic store.  The gnocchi was my favourite dish, perfectly rolled and cooked potato dumplings and crispy on the outside.  I adored the hen of the wood mushrooms, but one one else seemed to like them much though (good for me, I had extra!).

For dessert we had the princess cake and "Northern Lights: chocolate terrine, lingonberry sorbet, italian meringue".  Princess cake is one of my favourite cakes (practically ever cake is one of my favourite cakes, but let us roll with this one), but their take on it was quite unique.  The had the cake with the layers of cream and jam in a jar, and a marzipan layer covered the top of the jar, tied by twine.  It was a good cake.  The Northern Lights was a chocolate and lingonberry layer covered by meringue, more like marshmellows actually.  Not bad, but objectively not my favourite thing in the world.

I think the portions for the savoury food were small for the prices.  The food was good, not spectacular.  Presentation was wonderful and innovative.  I would pass on this for a second visit.  I had low expectations, but was extremely pleasantly surprised, and I think it actually was a good restaurant and meal.

Hog and Rocks, SF

I had my last foie gras in San Francisco before the ban with Tutu.  Here I was having the first foie gras in San Francisco after the ban got lifted with Tutu.  We decided to go to Hog and Rocks after seeing an SFGate article on the foie gras burger.

We ordered their signature deviled eggs to start, which was served with "country ham and fried oyster".  It was like oyster po boy on a deviled egg, an I loved it.  However it is simple enough that I think maybe some day I will have the courage to make it at home.

Then we got the foie gras torchon, which was a pate served on a slice of toast with sea salt and I have no idea what this dark looking spread on the bread was.  It was on their specials menu and was pretty good.  We also got the foie gras burger, which was a decent burger.  However the foie gras piece was not huge, and I decided to split the burger and the foie gras and eat them separately, and that worked out better for me.

I'm sure there are better places to get foie gras, but the power of suggestion brought me here.  I'm sure I've had enough foie to last me for the next few months and I'm happy.  :-)

Humphry Slocombe's Foie Gras Ice Cream Sandwich, SF

This is my first foie escapade since the California ban got overturned.  I was pretty excited.  The thing set me back $5, and it was tiny, which was OK, since foie should really only be consumed in small quantities.  The foie gras sandwich was in between 2 ginger cookies.  I really could only taste the ginger cookies, no idea where they are from but I read that Humphry Slocombe's owner was opening a bake shop of some kind.  No taste of foie so I was a bit sad.  Guess I have to go for the real thing.  It was not bad or anything, but when you expect to taste foie and don't, that's always a bummer!

On a side note, they had a white chocolate lavender and green tea matcha flavour which I really liked.  Thank goodness for samples!  I also tried the olive oil one, but for some reason all I could taste was lemon.

I think I still have $116 of my $150 kudos left for the shop.  I will be back to have some different flavours, but I will not be a repeat foie customer!

Kiss Seafood, SF

Kiss Seafood is a tiny little sushi joint in Japantown, with a counter seating 5 (maybe 6) people, and a couple of other small tables.  So, if you want to try this place, make a reservation in advance.  We saw a couple being turned away and felt sad for them.  The restaurant had a decent menu.

We decided to go with the chef's special omakase.

The food was good, and at a very reasonable price too.  I wouldn't say it blew me away, but I enjoyed their sashimi and nigiri might go back for their sashimi or sushi platters.  The husband and wife team were adorable and super nice.  I wish I stayed nearer to Japantown, so many Japanese restaurants to explore.

The Progress, SF

The sequel to State Bird Provisions, The Progress, opened a few weeks ago.  A friend of mine, Zito, who I got a few difficult reservations for before, asked me if I could get him a reservation at The Progress, thinking I had some special way to get reservations.  Really, my method is kind of lame.  I don't own bots who can read those security words or numbers, nor do I have any chums in the restaurant industry who can get me any reservation I want.  I do have a few people I could contact that could possibly help, but I've never really tried those leads before.  Anyhow, when I read about The Progress opening, I pretty much kept myself on the OpenTable reservation site, and kept refreshing, and VOILA!  I scored myself a couple of reservations (at bad times though), one which I gave away, and one which I decided to treat myself to a meal I thought I probably would not enjoy that much.  Now, I don't want to say I went to dine there thinking the food would suck - it is more of a I-went-to-State-Bird-twice-and-tried-to-like-it-but-didn't-so-I-think-the-style-is-not-for-me thing.

