Dine About Town SF: Bisou Bistro

I'm in Taiwan now, but right before I left San Francisco I went to Dine About Town (Restaurant Week), which is going on until June 15th, so make your reservations ASAP! The way restaurant week works is you get a prix fixe menu of two or three courses for lunch ($18.95) or three courses for dinner ($36.95).

Our first appetizer was French onion soup. I felt that this was really well done; it wasn't greasy or overly sour like some can be.

Our next appetizer was salmon tartare (raw salmon) with four kinds of eggs: tobiko (the tiny fish roe), salmon roe, caviar, and a fried poached egg. The salmon was really fresh, and the fried egg is really creamy (although the egg white was a little underdone).

By far my least favorite dish of the night was the escargots (snails), which sit in a sweet potato puree. I really love escargots, but these tasted so odd with a sweet garnish; they end up tasting raw and rubbery.

Our three entrees were filet mignon, salmon, and pork tenderloin. There is a definite pattern with all three; although the proteins are all very well cooked, I just feel like they didn't do enough with the dish. For example, the sauce on the salmon (a veal glaze) wasn't very interesting or unique, and the garnishes are just kind of mediocre. They relied a little too much on the quality of the proteins, but they didn't make the dishes simple either.

Filet mignon

Salmon

Pork tenderloin

In addition to our prix fixe meals, we got a kobe beef steak tartare, which is raw beef with various condiments, which makes kind of a thick, chunky paste (I can hear my mom gagging). They put it together tableside, but honestly, it doesn't even matter what they put in it, because they add so much Tabasco that it's the only thing you can taste.

Our desserts were the chocolate cake, macaron, and creme brulee. I have to be honest: none of the desserts were very impressive, except for the strawberry basil ice cream served with the macaron. The chocolate cake (which is called a "sponge cake" on the menu) is just so thick and gloopy. The macaron had raspberries in it, which was kind of cute, but it was very dry and crumbly. And the creme brulee had an odd, grainy texture, which might have been just air bubbles, but it's a very strange texture to get from something that's supposed to be smooth and creamy.

Chocolate cake

Macaron

Creme brulee

Although this wasn't my favorite meal ever, I think Restaurant Week is a great opportunity to try some new restaurants. You may or may not get a deal at restaurants that are usually cheaper, so go to a really expensive restaurant for lunch for the best deal!

Also, I'm really sorry about the awful pictures! I'm working on getting a proper camera in the next few weeks (I use my phone right now, which is deteriorating) so I'll have nice looking pictures soon :)

Bisou Bistro
2367 Market Street
http://www.bisoubistro.com/

Leg of Beast dinner at Incanto

You know how when you watch a reality show, you really want someone to win, and you get super happy when the person you've been cheering for since the first episode actually wins? That was what happened to me! On the last season of Top Chef Masters, Chris Cosentino (the executive chef of Incanto) won. He's best known for cooking offal (the "unwanted" parts of animals, such as the organs) and his lack of waste--as in, using every part of an ingredient in a dish. Incanto offers special dinners called the Leg of Beast, which you can reserve for six to eight people. Basically, you get a couple of appetizers, a braised beef shank, various side dishes, and a dessert. It's $55 per person, which is pricy, but a good deal considering the quality of food you're getting as well as the dining experience.

Our appetizers were a salad and charcuterie (various cured meats). The salad was really simple and refreshing and something you'll want to load up on in anticipation of all the heavy food to come. The best item among the charcuterie was the pate; however, it's not for everybody, because it does have a very strong taste of liver. But if you like something stronger and the taste of organ meats (it sounds very strange, but they are very good) you'll like this a lot.

The side dishes included roasted carrots and cannelini beans with tendon. The roasted carrots were quite nice, and it's mixed with carrot tops and comes with a carrot top pesto underneath. I love that the chef uses every part of the carrot, but my complaint about this dish is that it's very hard to eat properly. The carrots and carrot tops together form a little jungle, and so it's very difficult to get the pesto underneath that tangle without making something drop onto the table--I know, five second rule, but it's still a little icky. I also didn't see anyone eat the carrot tops, so it would've been nice to get more pesto than the actual stems. The cannelini beans, on the other hand, were nothing special. I appreciate that the chef really used every part of the cow's leg, and incorporated the tendon in this dish, but, come on, it was cannelini beans. It also tasted so heavily of rosemary and sage that it completely masked any flavor from the tendon.

