Farewell to (Skinny) Arms at Farallon

I am trying to get out the last of my old-old-old San Francisco posts out by the end of the year, and I still have about ten more to go. When I sift through my backlog, it makes me feel good to relive (and simultaneously lament about the end of) my food experiences in San Francisco.

One post I have been meaning to get out for a while now, involves a meal that I shared with four of my closest friends. They wanted me to end my time in San Francisco with style. And thus, they treated me out to a dinner at Farallon, a San Francisco restaurant renowned for its distinctive interpretation of seafood, or "coastal cuisine," and its glistening blown-glass chandeliers, artfully sculpted into illuminated jellyfish chandeliers-of-sorts. Believe the hype, being in the restaurant really makes you feel like you are "under the sea," (to steal a line from Sebastian the crab).

Would you hate me if I just half-heartedly published a lackluster post with a bare-bones description of my meal at Farallon?

Bring on the hate.

First, as a flirtatious and tempting starter, the server brought us little porcelain spoonfuls of a preliminary amuse-bouche--a silky dollop of smoked salmon mousse. The piercing, smoky flavors of mesquite saturated the foamy mousse, and the mousse was delicately garnished with springy chive ringlets and droplet-sized puddles of extra virgin olive oil. It nicely whetted my appetite for what was to come.

My friends and I started with a tartlet that touted the inclusion of roasted yellow nectarines, Laura Chenel chevre, toasted almond slivers, and a simple lemon vinaigrette. The tartlet arrived at our table looking like a blistered puff pastry mattress with rotund ice-cream scoopful of chevre on the top. The supple nectarines looked like stewed tomatoes, oddly orbiting the tartlet. The tartlet itself sat squarely atop a nest of wilted Sausalito springs watercress. Despite the odd appearance, every element of the appetizer was packed with flavor: from the chevre to the watercress, and the roasted nectarines! The roasted nectarines stood head and shoulders above the rest of the dish.

We also shared an appetizer of rouget stuffed with wild mushrooms and served in a coconut lemongrass sauce with English peas and sweet fennel. I was interested in tasting the fusion elements of the dish, but the licorice-flavored fennel and English peas did not stimulate or ignite my taste buds as much as I anticipated, because they were a little drowned out by the coconut-lemongrass sauce. However, the pungent, fishy flavor of the rouget paired pleasantly with the thick coconut milk-based sauce. My only discontent with the dish lies in the fact that the portion was a little small (as you can tell from the picture--look at the peas to get an idea). While the rough skin of rouget was calloused like a brillo-pad, it provided much needed exfoliation for my tongue, so I actually liked that element.

For my main course, I ordered seared Maryland striped bass with steamed Manila clams, house-made fettuccine, and French butter. A variety of dry spices had been encrusted and seared into the skin of the bass, and it was moist and flavorful. I really enjoyed the fettuccine and chewy clams. The chef at Farallon took a minimalist approach to the pasta, and in doing so, the chef drew my attention to the sweet, milkiness of the French butter, the subtle nuttiness in the tangled tendrils of fettuccine.

My friends ordered seared Alaskan halibut with sweet corn soubise, summer beans, and roasted cherry tomatoes;

Cast iron seared local king salmon with bacon roasted brussel sprouts, celery root puree, beurre rouge; and

Grilled maine diver scallops, white corn, black-eyed peas, and roasted bacon;

To end our evening, we shared two desserts, including two deep-fried raspberry plum pies cloaked with granulated sugar. The pies came with vanilla raspberry swirl ice cream and a divine zinfandel raspberry caramel sauce. The berry-plum filling inside pies was a little sour for my taste, however, the dessert sauce provocatively merged (1) the almost-fleeting fruitiness of zinfandel wine and raspberries with (2) the milky, deep, and long-lasting flavors of caramel. I learned that night that I would like zinfandel raspberry caramel sauce on everything, including spaghetti and cold cereal.

We also ordered the warm flourless el rey chocolate cake with expresso ice cream, cocoa praline nibs, and mocha sauce. When I bit into the warm chocolate cake, I was surprised that little praline granules crunched in between my teeth like the sugary crystals in pop rocks. The gooey and oozing cake and luscious ice cream were imbued with sweet coffee flavors.

