Food Adventure Team

When I saw that this restaurant serves Indian Pizza, I was all over it. I’d heard of this phenomenon, but never actually partaken in it. Zante came highly recommended, so I looked forward to Wednesday night.

I was not disappointed. We started with two “Assorted appetizers” — each order consisted of one veggie and one meat samosa, two chicken pakoras, and two lamb (?) pakoras. And of course they came with various chutneys including the ever-present mint chutney. I must say, the appetizers were great. Bold spices, delicious meat, tender chicken. Greasy of course, but most deep fried things are.

For pizza, we ordered the extra large “Best Indian Pizza,” which has basically everything on it. It was enormous! The first thing I noticed was the overwhelming abundance of garlic. Do NOT get this pizza if you don’t like garlic! It was delicious, though. The pizza had basically everything on it. Cauliflower, shrimp, chicken, lamb, mozzarella, their special sauce (garlic), etc. It was all slathered on top of what was basically a giant naan. The naan was perfectly crisp on the bottom, and deliciously soft around the edges, as naan should be. Naan makes a perfect pizza crust, it turns out. Highly recommend dipping it in mint chutney, too.

While the pizza in general was quite tasty, I did wish that the toppings had been chopped less finely. I don’t really know what all I was eating; because everything was chopped so finely it kind of turned into mush. Delicious mush, but a more varied texture would’ve made me happier.

I also got a mango lassi, which was the brightest shade of orange I’ve ever seen on a lassi. It looked like pureed carrots! It was nice and creamy and had decent mango flavors, but it was overly sweet. Like sweet tea sweet. I prefer a bit of tartness in a lassi. Not bad though.

Conclusion: Tasty, would definitely go again– or at least order from them, since they offer free delivery to the whole city! There are things I wished they did differently, but the price (SO CHEAP) and the novelty make up for it in the end. And, pizza aside, their regular North Indian food was pretty awesome.

Like many of the places we went, I failed to write a review for Baker Street Bistro. What a wonderful little restaurant this was! Cozy, friendly service, not too crowded, great French food. I heard that it has since changed ownership and its previous owner started a new restaurant called Bistro Central Parc.

(Written December 6, 2010.)

Overall, a wonderful culinary experience. High quality, well-prepared food. Fantastic drinks. Totally indulgent. We shared a bunch of appetizers, all of which were to die for, and each got our own entrees. Dessert was semi-shared because we were pretty full by then. Service was excellent. Ambiance was lovely — feels classy without being stuffy or pretentious.

We shared:

• Escargots in shell, garlic herb butter, crusty bread
  YUM. Better eaten alone, not on the bread (though the bread was good, it masked some of the yumminess of the snails).
• Antipasti plate, cured meats by Fra’Mani, Zoe’s & La Quercia, olives, pickled vegetables, crostini
  YUM. And those little red peppers are SPICY.
• 3-cheese plate
  Josh and Besha chose the cheeses so I don’t know what we got. All I know is that they were all amazingly delcious.

Besha got:

• French Onion Soup
  It looked amazing and full of gooey cheese.
• Scharffen Berger chocolate Pot de creme, creme chantilly

Josh:

• Frisee (baby leeks vinaigrette, house-smoked bacon, fried duck egg, fines herbs, caviar)
• A cocktail I can’t remember
• Pan seared black cod, sweet corn sauce, Manila clams, chorizo, wilted chard
• Fig crostini, fennel ice cream

  I tried the fennel ice cream because it sounded so weird! It was like nothing I have ever tasted. I exclaimed, “HOLY BALLS!” People laughed at me, then tried it and realized that was the only appropriate response. So, so amazingly good.

• Pillow Talk (?) cocktail (can’t remember what was in it, crazy stuff though)
  I had a tiny sip of this. It was weird. Looked super creamy and thick, but tasted light and fruity.

Heather:

• Za’taar spiced grilled scallops, black garlic farro risotto, winter squash puree, pumpkin seeds
  I actually wasn’t super impressed with this. I’m not normally one to complain about portion size because usually restaurants serve enormous portions and I think that’s stupid. But this went too far in the opposite direction. I mean come on, THREE scallops? Though I wasn’t as hungry as I thought I would be when I was done, but I was still a bit disappointed. And aside from the size of the dish, it was just kinda “eh”. Some bites of 2 of the 3 scallops had a kind of off taste– like dirt almost. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be like that or not, but it wasn’t very pleasant. The Za’taar spice wasn’t very prominent. The winter squash puree was pretty much just that (although its subtle sweetness nicely offset the scallops’ flavor), and I did enjoy the nuttiness of the risotto and pumpkin seeds. On the whole, I thought the dish was just so-so, which presented a stark contrast to the exquisiteness of the rest of the food we ate. Next time I’ll get the beef cheeks, for I know they are amazing.
• Kubler Swiss Absinthe
  YUMYUMYUM!
• Scharffen Berger chocolate Pot de creme, creme chantilly (to share)
  I basically had a heart attack from the yummy of this dessert. It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Super rich and chocolatey, with a generous dollop of whipped cream on top.

