Coi in the Financial District/Tenderloin in San Francisco, CA
http://coirestaurant.com/ - Yelp
Over Christmas we went to visit Kuau's family (that is, mom) in the Bay Area. Even though he grew up there, Kuau hadn't been to any of the super-nice restaurants, so on the advice of a friend we went to Coi for their 12-course tasting menu. Neither of us had ever had that many courses for one meal in our lives, so we weren't quite sure what to expect. It ended up being a 3-hour meal (somehow shorter than our meal at Elements) with tiny, carefully crafted presentations that ended up blending together quite ... well, magnificently, to be quite honest.
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Not that it seemed that way at first. We were very skeptical over the first several courses, and this opener in particular amused us (ha, plus it was an amuse bouche ... get it ... never mind). I think it was described as something like a "honey milk ball" and was about the size of my pinky nail, or smaller. Of course, the spoons look pretty awesome. Anyway, I wasn't a huge fan of the taste (milk at 7PM is a little weird), but I do remember appreciating how cool it was that this little ball of milk somehow maintained its shape and then burst on your tongue.
Our second "course" was pretty amusing as well. Actually, I don't remotely remember what was in the bowl. Kuau tells me it had something to do with grapefruit, but he may very well be making that up. The real star was that tiny dot of liquid to the right of the bowl. That, my friends, is a sample of Coi's "fragrance." These "fragrances" are essentially perfumes that you can add to your meal -- they will generously pair them appropriately with each course for an addition of only $50. We found this hysterical, and also quite a rip-off.
This course was entitled "shiny beets." I don't remember much about these. I can attest to their shininess, though.
I should interject that, though I'm probably going to continue making fun of Coi's attitude and semi-pretentious presentation quite a bit, we actually enjoyed it as well. Not only did it provide us with amusement throughout the night, it was actually a pretty nice atmosphere and we couldn't help but appreciate the effort that was put into every small detail. There were always two waiters to carry our two dishes at the table, and whatever excessive flourish they added, like pulling off a cover or pouring some sauce on top, they did simultaneously.
After that, the meal became a little bit more substantial. There were multiple choices for the upcoming courses, and we'd asked for one of each option. We were presented with this cheese tart and salad, as well as an "oyster under glass." The cheese tart was an interesting texture -- it was sort of like a large ball of melted cheese with a little bit of crust to support it. I'm not a huge fan of raw oysters, so I let Kuau eat most of that one. The glass seemed to be made of something gelatinous and largely tasteless, but it certainly added to the look of the dish.
At some point in these first several courses, we were also served a pomegranate-butternut squash soup. They brought out large bowls, but when they placed them in front of us, we couldn't help but notice that there were about four pomegranate seeds and a couple of sprigs of green in them -- not the most substantial looking. Then, with a (synchronized) flourish, two waiters poured little carafes of butternut squash soup on top of the fixin's that were already in the bowl. They encouraged us to mix the soup so that the flavors blended (to which we both silently thought, "Isn't mixing the soup kind of the chef's job?"). Again, though I tease, it did actually make for a nice presentation, and the soup itself was excellent. The pomegranate was a nice tart contrast to the creamy sweetness of the soup.
These items, which I suppose could be considered our "main course," were actually a surprise. The one on the left in the bowl was an egg, with some elaborate description no doubt, and on the right is a picture of steak with accompanying bone marrow. Again, we thought this was a no-brainer and that the steak would be better. We were wrong. I do not know how they cooked that egg, but it was amazing. It had a foamy texture and an incredible taste that I can't describe, but it is literally making my mouth water to think of it. The steak, on the other hand, was pretty unremarkable, and the bone marrow (that white log, which now strikes me as strange as I'm pretty sure bone marrow is usually red) was tasteless and had a gross, spongy texture. Then again, in the face of that egg, anything else would have lost spectacularly.
Following the major portion of the meal, they served us a piece of cheese and another little salad, as a little bit of a palate cleanser before we got to dessert.
This wasn't technically a course, but I had to include this poor and blurry picture of it because it was another amazing little detail that really added to the experience. This was their homemade grapefruit soda. That's it. But the soda tasted so ridiculously good that we thought about embarrassing ourselves and asking for more, or perhaps even a bottle that we could buy to take home.
