Coi

Tuesday night we dined at Coi, a two Michelin Star restaurant (also ranked 58th on the San Pellegrino's best restaurants in the world) in the North Beach District of San Francisco.  A tasting menu is the only option available and we opted for the full wine pairing, which from my amateur palate was spot on.  It was so well done I made sure I drank it all! You know, just to make sure they knew how much I appreciated all their hard work.  Since I only knew about half of what I was eating, I will just post pictures with their descriptions in the order we were served.

California Bowl, brown rice crackers, whipped avocado, petite greens. 

wild steelhead trout roe, smoked egg yolk, créme fraîche, chive

paired with: (mv) Voirin-Jumel, Blanc de Blancs, Grand Cru, Cramant, Champagne, France

charcoal roasted beets, blackberry, salted marrow fat, arugula

paired with: (nv) Kamoizumi 'Kome Kome' Hiroshima, Japan

chilled spiced yellow squash soup, saffron, lime, nasturtium

paired with: 2011 Storybook Mountain, Viognier, Napa Valley, California

celtuce, brown butter, burnt hay, comte, tarragon

paired with: 2011 Clos Saint-Vincent, 'Le Clos' Rosé of Braquet, Bellet, Provence, France

Monterey Bay abalone, new onion, scarlet mustard

paired with: 2010 Peay 'Estate' Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast, California

gently steamed wild king salmon, stuffed morels, peas, sorrel

paired with: 2011 Anthill Farms, Pinot Noir, 'Comptche Ridge' Mendocino, California

Emigh Ranch lamb rack, chard leaves and steams, garum, rosemary

paired with: 2007 Jamet, Côte-Rôtie, Rhone, France

strawberries, tiny herbs   *a palate cleanser

whipped coconut, olive oil, rhubarb, blood orange

paired with: (nv) Domaine de l'Octavin 'Foutre d'Escampette' Chardonnay, Arbois, France

(As an uneducated palate (me) and an educated palate (Drew) we both agreed this was possibly one of the best desserts we have ever had!)

blueberries, soy milk, baguette, caramelized cocoa

paired with: 2009 Bava, 'Rosetta' Malvasia di Castelnuovo don Bosco, Piedmont, Italy

The whole experience was pretty impressive and although the food was great the most memorable part about Coi was the company.  We were sat next to a fellow chef from San Francisco who was eating by himself.  Quite a character was our new friend.  I actually had to clean my mouth out with soap afterwards just from listening to him talk.  I will leave you all with a quote from when Jonny left us last night, "I'm going to go finish this meal off with some beer and cocaine".   Umm, ok... I think we will just stick to coffee. 

Napa Valley - part 1

On Monday we set off for Napa Valley.  Being a future wino, I was really excited about going to wine country. And I highly recommend Napa if your looking to drain your bank account.  Two things I would recommend about Napa: 1) make all your reservations early because most vineyards only do tastings by appointments 2) make sure you don't only take a designated driver, but also a designated decision maker. You are going to want someone to tell you after the wine tasting that you really don't need to become a "club member" of every vinyard you go to.  It may sound great at the time to let the vinyard keep your credit card on file and send you boxes of wine annually (you don't even have to renew it... they just keep charging your credit card every year!), but the majority of us are not retired doctors.   This is where your DDM (designated decision maker) comes in! Should we try to go to a fifth wine tasting? DDM. Should I buy that really expensive wine because I just love the bottle? DDM.  Is that a special Napa bathroom or just a pot for plants? DDM.  As the day goes on, this person becomes increasingly more valuable.  

The first vineyard we went to was Ehlers Estate in the northern part of St. Helena. I was interested in this vineyard because it was 100% organic, biodynamic and one of the only non-profit vineyards, with all proceeds going to cardiovasular research.   Ehlers core values are: quality, sustainability, and community.  And all wines produced are estate grown. 

During our tasting we tried their Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, One Twenty Over Eighty (which is a cab blend), and 1886 (Cabernet Sauvignon). 

The second vineyard we went to was Schweiger Vineyards up on Spring Mountain.  I would definitely recommend trying a vineyard on Spring Mountain, but depending on how long you plan to be there you might want to pack a lunch because once you get up there there isn't anything besides the vineyards. This was another small operation with all wines produced soley from the estate. 

While we were there we tried their 2010 Chardonnay, 2006 Merlot, 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, 2008 Dedication (Cab blend), and Port X.  I don't feel quite mature or cool enough to keep bottles of Port hanging around my house, but this stuff was incredible and we definitely are headed home with some! 

   

Tartine

We tried to eat at Tartine on Monday morning before heading to Napa, but by the time we got there at 9:00 the line was already wrapped around the building. So Tuesday we got up extra early and we were waiting outside before it opened at 7:30.  

I don't even know how to write anything to explain Tartine.  As I said before I'm not really a writer, and the only words I can come up with like "incredible" or "amazing" are too familiar and really don't do this place justice.  I am however pretty sure this is what you get to eat in heaven for breakfast.  

Day one at Tartine: Morning Bun, double Pain au chocolat, grugére, croissant, and a dried fruit scone 

Morning Bun (half eaten!)

Sorry we don't have pictures of everything.... maybe next time we will be able to hold off before eating it all! 

Sushi Ran

Sunday night we started our week off at Sushi Ran across the bay in the Salsalito area.   Chef Scott Whitman handled all food coming out of the kitchen while Chef Nori Kusakabe takes care of the sushi bar.   Apparently, he is also specially trained in torafugu (aka blowfish), which is poisonous unless cut specifically. What I want to know is, how many people had to die to figure this out?!?  "There's plenty of fish in the sea" is a quote we are all familiar with and I think can certainly be applied in this context as well!

**Please don't be alarmed at the amount of food we consume.  We trained for this trip.**

We started the night off with a vegetable tasting and Drew had manila clam miso soup. 

From left: kimchee brussel sprouts, spiced roasted cauliflower, and kale,dates, and puffed rice

Even the most basic meat and potato eater would have devoured these veggies.  My only complaint was that we only had chopsticks. This really slowed down my ability to shovel these into my mouth at a speed only Americans are familiar with. Thank goodness for forks, otherwise we might all be skinny!  

manila clam miso soup

From veggies and soup we moved onto the sushi bar where I ordered shirayaki, a piece of eel.  I will eat Sushi and enjoy it, but this was all pretty hard core.  No American watered down version with large amounts of cream cheese and fried shrimp.  However, Drew was in heaven.  With no blowfish on the menu to be had tonight he settled for: 

From top left: aori ika (big fin reef squid), ankima (monkfish liver pate), iki botan ebi - the head (live wild sweet shrimp).  From bottom left:   toro (blue fin fatty tuna) ,kasugodai (baby red snapper cured w/bamboo leaf, iki botan ebi (live wild sweet shrimp)

From Sushi we went back to the "kitchen" where the menu was broken down into three parts: Earth, Sea, and Land.  From Sea, we had grilled octopus, scallop-chive dumplings, and chilled squid.  And by we I mean mostly Drew. 

Scallop-chive dumplings, water spinach, soy-vinegar

grilled octopus, popcorn puree, romanesco, marcona almond, castelvetrano olive 

chilled squid, chili, mint, lime, crushed pinenut

These seems like a reasonable amount of food to end a meal on, if you were eating with normal people.  But no, we progressed to "land".  Drew ordered the kurobuta short rib and I had the vietnamese shaking beef.  Both meat in our dishes came from Snake River Farm and that place knows how to do some meat! 

   vietnamese shaking beef, sweet onions, tiger lily buds, lime-pepper dipping sauce

 kurobuta short rib, potato-garlic puree, spring pea relish, lemongrass

and just because we felt like we hadn't ordered enough, we made a full circle and revisited the spiced roasted cauliflower (seriously, that's how good cauliflower can be). 

Um, we also ordered dessert... but don't worry, we split it! 

why.

 One of the questions we get ask the most is, "what/where do you eat?". For the most part, at home it's not very exciting. During the week we spend most of the time in survival mode which consists of finding something to eat for dinner that is quick and about 50% of the time we remember to include trying to eat healthy.  But when we decided to close the restaurant for a week and take a vacation, it seemed only natural (and a possible business expense) to plan an entire vacation around food.  So this is our way of sharing our food experience while we are in San Fransicsco. 

I was going to call this blog "Our Foodcation" which seemed very clever until I realized I actually didn't invent that word.    There was a small seed of hope in me that I was actually creative enough to come up with something that brilliant. But that was quickly crushed when I googled "foodcation" and there were about a million hits. I say this to lead into the pre-apologies I want to list before you start reading this blog.  I am not a writer, and not very good at grammar. Or great with technology. (It took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to turn the iPad on. And I am currently writing this post with this ridiculous keypad that Apple couldn't possibly have made to write more then three sentences.  Of course Drew got one of those fancy keypad/cases but with him asleep beside me I can't figure out how to use it by myself.  Where is a 12 year old when I need them!) My lack in ability to excel in these areas is one of the many reasons my choice to work with horses as a career was a good fit (which if you didn't know, that is what I did pre-restaurant and still do a little on the side now.) And yet I ended up co-owning a restaurant with Drew and now writing a blog predominantly about food. So I'll do my best to share our experiences but I cannot promise a punctually correct or technically savvy award winning blog. 

I also think this would be a good time to clarify that we do not intend to be food ciritcs.  It will just be our experiences about the places and the things we eat.  And on the off chance that our opionions do creep into the blog post, you can trust that they are of course right! At least Drew's will be. You should probably take most things I say about food rather lightly.  The fact that I even eat anything besides chicken fingers is a fairly new development for me.  Until I met Drew I was pretty sure places like O' Charley's was top notch as far as the food scene went.  Within a few short years my choice of cuisine has expanded at great lengths.  I have also picked up some new "foodie" vocabulary which I like to throw around from time to time.  Only half the time do I get it in the right context, but I think Drew appreciates my attempt to participate.  As many of you married people know, your spouses passions tend to somehow seep over into your own lives.  Just ask Drew... his 12th favorite hobby is riding horses.  

Well I think that lays down the ground work for the blog.  I really do have to best intentions of keeping up with this thing, but forgive me if vacation, or the iPad, gets the best of me.  We'll get to the food stuff soon enough, but as of right now we have only had airport food.  Something I won't waste your time writing about.