Boulevard Revisited

May 8, 2008

On Thursday, I was downtown for a day of meetings with one of my teams at the Hotel Vitale. We had some productive meetings and a nice view from the meeting room on the top floor:

After our meetings were over, I went for dinner with some of my colleagues at Boulevard restaurat, across the street. Boulevard is a fixture in the San Francisco dining scene, a design brainchild of Pat Kuleto and executive chef Nancy Oakes. I had been to Boulevard a couple times, but over 5 years ago. Over the years, the prices on the menu have gone steadily higher, so I was interested in revisiting this fine restaurant.

Some appetizers to share:
Seared Sonoma foie gras with house made crumpet, strawberries, aged balsamic, and English Breakfast Tea air. It was tasty, but not the best I've had, and I'm still dreaming of the foie gras from French Laundry, so it was hard not to compare.
Glazed veal sweetbreads with lobster-stuffed cipollini onion, sweet onion soubise, fava beans, pickled spring onion and veal jus. The sweetbreads were good, but the lobster-stuffed cipollini onion was fantastic, I could've had an appetizer of just that.

My co-workers were excited to take pics of their food, so here are the selections of the evening:
Alaskan halibut (wild-caught and pan-roasted) with toasted carrot crust, Mariquita Farms carrot risotto, buttered carrot buttons, frizzled carrot vinaigrette and peppercress.
Atlantic Black Sea Bass (wild-caught and pan-roasted) with prawn salad, chervil-shallot vinaigrette & agretti sugar snap, snow & english peas, fondant potatotes, and fava bean relish.
I had the Angus short rib (slow-cooked and wood-grill finished) with red wine & balsamic glaze, green garlic mashed potatoes, roasted beets, butter blanched Mariquita Farms spring shallots, beef jus, toasted green garlic & arugula rabe salad. The short rib was flavorful and the perfect portion.

I didn't have any dessert (I had a dessert wine instead!), but here are the yummy choices of the table:

Gingersnap Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich with Fresh Berries, Blackberries, Strawberries, Blueberries, Tangerine Sorbet
Strawberry Triple Goat Cheese Cream “Pie”, Mad River Roll Goat Cheese, Double Strawberry Ice Cream Fresh Vanilla Infused & Macerated Strawberries, Aged Balsamic Vinegar, Balinese Long Pepper

Overall, dinner was nice and tasty, but I'm glad that I wasn't footing the bill.