Kirkland Signature, from Costco

I've never been to Costco.  I've never had a membership, nor really known anyone else who did.  And yet, like most, I am quite familiar with Costco.  

Sometimes their items show up at potlucks or parties when another guest clearly takes the easy route, grabbing a dessert or pizza on their way out the Costco door.  Sometimes Costco items, particularly the baked goods, show up at cafes or small establishments around town, when merchants know they need muffins and bagels on the menu, but don't want to produce them themselves (which, I am not critiquing, you know how much I love those Costco muffins, and their shelf life makes this very practical!).

Today I am focusing on Kirkland Signature, the house brand of Costco.  They produce nearly every category of item under this brand, ranging from snack foods to vitamins to cleaning supplies, but today's focus is my real interest: food.

Pizza

Original Review, November 2021

Even without ever venturing to Costco, I certainly know about their pizza, the most popular item in the food court.  Available in cheese, pepperoni, or combo.

Signature Pizza Boxes. $9.95 Each.

Pizza comes available in a take and bake form, or ready to eat, always in their branded pizza boxes.  Spot the boxes, and you'll know where you host decided to get pizza from ...

I attended an event where we were supposed to be getting pizza from a nearby well known pizza place, but ... somehow this happened instead.  I was pretty disappointed, but, hey, pizza is pizza, right?

Combo Pizza

I opted for the combo, with pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, onion, mushroom, and olives.

I'll admit ... it wasn't bad, for this style of pizza.  It isn't fancy artisanal crust, the toppings aren't particularly high quality, but the crust had a good chew, the sauce wasn't too sweet, the cheese was nicely melted, and it was loaded with toppings.

Would I go out of my way for it?  Of course not.  Would I be embarrassed to serve it at a party?  Yes. But it did the trick, a notch about frozen pizza.

***.

Update Review, March 2024

Costco Pi Day!

March 14.  One of my favorite days of the year.  In some ways, a better food holiday than the traditional heavy hitters like Thanksgiving.  After all, I do love pot pies, shepherd's pie, macaroni pie, and the like, and obviously, basically *all* the sweet pies.  It is also a glorious day to be in my office, as each team celebrates with their pie of choice, and inevitably has leftovers.  Generally they are from great local bakeries and pie shops, or sometimes Whole Foods or other more curated grocery stores, so I had to laugh when the e-mail came out that a team had tons of extra Costco pie: pizza and sweet pies.

And yet ... I still went running (ok, power walking?) even though I'd had 11 other pies already that day ...  I arrived to find quite a bounty still remaining, the pizzas were untouched, and there were additional sweet pies not pictured here too.

I dug right in. 

Overall?  It honestly isn't bad.  I'd never seek it out, and it is nothing like "real" pizza from a pizza place, but, the price is remarkable, and there is nothing wrong with it, for its style of pizza.

Cheese Pizza. $9.95.

First up, basic cheese pizza.  A very large one at that (18").  Cut into 12 uneven slices.

This is, well, Costco cheese pizza.  It reminded me of my memories of Little Caesars, although it has been a very long time since I've had that.  Or Dominos, Papa John's, or the like.  But again, been many years since I've had those kind of pizza.

Puffy crust with a decent chew.  Soft, bready style, but it wasn't bad.  I actually kinda liked the crust edges, as they had cheese on them too, and it was kinda like getting cheesy breadsticks (or Crazy Bread, in Little Caesar's terms) and pizza all in one, although I did want some ranch or blue cheese to dunk them into too.

Sweet and lightly tangy sauce, slight acidity, plenty of it.  Standard mozzarella cheese, plenty of it too, well distributed.  Light burning of the cheese on top that wasn't a problem.

The kind of pizza you generally want to eat cold.  No frills, but nothing wrong with it either.  ***.

The fact that it is only $9.99 for such a big pizza really is mind-boggling.  I see why people get it for events.

Pepperoni Pizza.

Next up, add pepperoni.  Same price (!).

The foundation of this is the same, although I think it has slightly less cheese (if you look at the nutrition info, the pepperoni pizza is lower calorie than the cheese, which implies it must have less cheese?).  But otherwise, same pizza.

The pepperoni is basic no frills pepperoni, large slice pieces that were well distributed.  Not "cupping" pepperoni, and lacking any char, but, basic pepperoni, no more, no less.  Slightly more interesting than the cheese pizza.  ***.

Sweets

Milk Chocolate Crepes.

"Kirkland Signature™ Crepes are delicious biscuits from the Brittany region of France.  These crispy delights are a combination of a traditional Crepe Dentelle and fine Belgian milk chocolate.  This recipe has remained unchanged for more than a century and has gained devotees all over the world. 