I was a big fan of both of the desserts. One of them was the standard molten chocolate cake with a scoop of ice cream. It was very well executed, but not really too different from any other molten chocolate cake that you can get at any other nice restaurant. I don't remember what the other dessert was -- likely something fruity, with cream on top -- but I really loved it, and I thought about asking for a second one of those as well, even though at this point I was certainly full.
The nice thing was that even though it was a huge number of courses, neither of us were disgustingly full when the meal was over, just very satisfied and pleasantly satiated. They brought out this elaborate setup when I ordered a cup of coffee, which kind of represents the entire experience. The service was a bit over-the-top with its well-practiced synchronicity, but they were extremely attentive, and we merely had to look up for two or three waiters to be immediately available if we wanted them. And the food, though it could be a little fussy, was prepared with a lot of thought and creativity. Even though there were dishes that we didn't particularly enjoy, we could still appreciate how unique and interesting every item was.
December 26, 2008 - Coi
May 30, 2009 - Elements
Elements in Princeton, NJ
http://elementsprinceton.com - Yelp
I was really looking forward to this one
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And I probably won't return. Don't get me wrong, the food was good and the place was nice, but with so much to eat in this world, there probably isn't a reason to go here again. With that said, we opted for the 9 course chef's table menu. All the chef's tables were taken, but they allowed us to order it in the main dining room.
The hosts were of course extremely nice and the place was well decorated. The only problem that we had was that the tables were really long. We sat down at something like a three foot by four foot table, and they sat us across from each other with four feet between us. We were also about two feet from the next table, so the option of schooching next to each other was not there. But once we got used to the idea of having to talk loud and not being able to share food easily, the place was quite nice. Nice enough for us to enjoy a four hour dinner in fact.
Probably the most amazing thing about this place was the amount of food that they gave us. Each course was probably half the size of a normal course, which basically means that we should have snuck another couple in with us and split the bill.
Course #1 was a tartare tasting. There were five different tartares each on its own convenient spoon. There was salmon, tuna, fluke, wagyu (!), and something else, as well as a little cup of cold carrot ginger soup which was actually quite good (even Ellie liked it). I was of course most excited about wagyu tartare. The spoon was a decent size, but unfortunately all of the tartares were just flavored with plain rice vinegar and a couple scallion shreds on top. We both thought that the fluke was the best of the tartares. As you can imagine, that is a disappointment, as I would never order fluke if given a choice. And don't read too much into this, the fluke was not amazing.
Next came our only true tasting sized course. It was a small dollop of salsa. I think they said it was root beer and celery salsa or something. There was this great pureed avocado at the bottom that made this dish.
Apparently we have no idea what this is. I thought we had a Thai shrimp salad with overcooked flavorless shrimp and a boring white vinegar dressing, but Ellie astutely pointed out that this dish does not look like it has shrimp in it. So whatever this is, it was not memorable.
After three appetizers, we were gearing up for what we hoped would be something like scallops, another fun fish (this place went a bit overboard on fish and out of its way to avoid red meats, possibly because we ordered a white wine), and duck or some crazy red meat. We then figured there would possibly be some cheeses and a couple desserts.
What we got instead was a flurry of fish (this was over the course of about an hour and a half). First (I actually don't remember the order, it was such a flurry) came an entire fried fish with another amazing pureed avocado, then a decent sized blackened sea bass, and finally king salmon with truffle. We figured there might be another course since it was fish, fish, fish, so when the waiters came out with a ridiculously al dente housemade cavatelli (so I don't forget this later, it basically just looked like little gnocchi) that apparently had lamb bacon in it. This was a huge disappointment for what seemed like our last main course.
So seven courses through our nine course meal, we were very full even though most of the courses were rather light. We figured we could probably eat the desserts that followed. So when the waiters came out with a giant plate that consisted of a chicken breast cooked inside of itself (they flipped it inside out or something) AND a big chunk of squab, we were both in awe and disgusted at the amount of food (and the reality of only one dessert and no cheeses). Luckily for us, the squab was absolutely amazing. It was as if a duck had sex with a cow filet and out came this filet mignon duck breast. Except this was a pigeon that we were eating. No matter, it made me accept that pigeons are a necessary part of our environment, so long as they can occasionally be eaten. The chicken was good too, but it was certainly the ugly duckling in this pair.
We barely managed to eat this plate, and after about 20 minutes of digesting, our waiter dropped by to mention that we would now be offered our last savory course, to be followed by a couple of dessert courses!?!? How would we make it? The answer: one of us wouldn't.
