Prospect Visited 1/17/2012 4 Forks

Prospect 300 Spear St., (between Folsom St & Harrison St), San Francisco, CA 94105

One of the nice things about work dinners is that you get to try out places that you would ordinarily never go to. Prospect is one of those places.  The clientele is definitely more on the swankier and formal side.  It seemed like almost everyone who was there was on a corporate account and/or 50 years old.  But that doesn't mean that I didn't have a great meal there.  On the contrary, I actually had a lovely meal there, I just don't think this is the type of place that I would necessarily come back to.  

The table started with the foie gras torchon ($12) which came with toasted banana bread, pineapple, and nuts.  Serving the foie gras with something sweet was an interesting touch and actually worked really well.  It definitely made the foie gras taste less "earthy" and metal-y. For my appetizer, I got the Handpicked Local Dungeness Crab, which was served with Fresh Hawaiian Hearts of Palm, Oro Blanco & Ruby Grapefruit, Brokaw Avocado, Green Goddess Dressing, Arugula  ($14.50).  As I stated in my last post, when I'm in SF, I always want to get seafood and what's more SF than dungeness crab??  The dish was delicious and there was lots of crab to go around, it wasn't just all arugula.  Everything worked well together, the crab, the avocado, the dressing and the arugula.  Those are all ingredients that I love on their own, so together, they were even better.

For my main dish, I got the Storm Hill Beef New York with Mustard Mashed Potatoes, Bloomsdale Spinach, Caramelized Cippolini Onions, Beer Battered King Trumpet & Maitake Mushrooms, Beef Jus  ($31).  I struggled between this dish and the scallops because I normally never get scallops and what better time than when someone else is paying for it?  But in the end what won me over was the fact that the beef came with mashed potatoes and maitake mushrooms.  I asked for it medium rare and it was cooked perfectly - nice and pink on the inside and the outside was a nice brown color.  I put the knife in and it cut straight through without any difficulty.  The potatoes were nice and smooth (clearly with 5 sticks of butter in it) and the spinach and onions gave the dish some nice texture and flavor - even though to be honest this is the first piece of meat I've had in a while that could have totally been served on its own with nothing and have been just as good.  Sadly the one thing I didn't love were the mushrooms because of they were beer battered.  It just didn't need to be battered and fried, it would have been much better on its own in the jus.  The table then ordered almost one of every dessert - the one I really liked was the ice cream sandwich (nice and soft outside but hard ice cream so that it didn't melt too quickly - $8).  Overall, it was a very satisfying meal and although I didn't pay for it, I think the bill was around $600 without tip for 7 people.  Again, even though I really enjoyed my food, the atmosphere was a bit too business/corporate-y for a regular outing.  

Photo Credit: Yelp