Restaurants
Benihana
Japan Town
Now you should know, I don't actually like Japanese food. Ok, well
make that Asian food. Well, okay, food from the Asian continent. And vegetables.
And...well a whole lot of things. I'm picky. A picky epicurean, that's
me. So, when Gina suggested Benihana's, I took a breath and said, meat's
meat right.
Wrong. What a blast.
Hmmm...now, we have no dignity. That's important to establish.
Because what they do at Benihana is the chef comes to your table and prepares
your food on a grill right in front of you. He chops and squirts and flips
knives and makes smoking volcanos out of onions and puts on an all round
cool show. Since, we have no dignity we clapped and laughed and cheered
and variously egged our chef on.
Now as to the food. Karen and I started with a glass of sweet plum wine.
Very refreshing after a day of shopping.
Then we had a bowl of clear onion lemon soup. It had a nice clean taste.
Then rice and shrimp. Then the main course. I had the Benihana Special,
Lobster Tail and Steak for $31.00. Tender beef. Flavorful and juicy. The
slices of lobster tail were nicely marinated and yummy. The dip was
good too. (Really, I have no idea what kind). And they gave me a set of
training chop sticks. Very cute. Karen had the Marina platter with shrimps,
scallops, and calamari as well as fried rice for $27ish. It practically
melted in the mouth. Mmmm...butter. And everyone else had, chicken and
steak and, I was concentrating on the chef. It all looked good.
Chapeau Bistro
1408 Clement Street San Francisco,
CA 94118
Tue-Thu 5:00pm-10:00pm
Fri-Sat 5:00pm-10:30pm
Sun 5:00pm-10:00pm
Tel: (415) 750-9787
Fax: (415) 750-9677
American Express, Diners Club, Discover, MasterCard, Visa
$15-$35
This is a fabulous French restaurant tucked away in an obscure corner
of the
city. The decor is minimal, but the service, food, and wine are outstanding.
The staff were always ready to fill a glass or fetch a napkin, but were
never intrusive. The owner acted as sommelier and personally visited
each
table to make sure his guests were satisfied. So what did we eat?
Crystal and I both started with a glass of kir, a very small cup of
potato leek soup
(light and savory), and warm, crusty bread and butter. We each choose
a prix
fixe menu.
Crystal had sweet potato soup with cream, a green salad with the
best vinaigrette dressing I've ever tasted, breast of pheasant in broth
with
potatoes and carrots, and the cheese plate.
I had cured salmon in lemon sauce with potato salad, mahi mahi lightly
grilled on a bed of onions, duck with mash potatoes, turnips, and a lovely
sauce, and vanilla creme brulee.
Every bite was a treasure. We ordered a bottle of Chateau la Grolet
Cotes-de-Bourg 1998 (a light, but full bodied bordeaux that nicely
complemented the meal). I would highly recommend this restaurant to
anyone
with something truly special to celebrate. Expensive, but worth every
penny.
Fuzio
Embarcadero Center One,
across from the movie theater
$7-$12
This is a fun, hip restaurant specializing in pasta dishes. The unique
blends of Eastern and Western styles of pasta are interesting and tasty.
We
started off with cocktails.
Crystal ordered a lemon drop and I ordered a fuziotini (vodka, lime
juice, triple sec, & chambord). For the appetizer, we split an order
of lightly breaded and fried calamari with sun dried tomato aoili.
Crystal had a chicken sandwich on panini with sun dried tomatoes and
I
had rigatoni in a light sun dried tomato alfredo sauce with bacon.
Do you
get the impression they like sun dried tomatoes?
For dessert, we split a strawberry apple crisp topped with a lemon creme
and crumbled almond cookies. Quite yummy and fairly economical.
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