A couple minutes later, he brought out an entire lamb shank for each of us. A small shank to be fair, but a shank, with a big old bone and everything. It was great, but I was beginning to have food in my throat by that point.
The first dessert was "bacon and eggs". It was incredible, although not as incredible as the next dessert. Anyway, there was an empty egg shell, which three layers of stuff in it. It was basically a cake inside an egg shell, topped with smoke flavored whipped cream, which was really fun. The bacon was actually french toast and bacon. And the french toast was actually a creme brulee pancake. And the brulee was maple syrup. So there was a pancake with syrup and a strip of bacon on top, and then it was all hot and torched. Ellie had to help me finish mine because I was fuller than I had ever been in my life, and somehow she was able to power through it all (her dessert stomach helped, although I had sworn that I had one too).
The next dessert was a "kit kat". This was some homemade gelato and a really dense piece of chocolate, that was actually like a thick chocolate caramel fudge. That's right, thick for fudge. Anyway, I had to wait for my ice cream to melt before I could even eat it. We were in bliss at this time.
Finally they offered us four different truffles as a dessert of the desserts. I liked a lavendar one and Ellie liked another one, but we were unable to finish any of the flavors. We then received a complimentary piece of pound cake each for the road. And four hours later, we made it back on the road and eventually back home. I don't think we ate anything until dinner the next night.
June 5, 2009 - David Burke Fromagerie
David Burke Fromagerie in Rumson, NJ
http://www.fromagerierestaurant.com/
I wasn't as excited about this restaurant -- to me the menu looked a little boring. But we went there last night with another couple, and it was really good food. Everything was cooked perfectly (I thought, apparently Kuau thought otherwise), and the flavors tasted really clean and fresh. The atmosphere was cute, too, it looked like an old-fashioned inn and had a nice restaurant side as well as a fairly busy bar on the other side, far enough that we could just hear the live singer they had that night but without it being intrusive at all.
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We started out sharing the foie gras, which has a different preparation each night, and the Hot and Angry Lobster Cocktail. (We had no idea what the lobster was and ordered it solely based on its #1 status from 2004.) The foie gras was served with some sweet jam or something and while it was really good, it's hard for me to remember what it really tasted like since it was split between 4 people. The lobster, however, ended up being a whole lobster chopped into manageable chunks, so we all got plenty. It was spicy and a little fried but not unhealthy at the same time, and it was excellent.
For meals, I got soy duck. This is not, as our friend thought, duck that is secretly made out of soy, but rather a soy-flavored duck served on "fried rice." I kind of prefer real fried rice better, but their rice was a little bit sweet and did go well with the duck. There was a good portion of duck with a thick, fatty skin and I thought it was pretty perfect. There was a sweet sauce on the side, but I actually preferred the duck on its own.
Kuau got the braised short rib. I only had a couple of bites but thought the meat itself was kind of boring -- very soft of course, but not much flavor. Some of the side ingredients were apparently good. I did enjoy the pasta noodles that sort of seemed doused with butter and covered in cream. Our friend got the scallops and it looked pretty with this fan of yellow garnish sticking out of the top. On a more culinary note, the pieces of scallop that we tried were very good, perfectly cooked and flavored.
For dessert, we had the apple galette, which came as a sort of thin crepe with a great cinnamon ice cream. Our friends got a caramelized banana tart which they said was good too. Then the four of us split a cheese plate (it is a fromagerie, after all) of eight different cheeses, none of which we could keep straight after we split them up. Most of the cheeses were very good (I particularly liked one cheese that was a mixture of goat, cow, and sheep), except for one, I think an asiago, that was so hard I couldn't bite it, let alone enjoy it.
Apparently the restaurant is known for its "cheesecake lollipops," which we didn't order since half the table didn't like cheesecake. We did see someone else get it though, and it came on a little Christmas tree-type arrangement that looked adorable.
Overall I thought it was a great meal and reminded me that even if the menu items sound traditional, they can still be prepared with fresh ingredients and seasoned cooking that makes the food outstanding. It was nice to go with another couple and be able to share and try more things than we normally would've been able to. (We shared two half-bottles of wine also, which I'll let Kuau comment on if he wants.) Even though I generally like trying different restaurants, I'd definitely consider going back for Sunday brunch :)