The Secret Sauce Is Pleasure

Restaurants can get too caught up in the wow to please, it seems. While of course one reason we dine out is to get the shock of the new--why go out if you can make the same meal at home?--that sometimes leads to tricks that exist just for trick's sake.

Which is why a spot like Monsieur Benjamin is so wonderful. Corey Lee of the three-Michelin starred Benu in San Francisco decided he wanted to open a French bistro. This being Corey Lee, it's not just any French bistro, of course. It's easy to think he's following in the footsteps of his mentor Thomas Keller, with Monsieur Benjamin his Bouchon. But it's more, and distinctly different, from Keller's restaurant if for no other reason than it's so urban, in a new Hayes Valley building, as opposed to cozy Yountville. (Yes, there are other Bouchons now, but let me have this for a moment.) For MB is distinctly an urban spot, as you can see from the photo above. It bustles, but has space, has classic chairs but clean lines, is windowed and open to the street just as the kitchen is open to the dining room. Think of that as a series of welcomes, of gathering one in.

For if nothing else, Monsieur Benjamin leaves you with a sense of comfort you'll rarely have. It's a deep pleasure, a sense the moment is exactly what it should be. That starts with perfect service on that balance point of friendly but not smarmy, helpful but not pushy. Ask about a dish or two, and you get a very detailed description. And when they recommend a dessert, listen (we'll get to that in a bit).

You should start off with a cocktail, of course. We seriously enjoyed The Ace (rye, calvados, sloe gin, lemon, rosemary, honey) and the cryptically named The 4th Time Around (gin, combier, Lillet blanc, absinthe, mint). Both had plenty of moving parts that danced together like the corps of a ballet, creating a unified effect of deliciousness. (And it seems sloe gin is back.) We also opted to go for the only Santa Barbara wine on the (otherwise?) well-chosen wine list, a 2012 Vallin Grenache Rose. A gorgeous wine with plenty of spine and minerality to accompany a dinner rich in sauces. (OK, I guess SF has to stand up for those wines close to them, that poor, unbeloved area, plus as a French place you can guess where many of the other bottles came from.)

For starters we went classic, escargot and sweetbreads. The snails were meaty and not chewy in the least, doused with a Bordelaise vividly green with parsley and enough garlic to have left Buffy Summers with nothing to do. The sweetbreads practically melted in the mouth and were accented well by the Grenobloise sauce of brown butter, capers, and parsley. So, yes, this is a spot to visit for a tour of the mother sauces and all their children in all their glory.

We both went with fish for our mains and didn't miss anything meaty at all. Mediterranean sea bass came with leeks, mushrooms, and a sauce Genevoise, the kind of thing that has more depth than a liquid could seem to have at its been reduced more times than the shrinking man (carrot, onion, red wine, fish heads, fish fumet, butter, of course, are just the start). Arctic char came pretending it was trout (which it certainly resembles but is tastier than) as it had almonds, perfectly roasted, and haricots verts. But then there were sunchokes instead of just some boring potato, and that was all fatted up with a beurre noisette.

These two plates were about as full of flavor as dishes seemingly simple could be. Each fillet was cooked expertly, the skin crisped, the flesh flaky but not a tad mushy. And then those sauces.

Full, we still had to consider dessert, especially since we'd heard our server suggest something that she said no one ever ordered anyway. Trusting her we had some of the best ice cream ever, palmier ice cream doused in a calvados caramel sauce. Of course the sauce was stellar, like every other one that night, but the ice cream was the true surprise, the cookies in little bits but still so distinct and crisp and butter-rich in a wondrous ice cream that would have made Berthillon in Paris proud.

A Chicken in Every Fog

Let's subtitle this post "That's Dining-tainment!" as that's what happened at Fog City. It certainly didn't hurt we were a threesome that evening, joined by charming "old" friend Christine, who actually does write about food and travel for a living (hobbyist me can hardly imagine), so has plenty of informed and witty opinions. In fact it was her idea for us try out Fog City in the first place as she'd been wanting to go since its acclaimed relaunch in September 2013.

The spot had been at the vanguard of making the diner hip for decades, but while it still gives you that aquarium feel a bit, with glass around you on three sides, what's wrong with that, as you're right on the Embarcadero? It does gleam like a beacon in the night, drawing you in, and then you get hit with scents that keep you there, and we'll get to their signature roast chicken in a bit, but first there's Perry.

