discovery.

I went to Beretta. And it was good. Their cocktails were inspired and excellently blended (I had the Dolores Park Swizzle). The bruschette with cannellini beans and pancetta pepata is creamy, salty goodness. Their polenta with gorgonzola in tomato sauce is a good balance of soft and firm, salty and sweet. Their tomato sauce (on their pizza) is so sweet and fresh- hands down the best tomato sauce I've had in the last year. The margherita pizza (with burrata instead of mozzarella) was fantastic. Simple, but with high quality ingredients, cooked to perfection.

I highly recommend it!

Isa review.



Last night, I went to Isa with a friend for the San Pellegrino Dine Out promotion. It was my first time eating there. Some might say that I missed out on a good thing by doing the promo (which has a set menu); I say that I'm poor and that promos like this help a girl like me eat nice meals at nice restaurants. Mind you, I looked at the set menus quite a bit before I chose a restaurant. Some of the restaurants featured were phoning it in, so to speak, but I didn't feel that Isa was, and I believe I was right. Also, they feature local and sustainable products, which is always a philosophy I can get behind. : )




At first glance, or step in the door, Isa looks tiny. Teeny-tiny. Like a restaurant made out of a closet tiny. It's pretty, though- there's a spiffy bar along the right side and some swanky tables to the left. And just as you wonder where they're going to seat you, they take you to the back, to this lovely tented area with strung lights and greenery and decking. It's like traveling through a dark and damp cave and then emerging into a giant cavern with stalactites and stalagmites. It's so unexpected and very pretty. You ended up a little squished in, but that's okay. How many restaurants in San Francisco really have enough room to dine comfortably? I'm not sure if the tent rolls back to reveal the sky, but if it does, it would be lovely. I can't imagine many more wonderful places to be than that deck on a warm, sunny winter day in the city.



On to the food. My friend started with a sea bass crudo with mango, cilantro and chili. It was delicious. The sea bass was tender and flavorful and paired wonderfully with the sweet, smooth mango and the kick of chili. It was a perfect dish for a warm summer night. I, on the other hand, started with baked goat cheese with basil, pine nuts and a tomato concasse. It was warm (obviously), creamy and crunchy, with a hint of bite from the tomatoes. I could eat it every day for the rest of my life.


For the second dish, my friend chose the halibut a la plancha with artichokes, capers and olives. The halibut was very moist and tender and we lapped up the sauce with bread. Again, a nice light fish dish for a warm summer night. I, however, chose the risotto with assorted mushrooms and parmesan for my second course. Nice and heavy. Let me just say here that I love mushrooms. Real love. True blue, like Madonna. You would think I would love this dish because of that, but the mushroom flavor wasn't prevalent. It was cooked well, though- creamy and smooth with a nice texture.




Last, but not least, we had a vanilla creme brulee and flourless chocolate cake for dessert. The cake had a hint of orange and seemed so light and fluffy that it seemed like flour was involved. However, as you can see from the Adventures in Baking series, I am no baker. The vanilla ice cream accompaniment was quite tasty, too, but there were some chocolate bits under the ice cream that had frozen to the plate and were extremely difficult to remove for that bit of crunch the dish needed. As for the creme brulee, the sugar crust was a little thick, but it had an interesting floral-vanilla flavor to it that I enjoyed.



So that's Isa. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars or hearts or horsehoes or something. I would love to try more of the menu and can't wait to go back again!



p.s.- we washed down the dinner with a bottle of 2004(?) Faiveley White Burgundy. It was good. It had some oak, but mostly it was bright fruit and minerals. It was an excellent counterpoint and accompaniment to our dishes.

a quick recap.







I went to Cambria a few weeks ago. It's near Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo- some prime wine territory. As the picture shows, the California coast is beautiful. It can be so worth driving down the coast instead of the interior roads. Of course, it was beautiful; but, I also tasted some good wine. There wasn't enough time for as much tasting as I'd like, but I did get to taste a great Chardonnay from Four Vines. There was a light hint of butter and oak, but those flavors were very well balanced with fruit and acid. I highly recommend it.



This past weekend I went to LA. LA is always a good time since I have good friends and family in the area. There was good food and ice cream. There was some beach time to cure my summertime blues. There was a cat. It all adds up to a pretty good weekend for me. The good food belonged to Mexico City, a decent Mexican restaurant in the Silverlake area. It's a very hipster scene. I had a good chicken mole and a good margarita.



