[Pigging by Wilfrid: November 23, 2009]
I had only one evening free for restaurant dining on my recent San Francisco trip, and the consensus of local opinion directed me to Quince, recently re-located to a quiet side street in what I still think of as the Barbary Coast neighborhood.
It's just a step from Chinatown, in any case, and the glow from the large windows makes it easy to find.
I have visited San Francisco four times, which does not make me an expert on the current dining scene, but I judge Quince nevertheless to be pretty formal by local standards. This means not that every male guest wore a jacket and tie - far from it - but some at least were heavily pin-striped and cufflinked. I'd not been able to secure a reservation - Quince can be booked two months in advance - but I'd been advised that bar dining was an easy option. My initial, whispered conversation with the maitre d' led to the conclusion that the bar was actually full, and having come all the way across country I opted to order a glass of bubbly and wait. But while ordering it became clear to me that one seat was by no means taken - just sort of surrounded - and I slid into it.
Again, having come all this way, it would have seemed churlish not to order the longer of two tasting menus. Eight courses (actually rather more, with all the incidentals) for $115 makes a Manhattan resident feel like they caught a bargain. Some things are done differently here: given the upscale feel, I was mildly surprised that the bread was not served warm - but no big deal. The first mouthful went well with my glass of Billecart-Salmon: a sandcrab croquette accented with fennel. A solitary and very good kumamoto oyster followed, dabbed with an unidentified caviar, and resting in a light cauliflower cream. The one drawback was unnecessary grit from the shell.
A rectangle of sturgeon appeared next, announced as very slowly cooked - like for many hours at unbelievably low temperatures. It struck me as mildly smoked. I have always had my doubts about sous vide and related cooking techniques, believing that if you have a good piece of fish or meat, you can do as well to simply poach or braise it. The sturgeon had that characteristic slow-cooked feel of being not quite done - I actually enjoyed the garnishes much more than the fish itself. Fried capers were great, there was a sharp capsicum relish, and perhaps best of all, Peruvian potatoes had been pressed into a flat, very potatoey tile as a sort of canvas for the dish.
Having liked the sandcrab, I was looking forward to the spiny lobster. This came with some sun dried tomato and the second foam of the evening (there had been a spuma floating airily about the sturgeon dish). As with almost all restaurant lobsters, it could have been a little more tender, but the flavor was excellent. Sadly, not properly cleaned; plenty of grit this time around. Frustrating, because almost a very good dish, and one felt the restaurant's character - good ingredients, Mediterranean accents - was expressed in it.
Quince indeed is really an Italian restaurant, and not just because the familiar figure of David Lynch, former wine director for Mario Batali, was to be seen ferrying bottles around the dining room. Two pasta dishes arrived next, the first a rather unfocussed and pallid plate of pasta with soft root vegetables, another foam, and truffle shavings of muted flavor.
As if by way of consolation, the second pasta effort was perhaps the strongest dish of the evening. Spinach ravioli encasing braised guinea hen - that underused bird - dressed in a classy foie-Madeira sauce. I could have eaten this all night...except, the crisp-fried shallot garnish, a well chosen touch, suffered from the failure entirely to remove the shallot's skin. Fried strips of skin are dismayingly chewy.
Beginning to fill up, I certainly enjoyed a deconstructed suckling pig trotter with onion cream - a lighter dish than it sounds. Nevertheless, this was a big dinner.
I was surprised to discover any appetite for dessert, but the two plates which arrived were imaginative and satisfying. A mango tart was smartly paired with Greek yogurt rendered into crunchy pieces by some arcane kitchen technique. Tarte tatin with notably good pastry was more classic, and appealingly garnished with cubes of cider jelly. The curtain fell with a parade of petits fours. (And I think my camera was beginning to feel jet-lagged.)
Quite a grand meal, then, with notable highlights, let down by surprising oversights at the prepping stage. One can forgive a gritty oyster, but it should not be followed by a gritty lobster, and then by lazily trimmed vegetables. I should emphasize that I've eaten at Quince once and once only, and these may be extraordinary aberrations from the norm. But of course, I can only review what I ate. No regrets, though, for accepting the recommendation.
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