A Birthday Treat

Yesterday was my birthday (please don't ask which-sigh). We are season subscribers to SF Ballet, and had tix to the mixed repertory performance, so I wanted to eat somewhere in the Van Ness area. Now, I'm a huge fan of cooking shows, and have been watching Top Chef religiously the last couple of seasons. I really loved some of the things Jamie Lauren was doing on the show, and so I made a reservation at Absinthe, where she's Exec. chef. I made the reservation through OpenTable, and put in a note that I'd like to meet her if she was there, but didn't really expect that to come to anything.

John and I take BART to the city, and as usual on a Friday night, the train was late, so I called to let the restaurant know. They were very gracious and agreed to hold the table. When we got there, the bar was packed and it was quite noisy, but we were seated promptly and were able to converse easily despite being fairly near the bar.

For my appetizer, I ordered the roasted marrow bone "shared plate", and John decided on the French onion soup. Of course, I ordered the scallops for my entree, thinking of Top Chef's Fabio's comment about Jamie's scallops, "It's Top Chef, not Top Scallops!" John ordered the stuffed chicken. We talked and munched on the good bread and waited and after a rather long wait the maitre d' informed us that Jamie had looked at my marrow bones and decided that they were not good ones, and was doing them over. So, she actually WAS there! And he said she'd be out later to meet me. I was really excited! Then she sent out two appetizers so we'd have something while we waited - the spiced fried chickpeas and the pommes frites. They were both tasty, and the chickpeas were addictive, but we restrained ourselves from downing all the frites in anticipation of our orders.

When they did come out, both appetizers were wonderful. My marrow bones were perfect, with a sprinkling of sea salt, a head of roasted garlic, buttered toast, and a really lovely herb salad (mostly parsley and chives - very nice and not bitter like many herb salads). John could barely talk he was so busy with his soup; it's not often that he relishes food so much, what with his picky tastes. The entrees were also really good - yes, those scallops were perfectly seared, and I really loved the sunchoke puree. John, as usual, didn't eat much other than the chicken, saying he was too full to eat more. His Brussels sprouts looked amazing though, so I'm sure they were really good.

And yes, Jamie did come out to meet us and she was really gracious and sweet. I was just thrilled. She and the staff wished me a happy birthday, and when my dessert, the lemon panna cotta, came out it had Happy Birthday on the plate in chocolate with a candle to blow out. The panna cotta was perfect - light and creamy under a light lemon gelatin, with a nice dollop of huckleberry compote on top and a lemon thyme tuile. Mmmmm.

All in all, despite BART delays and marrow bone mishaps, both dinner and the ballet were wonderful. What a great birthday it was!