It’sDiningTime!
San Francisco/Bay Area restaurant reviews by Chris NorrisArchive for New American
Parcel 104, Santa Clara
Parcel 104, Santa Clara
June 2008
S’Ok. I’ve had lunch several times at Parcel 104, which is located in the Marriott hotel near the Great America amusement park and a big Intel facility. For lunch, it’s your typical hotel restaurant trying to be more than it should, charging you for the effort and not the result. In previous times I’ve had the overpriced fish, which tasted fine, but wasn’t worth the $30. This time a friend and I ordered salads. I had the $20 shrimp cobb salad and he had a $20 romaine Caesar. Small servings, high prices, but tasted good. Bottom line, for a business lunch Parcel 104 is sufficiently formal and tasty to do the trick. Want a fine dining experience? Probably not going to happen here. While you’ll pay for a fine dining experience, don’t expect the food to keep up with the check.
A.P. Stump’s, San Jose
A.P. Stump’s, San Jose
March 2008
Way Good. A.P. Stump’s serves New American cuisine and is under-recognized in the south bay. The food can be quite creative – order the jonnycakes or the ahi tower appetizers, for example and is capably prepared. The service is crisp and friendly, the wine list is good, and the location is close to the HP Pavilion in case it’s a Shark’s game night or your favorite band is in town! That said, it can be a bit pricey. But Stump’s should be on your list of downtown San Jose fine dining establishments. Here’s a hint: order a bottle of wine and a half dozen of the appetizers and let that be dinner. We’ve had some very nice evenings at Stump’s this way.
Range, San Francisco
Range, San Francisco
Feb 2008
Way Good. Laura and I learned first hand that Range is a restaurant that is a very long way by foot from Haight-Ashbury. Only a few years old, and run by a husband and wife team, Range has a great selection of unusual house cocktails and nicely done New American cuisine. Located in the Mission District, Range is a little off the beaten path and is frequented more by locals rather than the swarms of tourists found in other parts of the city. On our recent visit , we had the chicken liver mousse and braised artichokes as starters, and then sole and ahi for main courses. All were great, but the mousse and artichokes really stood out as special and different. With a friendly and relaxing atmosphere and darn good food, Range is a really nice choice for dinner in the City.
Perbacco, San Francisco
Perbacco, San Francisco
Feb 2008
Woo-Hoo! Perbacco is a young restaurant located in the financial district right next door to century old Tadich Grill. With an upscale spin on Italian dishes, Perbacco is one of the current hot spots in the City and getting in can be a challenge. I caved and took an exceptionally early reservation to get in on a Friday evening and we were happy we did. For starters, we tried the Hamachi Crudo, with fennel and blood orange essence. It was soooo good! The fish was very fresh, with a perfect balance of flavors and textures, and a bit of sea salt crunch. I really did like that dish! We followed that with the salt cod crostini, which we also liked a lot. For main dishes, we enjoyed some of the best scallops we’ve ever experienced and a nicely done duck breast with polenta. The scallops in particular were cooked to perfection and established a standard for comparison! Although we were too full for dessert, a large and tempting selection of cheeses displayed on a wooden cutting block beckoned to us, forcing us to avert our eyes lest we blow our weight watchers points entirely!
StripSteak, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV
StripSteak, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV
December 2007
Woo-Hoo! We’ve been to Michael Mina’s namesake restaurant in San Francisco and to his San Jose restaurant, Arcadia. Both are top-notch, with creative offerings and take-offs on common preparations. A good example is the lobster corn dogs served at Arcadia. StripSteak at the Mandalay Bay on the other hand, is focused on serving the best beef anywhere, simply and perfectly.
We started our meal with a half dozen oysters on the half shell and a trio of tuna tartare, proving that Mina’s can also prepare fish. Don’t miss the trio if you visit Mina’s; it’s worth the stop by itself! Laura ordered the Kobe beef filet and I ordered the Angus beef filet. One hour later, as we consumed the last bite off our plate, we both concluded we had just been served the single best steak we had ever eaten in our lives. Unbelievably fabulous! I don’t know what magic is being concocted behind those kitchen doors, but if you are in Vegas, don’t waste your time with David Copperfield. Go to the magic show at Mina’s.
