Monday, January 17, 2011

One Market Dining Review

The wife and I stopped by One Market on whim last Friday night. Wanting to see a movie, we got waylayed by the typical SF traffic, so rather seeing another dumb comedy where the funniest scenes are in the commercials, we opted instead to hit up One Market. Strangely, I've never been there despite working in the vicinity for 10 years and having many friends who worked there at some point.

Other than the crazy guy swinging his arms at imagined bumblebees, getting in was fine. We were asked if the "exhibition counter" would be fine and, thinking that sounded fun, we went for it. It felt more like eating in the kitchen with the overbright lighting, heat from the stoves, and mess of a waiters station that greeted us. No matter, our waitress was prompt and very efficient (and struck perfect notes on the charm/leave us be meter). We went for the food of the week tasting, which was pork, my favorite. Unfortunately, the preparation were tired or derivative without much flair (other than the desert).

Course one was seared pork belly over spaghetti squash. Though it reminded me that I like Spag Squash more than I remember, the pork belly itself wasn't terribly interesting. The sear was more tough than tasty crunchy and the vaguely asian sauce was too sweet to give it a needed push.

Course two was a well executed shellfish and pork sausage stew? soup? broth? sorta thing. Calamari, clams, and sausage. But I've had better iterations of this with more verve at Spanish restaurants.

Course three, while well intentioned, really disappointed. Menu said pork shoulder, which is my favorite cut when slow cooked, but the sous vide version just didn't get me excited, lacking the rich, robust flavor I'm accustomed to. This might be an expectation thing as I think I expected something like a gourmet rendition of Carnitas rather than a fairly bland meat with an unexpected texture (I haven't decided if I liked the firm yet tender texture, but I think I do. Just wasn't expecting it). And I've already forgotted what it was served with.

Desert was a hit, with bacon ice cream and a chocolate cake. Tasted great though lacking inspiration.

Service was fine with a few missteps (the first course came well before we finished our cocktails and well before the wine pairing), but the waitress was on her game, extremely attentive without going overboard despite what looked like a pretty big station.

No comments:

Post a Comment