That's our waiter, who comes off New Yawk with his wise-cracking attitude (at least not very California cool), since we're slow to menu ponder given we're quick to share our lives instead as we hadn't seen each other for at least a year. When we do order drinks, and FC has quite a cocktail list (it might be a law you have to have one in SF now), Perry suggests we let him order for us, and he promises to take good care of us. After we warn him Chryss is pescatarian, and worry to ourselves a bit this is a trick to get us to over-spend, we give in.

And begin the Perry game--supposedly he'll pay for our meal if we can guess where he's from within 50 miles. He starts to give clues, but as we learn later, while they're all true (although I can't find him on UCLA's football squad, as he insisted, in the Troy Aikman years, and yes, I've checked), they're often meant to mislead, too. So we keep guessing each time he wanders by the table, when he drops some more non-sequitur clues--I'm Greek, grew up on a farm, as a kid rooted for the Cincinnati Reds. It's an engaging gambling game to play while dining, and at worse you lose by having a fine meal and paying for it.

And it was a fine meal, starting with those cocktails: a Poolside (Blanco Tequila, Basil, Cucumber, Thai Bird Chili, Grapefruit, Lemon), an Inside Job (James E. Pepper Rye, Nocino, Orgeat, Spicy Ginger Shrub, Lemon), and a Grandpa's Breakfast (Famous Grouse Scotch, Allspice Dram, Combier Kummel, Lemon, Honey, Whiskey Barrel Bitters) that had the added charm of arriving "disguised" in a tea cup.

Then three appetizers descended on the table, quickly followed by a kale salad that rescued itself from current cliche by including both grilled and raw kale, plus spice-roasted delicata squash, goat cheese, chili oil, lime, and the needed crunch of Marcona almonds. This could have been enough for dinner, especially given the crab cakes were amazing, seemingly all crab and simply garnished with some basil aoli and oven-charred cherry tomatoes that added a wisp of smoke to the dish. Even a beet salad was good (and you probably have noticed it's a menu that favors the classics by now), each piece perfectly cut, since so often the roots come like mini-discs; when cut a bit smaller, you can savor them more. Goat cheese ranch dressing shot with fresh herbs played a perfect foil. And then there were Brussels sprouts, again sans piggy (see yesterday's story about Maven), with Asian pear adding a bit of juice and exoticism (the ponzu and togarashi didn't hurt, either).

It was time for the evening's showpiece, an entire roast chicken, spatchcocked, arriving in a still piping cast iron pan and redolent with garlic, rosemary, thyme, and supposedly kimchi butter. Perry insists it's better than the famed Zuni Cafe roast chicken, perhaps even curses dear deceased Judy Rodgers along the way. And it is mighty-fine chicken, especially the dark meat, especially alongside the romanesco and baby potatoes done right in the pan, too, soaking up all the goodness. The white meat, I have to admit, was 97% moist, though--just a tad tad not quite there, not that I'm complaining. But when perfection seems so near....

The other entree was a swordfish special that Chryss likes practically more for its accompanying garbanzos, and that's not just cause she leans vegetarian. These were beans with a purpose, and form, and not just an afterthought. The fish was perfectly cooked.

There was a bottle of Handley Mendocino Pinot, something I hadn't had in years and appreciated--all that good Anderson Valley cherry quality, a wine waiting for food.

There where desserts--a pumpkin brioche bread pudding with bourbon caramel sauce and a dollop of pumpkin spiced ice cream, somehow nowhere near as over-rich or over-sweet as it reads, and then a house specialty, the "B" Bomb. Wish you could have breakfast for dessert, well here you go: that's a glazed French cruller, about as fantastic a fried thing as will pass your lips, topped with vanilla frozen custard and an egg yolk caramel that will become your brain's dictionary photo for yellow.

Perry, it turns out, is from ________. Well, I don't want anyone to be able to Google this up and ruin his clever game, at which we lost and we didn't care. And, yes, it was more than we wanted to spend--that's a $38 chicken, which leaves me wondering what I could get for the hens in my backyard--but was it a wonderful evening? Indeed.

Maven's Much More than a Maybe

There's much to say about Maven in San Francisco, starting with the guts to name their spot with a wonderful if a bit obscure word. Then again, that is a bit of a hint as to the m.o. of Maven--there's a nod to the slightly classic age of cocktails, but a hope to update too. For instance, it works like this on the simple menu: the center offers 6 drinks and 6 plates, paired. There are other drinks and food, but they are clearly satellites to the main events.

