rone | restaurant review: chou chou, san francisco (Reply)

2wanda and i went to dinner with strychnine and Gina to their favorite French bistro, Chou Chou. In a word, fantastic. Upon arrival, we were brought complimentary cocktails (James and Gina are regulars, you see) by the sommelier, Germain, which turned out to be soju with lavender syrup and a dash of lime juice; a tad too sweet for me, but a very novel taste. Kim and i shared their tiger prawn salad, which is one very large prawn cooked and split over arugula and spinach, with a lime dressing, green peppercorns, and capers. James and Gina had the ostrich carpaccio appetizer, which they loved (i snuck a taste... very tasty), and we were brought a complimentary escargot appetizer in a garlic & mustard sauce; i wasn't eager to try it, given my previous escargot experience, but everyone else was so impressed by it that i was convinced to give it another shot. It was much better than i expected (even the mustard sauce was not instantly offensive in my mouth).

For dinner, Kim had filet mignon and i had the seafood cassoulet. James and Gina mirrored our choices. The cassoulet was squid, clams, and a huge scallop and prawn in a crab bisque sauce (which definitely had a generous amount of saffron), in a clay dish, surrounded by pastry. Cassoulet fans will be surprised to hear there were no beans in it, but i sure didn't miss them. The wine was a `97 St. Julien Bordeaux; its cost was half the tab (!), but it was definitely superb.

For dessert, we each had variants of the chocolate tarte; Kim and James had the chocolate mandarin, Gina had the chocolate cherry, and i had the triple chocolate (of course). The ladies each had a muscat dessert wine and we men each had a glass of sweet Banyuls.

Service was wonderful. I highly recommended it.