Boulettes Larder Lunch, Ferry Building: San Francisco

Date:  vendredi 4 decembre 2009
Location:  1 Ferry Building Marketplace
San Francisco, CA 94111
phone (415) 399-1155
http://www.bouletteslarder.com/index.html

Reservations absolutely necessary - request the communal table in the open kitchen dining room if possible.  Else you will be stuck eating in the Ferry Building hallway on the side next to the restrooms and ATM.  Be prepared to enjoy a relaxing minimum 2 hour lunch affair.  An afternoon at Boulettes Larder is not to be rushed through.

Boulettes Larder is a warm, inviting, cozy, and relaxed experience.  You will share a communal table for a total of 11 guests.  Most of the guests sitting with you will hopefully be fellow foodies so that you may share colorful banter;  experienced discourse regarding foods and restaurants in the San Francisco region and comparing it to other places around the world.  It is not the type of place one would choose to dine at unless you passionately appreciated superbly fresh, seasonal, local, organic cooking - you might not be able to appreciate what you were masticating in your mouth...  

Boulettes serves French country rustic breakfast, brunch, and lunch.  You will sit and dine right up next to the Montague stoves in the open kitchen.  You will watch the professional chefs work with ease and grace as they prepare your dish with seriousness.  Each ingredient is cooked in the perfect temperature for the exact right amount of time.  Nothing is too well done nor undercooked.  Each ingredient's true character is allowed to shine through in the dish, playing its role as a dominant flavor or secondary one.  They do a very good job here...  and keep in mind this is rustic French country cooking, so do not expect fine dining super meticulous, fussy presentations.  Nothing too contrived here in Boulette's kitchen...  I grew to like it.  

All of their ingredients are very special...  down to the tiniest nuances of mysterious spices hidden in the secret subliminal after thoughts of that last bite of dessert.  Every vegetable, meat, fruit, is carefully chosen and transported from a local organic farm.  This ensures the quality in freshness and its no wonder the dishes are so tasty.  Fresh local organic truly makes all the difference.  When I stayed in Beirut for one month, the local food was so amazing and tasty.  My memories of Fatoush and Falafel can never be replaced anywhere in the world, simply because I cannot procure local Beirut ingredients (ecwn tomato, rocket, etc.) here in San Francisco.  Likewise, San Francisco cuisine cannot be replicated anywhere in the world due to the source of ingredients.  The terroire and grape vines in France cannot be replicated in Napa... 

I fully enjoyed my entire dining experience on this particular Friday for lunch.  I was worried that we would lose our seating at the communal table since we arrived about 10 minutes late (SF restos are not so kind when it comes to saving your table for tardiness).  We got lucky.  Comfortably seated, I had a full view of the master chef French style open kitchen with copper pots and pans hanging from the top.  The sun was shining in from the Embarcardero water and Bay Bridge behind me.  The cool fresh air gently waved in from the large sliding open doors behind me.  Calm, peaceful, quiet.  Just food, and enjoyable company.

We dined with 3 extreme foodies from out of town (Los Angeles and San Jose).  They had reservations at the Ritz Dining Room later that evening and asked us for our recommendations for dinner and brunch.  We both agreed Spruce was a must eat.  Casual lunch we recommended Toast, La Boulange... These folks were on a mission to eat their way through their stay in the city, just my kind of visitors.  Happy lunch experience indeed on a beautiful (and freezing cold) Friday in San Francisco.   

Drink:  2005 Danjean-Berthoux Givry, Burgundy, France.

Eat:
-Acme bakery bread with sweet butter.
-Stuffed cabbage rolls, creme fraiche and celery root puree.
-Yogurt and chili marinated chicken leg, black chickpeas, roasted feta, escarole salad, za'tar and pomegranate seeds.
-Blue bottle coffee.
-Pistachio tartlet, mandarin ice cream, citrus sauce, cardamom spices.