Anyway here goes.

The restaurant was behind a nondescript door that really could have been an office or something, but the street number corresponded with the address, so in we went.  I liked the design of the restaurant itself, tolerably well spaced, out, somewhat modern with a warehouse feel, with two upstairs dining areas.  We were brought to one of them.

The menu was family style, and the price for 6 items was $65/person.  Any additional item would be $10/person.  I'm a fan of family style dining, but the fact was you could not get more dishes and smaller quantities of food per person, which I'm quite into.  But fine.  Here were our choices, and we actually got both the desserts not checked off in the menu which was quite nice (they allow you to split only the dessert order).  The menu had a lot of words we did not understand.  For example, ridgeback.  So our friend Googled it, and came up with pictures of dogs.  Hmm.  We later found out it was prawns, and it became one of our selection.  Now, I had been intrigued by pig fries, from all the reviews on Yelp, thinking it was fries fried in pig fat, which really should have sounded disgusting but did not.  Later found out it was ears and cartilage and all that stuff fried to a crisp, and glad the table passed on that.

So, we got our food.  The lighting was poor, and for some reason I decided to photograph the squab with flash, so that one seems to stand out.  Well, to sum it up, many of the flavours seemed foreign, if I had to name it I would say Scandinavian.  Earlier this year, I went to Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and I can safely say I did not love the Scandinavian flavours of Iceland nor Norway all that much.  The Swedish Swedish (yes I meant to write it twice - Lingon likes to correct my writing for typos and misspellings and grammatical errors) food tasted better, though it was like reindeer meat which tasted like pork in cream sauce (how can that taste wrong?!) and salmon cake (layers of smoked salmon which was not foul like some other Scandinavian smoked salmon I have tasted, shrimp, etc.) which tasted like flavours of home that I'm familiar with.  Well, I did not like this meal.

It is not my style to be super descriptive about what I ate, and I think that's rather boring and takes a long time, so instead I decide to bore you with why I write what I write.  Lol.  Anyway, the squab tasted the best of everything, and I also enjoyed the super rich chocolate ice cream, particularly for the olive oil flavour, but everything else was...

(Thanks for the photo, Zito.)

Having said that, most of the table liked the meal better than I did.  The feedback was they would not make a special trip there, but if someone said he/she wanted to visit, they would go along and dine there again.  So, like I said, it probably is just me.  No thanks, Progress, or State Bird, our love affair is over.

Garden Bakery, SF

I get a lot of food inspiration from reading articles about the bay area.  One of them was about Chinatown.  I love eating in Chinatown.  First of all it reminds me of home.  Second of all I actually do love Chinese food, though as I get older I find the grease actually makes me physically feel not so good.  It is the little shops with small eats and street-like food that I love.  Check out the article here.

Lingon and I mutually agreed on Garden Bakery, since it had Chinese pastries and supposedly good coffee.  In addition to the spongecake, pineapple bun (right picture) and pork bun that the article recommended, I also got the wife cake, or lao po bing.  Everything was not bad, but nothing fabulous, except the pineapple bun which came hot out of the oven.  For those who have no idea what a pineapple bun is, it really has no pineapple in it, but the top is baked so that it supposedly looks like the exterior of a pineapple.  Wikipedia has a good article about it here.

I actually would go back here again for the pineapple bun, but definitely want to check out the other Chinese bakeries in the area!

Cotogna (booking on Sosh), SF

This is a long overdue email but I wanted to give a shout out to Sosh (which is a source of last minute activities, of which I am mainly interested in dining) and Cotogna.

Sosh send me a bizarre email, saying I was a VIP on their app, though the only time I had used their app was using a friend's account and even so I had only used it once!  Well, they were offering a free dinner and the Mushroom usually does not turn down free things.  I managed to secure the Al Prezzo Fisso menu with wine pairing at Cotogna and invited Tutu with me, since Lingon was out of town.  Value was $28 for dinner and $18 for wine, for 2 people, free!  Woohoo!!

For the starter, we had gazpacho, which was really good considering I like neither tomato soup nor cold soups in general.  The tomatoes had a good... tomato-y flavour, and was not too sweet.

For the main, we had ravioli di porchetta.  Rich and cheesy.  Super yummy.