Ed:

• Red wine braised beef cheeks, smashed potatoes, English peas, roasted baby vegetables, horseradish gremolata
  I tried a bite of this the previous time we went to Absinthe — it is incredible. Fork tender (really!) and flavorful. The sides it comes with are very tasty as well.
• Kubler Swiss Absinthe

Laurie:

• Red wine braised beef cheeks, smashed potatoes, English peas, roasted baby vegetables, horseradish gremolata
• “Absinthe Lemonade” – non-alcoholic, containing ginger syrup, fresh lemon-lime juice, ginger ale and a topping of cranberry juice (I think)

Absinthe at Absinthe. Photo by Ed

East German food! I’d never had it before. Started off with the potato pancakes with chive sour cream and applesauce. Delightful! Nice and crispy. Unfortunately, I am writing this review a month too late and have forgotten what I ordered; I believe it was the Jger Schnitzel (Porkloin) with Spatzle and Creamy Mushrooom Sauce, but it may have been something off the specials menu. It had pork and mushrooms and spatzle, but also red cabbage. I’m not a big cabbage fan in general, but it was actually pretty good. Surprisingly sweet. The spatzle was delicious (I’m a sucker for starchy sides) and the pork was incredibly juicy and tender. The mushrooms were mushroomy. There wasn’t a whole lot in the way of seasonings but I think that’s just the way German food is (I’m more accustomed to the highly seasoned ethnic food that is ubiquitous in San Francisco). I enjoyed it! Everyone else seemed to enjoy their meals well enough too (it wasn’t as much of a sharing meal as the other FATs have been). Delicious beer (go for the Weltenburg Amber, or the Franziskaner Hefeweizen). We got the Cold Dog and the Apple Sturdel for dessert. Strudel was awesome, Cold Dog was good but kind of boring.

Neo-sortof-Italian place in the Mission. Incredibly tasty & worth the wait (though the 45 minute wait was frustrating, given that we had a reservation and it was freezing out).

Top-notch artisan cocktails (which caused me to break my “no drinking” rule). I got the agricole mule, and enjoyed it most out of all the drinks I tried (dolores park swizzle – delicious but SO STRONG; gaby de lys – DO NOT WANT; nuestra paloma – really fresh and yummy but also somewhat odd-tasting)

We ordered a bunch of appetizers for the table:

• cauliflower with pangratatto, capers & sage — loved the pangratatto, capers, & sage, but found the cauliflower just too much like something mom would cook (as an ingredient)
• bruschette of robiola & broccoli rabe (ok, that one was on the house for how long they kept us waiting even with the reservation) — not bad but not exciting either
• chicken liver crostini alla toscana — I’m not much of a liver person, but those who are were delighted by this one.
• gnocchi, fresh porcini mushrooms & guanciale — Holy crap delicious. Just delicious.
• herb bread with extra virgin olive oil — so soft and fresh and cheesy and herby and yuuuuuum.

My favorites were definitely the gnocchi and the herb bread.

Among the entrees that were ordered that I tried were:

• prosciutto di parma, tomato, arugala & mozzarella pizza — My entree. Quite tasty but not actually as exciting as I’d hoped)
• potato, rosemary, raddichio & gorgonzola piccante pizza — Very, very interesting, sharp flavors. Extremely rich. Wouldn’t be able to eat more than one piece.
• mozzarella, fontina & pecorino with garlic oil pizza — Had it for leftovers the next day. Was tasty but not amazing, but then again, it’d been refrigerated and reheated at that point.
• pork saltimbocca alla romana — Quite tasty! But only had a single small bite
• squid ink risotto with calamari Amazing! Being black from the squid ink, I expected it to be heavy, but it was very light and lemony — such an unexpected and awesome flavor/appearance clash)
• saffron risotto with osso buco — also extremely yummy!

Conclusion: TASTY! Would definitely go back, again, and again, and again.