They can be enjoyed alone or as an accompaniment to your favorite coffee, tea, or ice cream or great idea for a gift."

The holiday season is always a wonderful time for me to try all sorts of new products, as everyone brings their rejects into the office.  One man's trash is another food blogger's treasure, right?

These holiday decorated boxes came from Costco, filled with "milk chocolate crepes", a rather unique, but tasty, item.

Milk Chocolate Crepe.

Inside the box was rows of the "crepes", thin, super crispy cookie wafers, enrobed in mediocre milk chocolate.

This doesn't sound like a recipe for success, but, I really liked them.  Partially I think I liked the element of surprise, I wasn't expecting the whispy cookies inside.  The chocolate wasn't *good* chocolate, and it was sweet rather than actually complex, but again, it worked.

I enjoyed these, I love how crispy they are.

****.

Read More...

Donut Pub, NYC

Another day, another donut.  Whatever city I am in, donuts seem to seek me out.  Certainly, this is helped by the that my offices have a donut rotation, where someone brings in donuts from a place of their choosing every week.  It generally means I get to try donuts from places further away from my house (or where I'm staying) than I'd normally go.  And it means I eat a lot of donuts.

When I was visiting my New York office this summer, it was of course donut day at some point.  My co-worker picked Donut Pub, a donut shop with two locations in Manhattan.  She got a selection of great looking donuts.

Great looking, but, overall, I was not impressed.  The donuts themselves were fairly average, and they relied heavily on far too sweet toppings/fillings.

Birthday Cake. $3.25.

"Yeast raised donut with vanilla icing, sprinkles, topped with buttercream."

The first one I went for was fairly ridiculous looking.  Yes, there was a donut hiding under all those sprinkles and frosting!

This was a raised ring donut, which may not be obvious at first glance, but, it was hollow in the center.  It had both vanilla icing cover it all AND the center filled/topped with buttercream, and of course the very heavy handed (er, generous?) application of sprinkles.  As you can imagine, um, it was a very sweet donut.

The donut itself was very average - average lightness and loftiness, and it was hard to really tell if it was greasy or not due to the toppings.  The vanilla icing was sweet, and the buttercream was crazy cloying sweet, and the sprinkles were the kind that are relatively waxy and, yup, sweet.  It was far too much sugar even for me to have in the morning, but if you think of it more like a cupcake, or perhaps if you are 5 years old, maybe it can be good.

This was a more premium offering, at $3.25, which is still reasonable for most NY donuts, given that $5-6 donuts are pretty normal.  **+.

Brooklyn Cream. $3.25.

"Buttercream filled and topped with chocolate icing."

Next up, I tried the "Brooklyn Cream", which is a play on the Boston cream (which they do also offer), but with buttercream filling rather than custard.

The raised yeast donut was similar to the previous one, fairly lofty, fairly light, but this time, rather than a ring, it was solid, and filled with the same cloying sweet buttercream.  I really love buttercream in general (I'm one who wants a cupcake to have equal parts frosting to cake!), but, I didn't really like this, as it was just too far in the sugar direction, and not enough, well, butter nor cream.  The chocolate icing was fine.

Another premium donut at the reasonable $3.25 price.  **+.

Assorted Regular Donuts: Red Velvet, Vanilla Cream,
Marble Cake, Apple Crumb.  $2.75 each.

A co-worker nicely grabbed me an assortment of other donuts to try.  She selected these, two cake donuts, and two raised.

Red Velvet (Cake):  Big let down. This one really was just a standard glazed old fashioned cake donut.  Yeah, it was reddish, but, I didn't taste anything red velvet about it (no cocoa element, and it seems like a missed opportunity to use a cream cheese glaze rather than generic regular glaze).  So ... interesting color, but average plain sweet glazed cake donut.  **+.

Vanilla Cream Powdered (Raised):  This was very similar to the Brooklyn Cream, but with powdered sugar rather than chocolate icing.  So again, average raised filled donut, cloying sweet frosting, and this time, powdered sugar coating, which didn't help to balance the sweetness in the same way the chocolate glaze did.  **+.

Marble (Cake):  Another cake donut, this one both regular and chocolate.  I don't think I've ever seen a marble donut before, so that was a bit unique.  But the donut itself was very average, and the chocolate flavor not particularly deep.  **+.