You do want to order one of the pairings, as we did, starting with the charmingly named Corpse Reviver #598 (and we might be up to that variation of the beloved gin-based drink by now) that also includes cocchi (a white veromuth), ginger, lemon, and coriander. There's soda in it, too, so it comes up and fizzy, and the top ice cube of the glass is dusted with some lightly cracked coriander seeds, so when you go to sip, you get a healthy nose-ful. In a word, about as refreshing a drink as you could have. That pairs with Penn Cove mussels kicked up with Korean chili pepper and absinthe, and, as you have to have with soupy mussels, some grilled bread for sopping. That's right, smart cocktail folk--the absinthe you associate with the Corpse Reviver ends up in the food instead. And that ties it all up in a bright, delicious bow.

Or you might opt for The Sixpence, a drink that sounds like it might push things too far, given its last ingredient is peppercorn sorbet. The rest is gin, sherry (hip drink ingredient of the moment), mint, and lemon, but that seemingly stunt of sorbet is actually the perfect addition, a slick of frozen punchy foam--icy pepper is pretty much brilliant--that gives the drink yet more depth and breadth (the sherry helps for that too, of course). That comes paired with one of the best fish dishes I've had in some time (well, maybe till later that weekend, so here's hoping I keep up blogging about our SF-feast), McFarland Springs trout, a healthy piece of it, pink as any king salmon and with its skin cooked crisp, over a bowl of sunchokes--some little roasted nuggets, crunchy on the outside, creamy on the in, plus some whipped into a bed for the fillet to rest--that also features a clam veloute that hides a couple of actual tiny clams in it that sort of look like the sunchoke nuggets, so you don't know what you've got on your fork until it hits your tongue (a pleasant food surprise). This is all a bit rich, what with the veloute's butter, etc,. so the acid counter comes in the form of a caper gremolata, and that leaves the bowl in a perfect balance. Of course, the cocktail adds its elegance, and also helps cut the richness, too.

We also tried some crispy Brussels sprouts done in apple gastrique and not any bacon fat and just as delicious, somehow, so take that, pork.

Oh, and it's a pleasing space, too, as you can see from the photo I stole above (thanks, internets!). That's pretty much the view we had, too, from the second floor overhang (don't wear short skirts!), a wonderful sneaky spy spot for us, probably the oldest people in the restaurant/bar; so much to watch, and we didn't have to disturb any of San Francisco's gorgeous young-uns to do it.

Open Your Golden Ate

I'd be lying if I didn't admit I travel mostly to eat at new places, and I'd never lie to you, dear reader. Instead, I will bring back ripping yarns about manly meals and hope that the yarns covering my body don't rip from all the consumption. (And also hope that the dated diction at the start of the previous sentence doesn't leave you thinking I mean TB when I write consumption. Cough, cough.)

Two weekends back we had the good fortune to go to San Francisco and the bad fortune to have only about 48 hours total there, from Friday noonish till Sunday 10 am--if you're scoring at home, that's merely time for two dinners, two breakfasts, and a lunch. Luckily we were camped across from the Ferry Building again at the Hotel Vitale, which is still wonderful, and it looks like I owe y'all a Ferry Building essay that's more than a year a-coming. (I'll get there, promise. I'm fascinated by the FB and the way it totally fetishizes foodie culture and I still love it, anyway. Got to write that contradiction out to make sense of it.) That said, I want to run through the dinners and one of the lunches so you may drool onto your keyboard.

A16
Named after a highway near Naples, this long revered place makes amazing Indian food...almost got you, didn't I? Nope, it's Italian without ever being Eye-talian, from the pizza program that's even certified by the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association to the teeth-stainingly good squid ink cavatelli. Airy, crispy, and with a bit of the wood-oven char, those pies are perfection with their mere smears of toppings: nothing is in the slightest heavy-handed, but neither is it precious or leaves you wanting. A16 also teaches you the fanciest word for crackers ever--croccantini--that come so you can scoop up yummy local albacore conserva with dried fava bean puree. Tuna and beans go together like Rogers and Astaire, of course (just ask your friend from Nice about his salad), and these do a delightful Continental on your tastebuds. It doesn't hurt that there's bitter greens and garlic to contrast the bass notes of the dish's stars.Then there's a wines-by-the-glass program that makes me feel very ignorant and thirsty--if you don't know your odder Southern Italian varietals, the staff will guide you accurately.

