SFoodie's countdown of the 92 best things to eat and drink in San Francisco, 2011 edition.
his cured foie gras (not on the tasting menu right now, but still pictured on
its website). And by gutsy, SFoodie means jumping-off-a-cliff risky, treating ingredients in less-conventional ways and coming up with startling flavor combinations.
Fox molds a lobe of raw foie gras into a cylinder, then salt-cures the meat. The curing process leaves the meat tasting even more delicate
than when it is seared or poached; cured foie gras, incidentally, also retains all its fat. For service, the chef slices off a coin, places it on a warm plate to soften up and become spreadable. Then he smears a spoonful of bright purple umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum) purée across the plate and finishes the dish with toasted slices of a house-baked, nori-flecked bread.
The intense, and intensely acidic, flavor of pickled plums almost has an electrical charge. Umeboshi is a dangerous ingredient, which can shock and numb the palate if used too generously, and SFoodie has seen more than a few Asian-fusion dishes ruined by the ill-considered use of pickled plums. But here, the stridency of the plums is perfectly pitched to counterbalance the unctuousness of the foie gras.
The nori toast does something quite different. The mineral-tinged, oceanic flavor of the seaweed slips in underneath the umeboshi to goose the analytical part of the brain. It does a double-take: Is this duck or monkfish liver? Every waiter at every sushi bar in America describes ankimo as "foie gras of the sea," but here the comparison is reversed. The illusion is more appealing than it might sound. A sip of wine washes away the doubts, a second exploratory bite leads to a third, and soon the plate is empty ― and you're ready for the next gastronomic conundrum Fox serves up.
Commonwealth: 2224 Mission (at 18th St.), 355-1500, www.commonwealthsf.com.
Dishes in our series so far:
92: Goat tacos from El Norteño
91: Faux shark's fin soup at Benu
90: Esperpento's alcachofas a la plancha
89: Poco Dolce's olive oil chocolate bar
88: Decantr's chicken-liver mousseline
87: Outerlands' levain bread
86: Fraîche's frozen yogurt
85: Gyro King's spinach pie
84: Tandoori fish from Lahore Karahi
83: Braised oxtail and daikon from Namu
82: Golden Gate Bakery's custard tart
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@jonkauffman
