Christian and I celebrated V Day on Sunday with a trip to the SF Ballet to see Giselle (fabulous!) and dinner at Paul K (a bit underwhelming). But we also celebrated on V Day proper by cooking a nice meal at home and popping a bottle of bubbly so I thought I would review both celebrations.
I’ll start with the dinner we made ourselves on Valentine’s Day itself…a nice bottle of 2006 Mumm Blanc de Blanc, Mussels Steamed in a Spicy Tomato-Cilantro Broth with a DIY salad of Arugula, Beets, Fresh Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese drizzled with truffle honey, balsamic, olive oil, salt & pepper. Dessert was homemade chocolate dipped strawberries.
Overall it was a fabulously romantic evening and meal…there is just something kind of sensual about eating with your hands and it forces you to slow down a bit, connect and have really good conversation. All nice elements for a romantic holiday. The DIY version of one of our favorite salads at Delarossa was also quite successful, although we forgot to get Ricotta Salata so had to substitute it with Parmigiano at the last minute…which was still delicious. I don’t think I need to say anything about the chocolate covered strawberries (photo above)…but I will, easy and yummy! I will never pay exorbitant prices for chocolate covered strawberries again!
Mussels Steamed in Spicy Tomato-Cilantro Broth with Crusty Bread
DIY Version of Delarossa Salad: Arugula, Beets, Parmigiano Reggiano drizzled with truffle honey, balsamic and olive oil.
The day before V Day we had a pre-celebration after the ballet. As I indicated, I found Paul K in Haye’s Valley to be a bit underwhelming given all of the positive hype I had heard. Don’t get me wrong, it was good food and a nice atmosphere, but I feel like you can find similar food for a much more affordable price throughout San Francisco. So good, but not great. And I found their portion sizes to be wildly inconsistent so much so that my meal looked like the “man sized portion” while poor Christian was stuck with the more petite duck entree (although still plenty of food whereas mine was way too much). A few pics for those interested below:
Syrian Spiced Duck with Forbidden Rice
Milk braised pork shoulder with Polenta & Braised Radicchio
Dessert was an interesting sounding Cream Cheese Brulee…but unfortunately it sounded more interesting than it really was. And this is from a Creme Brulee lover and a Cream Cheese lover combined. It was simply overly sweet and kind of felt like a “cheap” version of Creme Brulee….so I walked away feeling both guilty and cheated all at once. Interesting idea gone astray in my opinion.
Cream Cheese Brulee
Overall a fabulous and (probably excessive) 2 days of Valentine’s Day celebrations…I hope you all took a bit of time to celebrate the loved ones in your life as well!