restaurant review: chou chou, san francisco

[rone]

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.

Comments

[2wanda.livejournal.com]

James and Gina eat at this restaurant regularly, as it is walking distance from their house. When we walked in the place, the sommelier and waitress came up to them and enthusiastically embraced them and gave them kisses on each cheek. They are well loved there, which I'm sure is the reason why we got all the complimentary food. I suspect that had it been just rone and I, we would have been treated much differently.