I’ve been meaning trying to get a reservation here for a little while and ended up with one on a Saturday at 7:30pm, not our usual night out out (which is Thursday and Thanksgiving when we had a nice meal at Copra) and later than we normally like to eat out (we’re old farts). The restaurant is in the previous Monsieur Benjamin space in Hayes Valley. Restaurant was busy. After a brief wait, we were seated.
Menu looked very interesting. It’s a modern Cantonese menu with a bit of California influence. The menu is divided into sections for Dim Sum & Small Plates, Medium Plates, and Large Plates. There is also an option for the set menu called “Happy As a Crane” for $120, which is what we opted for. I also went ahead and did the wine pairing so we could see what it was all about. The waitperson mentioned that the pairing was $155 and checked to make sure that was ok, which I was fine with although that is pretty steep for a menu that is only $120. At that price point, I suspect they don’t get a lot of pairings, but I’m always curious what about pairing with Chinese food, so I wanted to see.
We also started with cocktails. I had the Serpent’s Kiss which was a tequila and mezcal based cocktail with apricot, miso, mustard, pommeau, citrus and whey. Andrea had the Heilong & Tarantasio which was even more intricate than my cocktail and had “bacardi cuatro, santa teresa 1796, cognac, gin, rosolio bergamotto, earl grey, pandan, five spice, cacao, mascarpone, clarified.” Whew! With all that, it was surprising to see that her cocktail was a clear one. Both were interesting and good, but not the best cocktails in the city, but then again, we have a lot of great cocktails here. They were interesting and unique enough though that I would try other cocktails next time we’re here.
First bite that came out was the hawthorne berry oyster. They oysters were from Washington (can’t remember the type). We always enjoy oysters at the start of the meal and the Roederer champagne was of course a decent pairing (and would be paired with the first several dishes).
Next up came a pair of dishes, the beef shin & artichoke dish and the doupi tofu salad. The tofu salad was made up primarily of tofu skin, which by itself is relatively bland, but it had a nice bell pepper sauce and little fried shrimp that provided a burst of flavor and a bit of texture. Ultimately, we would not finish this dish partially because we were wary of filling up too soon. The beef shin though was fantastic with great flavor from the house chili vinaigrette and the master stock. The pieces of fried lotus root also added a bit of texture.
There was a bit of lag in service before our next dish arrived, the sugarsnap pea dumplings. This is one that Andrea was very interested in when she saw the menu since she loves snap peas. The dumpling was open on top and topped with some pea foam. The open dumpling made it a bit floppy and challenging to pick up with chopsticks and eat and we both failed a bit in picking it up. It was good, but not our favorite.
Next dish was the golden coin. This was a flat open face buttered bao bun with a chicken liver mousse spread on top and this in turn was topped with a small heap of coppa (pork shoulder). We were blown away with this dish. It was incredibly delicious with the chicken liver giving another layer of flavor and richness.
Soon after came the firecracker shrimp which was an interesting take on an egg roll with the body of the shrimp being wrapped in nori and a batter and fried crisp with the fried head sticking out the top. The shrimp had a mala glaze and the nori and shiso all gave it just a bit deliciously flavor. I also ate the head because that’s the most flavorful part of the shrimp.
Next dish was the crab rice roll from the Medium Plates. The rice roll was sheets or ribbons of rice. The sauce was made with shaoxin crab “butter” and was topped with a bit of trout roe. I love crab “butter” since it’s so flavorful, but that didn’t quite all come through for me personally.
Our first of two Large Plates was the fish fragrant fish. The lingcod was browned nicely with crisp skin and fairly heavily salted which I quite liked. The second Large Plate we received was the chasiu Iberico pork jowl. We were getting qutite full by this point so this was a pretty decent amount of glazed sliced pork jowl topped with limg ginger compressed apple, fennel, and a side of scallion rice. The chasiu was relatively light since it was only on the edges of the pork and some pieces were quite fatty. We couldn’t finish, but we did take it to go since I figured I could make a good meal of leftovers out of this.
Dessert included two items, one was the mango & raspberry sorbet which is a mango softserve with some passionfruit with the seeds giving a bit of a pop, a few raspberries, and some coconut sago with tapioca pearls. The dessert was quite big so we couldn’t finish, but we did have room for the second dessert which was the mochi rocher which is their take on the Ferrero Rocher that we’ve all had before, but in this case it was made with mochi with a some sesame with a warm liquid chocolate ganache in the middle which was a perfect ending to the meal.
Overall, we found the food to be as interesting and tasty as we hoped and we really are interested in trying even more of the dishes.
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