Apple Crumb (Raised):  This one was interesting at least.  It was a filled raised yeast donut, stuffed with apple pie filling (e.g. spiced bits of apple and goo), and then frosted with icing, and coated with crumbs.  The spicing was a bit much for my taste, and I was very sick of overly sweet donuts by the time I reached this one, so, the generous icing glaze was not particularly appealing.  A unique one though, so my favorite just as it was most interesting to eat.  ***.

These were all regular donuts, only $2.75 each.

Read More...

Dinner @ Haven

We got to check out the brand new Daniel Patterson restaurant in Oakland tonight. Overall, a great experience!

The space is brand new and really lovely. Swanky and rustic at the same time, with lots of stonework and wood. It gives an upscale yet relaxed vibe. The kitchen is an open kitchen, with bar seating all along it. We were seated at a table since we were a party of four, but I'd love to sit at the counter and watch the action sometime.

The food was slightly upscale versions of classic comfort food. All very well executed. Portions were large for this caliber of food and certainly for the price point. I'm not sure if the Oakland location is responsible for the pricing, but I was really quite shocked at the quality/price/portion sizes. For example, mains were ~$25; for the same quality they would be $35 at most places in SF and the portions would be significantly smaller. House made complimentary sparkling water as well.

Like any Patterson establishment, the repeated standouts were the vegetables - even when they are just a side element on a plate, they shine!

The service was good and they went above and beyond when there were some slight issues. The starters actually came very quickly (faster than most places), and then there was a short lull before our mains arrived. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, as it really wasn't any longer than most places, but the manager came over to tell us that there had been a problem in the kitchen and that our dishes would arrive soon. Then one of the serving spoons they gave us had a particle of food on it, which someone overheard us noticing and quickly replaced. And our brussels sprouts didn't arrive with the mains. Once we ordered dessert, the manager brought over glasses of dessert wine for all of us to make up for the issues. This was a nice gesture, and wasn't really expected, as these issues were all fairly minimal and we didn't complain about any of them. Then the biggest surprise came with the bill. They told us that due to the mishaps they had discounted a few things. I assumed that meant the brussels since they were mis-timed. But ... they comp'ed us all of the entrees, the sides, and the desserts (and the dessert wine they added). Seriously? This was completely unexpected and rather amazing.

Top bites of the evening: caramelized brussels sprouts, seared scallop, seared fennel, merengue.

Summary: I would gladly go back, and wish it were located in San Francisco and not Oakland. It wasn't the meal of a lifetime or anything like that, but it was all very good, I liked the atmosphere, and the prices (even when not discounted!) were very reasonable. I really wish this was in my neighborhood!

Little gem salad, with gorgonzola dressing, pickled celery and jalapeno, crisp chicken skin, hot sauce. $11.

This was their play on a classic iceberg wedge salad crossed with buffalo chicken wings.

From the iceberg wedge side of things, to class it up, instead of iceberg, they use little gems. Instead of ranch dressing, it was a blue cheese dressing. Which seques into the wings portion, with crispy chicken skin and hot sauce.

This was a very well executed salad, but at the end of the day, still a salad.

The little gems were fresh and crisp, and the perfect lettuce choice for the dish. The pickled celery added a really delicious, creative touch, although it was easily lost in the dish if you didn't specifically pick out pieces to taste. The crispy chicken skin was incredible. I wouldn't have identified it as chicken skin without some hints, but it was tasty fried goodness. The hot sauce, the blue cheese, and the chicken skin did taste exactly like chicken wings. I wouldn't go out of my way for this dish again, but I'd gladly eat it.

Smoked housemade fettucini, with onion soubise, pancetta, egg, chives.  $13.

Another play on a classic, this time on pasta carbonara.

In this case, they smoke the flour that is used to make the pasta, imparting a deeply smokey flavor. The onion soubise was nice and creamy, and the pancetta added another nice flavor component. The pasta was clearly fresh and handmade, and was cooked perfectly.

That all said, this dish didn't wow me, as my expectations were high due to all of the reviews I'd read raving about it. Don't get me wrong, it was good, and the smoked pasta was definitely interesting, but it didn't blow my mind.

One side note - I later dipped bread in the leftover sauce, and found that the sauce flavor complimented the more plain flavor of the bread better than the smoked pasta. But I also really appreciated the smoked flavor in the pasta, just not with the sauce. This is a case where the sum of the parts just wasn't actually better than the individual components. I'd like to see what other directions they go with the pasta in the future.

Parker House rolls, topped with sea salt.

Parker House style rolls. Served fresh out of the oven, nice and warm, soft, slightly sweet, with crisp exterior with a touch of salt. A good roll.

Dayboat scallops, with heirloom beets, frisee, seared fennel, black trumpet mushrooms, blood orange, endive. 

