February 12th, 2010 - Dining Room at the Ritz

The Dining Room at the Ritz in Nob Hill in San Francisco, CA
http://www.ritzcarltondiningroom.com/

I did not realize I've had these pictures up for so long. Luckily, I started this post in March 2010, so all the semi-clear statements are from then, and all the even-less-clear statements are from ... January 2011. Oops. Well anyway, we went to the Dining Room at the Ritz, the day after we'd gone to Cyrus, because apparently when we eat at nice restaurants we cram in three in two weeks instead of spreading them out like intelligent people with moderation. We were excited to be eating at the Ritz, with our fancy umbrella, as you can see.

The first thing we noticed when we walked in was that it was darker than a lot of our other SF experiences -- it had more of a "man cave" feel, as Kuau described it. We were asked to wait a couple minutes for our table in the bar area in this picture, complete with dark leather chairs and dim lighting. It was still a nice atmosphere though.


The decor of the table was very simple, but nice -- just a tiny cup of adorable bud tulips, and a little lamp. We were also greeted with a champagne and caviar cart, similar to Cyrus's champagne cart (we didn't order any though). Overall, you'll see that we mentally compared this experience to Cyrus often, since the experiences were back to back ... and somehow the Ritz edged out Cyrus in every way.

This was apparently our first amuse bouche. I believe it was scallops, but I don't remember. It looks like a significant size though, right? Sure, we'll go with that. (This is one of those 11 months post-meal comments, obviously.)




Our other amuse bouche was this caviar and poached quail egg with smoke. "Smoke??" you ask, puzzled. The plastic container in the picture was covered with saran wrap to keep the smoke inside. We were encouraged to poke a hole in the saran wrap to let some of the smoke flavor out, permeating the egg and caviar. I don't know if I actually tasted any of the smoky flavor, but you could see little white wisps of smoke come out of the vessel, which was pretty cool -- and a really unique presentation.





I believe this dish was tuna sashimi with salt and pepper, some kind of special soy sauce (housemade maybe?), and Japanese wasabi. Like at Makoto, the wasabi was clearly grated from a whole root and not squeezed out of a horseradish-y tube, so it had a similarly fresh flavor (but spicier than I remembered the Makoto wasabi being). Also, I'm sad to say I can't recall why, but I know this small piece of sashimi was absolutely delicious combined with everything else on the plate.





Not sure what these next two courses were -- abalone, I think, and a fish. And they look pretty!

We included this picture mostly to remind ourselves of what happened when I went to the bathroom: a waiter came by and took my napkin. Instead of refolding it and placing it on the table, as you might suspect, he ditched my napkin in a laundry container, and took a new folded napkin out for me -- with tongs -- to gently place it at my seat. Kuau was super enchanted with this little detail, so here it is.

This is (obviously) a lobster dish, and I believe it also came with meat. From what I recall the lobster was perfectly cooked, and overall this was quite delicious. 11 months later the picture is certainly making my mouth water, so that's cool.




This is the only dish that was still on their menu last March: hot foie gras with spiced huckleberry compote (and a bunch of other things). This picture is not an illusion: this was a giant piece of foie gras, a little bit bigger than half my palm, not to mention the obvious depth. The waiter even commented that it was really big when he handed it to me. I gave about a third of it to Kuau and was still full since it was so rich. It was absolutely delicious with the huckleberry compote as well; again, similar to Cyrus, which also paired their foie gras with some kind of fruit ... but this one was just a tad better.

A couple more forgotten courses ... it makes me sad that we've forgotten :(

Oh actually, looking at the Cyrus post made me remember that the course on the right was kobe. Cyrus served wagyu, and it was the first time that Kuau acknowledged that any type of wagyu might be worth it because it was pretty delicious. Here, we got actual kobe -- that is, the specific type of cow all the way from Japan, whereas wagyu is usually that same type of cow but raised in America. I've only had kobe (I think) once in my life before, and Kuau had never had it. In a head to head comparison, we finally realized why kobe might be five times more expensive than wagyu even though they're the same freaking genetic breed of cow. The kobe was RIDICULOUSLY delicious. Tender of course, but the meat itself just had a juicier, richer flavor. This was one of the definingly delicious parts of the meal.

I ordered a latte and thought the presentation was pretty cute -- although they filled it so much that it overflowed when I tried to put in the spoon! The waiter fussed over it and eventually came back with another spoon.








We ended with an intermezzo and a dessert.

Almost a year later, we are still saying this is the best meal we've had so far, and the Ritz is now up against some heavy hitters like Per Se and Alinea. We also had the (albeit insane) benefit of comparing it literally back to back with Cyrus, and while both were delicious, the Ritz definitely won out.