My experience with Michael Bauer's Bay Area 100, 2007- well, 19 of them anyway.

My response to Michael Bauer's Bay Area 100. Many restaurants I haven't tried yet. Must make an effort. Here are the ones I have tried: 19 out of a hundred.

Canteen
Excellent, exceptional choice. Not only the food is good, but also really amazing creativity. Egg Benedicte is the most amazing poached egg to be had anywhere – how could egg white melt in your mouth like snow?!?! Sauce hollandaise is more foam than cream, so you get all the flavor without the stickiness. Fantastic strawberry pancake too. A more soft, dewy, eggy concoction than the usual version, slightly thicker at the edges so you can better appreciate the texture and butter/egg perfection, thinner toward the middle for a great marriage with strawberry compote. As for the meat dishes…did the chef make his vocation to ensure that everything melts in your morning-tired mouth? The halibut fades away like a dream with the slightest jaw pressure, leaving the lasting sweetness of fish flesh. Lamb is delicately flavorful, very appropriate for breakfast dish. And have I mentioned the fantastic French toast and out-of-the-world brioche? In all, a must of the musts.

Tartine Bakery
Tartine is a pilgrimage. Standing in the line is a part of the ritual. You worship the fruit tart that you managed to obtain before the person behind you, but you envy the banana cream tart the person in front of you snitched. You want to be a cow here – four stomachs, but you can’t, so you always leave with longing eyes. The croques are nothing short of a meal in itself, very satisfying and delicious. I have never managed to buy a loaf of bread here. Somehow, the universe always conspired against me so it was always sold out 10 minutes before I got there. Good. Then I get more reasons to keep trying.

Bay Wolf (Oakland)
Great winter restaurant. Pretty good summer restaurant too if you want something heavier and richer, or if you just want good food that feels very right to your palate, like an old friend. They make very good cold charcuterie and pates, always serve up huge portions, so beware of that. The décor is really traditional and most of the clientele are older people in 50s+, but who cares. Retro is the new edgy.

Koi Palace (Daly City)
I wouldn’t frequent this place if I were you. You’d be force-fed: ppl placing dim sum on your table then stamp the sheet without even asking for your approval. You might get involved in a gun fight: a shuttle driver told me how he had to stop his friend from pulling a gun out after grappling with another guy in the restaurant over “whose table is that.” A family member had an $800 dinner there – the restaurant just said: we have good fish and good crab today. Care to try? There are better choices out there for dim sum.

Yank Sing
Speaking of better choices for dim sum, this is not one of them. When you see glass tea pots in a Chinese restaurant, you know this is a place that satisfies the fantasy of non-Asians while serving mediocre food in beautiful dishes.

Bistro Jeanty (Yountville)
Oh…how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. You serve authentic bistro food that I miss so much about France. You have this fun communal table at which I grabbed the bread of my neighbors by mistake, but they offered it to me anyway. Your portions are satisfying, so when my friend and I finished 3 appetizers, 2 main dishes, 2 side dishes, and started to attack the half-foot tall rice pudding, my neighbor couldn’t restraint themselves from commenting: my, you surely could eat! Pig trotters, sweetbread, escargots, great lamb, all choices are good, the more exotic “organs” a dish has, the better. San Francisco location is not so good. 20% decrease in food-wow.

Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton
Top notch fine dining experience. Friendly but highly trained servers. Fantastic tasting menu. I have a posting in the blog somewhere. Check it out.

Vik's Chaat Corner (Berkeley)
They serve a lot of things here, they taste pretty good, but I guess I’m not the best judge.

Delfina
When I want to impress on visitors what California cuisine and San Francisco dining experience is like, I take them to Delfina. Oh, and Delfina Pizzeria is not to be missed too. You could even throw in a visit to next-door Tartine, then grab some late night snack from the other next-door Bi-Rite. A gourmet street, 18^th street is.

Oliveto (Oakland)
Best pasta place in town – hands down. The effort spent on each pasta dish is very laudatory, plain presentation, but the smell, the taste, the oomph of the sauce! Like the one time I had salt-packed mullet roe tagliatelle, or the nettle fettucine, and let’s not forget the Bolognaise paparadelle…I’m drooling. Previous part-owner went to open Fra Mani – my favorite salami brand now.

Pizzaiolo (Oakland)
I went there on a bad night – my pizza was burnt. Can’t comment rightly, but I’d be very surprised if it could be better than Delfina Pizzeria.

A Cote (Oakland)
Great drinks, great little dishes, a bit on the heavy and oily side, but very good nonetheless. My favorite tapas place. My only complaint is: why so many people know about this place?!?!?! The wait without reservation is a nightmare…

Chez Panisse (Berkeley)
Ever since my unfortunate experience at Chez Panisse on a Monday night, I stopped going. I prefer its café, but to me, it is still nothing too exceptional. Good, but not something that I get a craving for – unlike Oliveto, Delfina, Tartine, even Dining Room.

Zuni Cafe
Burger heaven…you have to get the burger…read my lips: you have to get the burger. Granted, the other dishes are good, because this is a very good restaurant, but the burger blows out your mind, it reveals a whole new chapter about burger that you never knew, it enlightens your comprehension of patty between bread, it is epiphany. Do you know how a good aioli and bread combination could draw out the finer undertones of minced meat so all the fragrance, fat, and flavor of the meat rushes at you, tastes so much better than just having the meat alone? Just like the right cheese with the right wine. That’s how good the burger is – perfect vintage of a perfect year.

Limon
Grilled foie gras and scallops at a Peruvian restaurant. How unexpected. How mouthwatering good. I tried 80% of their menu already and everything has been good. My only complaint is that I wish they’d change their menu more often. My previous review.

Hog Island Oyster Co.
This is not my favorite oyster company, and definitely not my favorite locale for getting oyster. Nothing beats Tamales Bay in winter months.

Swan Oyster Depot
Crab. Lots of crab. For those who want Dungeness but can’t be bothered to peel, this is the right place. But eating cold seafood at 10am in the morning in November with that howling wind at your back, sitting on a cold stainless steel chair at a stainless steel bar…Well, that’s the only way you can get in. My review from August 2006.

Cesar (Berkeley)
I like this place, but the portions are quite small. Room is small too. Good tapas, a bit different from A Cote: lighter in fare. Nice place to have a drink with friends.

Zarzuela
I haven’t been here after its change in ownership, but before, their paella was amazing and it was the top tapas Spanish tapas place for me in the city. Period. I should go back again.

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