Saturday, June 14th, 2008
This year’s Top Chef was announced recently. Stephanie Izard, 31 years old, who is from Connecticut and currently resides in Chicago, won the position of new Top Chef after 13 rounds of tough challenges. And overall, I’m satisfied with the show this year. My final three guess was Stephanie, Richard, and Dale. Stephanie has an accurate and sophisticated sense of taste. Richard has a very unique technique using his cooking gadgets, which few good chefs are familiar with. Dale has a strong personality and he is very passionate about foods, and it seemed his Asian fusion foods fit to my taste. It’s too bad that the Chef from a restaurant, Circa was eliminated so early in this show. Circa is a well known restaurant in Marine district in San Francisco. I’ve been there a few times, but their Ahi Tuna Tartare with a crispy chips is my favorite. Also, their Pork Chop is super tender and the best Pork Chop I’ve ever had (although I normally don’t order Pork Chop at restaurants.) Anyways, congratulation to Stephanie!!
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Saturday, October 6th, 2007
I attended Fallfest, where a number of fine restaurants and wineries from bay area are gathered in one place in San Francisco and hold booths passing out foods, pouring wine into people’s RIEDEL glasses, which was awesome. There were over a thousand kinds of foods and wines that you can taste and criticize, and chefs are demonstrating in front of people. Following is my top 5 dish at Fallfest.
1. Beef Short Rib – Ora
Looking at their menu, I gathered that these short ribs are usually part of a stew. For Fallfest, however, the meat was served as a single rib on a dish. Relative to how stews usually look, it was actually presented in a much more attractive way, with potato purèe, and an unidentifiable — but delicious — green oil draped upon it. Unfortunately, I was unable to take a picture of that since by the time I went back to the booth with my camera, the server had started unceremoniously plopping short ribs on people’s plates instead of creating a visually appealing placement. It might be reasonable to say that I ranked this short rib dish as #1 at Fallfest after I heard the server say it took 8 hours to cook. The meat just melted in my mouth and scored a home-run with many people at Fallfest.
2. Ahi Gelée – Postrio
When I tasted this Ahi Tuna inside of gelatin with crème fraîche and tobiko on top, it blew me away. How could this make me feel the freshness of tuna? How could this make me, Japanese guy, feel like I don’t need a sushi anymore if I have this? All the answers are condensed into this small gelatin square.
3. Dungeness Crab Cake – One Market
I’ve been to One Market a couple of times for happy hour, but strangely hadn’t had as delicious a dish as this. I sampled real dungeness crab with a little bit of spicy cream on the bottom. The crispiness on top was a plus.
4. Duck with Pomegranate – Faz
Faz’s duck was absolutely one of my favorites that I had at Fallfest. Duck and the pomegranate glaze were absolutely good combination.
5. Poke – Pacific Catch
An exemplary poke dish, as delicious as you would expect.
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Tuesday, July 17th, 2007
If you think you are absolutely a gourmet and knowledgeable about fine dining restaurants in San Francisco, you cannot miss TableSpoon. I heard that the chef at TableSpoon used to work for one of the finest restaurants in the US, so that you can enjoy having a 5 star-rated meal in a small cozy place. People’s reviews at yelp.com and even a car navigation system said it’s a noisy place; however, when we went there on Sunday dinner time, there was only one group of people, and only another came in during the meal. So, I thought it was a perfect environment for us three to have dinner.
And service was awesome. Unfortunately, we went to WaterWorld theme park before that day, so we were too tired to enjoy their service as much as we could (in fact, we didn’t even notice her speaking to us at first), but certainly she made us feel very comfortable and welcome to have dinner at TableSpoon.
I started sharing Smoked Sturgeon Pizza and Macaroni & Cheese, which had good reviews, had Sautéed Ahi Tuna for main dish, and finished with Strawberry Short Cake. I’d never thought heated salty and crunchy Pizza was a good idea to start with before, but it turned out really good. It wasn’t salty at all, and who doesn’t love Pizza with basil, olive oil, and novel idea of Sturgeon fish when you are having a glass of Pinot Noir wine? Macaroni & Cheese was absolutely delightful. It feels like grandma’s homemade Macaroni & Cheese first, but it results in a gorgeous taste of a combination of cheese and bacon. I wouldn’t expect more than the Sautéed Ahi Tuna that I ordered that day. It was in a perfect temperature, below the room temperature but not icy cold. Sensitive but indistinctive sauce takes advantage of Ahi itself’s originical freshness and taste. Sliced cut made it easier for me to bring it to a satisfactory although I cut it into a smaller piece when I had it. Strawberry Short Cake was my favorite. I felt I wanted stop by here again just for the desert. It brings you to the zenith of happiness.
After all, I was convinced that TableSpoon is one of the restaurants that you cannot dismiss before entering the gourmet world in San Francisco.
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This year’s Top Chef was announced recently. Stephanie Izard, 31 years old, who is from Connecticut and currently resides in Chicago, won the position of new Top Chef after 13 rounds of tough challenges. And overall, I’m satisfied with the show this year. My final three guess was Stephanie, Richard, and Dale. Stephanie has an accurate and sophisticated sense of taste. Richard has a very unique technique using his cooking gadgets, which few good chefs are familiar with. Dale has a strong personality and he is very passionate about foods, and it seemed his Asian fusion foods fit to my taste. It’s too bad that the Chef from a restaurant, Circa was eliminated so early in this show. Circa is a well known restaurant in Marine district in San Francisco. I’ve been there a few times, but their Ahi Tuna Tartare with a crispy chips is my favorite. Also, their Pork Chop is super tender and the best Pork Chop I’ve ever had (although I normally don’t order Pork Chop at restaurants.) Anyways, congratulation to Stephanie!!
