Had a great weekend eating in SF. Thanks for all the recs.
Upon landing, headed straight to Hog Island at the Ferry building for lunch. Amazing as always and I’d say their cooking has actually improved.
First night’s dinner was at Sorrel.
Chicores salad with goat cheese was incredible. One of the best salads I’ve had.
Foie gras was also really good, and given the new laws passing, I knew I had to get it while I could.
I had read that their pasta program is really strong so we got two different pastas to share. First was rigatoni carbonara. This dish didn’t really sing for either of us. Good bite to the pasta but dish was very heavy and we got sick of it after a few bites.
Next pasta was the tagliatelle with beef ragu. Again, pretty average dish with no layers of flavor in the ragu sauce. Compared to some of the top pasta places in LA, Sorrel definitely was several notches below, although both appetizers were amazing.
We skipped out on the sourdough loaf as tempting as it was because it was just two of us and that’s why more carbs than we care to eat. But pretty much every table was getting one and it looked amazing.
Saturday for lunch, hit up the farmer’s market and got a porchetta sandwich from Roli Roti. AMAZING!!! I love how they put some crispy skin in every sandwich and the rosemary salt really brings out the flavors of the pork. We need something like this in LA for sure.
Wondered over to the Fisherman’s Wharf area later that day (we are tourists after all) and had one of the, if not the best fish and chips I’ve had at The Codmother Fish and Chips. Perfectly crispy light batter and even the fries were perfect. (sorry for the horrible pic)
Dinner at The Morris. Impressive wine program, cocktails were ok. The Chartreuse slushy was way too acidic and imbalanced. My buddy got a mezcal cocktail which I thought was too boozy as well.
We each got a dumpling to start. Was ok, nothing memorable. I wouldn’t have ordered this since I read mixed reviews about it but our friend recommended it so we went with it.
Broccolini with squid was really good, a bit spicier than I like. If you like spicy, this is a great dish.
Charcuterie board with Tartine bread was out of this world. All made in house. Perfect wine food. From left to right, Sopressata, duck rillete, and duck liver pate. Forget the cheeses but it was sheep’s and goat milk.
Also had the trout dish, which was ok.
And the reason we came, the smoked duck. This is half a duck ($60) which was more than enough to share with 4 people. We had left overs. Very unique preparation of duck. I’m not sure I prefer it over roast duck. It did get very heavy after a bit, but highly recommend if you do come here to try it.
Did manage to make it to Bar Crudo for happy hour. After having oysters at Hog Island, the oysters were a big disappointment here. They were dry with hardly any water and their HH food menu was about $1 discount off their regular menu, so unless you’re coming for oysters and cheap wine, it’s a skip imo. The fish tacos were good but two small tacos for $10 was hardly a deal.
Went to Golden Gate Bakery for some egg tarts and they were closed with a hand written note saying “Closed for 3 week vacation” with no indication on when they are reopening. We thought that was pretty funny. We did manage to find another bakery around the corner that had more than serviceable egg tarts.
Thanks for all the recs!