Delicious! Definitely the best entree we had, and I'd order this again in a heartbeat. In fact, I sorta almost considered ordering more for dessert :)

The scallops were nicely seared and tender, with simple if any spicing on them. I was surprised by how flavorful they were for being so plain. Very well executed.

The other surprise on this plate for me was the seared fennel. It had an amazing smokey/charred flavor that was really complex. I could have easily eaten a side just of the fennel :)

The heirloom beets, mushrooms, assorted greens, and blood orange sauce didn't really do much for me, but they certainly didn't detract.

Chicken (breast, wing, thigh), cooked sous vide, then stuffed with foie gras, then seared in a pan, with wheatberries, root vegetables, in a foie gras and banyuls sauce.

I don't normally order chicken at restaurants, but I'd read many good reviews about this dish.

The chicken was very moist and tender. I guess it was a nicely prepared chicken, but it was just ... chicken.

The wheatberries and the foie/banyuls sauce made for some pretty tasty bites, bursting with flavor and richness.

But the standout on this plate for me was the root veggies, cooked perfectly (not too soft, not too raw) combined with the sauce. Surprisingly delicious.

Crispy, caramelized brussels sprouts with mint, lime, and garlic.  $7.

ZOMG. Winning dish of the night.

Any person who doesn't like brussels sprouts would have their mind changed by this dish. Then again, anyone who loves brussels sprouts would probably be upset at this dish.

Let me explain. As you can probably tell from the picture, the sprouts are very crispy and caramelized. The leaves that had separated were like fried chips. And the flavors ... wow! People use the phrase "explosion in my mouth" and I usually roll my eyes at it, but this is a case where it really applies. So. Flavorful. But, you don't really taste the brussels themselves much at all.

Can I have more of these ASAP?

"Baked California", fennel merginue filled with vanilla ice cream and orange sorbet, on top of a lemon cookie crust, and served with kiwi and citrus sauces. $10.

Their play on Baked Alaska.

The merengue on top was insanely fluffy and flavorful. I've never had merengue this good in my life before. Usually merengue is just sorta there as a topping; for me this stole the show. I could kinda care less about the rest of the dessert, I just wanted more and more merengue. I have no idea how they got it so fluffy and delicious!

Inside was vanilla ice cream and orange sorbet, which were nice enough flavors combined together, sorta like a classic creamsicle. The cookie base it was on added a textural component to the dish but wasn't really necessary.

Can I please have more merengue?

Lime tart, with sesame brittle. $10.

My least favorite dish of the night, but not one I'd normally order, so this is likely just personal preference.

Slightly tart lime filling, on top of a crust, with some sesame brittle stuff. Not bad, but particularly noteworthy.

[ Originally posted January 20, 2012 ]

Read More...

Dinner @ Crustacean

One of my dining companions has been wanting to go to Crustacean to get "An's Famous Garlic Noodles" for year.  Since I started the dining club, I think he has suggested it at least once a week.  After last night's dinner at The House, we were left still craving garlic noodles, as their version wasn't that great.  Crustacean is also known for their roast crab, and I'm always craving crab.  And to complete the picture, their third most popular dish is their Baked Alaska.  Which, if you read my posts regularly, you know how I feel about meringue.  It was time to finally go to Crustacean!

Crustacean has been open since 1991, and is the sister restaurant to Thanh Long, which has been open since 1971.  This is ages in restaurant years, so they must be doing something right! As mentioned, their noodles are famous, as are their roasted crabs.  They are apparently prepared in a separate secret kitchen that only family members are allowed in, with a recipe stored in a vault.  Or something like that.  Hype?  Yes!

The restaurant is fairly fancy, with cloth tablecloths and napkins and nice place settings.  More formal and stuffy feeling than I was expecting.  It was a somewhat strange contrast to the outside location, located within a mall, in an ugly concrete building.  It is an even stranger contrast when they bring you plastic bibs and paper napkins to handle the mess you'll soon be making.  I'm glad that they acknowledged the reality of eating crabs :)

We had done our research prior to arrival, so we knew that even though the menu was extensive, there were only a few things we should order.  Pretty much every single review I read said that the appetizers, while they all sounded awesome, were totally forgettable.  As was every other main dish, besides the noodles and crabs.  And all desserts besides the baked alaska.  Thus, that was our order (with a few more things thrown in, see below).

The food was all good, but obviously, very, very heavy.  All butter.  So much butter.  You certainly need to be in the mood for this type of food in order to enjoy it.  See photos below for detailed reviews of the dishes.

