Chez Panisse

Yes.  We actually went to that Berkeley food landmark last night for dinner.  On Tuesday Camila said we should at least try to go to the Cafe upstairs so she got online to make reservations at OpenTable and found she could make reservations for the downstairs dining room (the real Chez Panisse) for Wednesday at 8:30 pm or Thursday at 9:15 pm.  The 8:30 time sounded more reasonable for us and the menu was more appealing:

California white sea bass crudo with black pepper and cucumber granita
Roasted eggplant ravioli with pine nuts, tomato, and mint
Salmon Creek Ranch duck grilled over fig wood with new potatoes, green beans,  and morel mushroom sauce
Royal Blenheim apricot soufflé with noyau crème anglaise

Although now that I look at the Thursday night menu, it sounds awfully good as well:

Fried squash blossoms with sheeps milk ricotta and pickled gypsy peppers
Zuppa di vongole with shell beans and basil
Grilled Llano Seco Ranch pork loin with amaranth greens, sage,  and eggplant roasted in the coals
Toasted almond crespelle with Masumoto Family Farm peaches and raspberry ice cream

Do you think we could go twice??

It was very hard waiting for 8:30 pm to roll around yesterday.  We got up at 3 am (12 am Pacific Coast Time) to catch our 6:15 am flight to Oakland so it was really 11:30 pm when we sat down to eat.  We tried not to eat too much during the day but at 11:00 am Fernando was getting hungry and actually tried to get me to eat at Chipotle's next to REI off of Gilman street (near the married student housing in Albany).  Instead I got him to feed me a cheese enchilada and a chile relleno at a Mexican hole in the wall across the street.   Not bad but I really don't care for that brownish gravy they tend to put on chiles rellenos in some establishments...

But when 8:30 rolled around we were really hungry -- and also almost falling asleep -- so we were a pack of yawns.  The Maitre D was French and said that later he would take us over to look at the kitchen since we weren't sitting by the kitchen (something Camila had requested).  The inside of the restaurant is subdued with Craftsman decor and since they were burning fig wood in the kitchen, had a slight smokey aroma.  We decided not to order the wine pairings (we wanted to make it back to the hotel) and got right down to business but the wait staff always had time for some chit chat.  The Maitre d' asked if were were from out of town and we told him from Pittsburgh so it turned out that the other Maitre d was also from Pittsburgh.  We chatted with him later and it turned out that he wasn't from Pittsburgh but his wife was and they had lots of relatives back in Greensburg, Latrobe and Ligonier.  And by the way one of the chefs was also from Pittsburgh...  That's why Pittsburgh has so few good restaurants.  All the chefs are here...

The waiter dropped off a small appetizer of pickled okra and padron peppers -- grown by a farmer up in Sonoma.  They were pretty tiny peppers and didn't have any bite.  In Spain they are typically eaten larger and fried as tapas.  I grew them the year after we went on the Camino and they did very well.  Some are spicy and others aren't.

The first course of raw California Sea Bass (caught off the Santa Cruz coast) was nice.  They had salted the fish slightly and the cucumber gelee reminded me of Gaga's cucumber jello salad and went well with it.  They had chervil on top, confirmed by the sommelier who said it grew wild here.  I told her it reseeded itself quite well in Pittsburgh too.  Earlier we had talked about how easy California had it using "local" produce. How could you brag about that in California?  They should try cooking local in Pittsburgh!  And try catching some local sea bass in the Allegheny River!  She asked if there were any native plant foods in the farmers markets.  I told her I'd only seen ramps in the East End Food CoOp.  No serviceberries at all.  We don't even have a forager with wild mushrooms, although maybe I should go check out the farmers market in the strip.  It's more upscale.  She was surprised that we only had farmers markets from May through November.

The second course of roasted eggplant ravioli was good, although Fernando wasn't thrilled with it ('Lydia makes better ravioli...') -- maybe because it was al dente, except he really liked the sauce which was simple but tasty.  Maybe roasted eggplant needs a little oil to carry the smokey flavor (like the sesame paste in baba ghanouj).  We used up a lot of the bread sopping up the sauces -- it looked like we licked the plates.  One of the breads was a levain and had the sourdough taste which I really liked but Fernando claimed it was burned and preferred the short crusty baguette.  In any case, he made short work of a foot-long loaf.

Fernando's favorite course was the duck, which he loves (along with lamb).  It was extremely tender and tasty - the best duck I've had.  Roasting it over a wood fire made it even tastier although I'm not convinced that fig wood imparts a flavor different from other woods.  I wonder what eucalyptus wood would do.  I gave Fernando my potatoes because the moment I took my first bite of duck (with the skin) I realized I'd eaten too many pieces of bread and wouldn't last till dessert.  I couldn't even mop up the juices with the bread this time!

Fortunately the apricot soufflé was good and tart with a sprinkling of sugar caramelized on top.  They gave us a little pitcher of the noyau crème anglaise but it really didn't need it.  On the other hand, how were we going to let that apricot kernel sauce go to waste??  So of course we ate that too.  Fernando asked if I could make an apricot soufflé at home.  I told him we didn't have any "local" apricots...  Although that isn't true - the farmers market will have a few teeny ones for a couple of weeks in early summer.

Yes, watching other people enjoy their wine with dinner made me a little sad but if we'd gone that route we probably would still be at Chez Panisse this morning...

Now we can say we've done it.  And we have the menus to prove it.