RN74 (San Francisco) - Q

When I heard that Michael Minna opened a new wine bar and restaurant in SOMA, I thought that it would be fun to go check it out. The name RN74 refers to a national road ("Route Nationale") in France and the restaurant is located at the Millenium Tower (301 Mission St). It was a Tuesday night, and it was completely packed when we arrived. Fortunately we had reservations and got seated immediately.


I started off with the Foie Gras Terrine with grilled peaches and toasted brioche. I usually prefer seared foie gras than terrine, but it seems to be harder and harder to find "real" foie gras in SF these days so any foie gras is better than no foie gras! The terrine was actually quite good and very smooth. The fatiness of the terrine was nicely complemented by the grilled peaches.


For entree, I got the Grilled Prime Beef, which came with fingerling potatoes, bacon, haricots verts, and black truffle. The beef was cooked nicely, but it didn't really stand out and you can probably find more flavorful beef/steak elsewhere. And for $28, the portion was quite small (only two pieces of beef). We got Warm Beignets for dessert because I've been in love with beignets ever since going to New Orleans. The were nice and crispy, but it's always hard to find beignets as good as Cafe du Monde in New Orleans...


Of course since this place is a wine bar, we had to try some wine. RN74 has a nice selection of wines by the glass, and I started with a glass of riesling to go with the foie gras terrine and a glass of cab with the beef. The bar was very happening all throughout the night and there were plenty of good-looking professionals getting their fill of after-work stress relievers (aka alcohol). Since it has been a while since I found a good place worthy of a "Q," I'll have to come back soon to enjoy some glasses of wine at the bar!

Naked Lunch at Foodbuzz Open House

Kat was visiting for the weekend and it just happened that Foodbuzz (where she is a featured publisher) was having an Open House on Friday, so we decided to stop by and meet some of the folks at Foodbuzz as well as other bloggers. I saw from the invitation that they were going to bring in sandwiches from Naked Lunch, which I've never been to before, but I figured that Foodbuzz people must know their food. Sure enough, neither disappointed. We met a lot of fun people who are true foodies, and we chatted about our favorite restaurants over delicious sandwiches. Kat and I split two different sandwiches so we could sample both - one was the Grilled Cheese and Tomato Sandwich and the other was a Chorizo Sandwich. We tried the Grilled Cheese first. The sandwich didn't quite look like a typical grilled cheese, i.e. with melted cheese oozing out, but it was very flavorful and light. I was surprised to find that it was filled with chevre cheese, which is a type of goat cheese so it gave the sandwich a stronger flavor. Combined with oven roasted tomato, pesto, and spinach, the sandwich was refreshing and I probably could have eaten another one!


Then we moved onto the Chorize Sandwich. The Chorizo Sandwich was good but it paled in comparison to the Grilled Cheese. I was expecting the chorizo to be a little spicy but it didn't really have the kick I was looking for. Nonetheless, based on the quality of the sandwiches, Kat and I figured that it would be worth it to check out Naked Lunch, which is not too far from the Foodbuzz offices. We had heard that Naked Lunch has this foie gras sandwich that is finger-lickin'-good, and we can never say no to foie gras. Unfortunately though, we were having so much fun chatting with the people at Foodbuzz that by the time we left their offices, Naked Lunch had run out of the foie gras sandwich. Oh well, I'll try again next time.


Thanks Foodbuzz for a fun open house and introducing me to a delicious lunch spot!

Epicurious Entertains NYC

Epicurious Entertains NYC is "a one-of-a-kind event with daytime demonstrations and celebrity chef dinners in a homey pop-up space" that took place from Sep 30-Oct 4, 2009 in a cute loft near Union Square in NYC. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a couple of the events, including the Opening Day "Ultimate NYC Lunch Break" on 9/30 and "Cutting-Edge Cuisine: A Paul Liebrandt Dinner" event on 10/1.


For the "Ultimate NYC Lunch Break," Epicurious assembled some of New York's best lunch spots and food vendors to come together under one roof. I sampled everything from lobster rolls from The Mermaid Inn to chicken wraps from Tabla to brownies and other desserts from The Treats Truck, all well-known local favorites. I was impressed that many of the chefs were cooking and manning their own stations, including Seamus Mullen from Boqueria, who is currently competing on Food Network's Next Iron Chef. The highlight for me was meeting Anita Lo, who became quite popular after her appearances on Top Chef Masters, who was making chicken dumplings for her Rickshaw Dumpling outlet (she also owns Annisa, which is a great restaurant). Being the chef groupie that I am, I promptly introduced myself to her and got my picture taken with her. She was very nice and gracious about it.


At the dinner event with Chef Paul Liebrandt the next night, we started off with a cocktail hour with tasty canapes including "Egg Yolk Creme Bagel" (mini, and I mean mini, bagels with a tiny egg yolk) and "Gougère Spiced with Harissa" (a small pastry with cheese and harissa, which is a North African hot sauce). While we were munching and drinking away, they showcased a very cool demo video conferencing Paul directly into his kitchen at his restaurant Corton to talk with his staff and pastry chef. All of this was made possible by Intel technologies of course (who was the sponsor of the dinner). His pastry chef then showed us how he makes a really nifty dessert with alcohol in liquid nitrogen. (As he explained it, alcohol doesn't normally freeze so you can only do it with liquid nitrogen.) The demo made us all very hungry and we were really looking forward to dinner.


Paul certainly did not disappoint. We started off with an amuse bouche of "Pumpkin Velouté, Pecorino, Shiso." We were told by the serving staff that this was pumpkin soup, but that did not do it justice at all. It was creamy with complex layers of flavors, and you can clearly taste the pumpkin, the pecorino cheese, and many more herbs and spices. They only brought out a small cup (since it was an amuse) but I would drink the whole pot! The first course was a "Pressé of Duck Leg and Foie Gras Sphere," which was basically a pate made with duck leg meat but the star is really the foie gras sphere. Anybody who knows me knows that I'm a huge fan of foie gras, but typically I like seared whole foie gras versus foie gras mousse or terrine. The foie gras sphere (sometimes called foie gras "cherries" at Paul's restaurant Corton) was basically foie gras mousse covered in a thin layer of cherry-flavored coating, where the sweetness offsets the fattiness of the foie gras. There is actually a video on Food Network that shows how Paul makes this and it's pretty cool (select Paul Liebrandt when the video player comes up).


So far everything was really good and I was impressed, since I've often experienced that for large events such as this, the food usually would not be as good since they were made in large quantities. But Paul obviously knows how to manage all of that and still deliver flawlessly - a true sign of a top chef. Our main course was Braised Veal Cheeks and it was so tender that I liked it more than any of the Kobe beef, Wagu beef, etc. that I've had. The veal cheek was very well-seasoned, and a harmony of different flavors danced in my mouth. Again, I would have licked the plate and eaten every veal cheek in Paul's kitchen if I could! I will have to go to Corton the next time I'm back in NYC.


Epicurious did an amazing job putting together the events and getting some of the best chefs from NYC. I really hope that they'll bring this to SF next year!