The astute reader may be thinking, "But Julie, you went to get seafood on a Monday night?  What were you thinking?  Of course it won't be great!"  Back when crab season started, I called around to all of the places that featured crab to find out if they were serving local Dungeness.  I found out that Crustacean never serves fresh local Dungeness, they always use frozen crab (and frozen shrimp), so the fact that it was Monday didn't really matter at all.  Keep this in mind if you want seafood on a Monday sometime!

The service was ok.  Food came ridiculously fast ... less than 10 minutes after ordering.  As every single table in the place was ordering these dishes, they clearly just prepare tons of them and are ready to pump them out rapid fire.  An unfortunate consequence of this is that the food came before our champagne, which our dining club drink expert had picked out to go with our shellfish.  While I appreciate the food coming quickly in some ways, it would have been nice to have had some time to settle in, have a few sips of champagne, etc before digging into the crab.  Because once the crab arrived, time was ticking!  It takes time and effort to extract the crab meat, but it most delicious when hot, so it is a fight against the clock to get the meat out before it cools down.  No time for relaxing or conversing!  Another service weakness was that our bottle of champagne apparently ran out, and the waitress didn't mention this to us, nor ask if we wanted more.  I noticed my dining companions had empty glasses and inquired, and then she told us it was gone.  Otherwise, service was fine, with bowls for shells being replaced as they got filled up, extra paper napkins brought out when needed, etc.

As much work as it is, I really do enjoy the experience of cracking a crab and extracting the meat.  There is something really fun about having to work for your food, and really getting down and dirty (and dirty I got ... my part of the table was totally covered in sauce by the time I was done, as were my hands, arms, etc.  Luckily, they brought us wet towels at the end of the meal to clean up!)  Even if I wasn't in love with the food, the whole experience was quite enjoyable!

This isn't a cuisine that I'm crazy about, so it isn't high on my return list, but I'd go back if in the mood for this sort of food.  I'd also like to check out their sister restaurant to compare as well, and go back to PPQ Dungeness Island, which I went to several years ago for crab and garlic noodles.  Mostly though, this just left me wishing it was January again, so I could go get the roasted crab at Camino.  Now THAT is some good roast crab!

My dining buddies, showing off their bibs.

I had to appreciate the bibs.  They come around and offer not only to give you bibs, but to tie them on for you.  Service!

The Roast Crab: butter, garlic, and spices.  AQ - $39.50.

The famous roasted crab.  As you can tell, there was a lot of butter here!  If you just wanted buttery crab, there was no reason to add more sauce, as it was completely infused with butter already.  I'm not really sure how they managed to get so much butter inside!  Unfortunately, I didn't get much garlic flavor when I just ate the crab this way and the crab itself wasn't that flavorful, (or perhaps the flavor was just masked by the butter), so I didn't find this all that enjoyable.  However, there was a ton of the sauce on the plate, and it had a nice strong garlic flavor, so dipping the crab as you extracted it into the sauce was the way to go.  Of course, that just made it buttery-er.  The sauce was pretty delicious, and I can imagine dipping bread in it would have been fantastic.

Overall this was good, but just not really my thing.  Too much butter for my taste and you really didn't get to taste the crab much at all.

At some level, I was comparing this to the roast crab I had at Camino in January.  Camino roasts the crab over an open fire, seasons it with some herbs, and it is absolutely fantastic.  They only serve it during local crab season, so the crab is fresh and absolutely delicious, and the more simple preparation really allows you to taste the sweet crab meat.  The open fire also imparts a fantastic roast smokiness to the crab, which this one was lacking.  It could easily have been steamed.

Royal Tiger Prawns: butterflied and charbroiled, served with An's Garlic noodles.

You can order just a side of the famous garlic noodles, or you can get them topped with some grilled prawns.  From my extensive research, I saw that while most people just ordered the noodles, repeat customers recommended getting the ones with the prawns to enjoy the grilled prawns as well.

The noodles were well cooked and loaded up with the garlic butter sauce.  It seemed like it was probably the same sauce, or at least very similar to, the sauce from the roast crab.  Buttery, oily, and garlicky.  This was good enough, but I think just not really my thing.  I'm not that big into noodles, and this just felt heavy and greasy.

I'm glad we added on the prawns.  While they weren't anything amazing, they did have a really nice grilled, smokey flavor, that I found lacking from the crab.  They were pretty butter covered as well though, which I could have done without, particularly as everything else was so heavy.

Tamarind Crab: Whole roasted crab in a sweet and sour sauce of tomatoes, fresh dill, Vietnamese chili, tamarind, fresh herbs, and cognac.   $39.50.

