Buzzy – Coi – San Francisco

Few restaurants have generated as loud a buzz – positive buzz – as Chef Daniel Patterson’s San Francisco restaurant Coi, located in the somewhat scruffy North Beach neighborhood. But unexpected or not, the California-inspired modern cuisine at Coi has received a lot of admiring attention: it as if a hive of foodie bees had descended on the Embarcadero.

The restaurant itself is something of an oasis; it is neither luxe nor loud (Coi means quiet or tranquil in French), but bright, modest, slyly elegant, and pleasing, and service is forthcoming. And it is an establishment whose honeyed food always satisfies, although on the night that I dined only a few dishes stunned. This is only a complaint given the chatter that Patterson’s place generated. And, in truth, a few dishes were remarkable. One of my dining partners felt that the restaurant had, on that night, pulled back a bit from its more adventurous efforts. The restaurant is one of the most significant dining destinations in the Bay Area, a necessary culinary visit. And only one dish was less than very successful.



That dish was the first offering: Childhood Memory of Harvest: Vegetable Leathers, Apple, Nuts, and Pear Cider. It has become de rigueur for chefs to trade in nostalgia, sometimes for the best, sometimes not. Here the memory was Patterson’s. For this diner, fruit leathers have never been that appealing. I come from a generation in which these “healthy” snacks were not widely available for afternoon television surfing. I give Chef Patterson a ribbon for the best vegetable leathers that I have tasted, but prize is perhaps not worth much in the larger culinary scheme.



Fortunately this memory was quickly replaced by a gracefully cool and fresh plate of Marin Miyagi Oysters with wheatgrass and lemon ice. This was an amuse for the ages, designed to awaken all of one’s senses. It was complexity and simplicity on a plate, and was among the star presentations of the evening. Oysters can be difficult partners, but when treated well, they are sexy and profound.



The inverted cherry tomato tart with a black olive basil wafer was an elegant architectural construction: precisely prepared. If it didn’t jangle or provoke, it was a very happy savory tart. Perhaps it was more an assertion of the builder’s art than the chef’s, but the tastes were Californian and right.



Chilled Piquillo Pepper Soup with fresh pole and shelling beans, preserved lemon, and cilantro was another highpoint. It was slightly gelatinized (is that a word?) and so vibrant in visual appeal that its hue could play off its tang. This soup was not Progresso, but Progressive.



Monterey Bay Abalone Grilled on the Plancha with Nettle-Dandelion Salsa Verde, Spicy Breadcrumbs and Wild Fennel Flowers might have nodded too deeply to the idea of the wild. Here I was particularly impressed by the textures which were challenging and exciting with each bite.



At this point, we were served an off-the-menu soup: Late Summer Squash with Borage. Patterson’s second soup was impressive if less exciting than the first soup of the evening.



Do diners dream of beet charcoal? I do. Our most memorable dish was Wild Black Cod Smoked over Beet Charcoal (beet charcoal?) with Creamed Leeks, Beet-red Flame Grape Sauce, and Horseradish Dill. Who knew that I would love a presentation that couldn’t be beet? Perhaps it was the smoked and rooted flavor of the cod that seduced, or perhaps it was a visually stunning plate or an amazingly moist aquatic protein. Everything worked in synergy, and I bang my head on my computer screen for lacking the photographic skills to show you my love in her deep red lipsticked grandeur.



Pan-Grilled Matsutake with Potato-Pine Needle Puree was a quiet contrast to the cod. I never have understood why Japanese gourmands count Matsutake as so favored a fungus: I will take King Bolete. The Matsutake and pine was well prepared, tasting like a walk among damp conifers.



The main protein was Poached and Seared Duck Breast with Foie Gras Ganache, Figs, Angelica Root, and Tarragon. I have tired of those dishes that are a little of this, a little of that. A smorgasbord rather than a symphony. Yet, it is the style. Each point of light on the plate was well-prepared, but the dish seemed more straight-forward than astonishing.



Our cheese – Tomme D’Ossau with Late Summer Greens – was the artistic presentation of a fine slab of curd.



The Cheesecake with Goat Cheese, Graham Cracker, and Niabell Grape was a powerful sweet. Both the goat cheese and the grape added muscle to the creamy cake. It was the more striking of the two desserts.



Cinnamon Smoked Apples with Iced Buttermilk, Hazelnut, and Sorrel was a worthy closing, although perhaps too accessible – more North Platte than North Beach. I could eat such a pleasure, but I would doubtless select a more challenging sweet.