Martini House, St. Helena, CA
Martini House, St. Helena, CA
January 2008
S’Ok. The Martini House in California’s wine country has good reviews, and we expected to have a pretty impressive meal. The ambiance, service, open kitchen, friendly staff all point to a happy dining experience. The night we visited, the restaurant offered a mushroom tasting menu that included shitakes in mushroom tea with duck wontons, a salad of hedgehog mushrooms with hollandaise sauce, roasted hen of the woods mushrooms with potato puree, and candy cap bread pudding. The waiter emphasized that mushrooms were a specialty for the establishment, so we bought in on the mushroom tasting menu!
I have to hand it to the chef – the menu concepts were terrific and it’s clear that there is a lot of creativity in the menu. In addition, the flavor of the mushrooms was expertly coaxed out of the mushrooms, without overwhelming the dishes and the mushrooms themselves were almost heavenly. So what happened?! Well, every single dish with the exception of the (very good) bread pudding, was immersed in a reduction of some kind that tasted of soy sauce and was so salty and overwhelming that after a point, we couldn’t eat anymore of our dish! It’s a shame – Café La Haye perfectly executed much simpler dishes and was a world-class dining experience. Martini house presented dishes with incredible potential, but that we would never bother to order again as presented to us.
If I didn’t think our experience might be a fluke, I wouldn’t recommend Martini House at all. Let’s keep out fingers crossed.
California Café, Los Gatos, CA
California Café, Los Gatos, CA
November 2007
S’Ok. We’ve been to the California Café for dinner a time or two, but we’ve made quite a few trips for lunch. At dinner time, we usually get seduced away by the Wine Cellar, a terrific restaurant right next door to the California Café. When we aren’t wooed away, we’ve had good experiences with the fish – tuna, sole, halibut, salmon; pretty much any of the fish. At lunchtime, the Café has tablecloths and works well for the suit wearing folk on their semi-casual ‘get to know you’ lunches. At lunch, the soups, sandwiches, fish, and appetizers all work just fine.
Crimson, Los Gatos
Crimson, Los Gatos
December 2007
S’Ok. Crimson is a small eatery in Los Gatos located near Lark Street. We hadn’t discovered Crimson earlier because it’s a little off of our normal haunt in downtown LG, but on a recent weekday “date night” we decided to give it a try. We happened to be there on a Wednesday, which is “half off any bottle of wine” night! Woo-Hoo! Crimson is run by Chef Diane Rose, and is small and packed and you will likely wish you had a reservation based on Wednesday night’s activity. The ambiance was cozy, friendly, but a bit loud and chaotic, and while we liked the food we ordered, none of it was great. We started with a fish & chips (tuna tartare) appetizer, which was bland. The sea bass and filet main dishes were both good, but not outstanding. They seemed under-seasoned and just didn’t compel you to keep taking that next bit. The bread pudding for dessert was good. Real good. You’re unlikely to go away from Crimson unhappy, but it could be more that it was for us on Wednesday.
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Myth, San Francisco – UPDATE/BAD NEWS
Myth – UPDATE/BAD NEWS
Here’s some bad news for San Francisco food lovers. According to the SF Chronicle, Myth (located on Pacific Avenue) was just sold and as part of the transaction, Chef Sean O’Brien and Sommelier Alex Fox will both be leaving. I’ve raved about Myth before as one of the best restaurants in SF, due in no small part to O’Brien. This has to be one of those cases where six months from now the new owners will be asking themselves what kind of drugs they were on when they made THAT decision! Let’s just hope O’Brien chooses to stay in our area and doesn’t succumb to the wily advances of some other city.
- Chris
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Myth, San Francisco
Myth, San Francisco
October 2007
Update – Woo-Hoo! Myth continues to reign supreme, with another great dinner experience on a recent Friday night. Located on Pacific Avenue, within easy walking distance of both the theater and financial districts, Myth presents formal food in a hip way. We started with Ossetra caviar (from sturgeon sustainably farmed in Uruguay), served with miniature Yukon gold potatoes filled with crème fraiche. Really good, especially with a crisp glass of prosecco! I could go on with the wonders of the menu – the trout, the wild mushroom rigatoni, risotto, crab salad – all of it truly wonderful. In addition to the usual selection of hundred-dollar-plus-or-minus wines, Myth has a selection of “under $29” wines. This is kind of surprising from a restaurant that is capable of generating major cash flow – reservations are hard to get, and there’s plenty of pricey wines on the normal wine list that have good margin for the restaurant. In the spirit of appreciating the effort to offer affordable bottles, we ordered a $25 red from Portugal. It was really good! And so, Myth remains one of our favorite restaurants anywhere!
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