This was the dish of the evening for me.  Even though the garlic and butter roast crab is what they are known for, I'd dug pretty deeply into reviews, and found that people who were really into crab recommended the tamarind version as well.  I'm very glad I had read that, as I would have never ordered this otherwise.  And I'm glad my dining companions let me just order this, even though it wasn't the signature item.

This version felt much lighter.  The sauce was a tomato based sweet and sour sauce.  If you just ate a piece of the crab without adding extra sauce, it was particularly light and just had a lovely tomato and herb flavor.  While you still couldn't taste the crab itself much at all, I really liked these flavors, so didn't mind.  If you loaded it up with extra sauce, you really lost the crab in it, but it was amazingly sweet and delicious.  I loved this sauce, and either dipped every piece of crab meat I extracted into it, or even extracted a bunch and then spooned tons of extra sauce on top of it.  It made me wish I had some rice or something else to soak up more sauce with.  That said, it was pretty sweet and thick, sort of like a glaze, and so if you don't like sweet sauces, this certainly wouldn't be for you.

Baked alaska: Chocolate cake, caramel ice cream, chocolate mousse, meringue, with bananas foster.  $9.50.

I knew what I was getting into from reading reviews, but this description is just all lies!  Baked alaska with bananas foster?  Um no.

The "baked alaska" was a chocolate cake layer, with a thick caramel ice cream layer, with a thin chocolate mousse layer, and some toasted meringue on top.  As the meringue was just a topping, and wasn't warm at all, it was pretty clear that this was never baked.  That said, it was the soft form of meringue that I love, so I'm glad it was done this way.

This dish combined was better than the individual components on their own.  I'm pretty sure this whole thing just came out of the freezer.  The chocolate cake was really dry and flavorless.  Not very good at all.  The caramel ice cream had strange icy chunks throughout, wasn't creamy, and didn't have much caramel flavor.  Also, not very good.  The mousse wasn't light and fluffy, just a layer of chocolate pudding, and was too thin to really taste.  The meringue was soft and fluffy, but way too sweet, much more like a marshmallow.  That all said, if you got a bite with all of the components together, it was fairly satisfying and certainly sweet.

The "bananas foster" was just some sliced banana with caramel sauce.  The bananas were not cooked, were not caramelized, not flambéed.  There was no rum.  Meh to plain sliced bananas.  I liked the caramel sauce.

Overall, nothing really noteworthy here, but the dessert lover in me was somewhat satisfied, and I do love my meringue :)

Fried banana a la mode.  $8.50.

My dining companions wanted another dessert.  This was the only other one that people had really recommended.  I thought it was pretty bad.

There was way, way too much batter on the banana.  You couldn't really taste the banana at all, just lots of fried batter.  The shell wasn't very crispy and because the batter layer was so thick, it was really soggy.  And it tasted just like old oil.

The ice cream was just vanilla ice cream, not creamy, not very vanilla flavored, just plain ice cream.  About as generic as you can get.

The only thing I enjoyed about this was the fact that it was warm, and I love desserts that have a warm component contrasting with cold ice cream (a warm fruit crisp/crumble/cobler/pie with ice cream ... sooo good!)

Sadness, as this could have been really good, had the ice cream been better, the batter been better, and perhaps with some chocolate sauce and whipped cream too ...

Read More...

Dinner @ La Folie Lounge

Another day, another random meal at a Michelin starred restaurant's lounge ...

Tonight we went to the La Folie lounge. It is next to La Folie, but actually a separate space. You can order off their lounge menu, or get anything off of their regular menu (normally 3/4/5 course menu) a la carte, or even order individual dishes off their special tasting menu (except you have no idea how much items cost if you order off the main menus, since those are priced as tasting menus. This leads to extra fun when the bill comes!)

The lounge was a really nice atmosphere, with a selection of different seating options: bar counter, side counter, plush armchairs, etc. Music was louder than in a restaurant, but much softer and more pleasant than a standard bar. We choose to sit in bar stools at the bar counter, right in front of the lounge chef!

We choose to order a mix of items from the lounge menu and the main menu. This resulted in us getting a mix of service too. We received 2 complimentary amuse bouches, something normally served in the main restaurant, and we didn't see anyone else in the lounge get them, even though lots of others ordered some things off the main menu. Sorta strange, but I think since we ordered so many things off the main menu, including something off the special tasting menu, perhaps they decided to include them for us? But we didn't get the bread service, palate cleanser, or petit fours that they give in the main restaurant.

