Knife's Edge - Restaurant Rants & Raves

Poet

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It's always interesting to taste someone's food. It becomes more interesting when you've shared a meal or two with them, and even more so when you read them regularly. On our last ill-starred trip to the city (yes, there's more than than getting sick) we had dessert at Sens, new home of Shuna Lydon.

We rode the cable car from our beroached Indian dinner, to our car parked downtown, on the way passing a display of HUGE Christmas ornaments in front of a downtown building. The Sardine pointed and said, "Bubble." Indeed, they looked like giant red bubbles.

One of the biggest problems facing Sens, like Splendido, and the Monte Cristo, before it, is visibility and signage. Unless, you absolutely know where you're going, you wont find it. There is a small, barely visible sign on the Embarcadero side, but I don't think it's going to do much to bring people in. Also the Embarcadero Centers are singularly ugly buildings that don't invite strolling, browsing, or otherwise discovering. So, they will have to create significant buzz. I've read they've hired a muscular PR firm, so hope that does the trick.

It was lovely to come off the escalator and immediately see Shuna's space. Bright, clean, organized and festively, but subtly decorated. I got to get a peek at her Rolls Royce ice cream machine through the window. The restaurant itself is lovely, a welcome change from the Embarcadero Center and it looks like they've kept most of the decorative elements from Splendido intact, which allowed them to make a pretty good impression for less money than completely redesigning the place.

Our host was gracious and gigantic. When we asked for Shuna, he wasn't sure if she was still there and asked if it would make a difference whether we stayed. I assured him it wouldn't, she is after all, pastry chef, not pastry cook. The food will be the same whether she is there or not.

It was late, so there were only two other tables in the restaurant. A relief for us since we didn't know how The Sardine would fare.

The house started us out with two tiny scoops of sorbet; green apple and plum, though the green apple was more the consistency of granita, which it might have been. Our server perhaps wasn't clear. While I was pleased to see Latinos as waiters, ours wasn't doing the house any favors with his pronunciations, like prounouncing the "t" in pot de creeeem. He also was a bit of the used car salesman. When the GM asked him for his favorite on the savory menu, he listed every dish, describing each as "fabulous" or "amazing". While I'm nit-picking, note to the house. Your wine lists are almost as big as the deuces and really awkward. There's no room to put them on the table.

I loved the green apple, the Sardine was having none of either. Having a hard time choosing among the desserts, we tried the
pistachio gift
vanilla phyllo wrapped pistachio frangipane
with mastic-rosewater ice cream

rosemary caramel
slow roasted hazelnuts, supple semolina, rosemary-caramel ice cream
& candied valencia orange

honey-cumin pot de creme
& heirloom apple-walnut-white fig salad

and a special that the GM was really into and so I didn't really get to try and can't tell you much about.

So let me say that I was disappointed to read that Sens decided to take the poetry off the menu and go for more straightforward descriptions of the desserts. I know why they did it, but think they should've kept it. Because Shuna is at heart, a poet. A poet with a palette. She may front off as a drill sergeant to her crew but she don't fool me.

Being a poet, some of her combinations and flavors are subtle and even when she's being bold she's restrained and elegant. My favorite of all the desserts was the cumin pot de creme. The plating was impeccable, modern but not contrived, monochromatic but not stark, and for me, the dessert with the boldest flavors. I didn't get so much rosemary in the rosemary caramel for example, although the GM (who is more sensitive to rosemary than I) did. I also don't remember any candied orange, but it was a rough couple of days afterwards and my memory may be faulty.I'm not sure what mastic tastes like so I'm not sure if I tasted any mixed in the rosewater.

I'm looking forward to going back and seeing the desserts in the context of an entire meal there. Seeing how the savory elements repeat, conclude and accent the meal. Seeing if the plating of the main courses is as well-thought out. Seeing the context.

When we left Sens and hit the street The Sardine looked up and said "Bubble. Where is she?" throwing up his hands. We walked him a few blocks back to the ornaments, marveling that his tiny mind kept that thought for the hour or so we were having dessert, loving each other and full of the spirit of the season.

In the Sun

..."it's for everyone, in the sun, gonna have some fun....", says Debbie Harry. Especially when you have loads of frequent flier miles that are going to expire in a couple weeks unless you use them. We need some ideas folks. We're looking for a fairly short flight time, because we don't yet know how the Sardine is as a traveler. We're also looking for beach and warm, although we're not averse to scrapping that if there's something else out there fun to do, relaxing, and not too pricey, since this is the poor cash-flow time of year.

Comments please.

Being Thankful

Thanksgiving Night, OK really 2am the next day, I went to the restaurant to make bread starter. While the sponge was mixing I checked the messages.

"Hi. We had dinner there Wednesday night and I got food poisoning. I've been violently throwing up for 18 hours. I had XXX & XXX. Can you please call me and tell me what I can do to feel better?"

This is a restaurant owner's worst nightmare. This is far beyond a bad review, or crappy on-line comments.

I tossed and turned all night, dreading making the call. One of the difficulties in identifying food-borne illness is that for many of them, the incubation period is longer than you would expect. It might not be, and in fact most often isn't, the last meal you ate. Trying to get information and explain this to someone who is convinced you made them sick is difficult. At best you look like you're trying to dodge responsibility, and at worst....

Having learned from the GM, I sat down prepared. Dated paper, person's name, description of symptoms, phone number and reluctantly dialed the number.

"Hi, this is Haddock, from XXX. How are you feeling?"

"Oh, thanks for calling me back, but my mom and my husband got sick also so we think it's the flu. I was going to call you back but I haven't had the chance yet."

"I'm sorry to hear your family got ill. Would you mind answering a few questions though, just so I can make sure we're serving safe food?"

And after a few questions it was safe to conclude that it was indeed some sort of viral illness, rather than Bacillus Cereus, which was the only thing that seemed to fit the symptoms and what she ate at my place.

On our recent trip to the city, the GM and I had a similar experience. The Sardine was ill, for the first time in his young life, throwing up, but otherwise seemingly undisturbed, save for the final episode, where he did some unhappy screaming and fell asleep exhausted in mama's arms. That passed for him, and we figured we escaped whatever bug got to him.

We stayed an extra night and the GM wanted another Indian food fix. We took the Sardine on the cable car, watching his eyes light up at the holiday lights and had a meal at one of the Tender-nob Indian establishments. About halfway through our meal a woman at the next table said, "Aggggh, it's crawling on me," and started shaking her leg. In a moment, another roach appeared on the wall by their table. The most intrepid of the bunch smashed it with a napkin and handed it, somewhat discretely, to the owner/manager/ whatever his title might be. He took it, gave a look and then threw the whole thing in the vague direction of a Metro shelf, where there was a bus tub, perhaps for dirty dishes. No attempt to get it in the garbage, no word to the table of anything amiss, and no washing his hands. The GM then spied another, making its way toward us. She went to step on it, but it disappeared under a tile that needs replacing.

We took the cable car back to our car, and had dessert at Shuna's new digs, Sens. More about that in another post. Also, the tale of the Sardine and the bubble.

The next morning the GM was vomiting. For me, it was the other end. Roach-borne illness? Food poisoning? No, some sort of viral illness. I am, however, calling the SF Department of Public Health today.