K's Kitchen

Sometimes it pays to be a good neighbor. While I was running about the little stretch of Monterey Boulevard a couple of blocks down the hill to drop off dry cleaning and pick up a few groceries, I passed the storefront of what used to be a Thai restaurant and is now a Japanese/Sushi restaurant called K’s Kitchen. I peered in the window because that’s what I do when I walk past a restaurant, especially if I’m not sure it’s open yet, and then kept walking. The owner, though, saw me and came and unlocked the door. So I walked back over and we chatted for a couple of minutes. They’ve only been open since Wednesday night and they haven’t advertised yet because they’re mostly doing a shake-down to make sure they have the menu working, not to mention the water and electricity and all of those nice things to have in a restaurant.

I came home and told the Food Gal that the new sushi bar was open and looked good and the owner was nice and maybe we should go eat there tonight (last night, that is). We both did a little back and forth on the upside/downside of going to a sushi bar on its 4th night of operation but figured that the only possible down side was selection of fish and/or a bad sushi chef at which point we could bail. Turns out there’s no downside.

Unless you count the fact that we now have a first rate sushi bar 2 blocks from home and we still have to have enough money to pay rent every month. But we’re not counting that.

K’s is, from what we can tell, owned and run by the two chefs: Ken (sushi) and Keith (kitchen/cooked food). They’re both as nice as can be and both pretty talented judging based on what we ate last night. We can say that with a lot more surety about Ken (since we ate pretty much everything he had to offer) than Keith so far (I ate one cooked item, but it was good enough that I’m willing to eat more cooked items even with the excellent sushi available). Even on their 4th night they had whole fresh Aji, which was delicious, and some excellent Suzuki. We also had some really nice maguro, albacore, escolar, salmon, scallop (not live, again – 4th night), and a good dish they call “killer hamachi” which consisted of hamachi sashimi with thin slices of jalapeno and olive oil. We also ate and were a bit shocked to really enjoy Saba and Tako which we’ve eaten in many places but never really liked and so almost always skip. Both were more tender, more moist and more flavorful than previous versions we’ve had. Ken explained that he buys smaller Tako which is more tender and Saba that is marinated for shorter periods of time than most. Coupled with the quality of the rest of the fish it became clear that Ken knows how to choose his products. The rice was also excellent, it still had a bit of tooth to it and the vinegar was present but not overwhelming.

In terms of the most common fish (those standards that every sushi bar seems to have) this was the best set we’ve had in San Francisco. Places like Koo and Ebisu have had more exotic items but their core items weren’t quite as good as this fish was across the board. The rice was also excellent, it still had a bit of tooth to it and the vinegar was present but not overwhelming. We hope that K’s will carry those more exotic items as their business gets rolling (and Ken said they will).

Their list of rolls looked interesting, though we didn’t order any last night (we don’t usually, but the list was such that we might give a few a try down the road). The sake list is good and very well priced.

The place is good enough that I had to convince myself it is better to write about it than to keep it to ourselves. We’ll be back quite soon.

Chenery Park...again

Back we went to Chenery Park because the Food Gal was sitting in my office (now complete with actual functioning door) and we were both quite tired and trying to figure out what we’d be having for dinner and it was a Tuesday and she remembered (because she’s just that smart) that it was fried chicken night at Chenery Park. 2 or 3 clicks on Open Table and poof we have a reservation.

We had a new server (by new I mean new to the restaurant…and we’re pretty sure we’ve been conferred ‘regular’ status because the manager/owner told us we had a new server after mentioning how many times we’ve eaten at their restaurant)… so the service was slightly off, but the food was right on. The drinks took a little explaining...I ordered the same thing - whatever it's called- that I got at Range a week later (yes, I'm blogging out of order). It was pretty good. The Food Gal had a very strong Kir Royale. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

On with the food: Heirloom tomato plate for me to start while the Food Gal had a romaine salad with “garlicky” dressing. Yeah, I’m not sure why it’s not a Caesar either. Either way, both were tasty.

I got the fried chicken (no slaw but with a side of fries) which also came with mashed potatoes and gravy and created a very nice plate of food for me. I think there were some greens under the chicken somewhere, but I couldn’t swear to it. The Food Gal had their very nice fried catfish and once we tracked down some Tabasco we mowed through it all pretty well.