Service was a mixed bag. There was one bartender/waiter and one chef running the entire place. They were both pretty busy the entire time. The bartender seemed too busy to bother with us most of the time. The chef on the other hand was great, and I really enjoyed chatting with him about all of the dishes he was preparing. Everything on the lounge menu is actually prepared right there in the bar area. It was pretty impressive to watch him quickly churning out these dishes, even though they weren't super complicated, they did have a number of plating details that required painstaking attention to detail, like specifically placing individual caviar on top of things with tweezers. He took great pride in his work, and was clearly a foodie, eagerly telling me all of the details of the dishes he was working on. I loved seeing how the items were made to order, what was prepared ahead of time to create his mise en place, etc. He wasn't just someone assembling the pieces either, for the house cured salmon lollipops for example, he told me about how he gets a side of salmon and cures it in house to make this dish. I was a little surprised to see how some of the dishes worked though. For example, for the mac and cheese, he cooks up a big batch of macaroni early in the day on Monday. This usually lasts him for 3 days. So people ordering the dish on Wednesday are getting pasta that was cooked a few days earlier. Then when someone orders the dish, he mixes the pre-cooked pasta with the truffle cheese sauce and puts it into a MICROWAVE to heat it up. Then he chops up some lobster, mixes it in, tops it with breadcrumbs, and throws it under a salamander to make it all crisp and bubbly. It looked amazing, and he said it was too. But I was still surprised at the microwave and old pasta aspects of it.

Anyway, back to the service. We weren't ever given share plates, or new silverware between our courses. This doesn't bother me in any way, but it was a little unexpected given the price point/caliber of place. We received our amuse bouches almost immediately after ordering, and our food from the bar menu quickly thereafter. And then we waited. And waited. And then the bartender told us he'd just gone to check on our other food and that it was coming. And we waited. And waited. Something clearly went wrong, and they told us it sometimes happens with tickets that go to the main kitchen, they just get lost. Hmm, ok. Our soup finally arrived, but without our salad. Doh! The bartender was on top of it though and made sure they tracked it down quickly. And the bar chef made us another dish complimentary. Our dessert arrived soon after we ordered it. So, definitely mixed, and the lounge kitchen/main kitchen don't seem very in sync.

Overall, a nice option for tasty food in a relaxed atmosphere. I'd go back to try the truffle deviled eggs, the truffled lobster mac and cheese, and the rossini sliders with truffle aioli, all of which were getting prepared directly in front of me all night long and looked awesome, but I didn't order since my dining companion doesn't like truffles.

See photos for full review of each food item.

Complimentary amuse bouche #1: They described this as their play on asparagus with hollandaise sauce. The waiter listed off everything in here, but I forget everything he said ... it involved truffles 2 ways though.

I wish I'd been able to write down the details on this one, as I forget everything that was in here.

I think it was a truffle oil on the bottom, then a creamy hollandaise like sauce, then crunchy bits of asparagus, and topped with a truffle shaving. Lots of flavors going on, and I loved the crunch of the asparagus paired with the creamy sauce.

Complimentary amuse bouche #2: Poached quail egg, cream, green garlic, crispy potato chip, chive, brioche toast.

Another one where I wish I'd been able to write down all of the details!

Inside the egg shell was a creamy soup (cauliflower perhaps?), a green garlic puree, and a poached quail egg. It was topped with a very thin crispy potato chip and had a toasted brioche stick on the side.

This was also pretty tasty, with really unique textural components. It was fairly rich from the cream and egg yolk, a little strange to eat by the spoonful like that, but the broiche dipped in it created a perfect bite. The potato chip was salty, crisp, and tasty, but I didn't really understand why it was there. And yes, there was a hole poked through it for the chive to stick up through ...

House Cured Salmon Lollipops, with herbed marscapone, pickled beets, cornichons. 

From the bar menu. These were house cured salmon, rolled up with an herbed marscapone, put on a stick, and then topped with some tiny little micro green and a tiny bit of caviar. Definitely a cute play on a more traditional smoked salmon and cream cheese sort of dish, this was flavorful and the herbs added a nice freshness.

On the side was a pickled red beet, pickled yellow beet, and some cornichons. I thought the beets were way too vinegary, but I'm kinda a pickled stuff snob. The cornichons were forgettable. I didn't really understand what any of the pickled stuff added to the plate though, as they didn't really go with the salmon.

Close up of the cured salmon lollipop, topped with a micro green of some sort, and some caviar. 

