food panda

Benu One of the things that I cringe the most has always been paying for overpriced Asian food, especially if it's Asian Fusion. PF Chang's? Ugh. Lukshon? Still not interested. Red Medicine? After that mediocre meal at Test Kitchen , my interest in trying Jordan Kahn's menu is at a nil. (That's besides the fact of what happened to SIV, which I found unprofessional to be frank). However, Benu has been a restaurant I've had my eye on ever since Corey Lee, the former chef de cuisine at The French Laundry moved on to helm his very own restaurant in San Francisco. Call me a hypocrite, but if Chef Lee was good enough for Thomas Keller, he's good enough for me. After given the green light from my buddies up North, I booked a tasting at Benu this past weekend. 19 Course Tasting Menu at Benu Upon entering the restaurant, I looked at the space. Clean, and modern, just what a restaurant should be these days. Buckwheat Sesame Crisps Instead of a bread course, we were given...

Redd One of the benefits of having your hometown being a 30 minutes drive to the Napa Valley is the access to all the fine dining close by. However, it's not a luxury that I've enjoyed until recently. On a recent trip up (in fact, it was my lunch before my dinner at Bottega ), my friends and I decided to catch an early lunch there before going to the vineyards for wine tasting. Menu I loved the dining room at Redd. It's so clean and open. I wish I had taken a shot of the space. Since we knew we had a heavy dinner in a matter of hours, we decided to go light and ordered family style. Bread Service It's hard to go wrong with some warm crusty bread. Though I had to make sure I leave plenty of room for the dishes coming up. Corn Soup - smoked salmon panini As a starter, we went with a cream corn soup. The texture was smooth and creamy. It was quite delicious. The accompanied smoked salmon panini was tasty by itself and worked well with the corn soup. The soup was the defini...

Bottega About a year ago, while I was looking for an upgrade for my dSLR, Cathy of Gastronomyblog told me to wait until I had posted 100 reviews on my blog. Why 100 you ask? Since I was a slacker (and still is one) with my blogging, she figured setting a goal would get me to post more. Well....here it is, number 100. There's not a better place for number 100 than to revisit one of my favorite meals in 2010, Michael Chiarello's Bottega in Yountville. Cocktails Since my friends and I had a day of wine tasting, we decided to change it up a bit have start the meal with some cocktails. It's not the best I've had (Milk and Honey in NYC is my favorite), but these were still some refreshing concoctions. Shaved Brussel Sprout Salad - marcona almonds, sieved egg, pecorino and whole citrus vinaigrette For fans of the Top Chef series, this was one of the dishes Chef Chiarello made on Top Chef Masters Season 1. As a fan of brussel sprouts, I natually had to order this dish. I enjo...