| Thursday, July 2, 2009 permalink
... poses a challenge that these venues did not - feeding finicky San Franciscans without alienating the tastes of the tourists. Her menu bridges this gap by combining comfort foods with locally sourced ingredients and a sense of humor. A pretzel with a cast iron pot of sliced Caggiano beer sausage, whole grain mustard and house made sauerkraut ($11.00):
... was a nice twist to our dinner. This fresh baked knot of soft centered dough was worth casing out with Petaluma’s wurst. The chopped farmers market salad ($11.00):
... cut to the chase with asparagus, yellow and orange carrots, peas, beans, corn, with frisée and radicchio dressed in a garlic vinaigrette to show off the domestic vegetation. We tempered the virtuousness of this fresh and tasty combo with some Cheese Jimmys ($5.00):
... which were warm, buttery, flakey buns filled with melted Gruyere washed down with a floral, summery, 2007 Navarro Vineyard Edelzwicker. We dug into crispy-skinned Petaluma chicken ($18.00):
... in a nest of fingerling potatoes, leek puree and artichoke hearts and a “Tavern cut” steak:
...(from the back/shoulder area) which was cooked to a perfect medium rare and served with house made bbq sauce and a sweetly oniony, shallot and green garlic butter. A row of fries had a counterpoint of peppery watercress in this cast iron pan of meaty matter augmented with the spice from a 2002 La Jota Cabernet. The “cookie jar” ($9.00):
... of little, warm, toll cottages (speckled with both dark and milk chocolate chips) was served with ice cold milk was stripped of its G rating with a shot of Baileys ($7.00 supplement) while the rhubarb-strawberry crisp ($9.00):
... had a nice barby tang tempered by the berries and wedded with a big scoop of creme fraiche gelato. We sipped on a heavenly, honeyed, 2007 Bonny Doon Le Vol des Angles before we took flight from this friendly downtown dining depot (with the major bonus of having validated parking included with the meal.)
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