The Slanted Door/Ferry Building
November 21, 2006
What to do, or more importantly, what to eat the morning after Chez Panisse? After a night of dreams where I frantically tried to make choices about which wines out of an impossibly large selection I should learn about and try before I had to leave San Francisco. So sometimes, dreams imitate life.
After checking out of our hotel, and unanimously agreeing to NOT eat the hotel’s continental breakfast, I dragged Kelly down to the Ferry Building Market. We were starving—and overwhelmed by the selections of organic vegetables and fruits, free-range meats, locally produced olive oil, gourmet chocolates, and my personal favourite, the Cowgirl Creamery Artisan Cheese shop.
But this wasn’t getting us fed. I had an ulterior motive for being here—the Slanted Door restaurant was on Epicurious’ recommendations of locals’ favourites in San Fran, and it had said it was in or near the Ferry Building. My aimless wandering was an effort to find it. Eventually, I explained that to Kelly, and he became more inclined to follow my aimless wandering.
And it paid off! Out the back of the Ferry Building, there it was. And even though we dropped in right at lunchtime, they were able to squeeze us in.
Since we hadn’t yet had coffee, we ordered Vietnamese coffees, and then discovered the amazing beer and cider selections. Tons of Belgian beers, lambics (fruit beers) even, as well as a delicious sounding pear cider from France. Since the pear cider was only 4% alcohol, it was almost like juice, compared to the wine we’d been drinking. We ordered a bottle along with our coffees.
The Slanted Door serves small family-sized servings (as in, it’s not a serving size that would serve my family, but for two, it works quite well). We chose some vegetarian Imperial rolls, a jicama and grapefruit salad, pork and shrimp wonton noodle soup, and a crispy noodle dish with seafood and vegetables.
The Imperial rolls, served with lettuce leaves, noodles and dipping sauce, were earthy and delicious—lots of shitake mushrooms adding beefy flavour to the meatless rolls. The jicama and grapefruit salad, complete with purple cabbage and topped with candied pecans, was light and refreshing.
I was wondering whether ordering a basic wonton soup was kind of a cop-out. Nothing prepared me for this soup. What I thought were little fried tofu cubes turned out to be deep-fried pork belly: pure fat, with a crispy outer coating. I think pork fat should be used in more restaurants, with abandon—as they did here. And when combined with delicious broth, five-spice egg noodles, shrimp and green onion wontons, and tender pork slices, those little morsels of fatty goodness made up the best wonton soup I think I’ve ever tasted.
The seafood crispy noodles were good too, but my world had stopped at the wonton soup, so I had little room left for the noodles. We were stuffed and happy. So much so that we had no need to eat anything else, beyond a cup of fruit, before we got on the plane.
What to do, or more importantly, what to eat the morning after Chez Panisse? After a night of dreams where I frantically tried to make choices about which wines out of an impossibly large selection I should learn about and try before I had to leave San Francisco. So sometimes, dreams imitate life.
After checking out of our hotel, and unanimously agreeing to NOT eat the hotel’s continental breakfast, I dragged Kelly down to the Ferry Building Market. We were starving—and overwhelmed by the selections of organic vegetables and fruits, free-range meats, locally produced olive oil, gourmet chocolates, and my personal favourite, the Cowgirl Creamery Artisan Cheese shop.
But this wasn’t getting us fed. I had an ulterior motive for being here—the Slanted Door restaurant was on Epicurious’ recommendations of locals’ favourites in San Fran, and it had said it was in or near the Ferry Building. My aimless wandering was an effort to find it. Eventually, I explained that to Kelly, and he became more inclined to follow my aimless wandering.
And it paid off! Out the back of the Ferry Building, there it was. And even though we dropped in right at lunchtime, they were able to squeeze us in.
Since we hadn’t yet had coffee, we ordered Vietnamese coffees, and then discovered the amazing beer and cider selections. Tons of Belgian beers, lambics (fruit beers) even, as well as a delicious sounding pear cider from France. Since the pear cider was only 4% alcohol, it was almost like juice, compared to the wine we’d been drinking. We ordered a bottle along with our coffees.
The Slanted Door serves small family-sized servings (as in, it’s not a serving size that would serve my family, but for two, it works quite well). We chose some vegetarian Imperial rolls, a jicama and grapefruit salad, pork and shrimp wonton noodle soup, and a crispy noodle dish with seafood and vegetables.
The Imperial rolls, served with lettuce leaves, noodles and dipping sauce, were earthy and delicious—lots of shitake mushrooms adding beefy flavour to the meatless rolls. The jicama and grapefruit salad, complete with purple cabbage and topped with candied pecans, was light and refreshing.
I was wondering whether ordering a basic wonton soup was kind of a cop-out. Nothing prepared me for this soup. What I thought were little fried tofu cubes turned out to be deep-fried pork belly: pure fat, with a crispy outer coating. I think pork fat should be used in more restaurants, with abandon—as they did here. And when combined with delicious broth, five-spice egg noodles, shrimp and green onion wontons, and tender pork slices, those little morsels of fatty goodness made up the best wonton soup I think I’ve ever tasted.
The seafood crispy noodles were good too, but my world had stopped at the wonton soup, so I had little room left for the noodles. We were stuffed and happy. So much so that we had no need to eat anything else, beyond a cup of fruit, before we got on the plane.
posted by Noelle | 2:17 PM
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