The Best Thing I Ever Ate: San Francisco/Napa Valley Edition

Well, unfortunately, there wasn't just one.  But I'll try to narrow it down to the top few.

First of all, my apologies for the long absence.  I just did not have the energy to blog when we first got back from California.  I've been cooking at home, but mostly just throwing things together, and not really following recipes.  I have a few recipes in my stash that I plan to post next week, probably.  And with the farmers' markets back in full swing with the late spring/early summer produce, I'm sure there will be plenty to blog about!

Back to the task at hand.  We ate like crazy on our vacation.  San Francisco is known for good food, certainly, and with good reason.  The Napa Valley is also known for great food--lots of delicious locally grown produce, artisan cheeses, organic meat, and of course--fantastic wine.  I almost wish I could say we'd been more mindful of the calories we consumed.  But we weren't.

Highlights of San Francisco:

• Tiny Swedish pancakes at Sears Fine Food, which was, conveniently, right next to our hotel.  It was so nice to start out a day of sightseeing with a filling breakfast.  I also loved the sourdough French toast (my husband less so), but overall, it was just a great experience.  The one more we diverged and went somewhere else, it was tasty, but we wished we'd gone to Sears!
• Amazing Parisian macarons and other tasty treats from Miette Patisserie at the Ferry Building.  I tried the chocolate-lavender macaron, and I've got to be honest...it was better than any of the macarons I had in Paris.  It was amazing. I ate it in teeny-tiny bites to try to make it last and refused to give my husband a bite (uncharacteristic). Now that I see they do a mail-order business, I am sorely tempted to have a box shipped to my house immediately.  We also picked up some peanut butter cookies that served as our bedtime treat the rest of the week (on the occasion we were able to resist dessert with dinner, that is).

• My entire meal at Fleur de Lys.  My chef crush on Hubert Keller knows no bounds.  My husband and I had dined at the Las Vegas location in 2009 (now known simply as "Fleur"), and at the time, it was one of the best meals of our lives.  We booked our reservation for our last night of our trip, thinking it would be a last hurrah of sorts. But as that Friday night reservation approached, we were so satiated with good food from our time in Napa (more on that in a bit) that we actually considered canceling.  But wow, am I glad we didn't.  We were smart this time and only did a three-course tasting menu with wine pairings, instead of the four we did in Vegas, because we recalled that there would also be an amuse-bouche and petits fours that came with the check. (In Vegas, the very sight of the petits fours had made me queasy; in San Francisco, I managed to make some room for them and enjoyed every last crumb.)  I don't remember everything that we ate, but I vividly remember my appetizer course, which involved a little baeckeoffe (Alsatian casserole) of vegetables and foie gras in veal stock, topped with a delicious crust and slices of black truffles.  On the side was a tiny little foie gras and duck sausage "burger."  The dish was, as you might expect, divine.  My other most vivid memory of our meal there was our dessert.  We both opted for the souffle--I had the chocolate, and my husband tried the Grand Marnier.  If you ever have the opportunity to dine at Fleur de Lys--and I hope that you do--I suggest, no, I urge, that you have the souffle.  It is well worth all 1,383,394 calories.  Promise. (Pictured: the souffle I had in Vegas in 2009.  It looked pretty much the same this time, except the ice cream was a cherry-kirsch flavor instead of mocha.)

Highlights of Napa Valley (with pictures!) below the cut!

Restaurant Experience: Willow

This past Monday was my husband's and my second wedding anniversary.  It's hard to believe it's been two years already, but at the same time, sometimes it seems we've been together forever.

As my oven is currently broken, thus limiting my cooking abilities, and because it was a Monday night after a very busy weekend, we decided to go out for a special dinner.  I made a reservation at Willow via OpenTable.com, and entered into the comments that it was our second anniversary, and we hoped for a quiet table.  Apparently the folks at Willow actually read those comments, as we learned!

Pictures and details below the cut. (Forgive the quality of the photos; they were taken with my flash-less iPhone and I was dependent on the lighting available to me.)

Restaurant Experience: Jaleo (and Red Velvet)

I almost feel like it's cheating to write about Jaleo, since I've eaten there at least a dozen times.  But that just proves how yummy it is, right?

For those not fortunate enough to have been there (you need to visit me, because I will take you there!), Jaleo is the Spanish tapas (small plate) restaurant of famed chef José Andrés.  (Chef Andrés also owns Cafe Atlantico--and mini-bar, Zaytinya, and Oyamel, all located in Washington, DC.)  There are three Jaleo locations in the DC area, but the best is the one in DC proper, in the Penn Quarter neighborhood (which happens to be close to my office!).  The Crystal City location is really beautiful and the food is still quite good, but I have a soft spot for the DC location.  Which is where my husband took me for dinner last night.  It was a special treat for a weeknight, especially since he works out in the suburbs and had to drive all the way downtown to go there.

Clearly I was very excited to go there.  But as it was not planned in advance, I only had my iPhone camera available.  And while the camera is surprisingly good, the lack of flash means it does poorly in low light.  Sorry!  I hope you'll forgive the poor quality photos.

Restaurant Experience: PS 7's

Last night my husband took me out to dinner at PS 7's, a high end eatery in downtown DC, not all that far from where I work.  We went because the restaurant had [kindly] chosen to extend its Restaurant Week deal for an extra week.  [For those of you not in the know about DC Restaurant Week: two weeks each year, once in winter and once in summer, many of the high end restaurants will participate in a special deal.  For this particular RW, lunch at a participating establishment was $20.10, and dinner was $35.10, for three courses (excluding beverages).  It's a good deal and a great opportunity to try out some of the premiere restaurants in DC for a little less cash.]  Last week was the official DC restaurant week, and it was very difficult to get reservations at the "good" places, and so we didn't really even try that hard.  (Also, having been in the DC area for a while now, Restaurant Week holds a little less thrill than it used to.)

I'd eaten at PS 7's (thusly named after the chef/owner, Peter Smith, and the address, 777 Eye St., NW) once before, with some of my colleagues for my birthday in June.  (I have great colleagues who also enjoy great food!)  I enjoyed it then, and was looking forward to enjoying it even more with my husband and a glass of wine. I started off with a glass of French rosé wine, because it was from Provence and all that talk of lavender ice cream had given me a craving for all things Provençal.  The wine smelled like France to me.  (This is a good thing.) 

For our first course, I had the heirloom tomato salad, with saffron tomato brulee, pantaleo cheese, Thai basil, 25 year balsamic.  (My husband had the warm spinach salad.  Because if you add spinach leaves to bacon, cheese, and fried onion strings, it's a "salad.")  It was good, but pretty acidic.  But I had some of their delicious fresh bread (cottage cheese bread, rosemary and lemon foccacia, and apple bacon biscuits) and butter to counteract that.