Inspired By San Francisco

The Bay Bridge

On our recent trip to San Francisco and Sausalito we were more than delighted, with not only the food
and the atmosphere, but the culinary creativity that it engendered in us by being there.

I officially christened it as the "trip of the amazing vinaigrette" - a small but welcome detail that put many dishes over the top for both of us (and I'm a hardcore lemon-citrus-acid lover but he is not, so not easy to do).

Sausalito

Its always a bit of a gamble with SF - do I have a big breakfast, skip lunch because we're sightseeing and get to indulge in dinner, or have an amazing lunch and push dinner to the last seating so that we can get it all in?  See, the trick is to eat only what you think will be worth using up the real estate in this ridiculously foodie town.

White Sangria, Shishito Peppers and Peas in Vinaigrette at Bar Bocce 

Some of the highlights that will inform our future and summer menus (as they are about a month ahead if us seasonally) are:

• burrata (cream infused fresh mozzarella) with stone fruit and the most amazing stone fruit-infused vinaigrette on greens and basil from Perbacco
• the mint and tarragon vinaigrette we had on the peas at Bar Bocce
• 'burgundy onions' on the Wellington JJ enjoyed at Millennium, as an addition to our already loaded Shmeat Loaf

Millennium in particular was a treat - all vegan, with a healthy respect for gluten sensitivities.  We had a number of amazing dishes, which diverged only where JJ had to indulge in pastry dough & the like.  This was the menu that we had the hardest time choosing from - with so many options and so many components to the dishes.  Oddly, it was the first time that I had a whole meal where every dish had a fried component! Including crusted king trumpet mushrooms with a spectacular yuzu-citrus-chile dipping sauce, fried green tomatoes with a spicy-cashew harissa 'ranch', and cornmeal & thyme crusted zucchini on mousakka spiced mushrooms.  Of course I'm leaving off a bunch of the accompaniments to these dishes - you'll just have to go try them for yourself!

Perbacco is an all-time favorite, and we both tend to work our way around the menu in different arcs, with only the appies able to share between us.  Luckily, the stone fruit & burrata was likely the highlight of the meal, though the other dishes gave it a run for the money, as expected.  Sadly, no pictures in the low light of this romantic restaurant. But that's a good thing.

In all, we loved getting the small bites from the tapas, which gave us the the room to indulge in delicious, unctuous, inspired dinners. Oh, and there was lemon verbena ice cream on both dessert menus, but none that I was able to sample (one was out, one was a compromise for a girl who never saves room for dessert).

As my own little lemon verbena plant is rocking it out on the back porch because I gave it 'wine' while we were away, so I'll just have to make that myself!