So, Coi was a success: a four star restaurant for certain. Several dishes were wonderful, and the cod and the oysters were memorable. If it didn’t quite live up to the buzz, we should blame the buzz and not the chef. Chef Patterson is a man of enormous talent and creativity. With his left coast garden perhaps there is no stopping him.

Coi
373 Broadway (North Beach)
San Francisco
(415)393-9000
http://www.coirestaurant.com

Manresa 1.0 – Los Gatos, California

Everyone foodie needs a goal in life, if for no other reason than to keep him off the streets. And so during my year in Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, actually), I made a commitment to myself to visit Manresa once a month: for a total of ten visits. Who knows whether, in fact, I will meet my goal, but it surely counts as a caloric packed Jewish New Year’s resolution. Although I have started off slowly (on a month-by-month basis I should be at my third visit), I hope to ramp up soon. I expect to eat through the menu, although I have no doubt that the menu will change to extend my mad dash. (If we were talking about Moto, I could not only eat through the menu, but eat it as well).

It can be debated – endlessly with gustatory gusto – which Bay Area restaurant is the most definitive or the most delicious (not precisely the same question). This is a metropolitan area that sports the French Laundry, Chez Panisse, Gary Danko, and Coi. Countless other restaurants have their own virtues. But there are many partisans for Manresa, David Kinch’s establishment in Los Gatos, which, among its many virtues, includes the avoidance of San Francisco’s traffic.

Of all of the Bay Area’s restaurants, it is Manresa that perhaps owes the most to European (especially Spanish, especially Catalan) cuisine, although Chef David Kinch has the California’s love for all things herbal, vegetative and fructifying.

Manresa as architecture is pleasant, although not startling. The design doesn’t pretend to knock one out, and, in truth, it could house a restaurant deserving one, two, three, or four stars – or perhaps none at all. To say that it is upscale generic is not to suggest that it is corporate. But it lacks the attention to architectural theatrics that one finds at Alinea or Bouley. At Manresa one does not lick the walls, just the plates. The attention is on the food.

Perhaps what I will enjoy most in my essays is finding points to criticize this essential and compelling restaurant. This is the critic’s right and, frankly, his pleasure. This first night – a Sunday – my colleagues and I selected the four course menu. As we moved through the night, I was glad that no one in our party was dieting or that no one was rushed. The dinner became ten courses (some of the extras may have resulted from a friend’s phone call), and spread out longer than four hours. I confess that there will be no objections from this scribe to four amuses (that is a lot of amusement, comparable to Duck Soup or Babette’s Feast), a substantial palate cleanser, and a brief dessert. And it is not the four hours that was at issue. Still, we were surprised at the pacing of the dinner. If four courses last four hours, does David provide PJs for the tasting menu? We were surprised at the gaps between the courses. The amuses were delivered quite expeditiously, but the spaces between the prix fixe courses left much time for conversation. Aside from the pacing, service was very agreeable and we appreciated the wine suggestions of the sommelier: two very food-friendly wines.

My second complaint was an unbalanced dish that I describe subsequently.

I will not spend much time describing the amuses and other extras, but no account of Manresa would be complete without mention of the poached oyster with seaweed and the Arpege egg, an homage to Alain Passard. The former is a marvel of culinary technology, a cooked oyster, designed to taste raw, almost. Chef Kinch was able to capture the fulsome quality of the oceans, particularly the essence of seaweeds that accompanied the dish.



I have not eaten at Arpege – sad moi! – and so I cannot claim any expertise as to whether this yolk compares, but of all of the dishes served it was the most luxuriant and astonishing. The hot-cold soft-boiled egg mixed with cream, maple syrup, and sherry vinegar. The warm egginess is set apart with sour’n’sweet. It is a canonical dish that deserves, like the greatest musical composition to be reprised frequently in culinary concert halls.



For this first meal, I asked our server (Bryan) to suggest the most “typical,” or perhaps archetypical, dishes of the Manresa collection. The dishes were not the ones that I would have ordered from the menu, but I wanted to learn how the restaurant (or at least one of their servers) conceived themselves.

So I began with “Into the Garden . . . Their Natural Juices.” I expected a subtle, restrained dish like Town House’s Vegetable Minestrone. I could not have been further from the mark. Chef Kinch’s salad was a herbal kitchen sink. It had everything that one might imagine, prepared in incredible ways. It looked like an exploded mixed salad, but it tasted like a jazz combo. There were soils, bubbles, foams, leafs, and shoots. If the goal of modern cuisine is the make each bite an experience and to permit interaction with one’s food, this salad succeeded brilliantly.



