Zuni is the new awesome

Guess what! More houseguests! This time around we have two very special visitors with us at 422 Duboce. The famous Joseph McRae & Colton Soelberg. Joseph is married to my sister Jennifer. He and Colton are out here in San Francisco to 'stage' (pronounced staaaaassshhhhhzzzzz). When you 'stage' at a restaurant it means you get to work in someone else's kitchen for a day for free. Basically Joseph & Colton are out here hob-knobbing with all their old San Francisco chef friends and eating great meals and gathering great ideas to take back to Sundance with them. Anyway, houseguests. Rebecca and I have decided that from now on, houseguests need to do something for us in order to stay here. Here's what Joseph & Colton did for us (good luck future houseguests).

Rebecca and I were so excited for our trip to Zuni Cafe with the famous chefs! Zuni Cafe is so close to our apartment but we've never eaten there...it's so close we walked.


The moment we sat down Joseph & Colton started scoping the place out. Discussing pros & cons. Making mental notes.


I was starting to get a headache so the first thing I did was order a Diet Coke. It came out with two beautiful paper straws!


The nice thing about eating out with chefs is that we order so much stuff! Here's our first three appetizers:
1) Watson Ranch lamb with chick pea puree, harissa and pickled onions
2) Devil's Gulch rabbit salad with watercress, beets and hazelnut picada
3) Cold Marin Sun Farm beef fillet roasted rare with shredded endive, mustard vinaigrette and fried leeks


Appetizers 4 & 5:
4) House-cured anchovies with celery, parmesan and nicoise olives
5) Zuni Caesar salad


Surprisingly delicious...the anchovies! Rebecca loved them.


Colton loved them.


Joseph & I loved them too but there are no pictures of us loving them.

The Zuni Caesar salad. The dressing on the Caesar salad tasted more fishy than eating a whole anchovie fillet! Not kidding.


Joseph was totally treating Rebecca and I like we were the paparazzi trying to interrupt his dinner. Come on Joseph.


Then our entrees arrived!
Joseph's entree: Chicken for two roasted in the brick oven; warm bread salad with scallions


Rebecca's entree: Grilled Hoffman Farm quail, radicchio and an artichoke; warm peara sauce with morel mushrooms


Betsy's entree: Sauteed sand dabs with German Butterball potatoes, asparagus and celery leaf salsa verde


Colton's entree: Grilled "Blue Nose" bass and farro salad with cucumbers, radishes, cilantro, buttermilk vinaigrette and avocado


Then something bad happened. You might remember the beautiful paper straws in my Diet Coke. Turns out paper and liquid don't mix.


Of course we also had to go big where dessert was concerned. We got four and shared them.
1) Blossom bluff peach tart with vanilla ice cream
2) Creme fraiche panna cotta with blackberry sauce and Madeleines
3) Strawberry ice cream
4) Bittersweet chocolate pot de creme


Joseph & Colton, you can stay as long as you'd like.

The nice thing about living in San Francisco is that after dinner you get to walk. That's especially good when you've just eaten all of the following animals in the same meal:

Beef
Lamb
Rabbit
Anchovies
Chicken
Sea Bass
Sand Dabs
Guinea Pig
Quail

On our walk home we noticed these great murals that are so close to our house but are usually surrounded by scary homeless people so we've never really seen them up close.


Oh Duboce Ave. We love you.


One last item of business. This morning my alarm didn't wake me up, this did. The earthquake wasn't very bad, nothing in our apartment broke, and tonight on my run I verified that Sutro Tower is still standing. Thank heavens.