Bar Tartine For Abe's 3-OH

May 18, 2006

It was Abe's birthday yesterday, and even though we did a big whoop up last weekend, we still had to stick with our tradition of trying a new restaurant with the birthday crew. This time, Abe's birthday was the excuse to try the new-ish restaurant, Bar Tartine. Located on the hot strip of action on Valencia between 16th and 17th Streets, Bar Tartine was started by the owners of the amazing bakery in Mission Dolores, Tartine. Anyone who's ever tried any of the pastries, desserts or breads from Tartine has been highly anticipating this venture for a while.

For dinner, I was with Abe, Wendy, Anna, Ashley, Katharine and Key. Poor Will had to miss another great birthday dinner for travels to Boston for work.







I've read good and mediocre reviews of Bar Tartine. Some say it's amazing, some say the service is pretentious, some say the portions are too small. Regardless, I think that we had a really nice meal in a sweet restaurant. The restaurant is small but not too cozy, with beautiful, dark rustic hardwood floors. There's funky art on the wall, great warm ambiance-building lighting, and the servers are SF hipsters who remind me a bit of the servers at Delfina.

Our server was a cool dude with glasses who was very helpful when I pestered him with questions..."What's branzino?"..."What's your favorite dish on the menu?"..."How about poissin?"...

What we ate (can't remember all the details):
Appetizers:
Katharine/Ashley - Beet salad with lobster
Bea - Brasaola with arugula and truffle oil
Key - H'ors Doevres with gruyere pastry puffs
Abe - some salad dish?

Entrees:
Wendy/Ashley - Grilled Brazino
Katharine/Anna/Bea - Braised lamb shoulder with (amazing!) polenta and grilled chard
Abe/Key - a risotto dish

Dessert:
Shaker lemon tart
Scharffenberger Chocolate pot-de-creme
Trio of sorbets (rhubarb, meyer lemon, valencia mandarin orange)
Trio of ice cream (strawberry, vanilla, ...?)

Wine:
New Zealand "Roaring Meg" Pinot Noir



Braseola con Rugula

Wendy's whole branzino fish



I enjoyed the my Braseola (Italian dried beef) appetizer, which I fell in love with when I was travelling in Italy. It's usually shaved paper-thin and served with arugula. The lamb shoulder was braised and quite tender, but I do admit that I like lamb best when it's not cooked so long (medium rare, baby!). The polenta that accompanied the lamb was amazing, which made me realize that I really need to add whatever cheese they used to my own polenta recipe.




And then came luscious dessert...Abe opted for the trio of ice creams, and I'm a sucker for sorbets. Key's lemon tart was quite tasty, as expected, but the hands-down winner was the Scharffenberger chocolate pot-de-creme...damn fine work.





And so, Bar Tartine is another check off the list, but one that I will definitely go back to again. (I'll have to take Will to try it on a hot date!)