I promised a criticism, and my second dish is the place. Chef Kinch does not produce laid back cuisine, but why did he have to beat a yuzu drum? I was served butterfish slowly roasted with chanterelles, baby leeks, herbs, and yuzu sabayon. While the butterfish was as buttery and perfectly prepared as advertised, and the chanterelles were welcome, they were overwhelmed by an astringently pushy yuzu sauce. I was astonished by how dominant – how hegemonic – that yuzu was, and I have to wonder whether it was poorly made or deliberately intense. This was sabayon with sharp elbows. I have argued that food need not taste good to be artistic, but this dish seemed something other than serving glass shards to add the taste of blood. After a bite or two I tried to wipe away the sabayon. Perhaps a salmon or mackerel might have stood up to the blows, but not poor little butterfishy.



The third course put the meal back on track: slow roasted rack of veal “tomato,” cabbage with sweet onion and porcini fritter: a Manresa specialty. The label rack of veal was misleading as no rack was in sight. What was served was delicious enough, veal off the bone, cooked as tuna might. Even though this was the main protein course, it had the style of a grand salad, and, with the exception of the amuses mentioned above, the star of the night.



Dessert is prepared in the modern style, mix and match components: Pears and pumpkin cake with Speculaas (spiced cookie) ice cream with moscato jelly, prunes, dates, molasses and pecans. I enjoyed the dish thoroughly although my preference is for a dessert with a central focus: these days pastry chefs feel that rather than creating a single dessert, they create a dozen served on the same plate. Still, it was a successful autumnal sweet.



Chef Kinch deserves those plaudits ladled upon him. Manresa is a four-star restaurant. Yet, after this first meal, I am not quite sure where I would place it in the firmament of dining destinations. The veal “tonnato,” carnivalesque salad, poached oyster, and Arpege egg suggests brilliance. The pacing and yuzu extravagance less so. So with nine meals left, the grade is incomplete.

Manresa
320 Village Lane
Los Gatos, California
408-354-4330
http://www.manresarestaurant.com

Ubuntu – Herbal Heaven – Napa, California

Some days my wife decides to play vegetarian. Unlike bunnies, carrots lack a pretty face. It is an identity that while enthusiastically held at times is not a consistent self. I am not condemned to a beef-free hell. Still she believes that being a vegetarian is a worthy identity, and often at restaurants with tasting menus, she selects the vegetable option (and as often as not she has won in our best dinner competition). But since we were visiting Napa Valley, after having buttermilk fried chicken at Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc the night before, we selected lunch at Ubuntu, the combination restaurant/yoga studio in downtown Napa.

In its early days, Ubuntu was known for the skills of chef Jeremy Fox. But as often happens in the culinary biz, the magic could not last. It was reported that after a 3:00 a.m. meeting (the end of the work day for some chefs) much of the staff decided to resign en masse. I have not eaten Chef Fox’s cuisine, and have no way to compare then and now. Fox was replaced by Aaron London, who had been the chef de cuisine, but even with his experience this was surely a difficult transition following a beloved chef.

While I didn’t find Ubuntu in its current formulation a startlingly brilliant restaurant, it is a very satisfying one: filled with light and air and with light and airy food that makes a real effort to please. Many fruits and vegetables and herbs on the menu are grown in the restaurant’s biodynamic garden.



We ordered four dishes (each between $12-$17), and they were satisfying for a lunch. The dishes were well-composed, although in a few cases they read better than they tasted. I would have preferred big tastes, although two of the dishes were excellent.

We started with a clear cantaloupe and sage gazpacho with radish and compressed and blackened pickled melon. I imagined that this would be a powerful dish, and we ordered it thinking that it would startle us. The dish itself, although pleasant, was mild and straightforward. Each ingredient was fresh, but the combination was less than its parts.



A traditional steamed bun stuffed with burrata chesse and coated with smoked pear dust was unfortunately doughy. The smoked pear dust was mild. It was pretty on the plate, but was the most forgettable of the four.



Much better was Ubuntu’s take on macaroni and cheese: garden inspired extruded pasta with spiced fiore and confit gajo de melon (a type of tomato). This clever dish was substantial while avoiding the gumminess of mom’s (or Kraft’s) mac’n’cheese. I delighted in its Gouda goodness.



