{"id":60,"date":"2008-10-08T16:44:09","date_gmt":"2008-10-09T00:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/?p=60"},"modified":"2010-12-06T16:52:23","modified_gmt":"2010-12-07T00:52:23","slug":"absinthe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/absinthe\/","title":{"rendered":"Absinthe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float:left; border: 1px solid #ddd; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; padding: 10px;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.absinthe.com\">Absinthe<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>398 Hayes St.<br \/>\nSan Francisco, CA 94102<\/p>\n<p>Suggested by Heather<\/p>\n<p>In attendance:<\/p>\n<p>Heather<br \/>\nEd<br \/>\nLaurie<br \/>\nJosh S.<br \/>\nBesha\n<\/div>\n<p>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 &#8212; feels classy without being stuffy or pretentious.<\/p>\n<p>We shared:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Escargots in shell, garlic herb butter, crusty bread<br \/>\nYUM. Better eaten alone, not on the bread (though the bread was good, it masked some of the yumminess of the snails).<\/li>\n<li>Antipasti plate, cured meats by Fra&#8217;Mani, Zoe&#8217;s &#038; La Quercia, olives, pickled vegetables, crostini<br \/>\nYUM. And those little red peppers are SPICY.<\/li>\n<li>3-cheese plate<br \/>\nJosh and Besha chose the cheeses so I don&#8217;t know what we got. All I know is that they were all amazingly delcious.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Besha got:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>French Onion Soup<br \/>\nIt looked amazing and full of gooey cheese.<\/li>\n<li>Scharffen Berger chocolate Pot de creme, creme chantilly<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Josh:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Frisee (baby leeks vinaigrette, house-smoked bacon, fried duck egg, fines herbs, caviar)<\/li>\n<li>A cocktail I can&#8217;t remember<\/li>\n<li>Pan seared black cod, sweet corn sauce, Manila clams, chorizo, wilted chard<\/li>\n<li>Fig crostini, fennel ice cream\n<p>I tried the fennel ice cream because it sounded so weird! It was like nothing I have ever tasted. I exclaimed, &#8220;HOLY BALLS!&#8221; People laughed at me, then tried it and realized that was the only appropriate response. So, so amazingly good.<\/li>\n<li>Pillow Talk (?) cocktail (can&#8217;t remember what was in it, crazy stuff though)<br \/>\nI had a tiny sip of this. It was weird. Looked super creamy and thick, but tasted light and fruity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Heather:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Za&#8217;taar spiced grilled scallops, black garlic farro risotto, winter squash puree, pumpkin seeds<br \/>\nI actually wasn&#8217;t super impressed with this. I&#8217;m not normally one to complain about portion size because usually restaurants serve enormous portions and I think that&#8217;s stupid. But this went too far in the opposite direction. I mean come on, THREE scallops? Though I wasn&#8217;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 &#8220;eh&#8221;. Some bites of 2 of the 3 scallops had a kind of off taste&#8211; like dirt almost. I wasn&#8217;t sure if it was supposed to be like that or not, but it wasn&#8217;t very pleasant. The Za&#8217;taar spice wasn&#8217;t very prominent. The winter squash puree was pretty much just that (although its subtle sweetness nicely offset the scallops&#8217; 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&#8217;ll get the beef cheeks, for I know they are amazing.<\/li>\n<li>Kubler Swiss Absinthe<br \/>\nYUMYUMYUM!<\/li>\n<li>Scharffen Berger chocolate Pot de creme, creme chantilly (to share)<br \/>\nI 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ed:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Red wine braised beef cheeks, smashed potatoes, English peas, roasted baby vegetables, horseradish gremolata<br \/>\nI tried a bite of this the previous time we went to Absinthe &#8212; it is incredible. Fork tender (really!) and flavorful. The sides it comes with are very tasty as well.<\/li>\n<li>Kubler Swiss Absinthe<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Laurie:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Red wine braised beef cheeks, smashed potatoes, English peas, roasted baby vegetables, horseradish gremolata<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Absinthe Lemonade&#8221; &#8211; non-alcoholic, containing ginger syrup, fresh lemon-lime juice, ginger ale and a topping of cranberry juice (I think) <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/edrabbit\/2926180132\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3207\/2926180132_f10190f7d4.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>Absinthe at Absinthe. Photo by Ed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Absinthe 398 Hayes St. San Francisco, CA 94102 Suggested by Heather In attendance: Heather Ed Laurie Josh S. Besha 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-french"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodadventureteam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}