The plan to get reservations at the French Laundry was simple. It drew either nods of approval or looks of disbelief. I was going to fly out there to make a reservation at the restaurant, in person, two months in advance. I would then make a return trip in two months to have that dinner. Yoo Mee thought I was kidding until I printed out my flight itinerary. Unfortunately, information discovered two days before the departure flight completely obliterated the plan's key assumption. With the restaurant's completed expansion, reservations would no longer be taken in person. After spending half a day in shock, I refocused my energy on Plan B (e.g. call the reservations line as if the fate of the free world depended on it) and was able to get a reservation. I still had my tickets, so I flew out for a few days of gastronomic research.
I carefully mapped out my time, selecting favorites to revisit, new places to investigate, and even allowed for naps and delays. However, I didn't expect to lose the entire first afternoon at a cell phone shop. I miskeyed one of the unlocking PINs too many times, which then locked the phone and turned it into a very shiny paperweight. Luckily the shop was able to bypass all of the security and return my phone to working order, SIM card intact. Makes you feel all nice and secure, doesn't it?
I met Tony for dinner that night at Ebisu, a sushi restaurant near the southeast corner of Golden Gate Park. They have a sizeable menu devoted to specialty rolls, and there is an equally long list of special items posted near the bar. I sampled a few pieces of sushi, found them to my liking, and then dove into the rolls. I can't recall their names, but I had two: one with bonito, ginger, and garlic, and the other was salmon, pickled salmon, ikura. A carafe of Dewazakura Oka matched nicely, and I finished it with some very soothing green tea ice cream.
In my experience, sushi and sashimi are priced very differently in San Francisco than they are in New York. An order of sushi priced roughly the same in both cities. However, an order of sushi in San Francisco is for two pieces, whereas an order in New York is just one. SF-style sashimi is either treated as a special course (at a higher cost) or not offered at all, whereas it can readily be ordered a la carte at most restraurants. You feel like Chris Rock in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka by asking "how much for just one sashimi?"
The next day I had breakfast at the Swan Oyster Depot. I saw this featured on the San Francisco episodes of Tony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour" and Rachel Ray's "$40 a day." I wanted to avoid the lines so I showed up at 9 AM. I was the first customer and the Sancimino brothers were prepping the day's orders. Cilantro was being plucked, crates of oysters and clams were being hauled off of delivery trucks, buckets of ice were emptied into the display case in the front, and large, cooked dungeness crabs were on the counter waiting to be turned into crab salad.
The guys behind the counter were as energetic and friendly as they were on TV. I started off with a variety of a half dozen oysters - three types of Miyagis, a Kumamoto, and at least other variety I can no longer recall. Kumamotos are readily available in New York and they're always tasty, so I skipped them on my second order, for which I chose a half dozen Miyagis. Two varieties were from Washington State, and the third was local, from Tomales Bay. They suggested mixing the homemade horseradish sauce and cocktail sauce together, but the oysters were perfect by themselves.
I scanned the menu (assembled across the entire wall behind the bar) and ordered a half-dozen cherrystone clams. The horseradish/cocktail sauce combo was a welcome addition here - I guess my personal clam preference is to have them cooked, or served raw in smaller quantities or sizes, say three cherrystones or half a dozen littlenecks. Speaking of cooked clams, I ordered a cup of their New England clam chowder, served with a generous chunk of San Francisco sourdough bread. I remembered Blaine's advice and dropped the crust into the chowder to soften. Delicious. I finished my meal with a half order of smoked salmon, served with more sourdough. Would I like some red onion and capers? Sure, why not? They chopped the onion to order and brought it over in a small bowl, and then set down an enormous jar of capers with a long iced tea spoon to fish them out.
A few other diners eventually appeared, older men who looked like they'd probably worked on a shrimp boat or two in their youth. One man ordered and downed a platter of crab salad bigger than what you could hold in two hands. Oysters for breakfast? I give it two thumbs up.
Note to self: Japantown does not effectively open until 11 AM. I picked up a few CDs from Mikado for driving music and spent most of the day driving.
I went to Mitchell's Ice Cream for an afternoon snack. I had my first halo-halo, a Filipino dessert that starts off like paht bing soo (a base scoop of shaved ice topped with ice cream and assorted Asian sauces like sweet red bean or green tea) but adds over half a dozen other ingredients including colorful cubes of agar gelatin, red and white kidney beans, macapuno, and jackfruit. Mitchell's version hews closely to the standard ingredients, and you can subtract anything you don't want. You also get to pick any flavor of ice cream, but I chose the ube (yam) ice cream depicted in their in-store ad. I could feel many eyes on me as I sat down to try it. Sweet, creamy, savory, and cold. Too cold. There was too much ice for San Francisco's cooler climate and it was chopped too coarsely, freezing some of the jelly cubes into hard lumps. That aside, the halo-halo was quite tasty. The jackfruit brought the savory flavor to the party. Eating it with the macapuno, I felt like I was in a remote Pacific island. The ube ice cream, with its strong purple color, was an instant winner. A dense ice cream with almost a slightly grainy texture, it was mildly sweet with a deep, satisfying flavor.
I drove to the Haight to check out the Kid Robot store, sat at Zam Zam's unique semicircular bar to discuss politics with Tony, and then cut across town for dinner in Portrero Hill with Jacqui.
Chez Papa was as busy as it was last time. The owners have opened two more restaurants within walking distance in the year and a half since my last meal. We started off with the potato, asparagus and artichoke salad with shaved parmesan and bacon, but our attention was mostly focused on the seared foie gras with brandy cherry gastrique and pear feuillete. I always feel guilty when I have foie gras - I think of limbless veal calves and other food cruelties - but seared foie gras paired with strong berries and a hearty wine create a flavor combination I can't resist. We were ready for the main course, a roasted filet mignon with potato parsnip gratin presented as a small tower on a large plate, surrounded by a moat of truffle foie gras sauce. A small dish of the day's vegetable (which I can no longer recall) was served on the side. A chocolate and hazelnut pot de creme rounded out this excellent meal.
I'm no night owl, but San Francisco bars close early. We barely had time to finish a pitcher of some lip-smacking Prohibition beer at one bar before it closed. We then found ourselves in the enclosed patio at Lush Lounge, a few blocks down the street. I also had my first Italian appertif and discovered why they're called "bitters."
The next morning I ate breakfast at Crissy Field, a big salad to balance all of the decadant food I'd been eating. I walked out onto the pier to take in the foggy morning and the incoming Pacific breeze. The fishing wasn't very good; catch buckets were empty and crabs were too small to keep. Still, it's a good place to meditate and reflect.
A few hours later, Jacqui and I were driving through Napa Valley. With a bright, strong sun and temperatures over ninety degrees, Napa was the exact opposite of Crissy Field. We ate lunch under a shady tree at the Oakville Grocery. The hot wind moved restlessly through the leaves of nearby grape vines. It felt like something out of an episode Nature about the plains of the Serengeti. In that heat I wouldn't have been surprised to see some wildebeests and lions. We squeezed in a few wine tastings before the wineries shut down for the day. On the return trip I made a detour into Yountville to find the French Laundry.
We ended the day by having dinner at Ebisu (again). I tried a few more rolls, like the "swamp roll" with albacore and hijiki. I also discovered that their ice cream source is Ciao Bella.
Mission accomplished. I'm ready to return in two months.