For dessert we had what was basically a very rich chocolate mousse, with seasonal fruit, mainly figs and perhaps peach.  The chocolate mousse was SO good.  I cleaned the little canister.

I must say my relationship with Cotogna had started out a bit rocky, but the past two times I had been there it was great!  I'm starting to be a fan.  Keep on rocking, Cotogna!

Little Skillet, SF

My craving for fried chicken and waffles was finally satisfied.  Little Skillet had been on my to-go list forever.  I ordered through the Paypal app, got my $5 off, and drove to pick it up.  When I arrived at the counter, it was ready, and I took it home all excited!  Took it home and plated it beautifully.  The chicken itself was great, good tasty batter.  The waffles were a bit soggy, possibly by no fault of theirs (such goodness is always best eaten fresh), and even so I did not really like the taste.  The syrup was supposed to be some peach something or another syrup, and that I did not love either.  Glad I got that one off the list, but the next fried chicken and waffles will probably be Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland.

16th Avenue Stairs, SF

Not to state the obvious, but San Francisco has a ton of hidden gems.  I recently found this article (picture #5 in the article) that reminded me of the beautiful 16th Avenue Mosaic stairs, and decided as part of our Tuesday date I wanted to go there with Lingon.

Supposedly 163 stairs high, we went there and walked.  It was indeed very beautiful, brightly coloured tiles depicting a swirly picture of animals and plants.  Here is an article about the building of the stairs.

We then proceeded to the zig zag staircase which was tucked away behind the wall we were faced with upon finishing the first flight of stairs.

We arrived at Grand View Park and were greeted with MAGNIFICENT views of the north and west of San Francisco.  Wow!  The picture is not that big, but you can see downtown in the right background and the Golden Gate Bridge towards the left of the picture.  I am always amazed by this beautiful city I call home.

A little below the 16th Avenue stairs were the less-known Hidden Garden Steps.  Another neighbourhood initiative.  Impressive.  Hats off to the neighbours who put time and money into the project.

A fun little excursion for us downtown folks who find a trip even just to Pacific Heights a trek.

Ramen Bar, SF

Finally a ramen place close by to me!  Ramen Bar, by Michael Mina.  Collectively the three of us ordered:
SF CHASU MISO-BUTTER HOKKAIDO: braised pork, garlic, sweet corn, soy-cured egg (richer, bolder flavor)
TOKYO-STYLE KUROBUTA PORK: wakame, soy-cured egg, spinach (lighter, aromatic broth)
GINGER-BRAISED CHICKEN: soy-cured egg, bamboo, spinach, yuzukosho (lighter, aromatic broth)

I did not love the noodles, felt a bit like instant noodles, but the broths were pretty good.  At $14, $12 and $12 a bowl the portions were decent too especially for downtown.  Special shout out to the ginger-braised chicken broth.  The broth was as described, light and aromatic, and I was pleasantly surprised by how flavourful yet clean tasting it was.  Yeah I think I would go back again when the craving for ramen returns and I do not feel like going somewhere far away.  Might be interesting to try the donburis, or add on a braised pork belly.

Plin, SF

I had a friend tell me recently that he liked my travel posts but my food posts were boring.  Well cheers to you too!


Here is a fairly recent restaurescape at Plin, which has been opened for a couple of months now.  The chef, Alexander Alioto, was formerly at Seven Hills which we loved, and when I read he moved, I just had to try is new place!  We decided the pastas were probably the stars of the menu, so we ordered only a couple of appetizers, almost all the pastas, and one entree.  After the first pasta came, it looked so tiny since we only ordered the half, so we asked for everything else to be changed to the full portion.  We were 5 people.  Bad mistake.  We did not finish our food and I think we were mostly uncomfortably full after the meal.  :-(

Now for pictures and review...

Top left: Cold Spaghetti and Raw Wild Halibut - fresh heirloom tomato puree, basil.  Not bad but nothing spectacular.
Bottom left: Fried Chilean Seabass - black bean sauce, green onions, lemon vinaigrette.  The fish was very nicely fried but I cared not for the black bean sauce.
Top and middle right:  butter perfectly salted, bread.  Did I say perfectly salted?
Bottom right: New Zealand Smoked Salmon and Potato Cake - zested salt cured egg yolk, onion gelatin, caper leaves, lime juice.  Nothing special, I hate ordering smoked salmon at restaurants but they wanted it.  Shrug.