The Monk's Kettle
This cozy (or too damn tiny, depending upon whether you've lucked into a seat or are hoping for one) spot in the Mission likes to claim it helped kick off the gastropub movement back when such places were called gut-taverns and didn't have as good PR. Seriously, it's been around since 2007 and hits the sweet spot of fine beers (24 drafts and 180 bottles) and a small but exciting menu that not only does the now de rigueur local and organic thing, but likes working beer into the mix in usual (Penn Cove mussels cooked in Allagash White ale) and unusual (hop salt on the fries, spent grain in the veggie burger) ways. That veggie burger is far from the usual frozen slab to silence, if far from please, the non-meat eaters--it also is made with chick peas, and then adorned with fromage blanc, aioli, and onion jam. Those hop salt fries come with, and anyone would be glad they do, some of the most expertly cooked fries I've had in ages, crispy on the outside, almost creamy on the in.

Meat eaters won't go hungry, particularly if they're fond of odder cuts like sweetbreads and a plate of beef cheeks atop polenta with a daring dash of horseradish. The cheeks are fork tender without being insta-mouth mushy, the polenta a worthy foil and not merely some starch. An Existent, a dark farmhouse ale from Stillwater Artisanal Ales, made me realize the right brew might outdo any Bourdeaux (well, in my price range) for a meaty match, not to mention let me know I need to get back to my old college stomping grounds, Baltimore, and check out its brew scene (those old poor undergrad days meant Natty Boh or bank account bust, alas).

Chapeau!
Supposedly you're not just talking hats with your oo-la-lah accent but saying wow if said chapeau is followed by an exclamation point. Chapeau! can make this claim for many reasons, not the least of which is that when you get your check, that comes to the table inside a hat, you'll be amazed at the lowish price for how much fine Frenchiness you had to eat and drink. But perhaps the wow is most earned as this is a place that has defeated web diy lcd syndrome--over 1500 people on Yelp have rated it and it still gets a well-deserved 4-and-a-1/2 stars. Incroyable!

This Richmond-district neighborhood joint is nothing fancy but captures a buzz in its precisely cream colored room, that hue making the light a bit gilded, and that effect is aided by the two-foot-or-so mirror panel that runs the perimeter, catching light and laughing faces and giving even the diners facing their companions on the ring-around-the-room banquets a view of much of the place. Chef and owner Philippe Gardelle greets everyone as if you'd been coming here all along, which is no doubt why many do. (And I am assuming every woman leaving gets the grand gesture two-cheek kiss when leaving and not just my gorgeous wife.)

As for the food, if you have a hankering for the French classics, you'll get them here done in a classic style but subtly updated and refined. That fourme d'ambert tart with pear and just the right amount of frisee will ruin you for savory pastries, that trio of salmon (tartare, roe, and gravlax) will all play off each other in taste (sweet, salt, salty-sweet) and texture (melt, pop, chew), while the plate, lightly glazed with gorgeous lines of creme fraiche quite chilled, gives up that dairy begrudgingly, so it never overpowers the fish. The skate wing in brown butter you will almost, almost that is, like best for the fingerling potatoes that come with it. And then the cassoulet. The meat-lovers dish akin to that girl in high school who only meant to please and did, this one has duck leg confit tender but not overcooked, the two very different sausages (garlic and Toulouse), and then the cannellini beans that have somehow sucked in every other tinge of the long-braise's flavors, so close to bursting yet still firm. A three-course prix fixe here is a mere $40, and the wines come by the glass and half-glass, if you need just a bit more St. Joseph for the last moist morsels of duck (you do have the leg's bone in your paws by now, but everyone else who has had the dish can't blame you).

A Top Notch Idea from the Bottom of the Barrel

Sure, Thrillist can be downright Maxim-ish douchey at times, but they can also point to good new places, deals, and manage to disguise that douche in enough pop-culture obscurantism that you barely feel the need to shower afterward. All that said, here's a deal I'd jump on (ok, and now everything I write will sound like a double entendre, I know) if I lived in San Francisco: "Drink 40 Premium Bourbons at The Alembic--$250 for a passport for full pours of 40 fine bourbons, good anytime for 9 months." It's not just that I'm fond of the Alembic and have been for years as a surprisingly fine find mid-Haight. It's not just I like bourbon and would love an informal course in its barrel-aged ways. It's the sense you were part of a commitment, and then part of a community. Or maybe it just means I like to come up with ways to dress up my drunkenness.

