Posts Tagged ‘Anchor and Hope’

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Anchor and Hope: The eating begins

July 13, 2010

The Negress perused the menu at Anchor and Hope with an eye to her future. This wasn’t her first time at the place, but it was the first time she had dined alone. Previous dinners featured lively conversation with friends and some oohing and aaahing over the food. Tonight she could concentrate on flavors and interplay and wine selections without intrusion. It seemed best to kick things off with some soup. As much as she had made fun of the bundled-up Californians swaddled in fleece and down when the temps were in the low 60s, she was chilly. Lobster bisque was in order and not just any lobster bisque. “Lobster Bisque Tomato Concasse Chives” is the exact menu description. You receive a bowl with a small mound of lobster in the middle. The server pours the burnt orange soup over that mound and the temperature is perfect. Add the Simmonet-Febvre Brut Rose Cremant de Bourgogne NV and the meal was off to an extremely promising start. Also, Anchor and Hope delivers great bread with a pat of butter lightly sprinkled with sea salt. The Negress used some of the bread to mop up the last of the soup.

Some amazing scallops at Anchor and Hope

I didn't order these this time but I wasn't sorry

Although the Negress had loved the scallops in previous visits, she decided to branch out and try something different. This description caught her eye: Alaskan Halibut white corn puree chantarelles fingerling potatoes and truffled Hollandaise. Would the corn and potatoes be too starchy? Would the state that gave us Sarah Palin do right by halibut? Would the hollandaise be too much? These all seemed like questions worth answering so I ordered.

What wine then? There was a pure Semillon on the list, but the Negress was skeptical. Why not our pal Muscadet? So she ordered the 2008 Claude Branger Muscadet Loire Valley France Terroir les Gras Moutons.

Rarely in the food and wine universe does a gobbler hit upon a moment of perfect pitch. The muscadet and halibut pairing was one of those moments. The fish was ethereal but grounded by the surrounding starches and sauces plus some snap peas and the chanterelles.

The muscadet alone was an intriguing blend of steely and floral, thus making it a wine born for food. The Negress finished the last of the glass and contemplated dessert.

Why not chocolate? Why not cherries? Why not indeed? Enter the Valrhona chocolate brownie with Bing cherry ice cream and almond brittle. The Negress is becoming increasingly fond of darker chocolates (ironic note intended). The Valrhona was lighter than she expected and complemented the cherries well. The almond brittle added a surprising crunch and intermittent bursts of deeply sweet, smoky flavors. A decaf cappuccino finished everything off.

Now, it’s onto to taste the wines of Bonny Doon.

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Anchor and Hope: the atmosphere for food and wine

July 13, 2010

The Negress had dinner at Anchor and Hope in San Francisco recently and there is much to tell. First of all, it is to be hoped that her blog posts will not rival the saga of Gilgamesh in length so she’s addressing this meal and the wines in two parts. You have to have a sense of the place before you can feel how it felt to eat there. So let’s catalog what the Negress saw from her perch at the metal bar.

First of all, from where she sat, there’s a great view of the kitchen and the line cooks deftly plopping hot pans onto raging fire. The cooks are all young and sensitive looking; the kind of guys who listen intently to their girl’s description of her tough day. However, their minds are wandering to the beer splashed on cod in the routine athletics of kitchen work.

The bar staff has one member who is pleasant and seriously bearded. There’s a compact, slightly swarthy guy in charge who seems nonplussed that the music stopped for no reason. He fiddles with a device from Apple and the Kings of Leon start their insistent melancholy. The Negress looks around and sees a couple next to her sharing their food. The male half is wearing a NYSE hat, which is like putting a target on your back. The hat does not seem to be ironic.

The facade of Anchor and Hope

The theatre of food needs a cast

At the tables, a pair of women are tucking into sea urchin. One large table seems to be a mother-daughter gathering with the younger women all blinged out while the presumed Moms looks sensible and funny. Another slinky, blinged-out group comes in, and one pair of shoes in notable for its breathtaking series of design miscalculations. The woman looks like her ankles are wearing leather neckerchiefs, and the toes are impossibly pointy. These shoes say, “I just reduced my hourly rates” and we’re not talking fashion consulting.

The servers are watchful and attentive without helicoptering over the tables. There are some young women in their numbers, wearing ponytails and flowers in their hair. I’m in the hands of the bearded barkeep, who hands me the beer menu and the food menu. He pours me some cold water from a brown glass bottle into a tall glass. The Negress takes a breath. The adventure is about to begin.

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Cadus Malbec, donated Xanax, 5 puttonyo Tokaji and the 14 White Russians lady

February 14, 2009

The Negress experienced quite a panoply of human experience while being at the Newark Airport for 6 hours or so waiting on an extremely delayed flight to San Francisco. I hid out in the President’s Club since drinking is an excellent way to kill time when you are waiting. I had one quartino of Cadus Malbec (vintage not stated) with an English guy who was a huge Tottenham Spurs fan, taught figure skating and was a delighted to meet a Yank with extensive knowledge of soccer. His plane left. I was then joined by three Disney employees who were enchanted and on their way to Orlando. I drank my second quartino of Cadus, gave them some of my Xanax (wouldn’t you?) and made wine recommendations for the California Grill in  Mouse land. Their plane left. Between these encounters I had been chatting with a lightly pierced woman from Newfoundland whose flight had been canceled. She was in the midst of flying back from a month in India. As her drinking escalated (I stopped counting the White Russians at about 14), I found out about how her alcoholic boyfriend lured her back from India a month early saying he couldn’t function without her (I see more than one alcoholic in this picture but I leave you to judge that for yourself). She cut short trip with the usual domestic flight mayhem once experiences in the developing world. However, before her laptop and phone got stolen (which may have been before or after she made out and got drunk with some English guy who not surprisingly went flaccid on her), she found out via Facebook that Alkie boyfriend had been seen in the hangout bar in Newfoundland fondling someone else. Her response? Buy cheap clothes, including a pair of high heel sneakers in Lakers colors and an odd piece of lingerie best described as a combination thong/bustier/onesie. She planned to wear some of the cheap clothes to the hangout to kick Alkie boyfriend in the balls. I know about the odd lingerie because she pulled it out a bag in the President’s Club and showed it to me, along with the tattered, smelly shoes she had worn all through India. Around this time she said, “I’m not drunk. Am I acting drunk?” I could not answer the question. Luckily I left to lounge to board my flight, leaving at 10 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. Arrived at SFO at 2 a.m., picked up rental car and made my way to the Palace hotel, which is gorgeous especially at four a.m. or so. After much needed sleep, I went out Friday night with my dear friend Phillip and had a stunning Viognier and the 5 Puttonyos Tokaji at a groovy seafood place, Anchor and Hope. More Bayside adventures await.

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