The actual leg of beast looks really impressive; once you're all done taking pictures, your server lifts the bone and the meat just falls off--that's how tender it is. Then, you just pour some reduced braising liquid on top. I don't feel like it's the most unique braised beef dish ever, but it is really well done, and it just feels extra special, given the context under which you're eating it (straight off the leg of a cow).

You also get one bone marrow each, which you can scrape onto a piece of bread or eat it on its own. This is where an appreciation for fat is required, since bone marrow is pure fat. Again, this dish is not for everyone. My boyfriend is extremely sensitive to something called xing wei (there's no English word for it; Google Translate tells me it's "smell," so that's not helpful)--it's a very particular off-taste that some people are sensitive to, usually in things like shellfish and lamb. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but it's like a sharp, raw note that's very unpleasant--you're very likely to have experienced this if you're a supertaster or very sensitive to smells. Anyway, my boyfriend says that the bone has that flavor, and the marrow just leaches it out.

I am a dessert lover and critic, and I was quite disappointed with the dessert options for Leg of Beast. There was a panna cotta and a blueberry semolina cake. The panna cotta was nice and creamy, but it was just super basic. The blueberry semolina cake, however, was just an upside down blueberry muffin. While I was eating it, I found it very odd that the bottom was a little rounded. I turned it over, and what do you know, it was a muffin. The cake itself tasted good, and I don't think I would've minded so much if they didn't seem so deceptive. However, I really was expecting some more ambitious desserts.

Throughout the meal, we could see the chef, and I was peeking at him like a fangirl and checking for food in my teeth just in case he came to our table. Finally, two of our friends went to tell him that I wanted to meet him. He's really nice and funny, and introduced himself as Bobby Flay. Anyways, I got a picture with him and we're best friends now.

Chris Cosentino is so handsome, but this was really a bad picture day for me.

And, if you have more than eight people and a beef shank isn't enough... Incanto also offers "Whole Pig" dining. I get full just thinking about it, but it's a great option if you have a larger group.

Incanto

1550 Church Street

http://incanto.biz/

Isa

My boyfriend came here for Dine About Town (San Francisco's Restaurant Week), and I've been dreaming about coming here since he told me about it. Isa is described as "Cal French" and is served tapas-style, which is a great excuse to order many, many courses.

Our first course was the yellowtail tuna with avocado and seaweed. The tuna is incredibly fresh--pretty comparable to Sushi Sams's--and the seaweed (with white sesame, vinegar, and some soy sauce) and the avocado (just a simple guacamole, really) complement it really well. 

Next was seared scallops with corn, sugar snap peas, orzo (rice-shaped pasta), and truffle sauce. The scallops were just perfect; great sear and slightly translucent center. However, I would've liked both sides to be seared (only the top/presentation side is), just so it has more of that slight "crust" and caramelized flavor. The orzo was a great choice--it gives the dish really nice texture--but I think the sugar snap peas were a little too much; they were just barely blanched, so their fresh, "green" flavor overpowered the truffle aroma of the sauce.

My favorite dish of the night was the mushroom and truffle risotto. The risotto itself wasn't as al dente as I would've liked, but it wasn't mushy. I love that it was almost equal parts rice and mushrooms--I find that a lot of restaurants often will only add a little bit of whatever featured ingredient is supposed to be the highlight of the risotto. However, I do not like the big clump of cheese as garnish--by the time we got it, it was somewhat melted and very hard to mix into the risotto, and lucky me, I got the big mouthful of cheese. I think they definitely could've grated it a little finer or at least just spread it out a little more!

Next, we got the flank steak with zucchini and yucca. Although we asked for medium rare, the steak was definitely a medium, bordering on medium well, which was really disappointing. However, the center was still quite moist--it was just the edges that were dry and really tough to bite into. The zucchini was, like most vegetables served with steak are, steamed and not seasoned, but the edges were still crunchy and and not overcooked at all. I loved the yucca fries; I find that a lot of yucca fries can be dry and starchy and have a really mealy mouth feel  but these were nice and flavorful and moist. They aren't particularly crisp though, because they're kind of swimming in the steak's sauce/juice.

We got two desserts, the grapefruit granita (although it says granite on the menu) and amaretto semifreddo. The grapefruit granite had a great, true grapefruit flavor, with bitterness and all (which I actually like). The ice chunks were a bit too large for my taste; I would've liked it to be a slightly finer texture, so you don't actually have to chew through it. And check out that big sprig of mint! Mint and grapefruit go together so well, I don't know why they wouldn't chop up the mint and incorporate it into the ice.

The amaretto semifreddo, I think, was a glorified cookies and cream ice cream. The amaretto flavor is not for everyone; it's a really pungent almond milk-type flavor that people either hate or are neutral toward. The amaretto cookies on the side are nice--they're a hard, hard biscotti kind of texture, and the same almond milky flavor. The flavor is definitely not as strong as that of the "semifreddo," but if you have a strong aversion to that kind of almond essence, do not get this.

I think I would've liked Isa a lot better if I hadn't built it up so much in my head. Of course there were great dishes--the risotto and scallops--but I was quite disappointed with the steak and desserts. Come here for a fancy date with someone who will pay for you!

Isa
http://www.isarestaurant.com/
3324 Steiner Street

Sweet Maple

This week I'm in San Francisco for spring break! Well, technically Foster City, but no one knows where that is. Hence a review of a restaurant in California.

My boyfriend and I each got eggs Benedict, and fried French toast to share. I was pretty disappointed that they don't make their own English muffins (the menu says they use Thomas' English muffins), so thumbs down for that. I got the Asparagus Blackstone Benedict, with asparagus (obvi), tomato, candied bacon, and Meyer hollandaise. I was overly happy with the asparagus and tomato, because they are so fresh and I haven't had really nice fresh produce in months, thanks to East Coast weather. The candied bacon had a nice texture--it had enough bite without being crunchy or hard, but it can be a bit tricky to cut into. It's sticky and sweet and savory, but it can be quite heavy, especially next to all the lighter components of the dish (it reminds me of bakkwa, which is Chinese jerky). The hollandaise sauce was just fine; it's mildly citrusy without being acidic, but it's not as rich or flavorful as I would've liked.

My boyfriend got the Southern Benedict, with chorizo, cherry peppers, tomato, and chipotle hollandaise. Well, I've given up on asking him for descriptions of food, because asking him to elaborate on "good" will only illicit "It's good. That's it." Anyway, this dish is very, very hot, since they don't deseed the raw cherry peppers. I wish they would've deseeded them or blanched them, so it would take away some of the heat while preserving the flavor. The chipotle hollandaise, on the other hand, is so incredibly heavy and savory. It didn't really have that smokey chipotle flavor, but it's a nice twist to a classic sauce. The eggs on both our plates were perfectly poached--firm whites and runny yolks--without being sour like the ones at Peels in New York. The fried potatoes were just okay--nothing special, really nothing to say about them.

The best part of the meal was definitely the fried French toast (called the "Big Hip" on the menu). It's fried so golden and crunchy, and the inside was moist without being goopy or overly doughy, the way some restaurants seem to like to make their French toast. I love how they give a tiny amount of fruit, almost as a consolation for eating a day's worth of calories in ten minutes ("You can eat fried French toast and still be healthy, because you get five blueberries too"). However, the garnish really, really annoyed me--again, nonfunctional garnish. A branch of curly parsley on French toast? Really? And that stick lying across the middle? It's a very long fried wonton wrapper--weird.

Sweet Maple offers some really great food, but the wait is so incredibly long--we waited a good half hour for our meal. They are also the king of nonfunctional garnish. The table next to us was a family with two kids, and three of their plates had the fried wonton wrapper stuck into their food, towering a full six inches above the edible part of their dishes.

I love Line Camera. Check out the wonton wrapper stuck
into those pancakes. Also, I'm embarrassing.

Sweet Maple
2101 Sutter Street
www.sweetmaplesf.com