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Chouquet's (Pacific Heights SF)

Almost fantastic French fare

We came to Chouquet's for a Dine About Town dinner in late May or so. Though none of us had ever heard about this place, we were won over by how cute the name "Chouquet's" sounded. Note: To a girl, it's perfectly rational to make decisions based on the measure of adorableness of the thing or place in question.

From left to right: amuse bouche of asparagus soup, smoked trout salad, salmon carpaccio (?), grilled ahi, gnocchi with vegetables, chocolate cake

I was pleased to receive the complimentary asparagus soup at the beginning of the meal because free food is always delicious in my book (except airplane food which is only arguably free and vile in any case). The soup was fairly tasty but not particularly notable. For appetizer, I ordered the smoked trout salad, which was actually quite fantastic. There was a suprising number of ingredients in the salad. Besides smoked trout, it also featured watercress, pepitas, carrots, onion, mustard seed, among a couple of other things, and a nice hint of acidity. The overall mixture was refreshing and hearty too! My friend who had the salmon had good things to say about that too.

Our entrees took quite a bit of time to appear. I suppose it was okay because we had all felt sort of full after the appetizers. My grilled ahi tuna had a nice texture and was paired nicely with the accompanying salad. My only complaint is that that the salad was a bit too acidic and tasted too much like the smoked trout salad of my previous course.

Dessert, which is usually the happiest portion of the meal, was unexpectedly sad in this instance. Well, not entirely. Sure, my chocolate cake was pretty delicious. But 1) dessert took forever and a half to arrive and 2) my friend's creme brulee was sort of a disaster in that it had totally not set and was basically a custard soup bouying a thin film of bruleed sugar. After a valiant effort to eat the creme brulee soup, my friend asked if it could be sent back and deducted from the check. The hostess then begrudgingly offered to replace it with the chocolate cake. Not that the replacement chocolate cake wasn't tasty, but due to how long the entire meal took, we were literally the last remaining customers in the restaurant when said cake was done.

Even though the food was fairly good, the snob in me feels that the slow service and dessert debacle warrant a couple of demerits from my overall judgment of Chouquet's. My advice for future visitors: arrive early and refrain from getting the creme brulee.

Spencer on the Go (SOMA SF)

An awkward marriage of fast food and high aspirations

I have a lot of things to say of Spencer on the Go and some of it is actually related to the food. Spencer on the Go is a new-ish food cart started by the chef of the restaurant Chez Spencer. Now, I've never been to Chez Spencer but the 4 stars and $$$$ on Yelps tells me that it's a delicious and classy joint of some kind. One would then think that bringing such delicious foods to the streets (literally) would be a delightful combination of tastiness, affordability, and convenience. Not so much, as it turns out.

From left to right: the "scene" at the food cart, mushroom something, frog legs, escargot puff, skate cheeks

The cart had started serving at 6pm and when I had arrived at 6:30pm, there was already a decent number of people hovering in the area. As I learned later, the crowd was not only the result of anticipation but also the looong wait in between ordering and receiving the food. We ended up waiting a good 45 minutes for our tasty, French morsels. I say "morsels" because each plate was only tapas-sized and could not have individually filled anyone up. Each dish costed around $6-12, which was also not unlike how much a plate of tapas would cost. So if cheapness and fast service are what you expect from a food cart, you will probably be disappointed here.

Nevertheless, there were still a few bright spots from my one-time experience at Spencer on the Go. First, the people who ran the operation obviously took the project very seriously. Peeking inside the cart, I could see 3 chefs in snazzy white coats manning their respective stations, as if they were in a real kitchen. Second, the food was actually very good. Had you not known that it was served from a truck inside a parking lot, you might have thought the food was taken from an actual restaurant. Finally, it was a good concept of taking gourmet cuisine out of the stuffiness of a restaurant and into a cheap eats context. But alas, Spencer on the Go will need to work on the quality of its execution to meet the caliber of the concept.

The House (North Beach SF)

A seabass that is (en)dangerously delicious.

I was skeptical when I first about The House, an Asian fusion restaurant restaurant located in the Little Italy area of San Francisco.   But I was appeased by its unusually high, 4.5 star rating on Yelp, our modern day, democratic voice against those f@#$%$! restaurants with even so much as less than flattering lighting.   

From left to right: view of SF in North Beach, fried calamari, grilled sea bass, ribeye over garlic mashed potatoes

I threw that picture of SF in just to show you the heights that we climbed for a good meal.  Impressed?  Naturally.  But I digress.  The fried calamari appetizer was actually not very memorable.  I mean, we ate all of it, sure, but it could have been crispier and coated in more savory batter.  I had a bite of my friend's ribeye, and it was juicy and well-seasoned.  The mashed potatoes were also tasty, as well as artfully presented.  I ordered the grilled sea bass, which was (as the title has already given away) mah-velous (or "marvelous," for you, non-blue blood philistines).  It was cooked just enough so that you could taste the smoky, grilled flavor on the outside of the fish, while the middle featured flesh so fatty and tender that it melted in your mouth.   Mmm.  Too bad the Chilean sea bass is endangered.  That's why I will make a personal pledge to eat less Chilean sea bass.  But only if the Chilean see bass promises to be less delicious.   

Butterfly (Embarcadero SF)

A fabulous Dine About Town lunch deal.

I came to Butterfly last January during Dine About Town in San Francisco.  Dine About Town is a glorious time when various restaurants feature $22 prix-fixe lunch and $35 prix-fixe dinner menus.  You're not really saving all that much money but let's just pretend that we are.  The best part about selecting a prix-fixe menu is committing to overeating: who can deny dessert after a full meal when you're already paying for it?  

From left to right: calamari appetizer, red snapper with tumeric and basil, lettuce and vermicelli noodles, chocolate lava cake and coffee ice cream

Butterfly is a Vietnamese fusion restaurant.  While I'm not usually crazy about Asian "fusion" cuisine, I thoroughly enjoyed this meal.  Firstly, my calamari appetizer was huge, which was already a plus in my book.  Not only was the calamari overflowing from the boat shaped dishware, it was actually very tasty and extremely filling.  Nevertheless, I pressed on with the next course.  For entree, I selected the red snapper with tumeric.  The fish and vermicelli noodles were to be wrapped in lettuce and then dipped in sauce.  The combination of tumeric and basil flavored the snapper very nicely.  Overall, this main course scored well in taste, texture and portion size.   Lastly, I chose the chocolate cake dessert.  I am a sucker for chocolate desserts and will, without fail, find the chocolate option in every dessert menu and inevitably select that one.  If I am sharing a dessert with other people, then I usually put on an air of disinterest at the selection, as if I am easy going and just coo' with whatevs.  But as soon as anyone shows even a modicum of interest towards the "chocolate ______", then I immediately second that choice and reveal my true self from my thinly veiled charade.  So basically, I like the chocolate.  And I liked this chocolate cake too, especially because I had it all to myself.  Together with the coffee ice cream, it was more than enough food, which is just how I like it.