I went to San Francisco for a company event last weekend. My coworker, his wife, and I decided to leave a little earlier than other people and arrived in SF thursday night. We were obviously big fans of Top Chef and Top Chef Masters, and decided to take the opportunity to go to Hubert Keller’s restaurant. Unfortunately the chef was not around but the food was still excellent.

We arrived at our reservation at about 8:30 PM and had a drink at the bar. I had a cocktail with guava juice, rum, vodka, tequila, and some other kind of juice. The drink was pinkish and a little girly but I did not care because it tasted really good. My coworker and his wife also had cocktails and were very good also. The restaurant itself had a very interesting decoration. For some reason it reminds of a circus ring. The sad part is that I only had my Iphone with me and therefore, the pictures of the food are not very clear.

So lets get to the food. The first thing that was offer to us was some bread – nothing spectacular about the bread IMHO. We decided to go for the 4 course meal with wine pairing – I do not know much about wine but they went well with the food. The wine pairing was definitely worth it. My coworker’s wife had a Chardonnay that she said was the best she ever had. I think the wine I had were all very good except for the wine or some kind of alcohol that went with the desert. Before the food arrived, we were given some thing (not sure what it was) and a gaspacho (I think pea). The picture is not so good but I am posting it anyways. This was complimentary and nothing to complain nor to rave about.

For the appetizer I ordered the symphony of choucroute fondant with caviar, foie gras with smoked duck burgers, beef tare tare, and fries. The foie gras with smoked duck burgers was good. The beef tare tare was great and the fries was also very good – I am a sucker for fries. My friend had the pan seared foie gras. I think there is really nothing better on earth than the chinese braised pork belly and pan seared foie gras. The foie gras literally starts to melt as soon as it touches your tongue. My friend’s wife had the roasted maine lobster – the lobster had a very sweet taste but I don’t think it compares to the feel and taste of the pan seared foie gras as it melts in your mouth. My favorite apetizer of the 3 has to be the pan seared foie gras. Obviously the appetizers were served with very good wine. Unfortunately, I am no wine expert and not really sure what it makes it good. It went well with the meal.

For the second course, my friend’s wife and I had the Maine scallops with toasted pine nuts. The scallops were served on potatoes, sun dried tomatoes, and some sort of wine reduction. The scallops were very well cook – it was just right and the sweetness of the scallop really went well with the tangy sun dried tomatoes.

For the third course I had the waygu beef cheek with spatzel and choucroute gratin. I think my mouth went to heaven when I had a little bit of the beef cheek. I mean I always knew that beef cheek were super tender and good, but I had no idea that it can be so good until I had the waygu beef cheek. The chef was a genius in the way he prepared the meat. My friend had the lamb loin and lamb shank tangine. The lamb was superb (I am running out of adjectives to describe the food). It was so moist and tender and cooked to a medium rare perfection. My friend’s wife had the filet migno with lobster trouffled mac and cheese. Again filet mignon was very well prepared – I don’t think I have ever had a more tender piece of steak. However, the trouffled mac and cheese was a little off for me. I think the cheese overpowered the trouffled and the macroni masked the texture of the lobster. I did not think it was anything special.

I had the souffle for desert and like every other part of the meal it was very well prepared. However, I enjoyed the cookies that were treats from the kitchen. The cookies (some type of cookies) were to die for. Obviously the wine pairing made the evening even better. I definitely like the food at the restaurant and would recommend anyone going to SF to give it a try.

Although my entree was not that great, the appetizers were excellent. First we got these cookies with eggplant purees for free. These were tasty little morsels full of buttery goodness.

We ordered three appetizers to share among us. We had the goat cheese ravioli. Although I am not a huge fan of cheese ravioli, they were probably some of the best cheese ravioli I have ever had. I did like the caramelized onions on top of the ravioli. The onions were super yummy.

We also ordered a shrimp salad with blood oranges, oranges, and some type of tasty dressing. The shrimp was sweet – a little like the sweet shrimp you see at Sushi places. This appetizer was very good; I especially enjoyed the oranges and the dressing.

The last appetizer we had was escargot on polenta. The escargot itself was so so, but the polenta was so well done. It was a little bit crispy on the outside while soft on the inside in addition to an excellent buttery taste. I think everything is better with butter.

Finally, we had a one called Buty that was really really good. I don’t know anything about wines but this white wine had a nice refreshing after taste to it.

Overall Lucy’s Table was good and I would recommend you to go even though my entree was a bummer.

After I made the fillings, I started to make the dough for the dumpling skin. I followed the instruction on the web, 2 cup of all purpose flour and 1/3 cup of hot water. Slowly mix the water into the flour and start to knead the dough together or so I thought. I think 1/3 cup of water was not enough and the dough seemed very tough. I kneaded and kneaded to no avail. I thought “crap, this will not work”. I was about to give up and just trash the dough. But after talking to my friend, I decided to let the dough rest and try to make the skin.

After the dough rested for about 15 minutes, it still did not look good. I decided to just cut a small piece of the dough and rolled it out on the cutting board hoping to make a perfect circle for the dumpling skin. The dough was pretty hard and it was just a lot of work to use a rolling pin to get the dough into a thin skin. I think the first skin took like 5 minutes to roll out. The skin just did not feel right but I made a dumpling out of it anyways. However, I was still worry that the skin was not correct and I was not about to waste hours making the skin without testing the dumpling out first. I boiled some water and put my first dumpling in the water. After some time, I tried the dumpling and it was not that bad. I went ahead and spent many hours and ended up making quite a few dumplings.

