Dinner at The Dining Room, Ritz Carlton San Francisco
Posted on Aug 16, 2009 under Uncategorized | No CommentA few weeks ago I checked into the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco. I was lucky to be upgraded to a suite which had a huge living room and bedroom and a bathroom three times as big as the one in my house. It was beautiful.
The neoclassical style San Francisco landmark resort on Nob Hill houses 336 rooms and suites featuring antique-style furnishings, Oriental rugs, elegant window treatments, contemporary artwork and Italian marble bathrooms. The in-house fitness center includes a workout room, heated indoor pool and spa. This is really cool as it is in the basement of the resort and the pool is huge, well worth a visit.
The pastry chef made a replica of the current Pasadena magazine cover out of chocolate (see above), as I was doing a story for Pasadena magazine. It was too pretty to eat so I just took a pic of it. I also got the below yummy welcome tray.
That evening my friend Matt drove in from Sacramento for dinner at the resort’s Dining Room, where French meals are served with a Japanese twist. We had a remarkable tasting menu and the chef prepared each of us different plates for every course, which we really liked because we got to taste a wide variety of food. It was one of the best meals I have had this year – here is what was for dinner:
We started the evening off with champagne. We tried a sip of each of the bottles on the champagne cart and all were delicious.
The chef sent us a quail egg with golden osetra caviar to start.
I got the white corn and pepper soup with basil and dungeness crab at the bottom and Matt received the Cream of Porcini soup with curry and suckling pig. We shared since both soups were really tasty.
We then got three dishes all together and shared them all. The abalone came with sugar snap peas that were very fresh and japanese rice scented with marin in a dashi broth. The tuna sashimi and spot prawn with yuzu gelee were also delicious.
For the first of two main fish courses I had the King salmon with English peas and heart of palm and Matt had the halibut with squid, melted onions and baby fennel.
The next two courses included two of my favorite ingredients, lobster and foie gras. First we had lobster with mousseron mushroom, snap peas and chicken oyster (really yummy) and a lobster dish with short rib raviolis and a ruby port reduction. We both loved these lobster dishes.
Next came the foie gras, I had the hot foie gras with a spicy cherry compote over a brioche with a pineapple reduction (my fave of the night) and Matt had the spiced apple poached foie gras with a cherry glaze and mulberry terrine with apricot jam. Yum.
Next came the foul portion, I had duck with black rice, enoki mushrooms and cherries (really good) and Matt got the rabbit with fava beans, radish and a leek puree.
Throughout the meal we also enjoyed wine pairings, here is our sommelier. I knew after the third glass of champagne that there was no way I could track of all the wines, so I just had the sommelier take a pic of us with our wine glasses to remember how many glasses we had. The wine list is exceptional at the Dining Room and it is definitely worth it to ask for a pairing from the sommelier.
Before dessert, we enjoyed Kobe beef with potato, porcini mushrooms and sancho pepper (another fave) and Pozzi Farm lamb with pesto and zucchini blossoms served in a madeira reduction.
You would think that we would’nt have any room left in our stomachs, but when the cheese cart rolled out we couldn’t resist. Matt is from Switzerland so he knows his cheese. Here was what was on the cart and what we ended up with:
Our desserts, yep we also had four samples of desserts!, included a mango sorbet with strawberry consome, a peach sorbet with rooibos tea granite (very interesting combination and good), chocolate manjari cake with caramel and sea salt, macadamia nut ice cream and a cocoa nib crisp and a composition of tropical fruits including a coconut crepe, papaya lime sorbet and passionfruit chiboust (our fave of the desserts).
We thought we were done but to our suprise the waiter rolled out the petit four cart with dozens of perfectly crafted bite sized cakes and pastries. They looked amazing but since we barely fit in our chairs after so much food the waiter wrapped up a bunch of them which Matt took home to Joan.
This was one of the longest (4 1/2 hour) dinners and extensive tasting menus I had on my San Francisco trip but it was one of the best meals I have ever had. It is definitely worth a trip to the classic Ritz Carlton to view the beauty of the resort and to taste the wonderful food in the Dining Room.
The Dining Room, Ritz Carlton San Francisco.
600 Stockton Street, 415/296-7465