Swan Oyster Depot Visited 5/6/2011 4.25 Forks

Swan Oyster Depot 1517 Polk St., (between California St & Sacramento St), San Francisco, CA 94109

 As soon as I found out I was going back to SF, I knew I wanted to go to a seafood joint.  There just aren't that many fresh seafood places in NYC.  We headed over to this place as soon as we landed in SF.  It's in the Russian Hill area of SF and it's super tiny.  There is only counter seating and there is about 18 seats total.  Unfortunately, we got there at exactly noon, so right during the lunch time rush. 


There was a line when we got there but luckily we didn't have to wait forever, maybe 30 minutes? The place is definitely filled with locals and tourists alike.  The menu is listed on the wall and there's basically seafood salads, seafood cocktails, oysters, chowder, and cracked crab.  I had read on 7x7's 100 things to eat before you die in SF and their cracked crab was listed as #100 so that was on my mind the whole time.  In retrospect, I kind of wish I had gotten something else instead.  That's not to say that the crab wasn't good but I ended up not having room for a seafood salad, which looked delicious and what everyone else was getting.


We split a bowl of clam chowder ($5) which was extremely creamy and buttery tasting but it wasn't that "chowder" in texture.  I would have liked it to be a little more thick and meaty in texture and perhaps with more clams.  We then got a dozen mixed oysters ($26) which were amazing.  I don't remember all the different types but there were some that I loved, some that were too salty and some that were just ginormous in size.  But it was great to be able to try so many different types of super super fresh oysters in one sitting.  If they weren't expensive, I would have gotten another round.  Next we got the half cracked crab ($18) and as someone who grew up with bushels of blue crabs, the size of this half crab was pretty sad.  It was literally 5 legs and some of the body that was pre-cracked and it came with side of louie sauce (pretty much 1,000 island dressing).  I will say that the crab was extremely fresh but I just wanted more. It was such a tease to get such a small portion. I looked over next to me and everyone had gotten a seafood combo salad, which was a bunch of fresh shrimp and crab on a bed of lettuce drowning in louie sauce.  Yum.  But the salad was another $20, so we opted for the seafood cocktail instead ($9) which was a handful of oysters, shrimp and crab in a small cocktail glass with cocktail sauce in it.  It was good but after seeing everyone else eat something else, I made me kind of sad.


I give this place really high marks for ambiance.  It's just old school and everyone who works there is old school as well (except for the high schoolers working there).  They were all super knowledgeable and made you feel like an old friend. I could see how locals keep coming back.  The guy next to me had said that he goes there once a week, so jealous.  Next time I go, I will know exactly what to order.  Our total bill with beers was $98 (cash only). 

Locanda Verde Visited 4/9/2011 4.25 Forks

Locanda Verde 377 Greenwich St., (between Franklin St & Moore St), New York, NY 10013

There has been no other restaurant that I have wanted to try for brunch for the past couple of months than Locanda Verde.  But every time I call for a brunch reservation they don't have any openings.  However, this time Deanna was in town and they had told me that if we went really early (i.e. before 11AM), they usually can accommodate walk-ins.  So against every fiber of my body, I went to brunch in the city at 10:45AM.

I am always aghast at how many people are up and eating brunch at this hour, but Locanda Verde was definitely pretty full by then, but not too full that we had to wait for a table.  The decor of the place is gorgeous, similar to a huge, old, rustic Italian restaurant.  I had read that they were famous for their sheep's milk ricotta ($14), so we split that for the table.  I got the Uovo Modernese ($17), Deanna got the zucchini frittata ($16) and Aarti got the Al Forno ($16) and then as if we didn't have enough carbs on the table, we also split the garlic potatos ($7).  I was really torn over getting the Modernese and the Scampi and Grit because that came with polenta and I'm on such a huge polenta kick right now.  If I was with someone else who ate meat, it would have been great to get both and split them.  But since I wasn't with another meat eater, I decided to go with the dish that had hollandaise sauce.  Next time I'll bring another meat eater.

The ricotta came out first and it was an enormous amount of fresh ricotta with truffle honey and brunt orange toast. It was incredibly fresh and creamy.  I don't think we did a good job of mixing the honey with the ricotta because without the honey the ricotta was actually a bit too light.  I almost would have liked to have added a pinch of salt.  The orange toast was on its own was pretty amazing. It was toasted perfectly and you could taste the hint of orange but it wasn't overpowering.  Then out of the blue the bus boys bring out a basket of freakin delicious focaccia bread with caramelized onions in it.  It was so soft and tasty that I could have eaten the whole basket.
 
My Uovo Modernese was 2 poached eggs covered in a tomato and spinach hollandaise sauce, sitting on a bed of cotechino hash AND FREAKIN MORE BREAD.  The hash was god damn amazing and the eggs were perfectly runny.  Everything about it was simply delicious.  I used the focaccia bread to sop up all of the hash and runny egg.  I didn't try Deanna or Aarti's dish but I did notice that the frittata had fried zucchini blossoms on it which I love.  Aarti's dish looked like a baked casserole with brunt baked cheese in a round dish.  The one thing that was a slight disappointment was the garlic potatoes.  Dare I say that they were over garlic-y? They were nice and crispy but all you could taste was this over powering sense of garlic that you couldn't taste the potato.  All in all, I think I may have eaten an entire loaf of bread during the course of my meal.  I was so sad to see almost half of the ricotta left over, but it just didn't make sense to bring it home with us.  Next time I would definitely not order another side and I would try to maybe try to mix the ricotta in with my main dish.  I think it would have went pretty well with the hash and eggs.  The total bill was $35/pp which is a bit steep for brunch but in this case I actually think it was totally worth the bill.  I may finally be coming around to embracing Italian food in the city after this meal and Osteria Morini.