I had hoped to get my meal reports from our California trip in June done by the end of August; but that plan has gone the way of all my previous plans this year. The new goal is to get them all done by the end of September. This is totally going to happen!
When last seen in California, we were eating Cal-Mexican food at Mi Casa in Morro Bay. The next day we abandoned the Central Coast and drove north on the 101 to San Francisco. Our first meal after arrival was at State Bird Provisions in the Fillmore District. Here’s how it went.
State Bird Provisions is a hip restaurant in a genre found all over the United States. This extends from the ambience of the restaurant (loud, informal, seats at a counter and at booths and small tables) to the food (shareable plates of different sizes whose components gesture at various points on the culinary map, often in the same dish). New American cuisine, in other words, or what on the blog I have referred to as Global Cosmopolitan cooking. State Bird Provisions adds a twist to the mode of delivery of the food that may or may not be a hat tip to the relative proximity of the oldest Chinatown in the US. Yes, there is a menu from which you can order plates small and large; but there are also a large number of dishes that circulate in the dining room on carts and trays. This the restaurant refers to as dim sum-style service. Servers bring these to your table; you select what and how many of each you want. Make sure to pay attention to the prices displayed on the tray/cart because they do add up. When I’d looked at the menu when making the reservation I’d anticipated we’d probably pay in the $200-250 region all-in for the four of us; we left having paid about $331.
The restaurant is open every day (dinner only) and from what I can tell they have no problem filling the room every day. Reservations are highly recommended but don’t necessarily mean you’ll be seated right away. We had one for 7.30 pm on a Tuesday and sat down at 7.45. After a quick consultation with our server, who let us know that the “larger” plates on the printed menu aren’t particularly large, we placed an order for a few things with the plan of supplementing it with plates from the roving selection. In the end we ended up ordering as many of those selections as we had from the menu. What did we eat?
First up was an order of broiled oysters (with jalapeño cream cheese and bacon) from the first cart to stop at our table. $6 each, these were a tasty start. Next, we could not resist a plate of pork short ribs—three per $14 plate—with lilikoi-chilli bbq sauce. This was also very good. Next came a trolley with an excellent smoked trout-allium mousse (served with chips) at $15 and Hog Island oysters dressed with kohlrabi kraut at $4 each. The younger boy passed on the latter and so we got three of the oysters. (In case you’re wondering, the list of the day’s roving selections can be found on the restaurant’s website—I’d taken a screenshot of it on my phone to refer to.)
Our next selection was a dish we’d been planning to get from the moment we saw it being assembled through the kitchen window as we’d been waiting outside: a large block of steamed egg-tofu dressed with pickled honshimeji mushrooms and garlic-chile oil. It did not disappoint and at $9 a pop was perhaps the best “value” on offer. Also very good was the lamb tartare with golden raisin agrodolce and chermoula aioli at $15. I forget what the cracker it came with was made from but it was very good as well.
The dishes we’d ordered from the menu then began to show up. These included: sourdough-sauerkraut pecorino & ricotta pancakes ($15), served with what I think may have been dehydrated/powdered sauerkraut. Four to an order, each pancake was not much more than a bite. Quite tasty. Also very good were the tomaroshi caramelle with black sesame, yuzu and miso ($30) and the beef tongue pastrami ($25) served a la carpaccio with arugula, capers and parmesan (and indeed billed as carpaccio on the check). Finally, the eponymous state bird. The state bird of California is quail and you get either 2 pcs ($24) or 4 ($48) of battered quail fried to a crisp and was quite tasty.
And so, dessert. There were three that really caught our eye and after consultation with our server we chose two of them: the strawberry rhubarb sorbet with peach, nectarine and various other things ($15) and the coconut cocoa mochi with grilled pluot caramel and chocolate cremeux ($15). When they arrived it turned out they’d thrown in the third as well an acknowledgment of the long wait for our table. This was a rosemary ice cream sandwich with blackberries and hazelnuts. They kindly presented all the nuts (there were also pistachios with the sorbet) on the side on account of our boys’ allergies.
Oh yes, the missus and I drank a glass each of a skin-contact white wine. Another unexpected twist at State Bird Provisions is that they do not serve cocktails.
For a look at the restaurant, the menu on the night and everything we ate and drank, launch the slideshow below. Apologies for the low quality of the photos, which were taken entirely on my phone. Scroll down for thoughts on the meal as a whole and to see what’s coming next on the food front from the Twin Cities and San Francisco.
As noted above, we paid just about $331 all-in. Even with just two glasses of wine this is probably a pretty good price in San Francisco for a hot restaurant with a Michelin star. I’m not sure that we would do it again though. On the one hand, we liked everything we ate. On the other, there wasn’t really anything that we wished we could come back right away to try again. And, as it happens, the next night we ate an even better dinner at a restaurant not too far away that actually cost quite a bit less. Your mileage may vary.
I’ll have a report on that next dinner next weekend. Before that I’ll have a report on a Chinese hot pot meal in Minneapolis (on Tuesday) and on dim sum lunch in San Francisco (on Thursday or Friday). That’s the plan anyway.