Spaghetti with Grandpa George's sausage - green bell pepper, caramelized onion, tomato sauce.  Great, hearty spaghetti.
Raviolo al Uovo  - Parmesan cheese, spinach, ricotta cheese, brown butter, truffle oil
parmesan chip.  This is what he is famous for.  It was delicious and decadent.
Risotto with Fontina Cheese - chicken skins, Thompson grapes, veal demi, citrus zest.  Rich and creamy and delicious.
Fettuccine Carbonara - Fra ‘Mani pancetta, egg yolks, black pepper, Parmesan cheese.  This seemed to be the table's least favourite thing - lack of richness according to the Dawg.  We rarely order cream based pastas since Lingon likes to pretend to be healthy, so I really enjoyed it and the pancetta had a nice ZING! to it.
Confit Chicken Cannelloni - tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, chicken demi, lemon zest .  This was well made but I did not find it particularly innovative or special.
Grilled Hawaiian Walu - eggplant puree, blended heirloom tomato, Jimmy Nardello Italian peppers, fried capers.  Like I said, the pastas are what you come here for.  Pass.
Seafood Risotto with Uni and Mussels - chives, croutons, parsley.  Now, I like uni with everything.  This was sublime.
Gnocchi with Stracciaella Cheese - chili flakes, fennel pollen.  Like the cannelloni, well made but nothing too special.

I really enjoyed the meal.  Some of the more special items were a delight, and if someone is just looking for good ol' traditional pasta, this place is great for that too!  I would definitely go back, though probably not too soon, since my stomach is still digesting that food days later...  Consider this my carbo load for tomorrow's half marathon.  :-)

Maruya, SF

A friend brought up Maruya a few months ago, which I had never heard of before.  After that, though, I started reading about it left, right and center.  Finally made it out there last night!

We took the BART since it's the best way to get to 16th and Mission without dealing with creepy people standing around the streets, worrying about whether they will smash your windows in with a hammer.  Also fastest, maybe 10 minute BART ride from Embarcadero to 16th and Mission.  Walked on 16th to find the restaurant, which was mostly unmarked but looked Japanese.  We were unsure but then I saw the small paper menu posted right outside the restaurant, confirmed that was it, and then went in.

The restaurant itself was simply furnished.  A bar that seated maybe 12, and a few small tables in the dining room.  I heard the bathroom sink seems like a spa, with some kind of scented steam coming out when one washes one's hands, but my aversion to public-ish restrooms prevented me from visiting.

At Maruya, one can get the Maruya omakase for $85, which is a combination of cooked food, sushi and sashimi, or the chef omakase for A.Q. (gotta love this), which is mainly nigiri, or the sashimi moriawase (choice of $50, 80 or 120), which is mainly sashimi.  For the latter 2, you can tell them if you want more or less pieces, compromising or promoting the quality of fish, but otherwise it is about 10 pieces of nigiri and I counted about 15 pieces of sashimi on my other dining friends' plate(s).  One can also get an a la carte sushi menu with a minimum spend of $80/person, which no one at my table of 4 opted for.

We each started with a persimmon and pear appetizer, with cinnamon and lime salt.  The salts were great!  The persimmon was not as sweet and juicy as I had expected/hoped for, but the salt made up for me.

On to the Maruya omakase, which is what I got.  I had some trio of vegetable dish (so so and the thick dip whose consistency resembled hummus was fairly tasteless), prawn (amazing) and truffle tofu (not bad).  Then I had a fried eggplant topped with some greens and tiny little fish-looking things, I enjoyed this.  The cooked fish was rather dry, I would pass on this.  The sashimi was mixed - tuna was really great and super fresh, salmon was good, and the last fish, not sure what it was, tasted like wet socks (yucks).  Then I had 8 pieces of nigiri, for me the most memorable being the last 2 of 8 - chu toro which was fatty enough without grossing one out, and the uni (of Santa Barbara) which was the most creamy decadent uni I think I've ever had which grossed me out thinking about it but was really SUPER yummy.

2 people of the 4 at our table ordered the chef omakase, at A.Q..  They had an oyster with uni and roe, which they liked.  Then there was some vegetable wrapped in some pickled cucumber/vegetable of some sort, which I got to try a bit of, and it was very meh.  The next raw fish dish was so so, it's a fish whose consistency I do not love anyway, a bit chewy and springy, so that's just a biased opinion.  They had a few nigiri courses which Lingon enjoyed.  The second nigiri in this picture was mine, they had something that looked similar but I think I forgot to take a picture.  However, their uni was from Japan, which initially pissed me off because I felt I was getting inferior uni.  Upon eating mine though, nothing mattered, because I just went to uni heaven.  I'm sure theirs tasted good too, but without trying theirs, I would never have known.  So, the one thing about this was that when the bill came, there was an additional $50 (for 2 people, so $25 each).  I wanted to know what on earth this was for, and apparently it was the cost of the first 3 cold dishes.  Totally not worth it since it was nothing special or particularly delicious, so I would recommend to specifically request NOT to get this.  Waste of money, though not a fortune, can still buy you 3 cheap meals in the Financial District.

The last member at our table got the sashimi, requesting no mackerel and shellfish.  She had a cold dish or two, and then her sashimi bowl came.  Beautifully presented, the fish looked very bright and of high quality, and she enjoyed it.

We all then had a clam miso soup.  The clams were fat (that's a good thing) and I thought they were rather fresh tasting, but then I detected a strange after taste which told me either they were not super fresh, or I was being hyper sensitive.

We ended with a yuzu lemonade which was a nice surprise, well appreciated, and frankly really good.  I love yuzu, and this was a refreshing end to the meal and was even a bit fizzy!

I doubt I will be visiting Maruya again.  For some reason cooked fish has not been all that great lately in restaurants for me, and we can get great raw fish at Akiko's which is a walk vs a BART ride away.  As usual, I'm glad I visited, and some of the food was good, but it was not consistent enough for me to make the trek (yes, I'm lazy) out to the Mission.  Oh, but if you visit, don't forget, do NOT get that cold dish stuff if it is extra $!

Pabu, SF (A Revisit)

Take 2 at Pabu.  We had heard numerous people tell us how wonderful it was, people whose food recommendations I somewhat trusted.  What we were told was that the omakase was really good.  Despite my lack of love for Michael Mina, I felt like I had to give the restaurant a second chance and try this much-raved omakase.

So off to Pabu we went.

According to the website, the tasting menu changes daily, but the date on the page as of today said August 27, 2014.  Seemed similar with variations.  I guess I cannot tell you exactly what we ate but here is my attempt.

Happy spoon - kusshi oyster, uni, ikura, tobiko, ponzu crème fraîche.  This dish is not pictured below, but we had it the last time and it was rich and delicious as we had remembered.
Some kind of raw fish, maybe kanpachi - great
Sushi courses - I would say this was truly the highlight.  The menu currently posted on the website shows 4 sushi courses, but I only have 3 pictures, which makes me think I got cheated and makes me angry.  However I think we did get tuna, which is what's missing in my photos, so maybe I was too greedy and ate without snapping a photo.  My favourite was the very fishy fish course, mackerel and all that.  Coming a close second was the shellfish course, clams, prawn, etc.  Normally I don't like the sweet raw prawn but this was exceptional and I think I'm ready to order this on my own!
Shabu - OK, something has to be done about this sad tasteless dish.  I love shabu.  But this extremely expensive shabu had no flavour whatsoever.  The sad little rolls of meat were very tender but seriously lacking flavour.  The dipping sauces were not particularly tasty or unique, I know I can buy that from Nijiya and it will taste better with my homemade broth and dipping sauce from a bottle.  I had contemplated requesting for something else instead of the shabu, but Lingon did not want me to confuse the server too much because we were eating with other people.  Should have listened to my gut, as usual.  Barf.  The vegetables were very sad too.  So I'm going to stop beating on this poor dish, but please do not order eat.
Dessert - I see Asian pear and some ice cream which may have been berry-like.  The pear was amazing, except I hated the fact that they poured sake into the dish.  Had I known that was what they were doing, I would have stopped them instantly.

So in conclusion (I feel like I'm writing an A Levels paper or something), the happy spoon and nigiri was fabulous, shabu sucked (which was sad since this course took a long time) and the dessert could have been nice for other people except I did not love the sake.  Order the nigiri portion of the tasting menu but don't waste your time with the shabu, seriously

Lazy Bear, SF

Disclaimer:  We have a tiny stake in this restaurant, since getting a reservation was impossible, we decided to put some money into it and have access to reservations.  Expensive way to get a table, hopefully it pays off.

Lazy Bear started off as a pop up by chef David Barzelay who wanted to find a new direction in life from his previous job.  I believe he taught himself to cook, and did not receive any, or much, formal cooking education.  After a few years of pop up restaurant-ing, and a few failed attempts at getting a restaurant space, he and his team finally did it!  There are 2 seatings each night, and each guest is served the same dish at the same time.  Here is a photo of the interior of the restaurant, located in the Mission district of San Francisco.

There is an upstairs lounge area that you are escorted to to enjoy some snacks before the dinner formally starts.  Here is a photo of our snacks.  I found them to be very innovative and delicious, except for the cocktail which I found pretty gross but it may be because I do not drink much.

Some cocktail, whipped scrambled eggs (bacon, maple, hot sauce), shigoku oyster (tomato water gelee, fennel pollen, jalapeno oil, cherry tomatoes, black salt), damson plum brulee (chicken liver mousse, brioche, sorrel), sweet corn custard (american white sturgeon caviar), charred tomatillo (beef jerky, creme fraiche, radish)

Then we headed downstairs for the main courses.  Each guest was given a Lazy Bear book with a description of each dish inside.  As they served each dish, a member of the kitchen would come out to talk a little about it.  The pastry chef was a sweet-looking girl and she presented the last 2 dishes, which were the desserts, but she seemed very nervous or at least she was extremely fidgety and she really needs to work on presentation.  Everything was interesting and seriously delicious, and I think I say this without much bias since I am usually pretty objective.  My favourite was probably the shellfish course with the grits.  The only dish I found a tad boring and unfun and not the most yummy was the meat course, right before dessert.  That disappointed me.  The sourdough ice cream thing was most unique with a funny yeasty taste that tasted probably much better than I'm describing.

Bay laurel and molasses bread (cultured butter, buttermilk), chilled lettuce soup (little gems, summer squash, fried anchovy, parsley), delta crawfish (carolina gold rice grits, spot prawn, cucumber, celery, purslane), guinea hen (butter bean, chanterelles, fine herbes, hen jus), seared sungolds (smoked beef striploin, basil, amaranth, tomato raisins), pluots (pluot consomme gelee, myoga, ginger curd, shiso, mint), sourdough (scotch, pears, earl grey, crysanthemum)

Just when you think the meal is over, out comes some dessert-y snacks/petits fours.  Really, I could not fit it into the picture above, that's why it is by itself.  There were macarons, a sesame ball filled with I believe chocolate (like a dim sum, it was described to us), some berry jelly thing, some chocolate thing and maybe a brittle which is what it looks like.

Simply called treats

I had a wonderful experience at Lazy Bear.  My big complaint is the cadence was a bit of, sometimes the food came out at a nice pace and sometimes it was very slow.  I suppose it was only day 3 of cooking for them so they might still have things to work out.  Sadly it is so hard to get normal reservations on the website since they use a ticketing system that to me is impossible.  The famous Alinea restaurant has a perhaps more casual restaurant offspring called NEXT with this system, which Lazy Bear adopted, and I never managed to get tickets to NEXT.  Glad I don't have to deal with that.

Benihana, SF

I went to Benihana for the first time, as we got a $30 birthday discount coupon!  The meal started with some shrimp appetizer, soup, salad, rice (white and chicken fried for additional $4) and grilled zucchini and onions.  I was amazed at the amount of butter they used.  No wonder even their zucchini tasted so good!  Notable was the fried rice and grilled zucchini and onions.  Everything else was just OK.

We ordered the filet mignon and Ocean Treasure (lobster, scallops and colossal shrimp).  They were all decent, except the scallops which did not taste very fresh and were tough.

The chef from the cooking area behind us missed his toss-the-shrimp-tail-in-his-hat and it landed up on our grill plate.  See the picture in the top right.  I thought that was funny.

There is a Benihana rip off place in Berkeley called Hana.  Their portions were bigger, it might have been around the same price or slightly less expensive, and the fried rice was free.  Also they did more tricks like set the onion tower on fire.  Maybe next time we will go to Hana, though that remains to be seen because it is further away.