We've been hearing about Quince and its chef, Michael Tusk, for a while. Quince itself has been around for several years, so it's not exactly new news, but still, we hadn't been there and it is one of San Francisco's fine dining establishments, so we felt it our duty to give it a try. Although I don't think we'd go back by ourselves, Quince's French/Italian dishes seem like they'd be great for a mixed generation get together. The dishes are familiar enough for a grandma but sophisticated enough for modern types. The dining room is decidedly old-school and there was bit of a funky smell that we couldn't quite place that lasted throughout the night. But the dining room is pleasantly neutral and the waitstaff helpful and friendly. They were doing really well with the water test (serving Giao his sparkling and Alexis her tap, until the last 10 minutes).

We opted for the 5 course tasting menu at $95 per person and had the wine pairings for $55 per person. The wine pairings were totally on point. The food was good, but not great, with a few exceptions.

Labels: Decor: 1, Food: 1, French, Italian, restaurant, review, Service: 1

Labels: chard, dinner recipes, sausage, soup

As part of focusing our efforts on more in depth ideas at SeeUsEat, we've decided to add a new periodic feature: cookbook reviews. And what better way to start off this feature than with the wonderful Vij's: Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine. Vij's is an incredible (so I hear) Indian restaurant in Vancouver, BC, where Alexis' sister lives. Last Christmas Alexis was gifted this book and has since read it cover to cover, tried many of the recipes and become inspired by many others. One thing I really love about the book is the story. It was written by Vikram Vij and his wife, Meeru Dhalwala, who together have turned Vij's into the reknowned place it is today. It's a classic rags to riches story that's incredibly inspiring because it was their commitment to producing excellent food that took them from a tiny storefront with no real restaurant kitchen (when they were cooking at home and bringing the food to the restaurant) to the elegant restaurant that it is today.

Vikram and Meeru's cooking philosophy is personal and flexible. They stress that measuring is really not important and that you can change recipes to suit your own taste. I like this because I cook this way too. Even when I attempt to follow a recipe, which is rare, I find that I am unable to follow it exactly, knowing that it will taste better with twice the garlic, or some other ingredient. I like a cookbook that encourages me to go down the path I'm going to take anyway.

Vij's cookbook also comes with an extensive ingredient glossary which is very helpful for someone who isn't familiar with Indian ingredients and spices or who wants to know what substitutions can be made. The glossary is also very interesting to read even if you are already familiar with asafoetida and fenugreek, as it offers information on medicinal uses of common Indian cooking herbs and spices. The glossary also offer tips on how the folks at Vij's like to use specific ingredients.

The focus of Vij's is on Indian style with fresh and local ingredients. For this reason, this cookbook is not going to give you what Americans have come to think of as Indian standards, saag paneer, chicken tikka masala and the like. What this cookbook will offer are great way to prepare the seasonal ingredients you have on hand in an Indian style. It provides recipes for simple curries, Indian basics like ghee and paneer, as well as some of Vij's signature dishes, the like lamb popsicles in fenugreek cream sauce. Sometimes I'll make something exactly as it appears in Vij's cookbook, but most often I'll look through Vij's for ideas, then make a curry based on what I've got in my fridge. Click here to view the wonderful dishes that we've tried from Vij's cookbook (or inspired by it).

Labels: cookbook reviews, Indian

Labels: chicken, cookbook reviews, Mediterranean, restaurant

A little more than 2 years ago, this blog was started partially out of boredom at a Jamaican Airport, and partially so we could share some of our food with the world. After more than 2000 posts, and almost a gig of photos, we think we've done a good job. Along the way, it became more than just about taking pictures of the food, as we added restaurant reviews, awards, event coverage, food round ups and, of course, recipes.

As we passed the second anniversary, we had to admit to ourselves that the constant grind of photographing and blogging each meal was cutting down on what we really want to do with this blog, relieve our boredom and provide you a view into our favorites foods. I think all our regular readers have a very good idea what our normal diet is at this point.

So we would like to change the format to really emphasize the things that we think our readers care about: restaurant reviews and recipes. We plan on no longer posting pictures or writing about food and recipes we've already covered. This, in turn, will give us more time to write more in depth about all the great restaurants we go to (and we've got a couple real doozies lined up for next month). We are also working hard on a few other projects that we hope to announce here soon. We'd love to hear what you think in the comments or feel free to email us at seeuseat gmail com.

We went to TomatoFest for an afternoon of food and wine. Over 60 restaurants provided small dishes using the tomato as a main ingredient and many wineries were offering tastings of probably hundreds of wines. Overall, we were very disappointed in the quality of the food and in the poor planning of the event. Although there were 2500 attendees, each restaurant only provided 1000 portions. This means that there was absolutely no way for each person to try each dish and that if you wanted to try even some of them you had to find your way through crowds of obese guests elbowing their ways to the front of the line. It was a bit of a spectacle. Anyways, as far as the food goes, there were very few items that we ate more than a bite of. A few items were good, most were mediocre and a few were so disgusting that we had to spit it out in the garbage. For the $90 entry fee, this event did not provide a $90 experience in terms of food. It was a fun event, however, full of music and drinks, etc. And if you aren't food snobs like we are, you probably would have enjoyed the food a bit more. Full disclosure: The folks at TomatoFest were kind enough to offer us discounted tickets.


TomatoFest
Quail Lodge Resort
8205 Valley Greens Drive
Carmel, CA 93923

Labels: event, restaurant, review, tomatos