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.
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.
Labels: San Francisco Restaurants
posted by The Food Guy at 10:12 PM
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