It was a lot of work but I guess it was worth it. My friend thought the dumpling was tasty but she may just have been trying to be nice.

Fillings for the Dumpling

The Dough and the Final Dumpling Skin – not round

The Dumplings

I shared crab cake with my friend and it was good. However, most of the dishes were under seasoned. I had the Crabby Mac and I have to say that the crab did not really stand out in the mac and cheese. I think the Mac and Cheese overpowered the crab – maybe they need to give more crab? Then I had the Shrimp Po Boy that was also under seasoned. I ended up putting a whole bunch of Tabasco sauce on the Po Boy after every bite of the sandwich. I also had a shrimp fritter but there was too much breading and again under seasoned.

My friend had the Jambalaya but unfortunately it was also not seasoned well. Tapalaya would have been a lot better if the food was seasoned better. This should be easy to fix and maybe they just had a bad day. I would try this place again and see how it is.

I remembered the celery salad at the beast and thought that I can do the same. I slice the celery very thinly into small pieces. I then added some salt, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and rooster sauce for dressing. I added the celery to some baby romaine lettuce and avocado to create my salad.

I cut the game hen along the breast and seasoned it with kosher salt, paprika, and garlic powder. I let the seasoning sit for 30 minutes and then I just the chicken on the grill and let it cook until it was done.

The celery salad was actually very good with the rooster sauce adding a little spice to it. The chicken was good but the meat did was not seasoned very well. However, the skin was nice and crispy and slightly burnt.

I will have to try the other sausages at Otto before I can decide whether they can be my Top Dog of Portland.

I was pretty excited about this place because I had such fond memory of TopDog back at Berkeley. I walked to the place and I saw only a couple of customers. I thought to myself that since it was a Saturday, maybe there are just not that many people eating there. I looked at the menu and I was a little bit surprise by the price – every type of sausage cost $4.50. I guess that since I am no longer a starving graduate student, I should stop complaining about the price.

I was hoping to get a lemon chicken but unfortunately SuerpDog did not have that so I just got a Bratwurst. I was a little surprised that the Bratwurst was already done – boiled and ready to serve. I like my Bratwurst grilled and butterflied. The Bratwurst was serve in a normal hot dog bun. You do get sauerkraut, onion, relish, and quite a few choices of mustard. But the condiments just does not make up for the boiled Bratwurst and hot dog bun. I need my Brat grilled and butterflied served on a sesame seed french roll just like how they do it at TopDog.

I am not sure how the other sausages are. But I just can’t recommend this place to anyone else. I will not go back there.

I should have taken pictures of all the dishes but I am just starting this whole review thing and sometimes I forget to take the pictures.

The first course was a cream of wild mushroom soup with shaved truffles. The soup did not impress me that much – it was a little too creamy for me. I think the soup that they sell at the PSU farmer’s market is actually better.

The second item was Charcuterie Plate with Foie-Gras on a cracker, salami, steak tartare & quail egg toast, chicken liver mousse, pickled carrot, and some other stuff. The Foi-Gras was not bad, but I personally like my Foie-Gras to be lightly pan fried on both sides. The chicken liver mousse was also not bad but not great. I wish they had put some more seasoning in it. My favorite item was the steak tartare. I believe my friend also like this the most out of the entire charcuterie plate. I don’t really know how to write in words why the tartare was my favorite but trust me on it.

The third course was a lamb chop with endive gratin. The lamb chop was delicious with just the right amount of fat on it cooked to a medium rare. The meat was tender and the endive gratin with the parmesan together was amazing. I think this may have been the first time I had endive and I am wondering to myself why I have never had that before. The only disappointing party of this course was the cutlery. I swear that they gave us all a butter knife to cut the lamb chop. Everyone, all of 8 of us, at the table had a difficult time cutting the lamb chop. GIVE US A REAL STEAK KNIFE!!!

The fourth course was a fennel salad with mint, citrus, and olive. I don’t normally like fennel but this combination really worked well together. Although there was just a small amount of mint but it made the whole salad a success. The mint gives a nice refreshing feel to your mouth. I think I am going to try to make this next time and see if I can reproduce it.

The fifth course was a cheese plate with honey, almonds, and a champagne poached apricot. I don’t remember the exact type of cheese that we had but there were a total of 3. I just remember that the goat cheese was really good if dab it with a little bit of the honey. The sweetness of the honey and the sharpness of the cheese (it was not that sharp) just creates a nice combination. But the poached apricot was so good. I will try to make this once I know what it means to poach something.

By now I am super full and was actually quite tired. The desert was good – but the chocolate cookie (or whatever it is) that held the vanilla cream was delicious. It was crunchy and buttery. Yup butter definitely makes everything better. We thought we were done, but Beast surprised us with another treat of chocolate covered bacon. I was so full by then but I just had to eat it. How can you ever pass up bacon or chocolate?

I like the restaurant overall. I would go back again but I will probably skip out on the wine pairing next time. I think the wine took up space in my stomach that could’ve been used to hold more food.

Why am I doing this? Well mostly is because I need a hobby that I enjoy outside of my job. I have no idea what will come out of this fun, but hopefully, it will be me eating more awesome food and finding places in Portland and around the world that I like and enjoy.

Ate 2 much