The best of our midday repast was the “inside out” grits cooked with goat’s whey and blistered pardon peppers and beans with smoked corn husk. It was a distinguished dish, even if I couldn’t figure out what constituted the “inside-out-ness.” But the beans and peppers were dramatic counterpoints to the ricotta and the creamy grits. At the price, I could have carried home a gallon.



When one dines at a restaurant that was once canonical, it is hard to determine if it has slipped or has maintained all of its virtues. I was impressed by the confidence of Chef London, even if his bravery might have been kicked up a notch. Perhaps each dish could have benefited from bacon, but that comment is just the sort of snarky remark that those who run a combination yoga studio/restaurant must put up with from the fat and comfortable. Bacon or no, Ubuntu is worth a visit.

Ubuntu
1140 Main Street
Napa, California
707-251-5656
http://ubuntunapa.com

Saisons Greetings – Saison – San Francisco

When I arrived at Saison, I was uncertain what to expect. The restaurant is tucked away in a slightly sketchy courtyard in the lively but mixed industrial Mission district. Saison has been open a few months now, but doesn’t have the buzz-factor of a restaurant such as Benu.

The website indicates that the chef, Joshua Skenes, prefers using “primitive techniques” such as ember and ash cooking. Could wooly mammoth be in the offing? (Much of the rest of the description of Saison’s philosophy seems industrial-strength farm-to-table boilerplate.) Skenes had been chef at Chez TJ, and the website mentions, somewhat oddly, that Skenes had received perfect grades while a student at the French Culinary Institute of New York, akin to advertising a cardiologist’s medical school transcript.

Upon entering the stylish 2010 comfort space one is confronted with a large brick fireplace filled with those embers mentioned above. No need to sit on rocks, using bone implements.

Although one might imagine that a restaurant that embraced its inner Cro-Magnon might lean toward muscular protein, Saison dances with vegetables, and waltzes well. This night the protein was secondary (and, in fact, a radish plate was replaced with mackerel, and had radishes been at peak only a single dish, squab, would have been starred animal protein).

Dinner began with Tomatoes and Melons with Riesling Vinegar, a lovely, if brief, amalgam of garden and field. The dish hovered between sweet fruit and tart vegetable, as is proper for tomato inspiration, bolstered by a grapy vinegar. The presentation was calm and supple with a slight aspic air. (The amuse – caviar and corn beignet – came next, a successful mini-bite).



This was followed by Wild Horse Mackerel with Anise Hyssop. No fish farm is known as “Wild Horse,” although it seems as plausible as “Dirty Girl Produce” or “Wild Crane Springs Ranch” or “Riverdog Farms,” all purveyors to Saison. Here wild is an adjective to indicate that the Horse Mackerel (known to sushi fans as aji) was not farmed. The fish is very popular in Japan and deservedly so. While there was not a strong anise flavor, the presentations of mackerel, meaty and sculptural were supremely pleasing.



The third dish was Garden Beans in Various Forms with River Vegetable (a plant found at the edge of streambeds). Again, Chef Skenes revealed a sure green touch. The combination of legume and leaf matched symphonically, demonstrating again that vegetarians (though not vegans) may be the leading force of contemporary cuisine.



Tokyo Turnips Roasted over the Embers, Shaved Raw and Poached with Bonito, was the high point of the night. Texture took precedence although the smoky, burnt edges certainly did their part. While this was not quite a vegetarian dish, like so many dishes it was blissfully vegocentric: edging toward a religious marriage of earth and fire.



Surely the most courageous dish of the night was the presentation of Silver Queen and Red Flint Okra with Wild Seaweeds and Sweetfish. Okra is the vegetable that it is fashionable to hate, understandable when boiled and turned into mucilage. These okras were less so, but you while you can remove okra from the slime, it is harder to remove slime from the okra. I admired the moment – didn’t hate it – but my admiration was for a brave chef, rather than a lusty dish. The mixture revealed a serious commitment to modern cuisine with its accompaniments. Still better okra is not as delicious a good anything-else.



The marquee protein was a composition of Four Story Hills Squab, roasted in Fig Leaf, Adriatic Figs, Cave Mascarpone, and Rosebud (Four Story Hills is a farm, not a squab varietal). It was beautiful and lush – squab presented several textured ways with a rich combination of fig and cheese. Perhaps it was not the beef that Saison’s fireplace might produce, but in its gamey way it was glorious.



Desserts were less elaborate, although suitable to the end of an evening. At Saison it is the vegetables, not the sugars, that matter. The first selection was Autumn Flame Peaches (a variety), ember roasted and peach sorbet with milk granite. The powdered milk didn’t do much for me, but the roasted peaches were a wonderful tribute to September.