The ice cream was from Scoops. Better than decent. Fantastic, actually. Some very original flavors: bacon caramel, olive oil olive, brown bread, Guinness tiramisu. They also have a good selection of vegan ice cream. I have had bacon ice cream and olive oil ice cream in the past, and those two trumped these. However, the bacon and olive oil ice creams were from restaurants at the top of their game in the Bay Area. That's tough to beat. In any case, the other ice creams were fantastic. My personal choice was the Guinness tiramisu, and vanilla nutmeg almond. It was creamy, and well-flavored, and definitely a good bang for the buck.



Then, there was more food from Square One. This is a small establishment in Hollywood, with a philosophy of using the freshest local ingredients, which is a philosophy I can support. The bacon in my club sandwich was amazing, and on the whole the sandwich was very tasty. I enjoyed the thyme and roasted garlic potatoes, but they didn't have much flavor of thyme or roasted garlic, in my opinion. It's a casual place, and the service was casual, as well, but it was a good meal, nonetheless.



Last, but not least, let's show the cat that I now adore. How could you not??

pastry chefs.



A.k.a. Rubicon, part 1. Because of this post on this fabulous blog, I decided to share an experience I had at a restaurant recently. A little over a month ago, I ate at Rubicon (in San Francisco) with my family. It was a very wonderful meal, filled with good food, and good conversation. I would heartily recommend it to anyone, and I'll speak about it more in a future post, because this post is reserved solely for dessert talk and pastry chefs.



When I go out to a restaurant that is anything decent, I always order dessert. I love dessert, and I particularly love chocolate or a rich and creamy dessert. In fact, I can be a bit of a lush because I don't often deny myself something I want. Also, usually I am the only one to order dessert amongst my family. Not this time though! At Rubicon, 4 out of 5 of my dining party ordered dessert. Yes! This, I atrribute to their love and willingness to please me. At least, I choose to believe this.



In any case, this was not the only memorable part of dessert. While I was perusing the menu, I noticed that the pastry chef's name was listed: Nicole Krasinksi. I feel like I noticed this because it was rare. While I don't scrupulously examine menus to find the chefs’ names, I am an observant person and think that I would have noticed if it were a common practice to list the pastry chef’s name.



Last, but certainly not least, the dessert course was memorable because the desserts were fabulous. Truly. Two stood out from the bunch, but they were all around very tasty. Wanna hear what they are? Huh? Huh? Do ya? Too bad! *ahem* No, just kidding. I aim to please:



One of the desserts was a simple sorbet duo of strawberry and peach. It was very fresh and smooth and tasty. Real fruit flavor abounded like a well-tended orchard. Another of the quartet was a strawberry sorbet, but with ginger and a gingered beignet. The ginger lent that special something to the dish to make it stand out.



The two that knocked my socks off, though, were a chocolate cake and a financier and ice cream pairing. The chocolate cake was my dessert, so although I tasted the others, I really had time to appreciate that one. It was a basic square of chocolate cake, with a very deep, rich chocolate flavor, and a moist, slightly dense texture. It sat in a pool of crème fraiche, with a concentric circle of apricot preserves surrounding the moat of crème. The cake also had a topping of caramelized figs. Woah, man. Wooooooah man! It was amazing. The figs were sweet and crunchy, the cake was soft and rich, the crème fraiche smooth and tangy (almost like goat yogurt) and the apricot preserves added another layer of fruity goodness, to make it more complex. I could eat this dessert for every meal for the rest of my life.



The other knock-out dessert was a pecorino and plum financier with olive oil ice cream. It is more creative than the chocolate cake, but I think it lost a few points in the plating area. In any case, it was just as mind-blowing. The layer of pecorino cheese was salty and tangy, the layer of plum was a wonderful counterpoint and the financier in total was a fine, crumbly texture. It went so well with the olive oil ice cream. Yah- olive oil ice cream. It was divine. Rich and creamy and a little grassy and fruity. In the “odd flavors of ice cream” category, it is only bested by the bacon ice cream at Oliveto’s. Yah- bacon ice cream. Did Jeffrey Steingarten consult on that?


So that’s my tale of dessert at Rubicon. It was mighty tasty. Ms. Krasinski is doing good things.