Foie gras soup, truffled cracker, seared foie gras and glazed baby turnips 

This came off the special tasting menu. I've read amazing things about the seared foie gras they serve at La Folie, but after the previous night's 8 course foie gras meal, I was not really wanting more foie gras, so we skipped ordering that. We asked about this dish and they said it was a small little mug of soup with a small piece of seared foie gras on the side. I figured the soup with "small" piece of seared foie gras on the side wouldn't be too much and would be a fun way to get to experience their famous seared foie.

Um, that piece of foie gras was not small. Apparently their normal preparation is 6-8 ounces, so compared to that it is. I'm guessing this was at least 4 ounces.

Unfortunately, I really did not like this dish. Partially, I was foie'ed out after the dinner the night before. But really, this was just way, way too rich. I finished this out of feeling bad about wasting foie gras, but really wish I hadn't.

The soup was an insanely strong foie gras liquid with some foie gras foam on top. It reminded me of a time where I accidentally bought stock rather than broth broth. It was just too much to drink, even by the little spoonful. Too rich, too fatty, just not good.

The truffle cracker didn't really taste like anything to me.

The seared foie was ok, but it was just too much foie gras, with nothing to cut it. I think I would have liked it with some bread or crostini or something, but there were just a couple little pieces of turnip under it, which helped, but weren't substantial enough. And taking a sip of soup certainly didn't help! And I really like having some form of sweet component with my foie, and there wasn't any of that here.

Overall, this dish was just a huge flop for me. Too rich, too fatty, too much foie, not remotely balanced.

Dungeness crab salad, on cauliflower panna cotta, topped with a yellow curry tuile. Served with curried spiced crab vinaigrette, caviar.

This came off the standard menu. What a beautiful presentation! This was good, but wasn't nearly as good as I was expecting, given that I love crab and cauliflower!

The bottom layer was the cauliflower panna cotta. I didn't like it at all. It was too creamy, too heavy, and threw off the balance of the dish, as it overpowered everything else. I wanted to taste the crab!

The crab itself was delightful. Local dungeness, super sweet, it reminded me of why I love dungeness crab, as it can be sooo tasty. It was mixed with some cucumber and herbs, super light, really delicious.

I didn't really pick up on the curry flavor of the tuile or the sauce, and found the tuile sorta annoying to cut through and eat.

Smoked Herring Terrine: yukon gold mashed potatoes, horseradish crème fraîche, caviar 

The lounge chef made this for us once he overheard us talking about how ridiculously long we were waiting for our dishes from the main kitchen. Unfortunately, by the time he had finished it, our other food had come and we were pretty full. But, I think this may have been my favorite dish of the night!

It certainly was the most balanced and refined dish we had. The smoked herring had a great smoked flavor to it. The mashed potatoes were well spiced and paired well with the herring. The horseradish cream gave it a little kick. But the best part was the caviar on top. Many of our other dishes had a little caviar on them, and in those cases it seemed more like a garnish, but in this dish, it added the perfect salty component. Really nicely done.

Huckleberry Baked Alaska: huckleberry and basil ice creams, sable cookie, lemon cake, huckleberry-pear panna cotta

One of the reasons I wanted to go to La Folie was the baked alaska. I've been craving it since having the "Baked California" at Haven last month. I've been ordering every merengue based dish I can find since, but nothing has satisfied me! I did a bunch of research on where to get the best baked alaska in SF, and La Folie was consistently ranked among the tops (Harris and Crustacean also ... have any other recommendations?)

I was stuffed at this point, but was determined to get my baked alaska! I should have taken a photo of the inside, but it was a sable cookie on the bottom, then a lemon cake, then basil ice cream, then huckleberry ice cream, all coated in merengue. On the side was what they called a "huckleberry-pear panna cotta", with some tiny basil leaves and huckleberries.

I didn't like the panna cotta. Flavors just seemed off, it was more like a strong jelly, and I didn't really know what to do with it. Eat it alone? Way too much like just eating a spoonful of jelly. Add it to a spoonful of the rest? There was already so much going on with the cookie, the cake, the ice creams, and the merengue that adding more in seemed strange.

The sable cookie was crunchy and buttery. It was hard to break apart with a spoon though, and made for a lot of unbalanced bites that either didn't have any or had way too much. The cake was moist and had an amazingly strong lemon flavor. The ice creams were both good.

Overall, I didn't like this all that much. Something just seemed off flavorwise. It wasn't too sweet, or too tart, or anything obvious like that, but just didn't really come together for me. Maybe I was just too full. Or I wanted it to be more like the Haven one. I'm not sure. Apparently the baked alaska is seasonal, and they do a peach version in the summer, I'd be interested in trying that one out.

[ Originally posted February 20, 2012 on Google+, moving content here ].

Read More...