San Francisco: Chez Nous
I told you I went to San Francisco to eat, right? For our third meal of the day (I'm counting gelato as a meal, mind you), Brian and I took a quick walk from our hotel to Fillmore St. in Pacific Heights. Pacific Heights is like, my dream neighborhood, and if I ever were to live in San Francisco, it would have to be somewhere within a one block radius of Fillmore between Bush and Broadway.
My friend JW, who used to live in Pacific Heights, wrote down a bunch of places we could try during our San Francisco weekend. As we were walking up Fillmore, I recognized the name of one of them: Chez Nous, which translates to either "your place" or "with us" depending on which free online translation service you use. Note to self: take some French lessons.
Chez Nous is an adorable little cafe that specializes in Mediterranean small plates at equally small prices ($4-13, nothing over $13). They have a decent selection of wines by the glass, and it's the perfect little spot to relax and nibble, or have a full dinner, depending on your mood.
Our waitress brought out a homemade walnut bread to start, which had a good flavour but was remarkable hard and chewy - almost inedibly so. Perhaps they tried to heat it up, then left it sitting out too long? Along with that, we started with a spinach, gorgonzola, pear and candied almond salad which was very much edible, crisp and refreshing.
Chez Nous had a couple specials that day - we chose the ahi tuna tower, which featured a mound of fresh ahi mixed with minced onion, cucumber and tomato, topped with avocado and clover sprouts and served with wonton crisps and a wasabi creme fraiche. Mmm... I get hungry for this just typing out all the ingredients.
Like the salad, this was simple and refreshing - high quality ingredients assembled with just enough finesse to feel gourmet, not too much fuss to feel overdone.
After the light dishes, we moved on to steak and potatoes. The gnocchi caught my eye early on... I love gnocchi of all types for its pillowy fluffy goodness. This dish was served with baby corn in a pesto cream sauce. Heavenly, it a bit rich.
The one lowlight of the meal was the dish I thought I'd like the most - wagyu beef with baby carrots in a mushroom sauce. While it certainly looked pretty, the meat was tough and almost a bit stringy... a characteristic I've noticed often in wagyu.
Despite the one disappointing order, most everything coming out of the kitchen looked delicious, and I'd be happy to return to Chez Nous again to sample the remaining dishes.
Chez Nous
1911 Fillmore St.
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 441-8044
Lunch : 11:30am-3pm daily
Dinner: Sun-Thurs 5:30-10pm, Fri-Sat 5:30-11pm
4 comments:
Wow! All very BEAUTIFUL photos! Great job! So sorry that it was all mostly looks though. And like you, I heart gnocchi too! Can't wait to go back to the Bay area to eat again too! ;)
Thanks Bola! I was very lucky to be sitting directly under a skylight in the late afternoon... it lit up the dishes perfectly!
I agree. Those photos are gorgeous.
I'm from the SanFran Bay Area, so I've actually been to Chez Nous a few times. My experiences were similar to your's; lots of nice hits and a number of misses. I think that if they work on their consistency a bit more, they'll be a real must-eat location. As it stands, I tell my friends to chow at their own risk.
rosie,
i love the new look. the graphics n' such. nice.
i love sf too. i left my heart there you know. did you happen to see it up there?
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