Our Meal At Cyrus in Healdsburg

This past Sunday, we spent a night at the Healdsburg Inn on the Plaza. It was a wonderful boutique hotel with about 20 rooms. Luckily, we got a room on the second floor overlooking the plaza. The room was bright with high ceilings, a fireplace and two seats by the window (where Kevin and I did some reading and relaxing). In the evening, we had dinner at Cyrus. I chose this restaurant (as a gift for doing my mother-in-law’s website). Why did I choose Cyrus? Cyrus has two Michellin stars, the chef, Douglas Keane has won a series of awards…and… most people I know haven’t been there. Anyways, I tried to be discrete in my picture taking, so, the pictures didn’t end up doing any justice to the actual food. The five course meal (which turned into eight courses) was fantastic. Kevin and I can’t decide if its our best restaurant meal. We loved our meals at Gary Danko… its hard to tell. Cyrus did some things better and Gary Danko  definitely does dessert better. Here were our courses:

#1 A four tier tray of ‘palate openers’ from salty, bitter, savory, and sweet.

#2 Amuse bouche (an appetizer from the chef before the ones we ordered.

#3 A basket of your choice of breads. We had some guyere brioche and an olive bread. They also had two types of butter, a butter from goat’s milk and a butter from France

THe butter and salt selection

#4 Thai Marinated Lobster with Avocado, Mango and Hearts of Palm

#5 Gnocchi with Brussel Sprouts, Parsley Root and Black Truffle Pecorin (Added shaved black truffle)

#6 Black Bass with Bacon Braised Cabage, Pinot Noir Fumet

#7 I had the Corona Bean “Cassoulet” with Griminis and Smoked Carrots, Sauce Soubise. Kevin had the Lamb Roulade with Cellery Root, Parsnip and Turnip.

#7 Cheese Plate with a goat, sheep and cow’s milk cheese. It also had some dates and panforte.

#8 I had the tiramisu, cappucino “spoon”, carmalized fennel and espresso gelato. Kevin had a Five spice “layer” cake with passionfruit, thai basil-coconut gelato.

We ended with one last treat. They brought over a dessert cart and offered things like candied orange peel dipped in chocolate, alfahores (these were awesome), caramels, truffles and other goodies.

By the way, the only reason that I remembered the food that we had is because they provided us with a print out of our menu on our way out. They also gave us two brownies to take home

Friends and the Chinese New Year Parade

This past weekend, Kevin and I spent time with our friends Ron and Jeff visiting from Chicago. Its always a challenge to pick things to do with people who come to SF infrequently. I want them to see the beauty, good food and heart of the city I love, but, sometimes I pick the wrong activities anyways. This time, I think I scored!

Friday night, they walked to our apt. from Union Square (which is a pretty nice trek through nob hill and Russian Hill. They definitely got their fair share of SF hills. After hanging out a while, we headed for dinner at “Bar Crudo”. I’ve been here once before and love the atmosphere and their seafood selection is great. We started with a full crab which we all shared. The entire experience of cracking open the crab legs before eating them is pretty fun. Crab juice and bits were all over our table. We also had some really good salads with tuna and lobster. Three of us had some seafood chowder as the final course. I was already full at this point, but, still consider this the best chowder in the city (It’s not your Fisherman’s wharf canned clam chowder :p)

Then, yesterday, Kevin picked them up from Golden Gate Park, took them to Twin Peaks (where the view happened to be crystal clear) before we headed to watch the Chinese New Year parade. We didn’t actually end up seeing too much of the parade. We walked over at the beginning of the parade and the throngs of people were already lining the street. I think that Jeff, who is over 6 ft. tall saw a good amount of it… he said he got video. However, at just over 5 ft… I didn’t see much besides the back of people’s head. It was fun to be in the atmosphere though. We had dinner at Brandy Ho’s and then dessert at a new tart yogurt place that Jeff really liked. I love the tart yogurt trend that first hit LA with “Pinkberry” and has now sprouted tons of these yogurt shops in SF.

We then walked down Grant (which was closed to cars) to head towards Union Square. This was probably the most fun. Kevin bought the these “Pop Pop” snappers (6 boxes for $1). You throw them on the ground and they make a loud popping sound (like a teeny-tiny) firework.

Little did he know that we’d love it. There were also loud noise makers, sparklers and smoke bombs being set off all over grant street. It was really festive and lots of fun. Normally, Grant street is filled with congested traffic and tourists throngs. This was a nice festive change.