As I finish up this post, I realize that I don't wanna say farewell to Farallon. I never knew ye!

Hee, as you can tell, I got tired towards the end and cut down on the descriptiveness. . . . Okay, another San Francisco post down, nine more to go!

Dine About Town 2007: Part One, Campton Place

The prix-fixe program titled "Dine About Town" is finally here in San Francisco for the month of January! If you are from San Francisco or the Bay Area, or if you were a reader of mine back in 2006, you might know about the Dine About Town program. The premise of Dine About Town is that San Francisco's famed restaurants steeply discount their regularly lofty prices to entice locals to come and patronize their lagging businesses during the slow tourist season. This year, the beau and I took advantage of the program, to celebrate how my blog has been featured as one of Blogger's Blogs of Note!

We decided to enjoy a leisurely brunch at Campton Place in the Union Square district of San Francisco. Allow me to describe our meal in detail, so that you may be transported to San Francisco and taste the same flavors that I did this morning.

My beau started with the kampachi sashimi with blood orange, which featured black trumpet mushrooms and Szechuan peppercorns. Szechuan peppercorns are known for their subdued, almost citrus-like flavors. Szechuan peppercorns are not as fiery as the regular spicy peppercorns that are traditionally used in Western cuisine. Although I didn't personally taste the peppercorns, I was able to taste one slice of my beau's sashimi. Unfortunately, the raw fish was surprisingly soggy and disappointingly gelatinous. It wasn't firm like the sashimi found in high-end Japanese restaurants. The sashimi dish was accompanied by a dollop of foamy puree that tasted almost like a blended emulsion of strawberries, but the "red stuff" was touted in the menu as actually being made of blood orange.

I started with the creamy celery root soup. Tiny, cubed squares of celery root floated gently in the viscous bisque and the soup was topped with poached cauliflower florets. The soup was infused with ras al hanout, a Moroccan spice mixture that is comprised of the finest, most aromatic ingredients that a spice merchant can offer, and was drizzled with olio nuovo, a green-hued extra virgin olive oil that is imbued with pungent and sweet olive flavors.

My second course was the Fulton Valley Farms chicken breast. The chicken breast meat was good, but I honestly wasn't that impressed. It tasted exactly like the chicken that I can purchase from the Chinese barbecue joint on the corner of Chinatown for less than $5.00 bucks. Yes, the skin was crispy and the white breast meat relatively juicy, but nothing worthy of "high-end restaurant praise." However, I was impressed by the tender sunchoke quarters, for not an fibrous centimeter existed on the perfectly pruned and groomed artichoke bodies. The maitake mushrooms that accompanied the dish reminded me of chantrelles or enoki mushrooms, because the mushrooms were presented in natural bundles of spaghetti-thin stems and tiny mushroom caps. The mushrooms had sponged up the intense beefy flavors of the deglazed chicken au jus and the nettle puree that adorned the plate of my dish. Finally, the entire dish was decorated with three satisfyingly bitter, mandoline-thin slices of raw watermelon radish.

My beau ordered tai snapper for his second course. His snapper fell off into fish flakes when prodded with a fork and was gently wrapped in a crisp, crackly, and caramelized fish skin. The snapper included the side components of cauliflower, erbette chard, and lemon consomme.

Finally, both the beau and I ended our meal with a classic, non-pretentious sundae with oval scoops of malted ice cream (which had a powerful malt overtones reminiscent of Ovaltine) and a rich chocolate sorbet. The two supple spoonfuls were accompanied by a candy-stripe drizzling of viscous caramel and broken crumbles of hazelnut praline.

As we polished off our elaborate three-course prix-fixe meal, my beau and I gave each other high-fives in the air. Our meal had the dual purpose of celebrating Blogs of Note and San Francisco's Dine About Town program! In other words, it was a resounding success!

I hope this post has inspired you to take advantage of the special restaurant programs in your city or even to cook an elaborate meal so that you can enjoy the pleasures of passionate eating!