My org (of 7 people) was doing a team retreat up in Sonoma, and on the last night we went out for dinner, at my urging…
Autumn Salad
Burrata, radicchio, grilled persimmons, walnuts, balsamic
Killer combinations - the bitterness of the radicchio played well against all of the other constituent parts. Persimmons were lovely.
Hen of the woods
Sweet onions, yuzu sesame, egg yolk
Perfectly cook on the mushrooms despite their relatively massive size. Great with the sweet onion foam. Egg yolk helped round it out.
The online menu might be a little out of date and I didn’t think to take a picture of the physical menu, so I’m rederiving the first two pastas from a combination of memory and the receipt.
Cacio e Pepe
Shaved mushrooms (forget which kind)
Aglio e Olio
Squid Ink Bucatini, lemon zest, anchovy extract
Lumache
Braised sausage, rapini, snail shaped pasta
Truffle Udon
Tteok-Bokki
Bolognese, pesto
The pastas were all quite good, my rough ranking would probably Udon ~ Squid Ink ~ Lumache > Mushroom > Tteok-Bokki.
Dover Sole
Brown butter sauce
Some of the best fish I’ve ever eaten. Very tender without being mushy, delicate flavor which nonetheless stood up to the sauce (a very effective complement).
Complimentary Salad
Nice leaves, great (mostly invisible) dressing.
Dry Aged Porterhouse
48oz, medium-rare
Correspondingly, some of the best steak I’ve ever eaten. Really excellent and noticeable funk from the dry-aging, which wasn’t limited to the fatty bits, but also didn’t get overwhelming. Great texture and bite on the meat. Crazy that I can get this in Sonoma but not, as far as I can tell, in SF.
Potatoes
Side to steak
Good. Second side unpictured (grilled rapini, iirc), also good.
Basque Cheesecake
Sundae
Desserts also good, though I’m not a basque cheesecake guy so if it was excellent I’m not sure I’d be able to tell you.
The starters and pastas were great, but it feels like it’s been a while since I’ve been somewhere where the large-format mains killed it so hard. There were some slightly worrying reviews on Yelp about the service, but it was fantastic in our case, despite the fact that I walked in at 7 pm to make a reservation for 8 pm (online bookings being limited to a max of 6 people, and no phone service). Surprisingly helpful advice on menu choices, plates cleared at the appropriate times, etc. Worth a trip, I think. I want to come back and try the Grilled Kkot Kalbi from their kbbq section, and the turbot. Came out to something like… $120 a head, after tip and tax? Very reasonable, considering that included 2.5 drinks (one non-alcoholic beer, one glass of wine, one martini) and 5 desserts, for 7 people.
They also run a breakfast sandwich concept called SPK in the mornings…
Competitive, to my taste, though the use of Boichik Bagels may be divisive. They also make all of their pastries in house (except the pain au chocolat). Unpictured are a canele (which I ate immediately, pretty good) and a kougin-amann, which I saved for the next day (finished eating 10 second ago - fantastic, almost wish I’d found room to squeeze it in somewhere yesterday).