Finally Summer Berries in their Consommé with Yuzu Ice Cream was a perfectly appropriate close to dinner. If not startling, the berries were juicy and well-matched.



I was delighted by Saison’s seasonal cuisine and its eight course tasting menu ($98; Saison also has a kitchen table where longer progressions can be served). Here was a restaurant that deserves a place on any weekly rotation. The vegetable dishes were superb, the squab was a fully conceived dish, and the techniques gaze forward as they look far back. While not the most deluxe restaurant in the Bay Area, Saison holds its own any month.

Saison
2124 Folsom St
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-828-7990
http://www.saisonsf.com

Simply Good - Quinones at Bacchanalia

For nearly two decades Bacchanalia has served as the Gold Standard of Atlanta fine dining (with the exception of the glorious, but brief reign of Seeger’s). Atlanta fine dining has largely been rather traditional, if not to say stodgy (e.g. Panos and Paul’s), but Bacchanalia introduced Atlanta to some of the canons of modern cuisine. Granted this was not a restaurant that should be compared with the true temples of haute cuisine – and the main restaurant is more formal than dining establishments on the coasts – but it was and is a regional highpoint.

Once (or twice) a week Bacchanalia under chef David Carson and pastry chef Carla Tomasko ventures into the world of degustation, serving a nine course tasting menu (plus amuse) in a separate dining room in the Star Provisions restaurant complex. And how is it? In its own terms it is very pleasurable. If it falters a bit in ambition or starry brilliance, perhaps feeling just a bit like modern cuisine with training wheels (seemingly no more than five ingredients per dish), that does not detract from the soundness of the plates. Atlanta will not be a fine dining mecca, but if one resides in Hotlanta, Bacchanalia is as warm as it gets.

The dishes served the night of August 14, 2010 (they change on a weekly basis) were:

1) An amuse of Sweet Vidalia Onion Soup with Chicharrones: a wonderful sip of soup, a paean to local terroir – onion and pork skin.


2) Kumamoto Oysters, Hawaiian Ahi Tuna, Caviar, Heirloom Melons, and Chervil – a smart and well presented dish, perhaps the flavors were too sweet to be truly challenging, but it provided a cool punch of summer pleasure from the oyster, tuna and melon.


3) Nantucket Diver Scallop with White Gazpacho, and Melon. The scallop, fresh enough, was not as sweet and tender as one might expect, but the gazpacho, tiny though it was, proved delightful.


4) Foie Gras Terrine, Pickled Blueberries, Spiced Cocoa Nibs, and Wild Arugula. A nicely composed dish, but well within expectations of how foie is presented.


5) Loup de mer with Melted Spring Onion, Local Squash, and Crispy Fingerling Potatoes. Simple and elegant. Perfectly cooked fish with thin potato scales. A real treat in its minimalist presentation.


6) Crispy Veal Sweetbreads with Oyster Mushrooms, Pole Beans and Young Carrots. A straight-ahead preparation of sweetbreads. It was well-made without being uniquely memorable.


7) Colorado Lamb Loin, Stewed Field Peas, Butter Beans, Zipper Peas, and Summerland Farm Herbs. This was the least compelling dish of the evening. It was not poorly prepared, just rather dull, although capturing some of the farm-grown beans that dot Southern tables.


8) Sweet Grass Dairy Green Hill Cheese, Georgia June Peaches, and some more Arugula. A small bit of nice cheese on a pretty plate.


9) Lemon Buttermilk Panna Cotta, Local Blueberries, and Blueberry Sorbet. Well-done, but what one would expect given the ingredients.


10) Skipping the chocolate dessert, I was served four scoops of sorbet: peach, melon, blueberry, and blackberry, each a straightforward flavor.


Of the dishes it was the Loup de Mer – awash in simplicity – and the Vidalia amuse – simple in its own cunning way – that captured my affection. Chef Carson hasn’t quite developed a distinctive gastronomic style, other than attempting to build on Southern farm produce (beans, leaves, and herbs), admirable to be sure. Still, there is no doubt but that he is surely a very capable chef, probably the best around. I will surely continue to dine at Bacchanalia when I get to Atlanta, but, as yet, I don’t plan to travel to Atlanta in order to dine at Bacchanalia.

Quinones at Bacchanalia
1198 Howell Mill Road
Atlanta, GA 30318
404-365-0410
http://www.starprovisions.com/