E&O Kitchen and Bar

E & O Kitchen and Bar is a restaurant I've known about for quite a while.  I hadn't ever visited myself, despite it being located not all that far away near Union Square.  

"E&O Kitchen and Bar is a modern Asian restaurant and lounge in the heart of San Francisco’s vibrant Union Square, and steps away from the Financial District. Executive Chef Sharon Nahm creates exciting and bold flavors in modern Asian dishes."

But I've known of the restaurant, and the chef, Sharon Nahm, for years.  The head chef is pretty active in cooking demos and events around town, and has been with the restaurant for 10 years (which seems like ages in this industry).  I remember being impressed with the bites I tried over the years at different events, so I finally sought it out.

Parklet.

Like many establishments in San Francisco, during the pandemic, they installed a sidewalk parklet for outdoor dining.

That said, I didn't visit in person, opting rather for delivery several times. 

Packaging.

E&O clearly does a lot of takeout, as they had each box nicely labelled with the contents, and the boxes were sealed with their E & O sticker.  The bag it all came in had a tamper seal as well.

That said, my own delivery experience wasn't great.  Ordering online was easy on Door Dash, and I thought my food had a reasonable chance of arriving warm-ish as I live only 5-8 minute drive away, but, both times I ordered, my Dasher went in the other direction from my house when they left, clearly went to pick up another order elsewhere, then stopped somewhere else along the way, and only then finally made it to my house.  My food arrived both times well after the original time estimate, and nearly 40 minutes after leaving the restaurant, that really wasn't far away at all.  This is the only place I've had this happen from, so I'm not sure if its just bad luck, or what, but both times I ordered the same thing happened.  It was agonizing watching my food head away from me.

Anyway, my food was a bit of a mixed bag, I see some real potential, and stuff was good, but, the prices seem high for what it is.

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Small Plates

To get your meal started, E&O offers a number of small plates, ranging from steamed pork buns, to spring rolls, to naan, to spare ribs, salt & pepper calamari, etc.  It really is a kinda random bunch of items.  Their signature small plate is the "famous" Indonesian corn fritters.  I didn't opt to get those fritters, although I think I had them once before, ages ago.

There is one dish from the small plates menu that I've had several times before, despite not actually visiting the restaurant: the deviled eggs.  This is the dish E&O frequently serves when they are at food and drink events around town.  A super practical bite for a party like those, where they don't need to deal with serving hot food, and they tend to be crowd pleasers.

Smoked Tea Deviled Egg. $3.50.

"Lapsong souchong tea marinade, togarashi, five spice bacon bacon."

So to round out my order one time, I got a deviled egg, as I had enjoyed these at parties before.  It didn't do great for delivery as it had totally rolled over, but that is to be expected.

I really thought I had liked these before, but, wow, I didn't care for this.  The egg white had an odd flavor, obviously the tea smoking, that I wasn't really into.  But really it was the filling I disliked - it was very, very thick and gloopy, it didn't seem to have much filler, mostly yolk, clearly more yolk that originally came in the egg.  Which seems fine, but the consistency was not good.   The bit of bacon on top was hard and greasy.

So, flavor in the egg white I didn't like, consistency of filling I didn't like, and greasy bacon component.  Not a winner.

The $3.50 price for a single piece, just a half an egg, not even a whole egg, seemed a bit high as well.

*.

Dumplings

E&O has 3 kinds of dumplings on the menu, two of which are vegetarian: shiitake, butternut squash, or shrimp & chicken siu mai.  People do rave about the dumplings, second to the corn fritters of course, and I was really feeling like dumplings one day, and thus, dumplings it was.

Butternut Squash Dumplings. $17.50.

"Thai red curry & lemongrass sauce, basil oil."

I was tempted by the shiitake dumplings with a "butter soy pan sauce", but, the fall feels were upon me, and I decided to go for the butternut instead.  Plus, they just sounded really innovative/fusion, with a Thai curry sauce.  Vegetarians might want to note that there is shellfish is the stock used in these, so perhaps not truly vegetarian.

The dumplings were cold by the time they reached me, so I did have to heat them back up.  

This dish was the pinnacle of "fusion".  The dumplings were shaped like Asian style dumplings, but, they most certainly were not Asian style dumplings.  The skins were very, very thick, thicker even than ravioli, although more like ravioli than dumplings for sure.  They were lightly chewy, slightly al dente, and very ... gummy.  The pasta/wrapper was not at all what I was expecting.  I can't say it was successful, and I don't think that was entirely due to delivery.