All that said, anybody in the Santa Barbara area want to come up with a deal like this one? What's Social Living or one of those places for but some creative thinking/drinking?

(P.S. It took my amazing wife to realize I should pitch this locally. Thanks, dear!)

Hope Is the Thing with Anchors

As much as I love living in Santa Barbara (I mean, it's SANTA BARBARA), it's great to get out into the bigger world every now and then and see how real city folk live and eat and drink. Turns out that if the bigger world = San Francisco, you pretty much can't go wrong. It certainly helps we stayed at the Hotel Vitale,* an Embarcadero-crossing away from foodie nirvana the Ferry Building†. But we also Open Table researched our way into Anchor & Hope, and found a true delight.

One thing that's endlessly charming about San Francisco is all the rewards that await you down alleys. That could be a inventive cocktail haven like 15 Romolo, tucked away amidst the strip joints and Beat Museum off Broadway in North Beach, or it could be Anchor & Hope, whose address is 83 Minna Street, but the min- part is more of a clue than the Street part. That said the place just oozes charm, huge and airy as it's a renovated turn-of-the-last century mechanic's warehouse and all decked out with things you'd see by the sea. Made me homesick for my college days in Baltimore, but back then Bawlamer wasn't so polished, that's for sure.

A&H brings together two wonderful things--great beer and the choicest seafood. They even want you to follow them on Twitter if you're a beer geek, they're that into the updates. And a fine list they have, both on draught and bottle. We stuck to the tap all night and were more than happy pairing up the food with the suds, brews from the familiar (North Coast's La Merle) to the not (Linden Street's Burning Oak Black Lager). You can check the list yourself, but do note the perhaps drunken-counting-typo: that beer sampler says "five" beers but clearly lists, and delivers, six.

The food menu is short-ish but that's a blessing, as you'll want everything. Somehow we passed on the oysters and clams, although everyone around us didn't and seemed happy as, well, you know.... Instead we opted to share a starter and a salad (a simple, let it speak for its greeny self mix of wild arugula, pickled fennel, roasted olives, shaved grana padano in a light lemon vinaigrette). That starter was a clever item called salmon pastrami--house cured, then smoked again (if I remember right). It's heavy on the salt, but rich on the taste, and made me wonder what it would be like in a Reuben. At A&H it comes with a perfectly fried egg atop waiting to go gooey, potatoes roti beneath to provide ballast and yolk absorption, and a scattering of sliced asparagus full of spring (both the season and the texture). A lovely dish.

My companion opted to order another app for her main, but when it came out it looked like a main so she sure didn't get gypped.The scallops were seared expertly, paired surprisingly well with their bed of kohlrabi and mustard green, and then set off by the apple miso broth. Lots of layers of flavor all adding to something unexpected. And speaking of surprise, the scallops come with tuna very thinly shaved adorning them and waving. Really. For a long time. So if you get unsettled by your meal moving, it might not be the dish for you.

I more than enjoyed the cod with pork belly (I cannot resist) with three of the best little neck clams I've ever enjoyed--how wonderful when clams as a component of a composed dish can be cooked precisely and not be chewy afterthoughts. Sorry this photo does not do the dish justice, partially because it's poorly lit, partially because it's hard to see the slight bed of cavolo nero that added green, and partially because you can't smell the photo. The sauce is billed as a lemon parsley jus, but that doesn't do it jus-tice, for there's just enough of tomato in it to make it richer but not a tomato sauce. I wanted a bottle of it to take home.

And yes, since it was my birthday, I had to have some dessert, as everyone knows the calories you consume on your birthday don't count. Again, a short list, but everything sounded delish, and not just because I was enjoying an Allagash Curieux Bourbon Barrel Aged Triple at this point (dessert in a glass, sure). We went for something already off the menu, so I'm glad we ate when we did. Generally I eschew the chocolate offerings as they tend, even when good, to be good for three-and-a-half bites, then seem too much of a good thing. Here the chocolate mousse, though, seemed irresistible, with sea salt and a caramelly whipped cream and then a sprinkling of what Cracker Jack would be at the world's best ballpark. You know me--a lover of that sweet-salt mix, and this totally knocked that out of the park.

*Truly a wonderful hotel, and not just for the location. And on top of that--literally on top--is Spa Vitale, where you can start your treatments (just what the doctor ordered) with a wonderful bath that will make you feel wonderfully weightless.

†The Ferry Building and its wonders will get its own entry soon, promise.