I have skipped a few restaurants, and I promise to backtrack, but first - our farewell dinner was at Zuni. We arrived before dinner service started (along with at least 50 others, and this was a Wednesday), and had a, well, I guess we had a stand at the bar, as they have a nice long copper bar with no stools. Do they have stools during the day? Where do the single diners eat? Oh well, questions that may never be answered. There was a large piano in the bar, and I envision the place getting rather lively on the weekends. I'm sure the bar pianists there are far more exciting than one with whom I've had to work. I started off with a Meyer Lemon Drop:
We were seated upstairs, at a table which seemed to be in a walkway, and I grumbled a little bit - I never get a chance to grumble, but I always have to listen to everyone else do it! But the Jens calmed me down, saying they felt it was actually a great table, because we were right next to the railing, and could look down at all the people below. They were right, of course, and I settled down.
We proceeded to be every server's nightmare - three women who refuse to stop chatting long enough to look at the wine list, let alone the menu, who won't order, and then won't order everything at once, etc. etc. Our server, however, was very lovely, and she tolerated our bad behavior with ease.
Finally, though, we managed to order. Now, I don't want to sound like I am being cheap, but earlier in the day we had decided to get the chicken on bread salad, one of Zuni's legendary dishes. I make something similar and wanted to compare myself to Judy Rogers. The chicken, however, was $38. I know it's for two, and that's really only $19 each, which is pretty reasonable, but here's the thing - the little free range hormone free fryer chickens I buy from Weiland's cost around $6 - could Zuni's chicken really be $32 better? (this is what happens when you start figuring out food costs - you start to want to eat at home more) Well, we'll never know. Unless we decide to go again, because we opted to order loads of appetizers instead of entrees.
For wine, we started off with the Qupé Marsanne ($29/750ml bottle) for the second time on the trip, and we were going to move right along with that theme and have the Qupé Central Coast syrah ($25/750ml bottle), but sadly they were sold out. We had instead the Ribera del Duero Bodegas Balbas($28/750ml bottle) - when in doubt, order Spanish, I always say. This was another thing I noticed in San Francisco, and I know it should come at no surprise, but most restaurants we visited had really great, far-reaching wine lists with fair markups (Ohio law dictates that we mark wine up a certain percentage, I don't know what the California laws are) and great options at reasonable prices.
But I digress - on with the food. I decided to eat a few things I have had before but didn't like, namely oysters. I have shucked a fair amount of oysters in my day, but, being that I live in a landlocked state, they were probably not the best way to judge oysters as a whole. Our server assisted my dining companions, more oyster-savvy than I - in ordering from their large selection, and there were 2 for each of us. I don't remember what kind they were precisely, but they were all from British Columbia. (See? Now I know I'm being duped. It's nearly 1000 mines from Vancouver to San Francisco, whereas Columbus is only about 400 miles from the East coast. In theory, we should also be able to get good oysters; where are they all going?. Perhaps I just enjoy the flavor of West coast oysters more?) I loved oysters, and I will happily try them again.
Next up was a nice little pasta (which I will soon recreate) with butternut squash, bacon, butter, sage and black pepper. The perfect late-fall dish, one that I look forward to in some form (squash raviolis in browned butter sauce, for example) every year.
We had a lovely bowl of soft and creamy polenta with mascarpone:
A warm rabbit salad with frisée (eat more frisée!!) and pecans in a sherry vinaigrette. The salad was accompanied by prune crostinis that Jen 2 and I agreed were exactly what was missing at our Bouchon foie gras experience.
My least favorite was the squid stew with red wine and orange zest (maybe it was the orange zest):
Strangely enough, for a girl who grew up with cows and was forced to eat liver on numerous occasions, I had never had tongue, and so we had to order the beef tongue and potato salad with mustard shallot vinaigrette and dandelion greens. This was a really nice and balanced dish - the contrast between the warm tongue and the plain, boiled potatoes, brought together with the really good vinaigrette.
There were so many great-looking things on the menu that I will have to go back. I love the Zuni Cafe cookbook, it's so full of sensible but great dishes (sausages with grapes).
We rounded out the dining experience with a few selections from their cheese course and some raspberry ice cream. It was time to go, we had to get up for our early-morning flight, my time on the West coast had come to an end.
It might have been the company, being back with my best friend Jen, who left Columbus for the Golden Gate city in April, and my newer friend Jen 2, all of us discussing food and butterfat and the dining scene in San Francisco vs. Columbus (really, there is no comparison). It might have been the service, provided by a lovely bespectacled (just like us!) girl, patient and knowledgeable, she frequently left the table to get the chef to answer our ridiculous questions (no, really, how precisely does the chef prepare the tongue?). It might have been the food, full of comfort and seasonal goodness, or the wine. It might have been the charming cup of pastel-colored paper straws on the bar (I am a total sucker for that sort of thing), or the line drawn clip art of a champagne-drinking frog on the menu. Whatever it was, Zuni was my favorite all-around dining experience of the trip, and I highly recommend it if one is visiting or lives in the area.
Info: Zuni Café (no website that I can find) 1658 Market St. San Francisco, CA 415.552.2522