Inside the dumplings, the butternut squash filling.  In my head, I thought these would be like my favorite Trader Joe's butternut squash ravioli, with some autumn spicing.  They weren't (which, would have clashed with the curry anyway, more on that soon), but instead it was really just, well, butternut squash.  

Just the dumplings themselves, besides the shape of course, were solidly in the Italian camp, basically, butternut squash ravioli with very think skins and an odd shape.  The dumplings weren't very good, not as ravioli, not as dumplings.

But then there was the sauce.  And suddenly, we were in Thailand.  Yup, this was Thai red curry.  Coconut milk based I think.  It tasted, well, like curry.  Mild curry, not spicy, but, yes, definitely curry.  There was an undertone of fish sauce/stock that I loved, and hints of lemongrass.  The sauce was really fantastic.

The curry sauce and the butternut squash worked well.  Curry and dumpling-ravioli ... now that took some wrapping my head around.  The curry was good, but, I did want a bit of heat to my dish, and added chili crunch to them, quickly bringing back the Asian-fusion flare.

But there was more.  The basil oil drizzled over, again channeling some slight Italian vibes.  It did accent the dish well.

Overall, I enjoyed this dish for the adventure of it.  It wasn't at all what I was expecting, and it did all kinda work, but the dumplings themselves just weren't that well executed.  It was Italian-Asian-Thai, and I didn't dislike it.  That said, it mostly left me wanting for two things, not together: good Thai curry and butternut squash ravioli.

I'm glad I tried this, but I wouldn't get it again.  ***.

Satay

E&O has 4 kinds of satay on the menu: steak, chicken, prawn, and portobello mushroom, each served with a unique sauce.  Each order comes with 3 or 4 skewers, or you can get a platter with 2 of each kind.

Prawn Satay. $22.

"(4 pcs) thai basil & mango sauce."

I wouldn't normally order satay, but, I had seen photos of the shrimp skewers, and they really did look good, nicely grilled, so juicy.  I was also curious about this Thai basil and mango sauce.

The portion was 4 skewers, as I expected, each one containing just a single prawn.  My food had taken soooo long to get to me that they were stone cold, which was kinda ok (we do eat chilled shrimp cocktail after all), but I decided to heat them back up a little.  They were nicely grilled, had good grill marks and slight char, and were quite juicy and as succulent as they looked.  Yes, just grilled prawns on a stick, but, they were as nicely done as I hoped.  Above average, really. ****.

Then, the sauce.  I expected to love it, having loved the sauce in the dumpling dish so much, but, it didn't quite do it for me.  I'm not sure what the flavor was that I wasn't into, but it was a bit tart and had a bit of some kind of spice I wasn't super excited about.   It wasn't bad, but, I just didn't care for it that much.  It was kinda sweet as well, as you'd expect from mango.  I luckily had some leftover peanut sauce from Rasa Rasa, and it worked really well with the satay, as, well, it also matched what I'd expect from a traditional satay.

I wasn't sure what the skewers would come with, as the menu didn't say anything else besides the sauce, but I was pleased to see they came with a pile of pickled vegetables - green beans, carrots, onions, cucumbers.  I really liked the pickles, great acidity and tartness, and an interesting mix.  Also, I found the skewers themselves, once the shrimp were eaten off of them, made for great spears to pick up pickles with.  No utensils required!  **** pickles.

I also decided to make a lettuce wrap with red leaf lettuce, pickles, and one prawn, and dunked it in my peanut sauce, and loved it that way too.

Overall, I did quite enjoy this dish, but the $22 price for 4 skewers seemed pretty high.  ***+.

Sides

E & O has some good sounding veggie sides, like dry-fried green beans, glazed eggplant, and more, but I actually had plenty of leftover sides at home, so I ordered just one thing from here, to save for lunch the next day mostly: the root veggie chips!

Root Vegetable Chips. $7.50.

"Kassava, taro, sweet potato, lotus root."

I couldn't resist getting the root veggie chips.  I love taro, cassava, and lotus chips, and I hoped these would be house made.  I think they were.

My mix was mostly taro chips, which wasn't a bad thing, although I would have liked to see more variety, and I never found any cassava.  There were a few lotus chips and few purple potato.

The chips were fine.  Average.  No better really than packaged root veggie chips, and they seemed unsalted.  I think they serve these with the ceviche normally as well.

So, fine, but not something I'd go out of my way for, and not really worth the $7.50. ***.