As always, we got dessert. I had a root beer float (I love that they have these) and the Food Gal had the warm chocolate cake that she inexplicably didn’t see on the menu and I had to ask if she was getting it. I was worried about her for a moment.

Overall, once again, this place consistently delivers gracious service and good food at good prices. We’ll be back again soon.

Food Gal: For the 1,000th time....

It's a LONE Tree, not a Long Tree, or a Lone Star, or an Only Tree or any other amalgamation of words that seem to have anything to do with one and/or foliage.

Apologies to the original authors of the Savoy Cocktail Book, whoever they may be, for my dearest's apparent inability to file away the correct name of this concoction--despite the fact that he clearly enjoys them thoroughly and has now taught at least 2 bartenders how to make 'em.

Range

I had been thinking that I needed to get over my preference for doing things that don’t require speaking to other people. I love ordering pizza online, for example. I like shopping at Amazon. I use Open Table a lot for restaurant reservations. Many of the restaurants at which the Food Gal and I wish to eat in San Francisco are on Open Table so it works out pretty well. Not all of those restaurants are on the service, though. Quince is not (though that’s probably a good thing or we’d have had to sell the car by now). Range was not. Thus my pondering whether I needed to get over my previously stated preference and start actually calling restaurants for reservations again. Alas, Range just joined up. Therefore, off we went last night to Range having made the reservation online at about midnight some night last week while speaking to absolutely no one. Except for Quince, I can continue my reclusive ways.

It would have been worth calling and actually talking to someone. We had a lovely meal. Truly, the only hiccup was that our starters actually beat the cocktails to the table because we ordered them all at the same time and the starters were both room temperature dishes. The waitress apologized that the food had beat the drinks to the table. We could only nod our acceptance of the apology since we were both already thoroughly enjoying our appetizers and not really worrying too much about what arrived when.

The cocktails were quite good; the Food Gal had a “Limelight” which uses Hangar One Kaffir Lime Vodka and champagne to excellent effect. I had a “Long Tree” which is a drink the Food Gal has been mixing for me at home and that no bartender in town has heard of yet (we’re working on that) and has equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and dry vermouth with a dash of orange bitters. The bartender at Range knows what he or she is doing. The wine list looked OK, but mid-week the Food Gal and I look almost exclusively to half-bottles and they were scarce. Fortunately, a couple of very nice by the glass choices (an Ottiminio Russian River Valley Zinfandel for the Food Gal and a Beckman Santa Ynez blend for me) rendered that fact moot.

Back to the food: Heirloom tomatoes with ricotta and cucumbers for the Food Gal (yes, everyone has heirloom tomatoes on the menu right now…and yes, we order them everywhere and so should you, at least until the end of September) was everything it should be which included delicious; Chicken liver mousse for me: it was rich, slightly gamey and aggressively seasoned (a hallmark of this kitchen we decided and a pleasurable change from a lot of restaurant food these days which seems oddly restrained when it comes to salt and pepper).

For the entrees: they were very nice and swapped out a side from their duck dish that had pork in it for some very nice looking white beans on offer with another entrée for the Food Gal. The duck in question was a breast that had been poached in rendered duck fat. It had a really interesting texture and spectacular flavor. I ordered the roast chicken, mostly to compare with the Zuni Café version; it was quite good though I prefer the Zuni Café chicken as I found the Range breast to be ever so slightly dry and the dark meat wasn’t quite as flavorful as at Zuni Café. If I had never eaten at Zuni Café, I would probably be writing about how this is the finest roast chicken I’ve eaten (although I did make some killer roast chicken breasts a couple of weeks ago…) …and I wouldn’t want to live on the difference between the two.

The desserts were really something special. A spot on bittersweet chocolate soufflé for the Food Gal was the very thing itself. Like some Aristotelian objective truth but in baked chocolate form. I got a roasted Concord grape and peanut butter “dumpling” which was tasty and playful and grown up all at the same time. I was worried it might be cloyingly sweet, but it was well balanced and the grape flavor was intense.

The service was good, the atmosphere was really nice (we had a spectacular table in the corner in the back room) and we just thoroughly liked the place in all respects. We'll be back directly.