tuftears | Food: Parallel 37

chipotle recently had a birthday, so in honor of the occasion, he wanted to eat at Parallel 37. With

dracosphynx driving, we headed up via BART and navigated the streets of San Francisco to the Ritz-Carlton, with a minor 'whoops' due to there being two overlapping roads-- there's a road named Stockton which runs through a tunnel, but the actual restaurant was on the road above it, which is *also* named Stockton. Thanks, San Francisco!

We ordered the 5-course tasting menu, with wine pairing for

chipotle and

dracosphynx; I eschewed since I'm not a drinker; I'm told I missed a great deal that way since the flavor of the wines and the courses interact. I pled for 'non-scary seafood', and they were very accommodating on the subject. Seems the way a tasting menu works is the chefs cook what they want, but they can adapt the selection if people have different preferences, i.e. non-gluten, non-dairy, etc.

We began with an 'amuse bouche' -- from left to right, trout, mackerel, and some kind of vegetable. Mine were cooked; I'm given to understand these were prepared like sushi for the others. The vegetable was chewy and a bit tough, but the other fish were pretty decent.

They served a selection of bread with two different butters, honey butter and mustard butter. Both flavors were pretty mild; I couldn't tell which was which when eating with the rye bread, but it became obvious with the sourdough. (hint: the mustard butter was the one with the black dots on top, which were logically the mustard seeds)

This was followed by a terrifying-looking dish. What would you do if presented with something like the above?

This turned out to be: a poached quail egg on top, some sort of noodles beneath that, and a delicious bit of butter-broiled cod beneath. I tried to split the egg in half, but the yolk quickly leaked out and blended with the sauce beneath, and joked that I had failed my 'eat food' check. I have a sneaking suspicion you're supposed to eat the egg whole. Still, no great loss; I used some bread to soak up the delicious sauce at the bottom.

Moar seafood! I didn't like this one much; a couple of pieces were edible, but I disliked the texture of the rest. (I did taste-test) They poured hot sauce right onto the fish as serving. I'm not sure if the fish was supposed to be nearly raw and cooked by doing so, or not.

Finally, non-seafood! This was the most culinarily educational dish in the bunch. The duck breast tasted as if it had been smoked, but

dracosphynx suspected bacon had influenced it somehow. This is the first time I've tried porcini mushrooms, which made up the back half of the dish. There were little crispy black things which tasted bacony to me; possibly toasted duck skin.

I'm not sure if porcini mushrooms naturally taste fatty like these did, or if that was a byproduct of the way they cooked this dish.

This was followed by not one but TWO kinds of BEEF. On the left we had brisket; on the right, sirloin, and there was a small rectangle of what I thought initially was blue cheese, but was corrected by

dracosphynx: parmesan custard. Wild!

The brisket was fall-apart tender. The sirloin seemed a bit tough; I've cooked better with a sous vide, but it went with the custard quite well. The onion ring was... an onion ring. I think they would have been better served with a normal caramelized onion. Still, this was a rich and satisfying course.

After a meditative pause, they brought out a 'palate cleanser':

Apple sorbet! This was really good. I could have eaten quite a bit more of this, given the opportunity.

That's the sorbet on the right. Two cooked slices of apple on the left.

This is dessert! I initially thought they were grapes, but no, these little balls are actually poached pear. It was served with ginger ice cream.

Rich and delicious. Despite the small portions, I was pretty full at this point.

We rounded the meal off with nearly-black coffee in

chipotle's case, cafe mocha for

dracosphynx and I had hot chocolate: