On my second last night in awesome San Francisco I had one of the best dining experiences of my life.
Benu is a relatively new restaurant on the San Francisco scene. The chef is Corey Lee, previously of 3 Michelin Star restaurant ‘French Laundry’.
I was joined by two lovely girls from Houston that I had met through the bread course I was taking at the San Francisco Baking Institute. Both girls were fellow food lovers and one had a knowledge of wine so impressive that I think even the sommelier was a little floored.
The interior of the restaurant is great – it’s very open and the tables are spaced far enough apart with some structural partitions here and there that you actually sort of feel like you are in your own private dining room. We were able to carry on a conversation and not feel like we had to raise our voices to compete with the noise from the surrounding diners.
Within seconds of being seated our lovely waitress came over and introduced herself and arranged for water to be brought to our table. Throughout the night the waitstaff are attentive, making sure our water and wine was never lacking. They were able to do this while remaining pretty much invisible, I never once felt like they were hovering right behind me, ready to pounce, yet anytime I might have thought about reaching for the wine bottle they were there topping me up before I could.
We had already agreed that we were all going to have the 16 course degustation. I’ve never had a degustation menu before and there were many things on the menu that I hadn’t tried before and I knew were going to be a little outside my comfort zone – this was going to be fun!
After we have ordered with our waitress she sends over the restaurants sommelier, Yoon Ha, to help us with the wine list. My dining companion proceeded to surprise him and I with her knowledge of the wines and together they decided on a bottle of white to start and a bottle of red to switch to about half way through when the courses started to get a little richer.
**Note: Sorry about some of the photos, it was quite dark in the restaurant, so I had to use a flash, which against some white plates caused a "white out" effect. Also, the framing of some is appalling - I'll blame the wine for that.
~ The first course: Thousand-year-old quail egg, cabbage, ginger
The first thing that comes to mind is there is no way in the world I will be anywhere near full at the end of this if everything that comes out is this small (boy, was I wrong).
Second thought, after actually taking a bite, was that they have really come out of the gate strong. It’s absolutely delicious.
~ The second course: Oyster, apple, horseradish
This is an interesting one. Its two oysters in a horseradish sauce and it’s all covered with a green apple snow. The horseradish is mild, with just a little bite to it, the oysters are, well… oysters and the apple snow is fruit and icy. It is a strange flavour and texture combination. Up until this point I had always said I didn’t like oysters. After eating this I can now honestly say that I don’t mind them. Oh, and sorry about the photo – I got a bit carried away and started eating before I remember to take a photo. Ooops.
~ The third course: Sesame tofu with marinated salmon roe
This was one of the prettiest dishes of the night. It’s a little ball of tofu with salmon roe tucked into it. The salmon roe inside are each about the size of a pea and they burst in your mouth.
~ The fourth course: Abalone grenobloise, cauliflower, caper, lemon
So, this was my favourite dish of the night. I’ve never had abalone before and now I want more! The abalone is sliced thinly and has a spicy thin, crispy crust around it. It sort of has the texture of a scallop, though maybe a little bit firmer. It is freaking delicious.
~ The fifth, sixth and seventh course:
Eel, feuille de brick, crème fraiche
Caramelized anchovy, peanut, lily bulb
Mountain yam and shrimp soufflé
These three dishes come out together.
The eel is wrapped in the feuille de brick and you dip it in the crème fraiche.
The little anchovies are so tiny and a great combination with the peanut and crunchy lily bulb.
The mountain yam and shrimp soufflé doesn’t really do anything for me. A great texture, but flavourwise I found it a little bland.
~ The eighth course: Monkfish liver torchon, cucumber, turnip, salted plum, brioche
Another favourite. It’s like having the world’s best pate on brioche. What’s not to love? Oh, and it looks absolutely beautiful on the plate.
**Oh, and have I mentioned by this stage I’m starting to get quite full!**
~ The ninth course: Crispy cod milt, pickles, mustard
The description pretty much says it all. Cod is not my favourite fish, I find it quite heavy, oily and fishy. Not this one, though. It’s light and has a thin crispy batter and the pickled vegetables and mustard go so well with it. I love the presentation of this dish in particular.
~ The tenth course: “Shark’s fin” soup, Dungeness crab, jinhua ham, black truffle custard
This one is very cool visually. It comes out with a bowl with a layer of black goo on the bottom (black truffle custard) and then the soup is poured over the top by our waiter. The custard comes away from the bottom of the bowl, but doesn’t really mix in with the soup, so you get a couple of different textures in your mouth while you’re slurping away. Another great dish.
~ The eleventh course: Pumpkin porridge, lobster, black truffle
So, this one was our only choice on the menu. We all chose this one over the risotto with white truffle from alba. I love pumpkin, so it was an easy choice. This dish did not let me down. Creamy and delicious.
~ The twelfth course: Chicken Cecilia
To be honest, I don’t remember much about this particular dish. I know that I didn’t dislike it, but it didn’t stand out amongst the others.
~ The thirteenth course: Beef rib cap, matsutake mushroom, pine needle honey, pear, mitsuba
This one I do remember. I want all pieces of steak I eat to be accompanied by these ingredients in the future. Oh, and I want the person who cooked this piece of meat to tender perfection to come live with me.
~ The fourteenth course: White chocolate, olive, yuzu, cilantro
Apart from the white chocolate, you wouldn’t know it, but we’ve hit dessert. Um… yum. Oh, and I had to google yuzu - it's an East Asian citrus fruit.
~ The fifteenth course: Persimmon pudding, burnt acorn ice-cream, mace
This is my favourite of the two plated desserts. The waiter tells us that the burnt acorn ice-cream was a delicious accident (one of the chefs burnt the acorns but not wanting to tell the head chef just went ahead and used them anyway, and now, they do it this way intentionally). Also, another plate that is just so pretty to look at.
~ The sixteenth course: chocolate, coffee, tea
We made it! I’m ridiculously full at this stage, but I made a commitment and I’m going to see it through to the end. I order the white tea, which I’ve never had before. This tea rocked my world. And as for the chocolates, we’re not talking some crappy after dinner mint here, we’re given a box of 8 gorgeous truffles. We didn’t make it through many, not because they weren’t great, but because we were stuffed. We had the rest packed up to take with us and one of the girls took them home to Houston as a treat for her husband.
During out meal we had overheard one thing from a nearby table. It was one lady at a table of four raving about having been given a tour of the kitchen while the others sat around the table talking and finishing their drinks.
Well, we wanted a tour of the kitchen too. Benu happily granted us our wish. Since our reservation was for 8:45pm by the time we had finished eating and were ready for our tour it was around 11:30pm and the kitchen was winding down. All the action was over and the staff were cleaning and putting things away. I would imagine that they probably wouldn’t want people traipsing through there in the middle of dinner service anyway.
A couple of minutes after being in there and the chef himself, Corey Lee, came up and introduced himself and chatted with us for a few minutes. That was a real treat, since he was really lovely and without a hint of the pretentiousness that you sometimes come to expect with that level of talent.
Once outside and on our way back to the BART station we’re back in the real world and there is a rowdy bar a few door down and there is a girl passed out drunk on the pavement with another girl kneeling down next to her going through her handbag. I asked if she was OK and the conscious one replied “yes’, but who knows. We walked on and had a bit of a giggle about how horrible she was going to feel tomorrow and how almost certainly between vomits she would be uttering those time honoured words “I’m never drinking again”.
A few stops on the BART and I said goodbye to the lovely Houston girls and was home and so happy that I had such a wonderful Benu experience.
