I’m reporting back after a great trip to the Bay Area.
We started with a couple of days in Carmel, where we ended up eating at Basil and La Balena, mostly because they were pretty close to where we were staying. We enjoyed Basil much more than La Balena; the food at Basil was simply prepared but executed very well, whereas the food at La Balena missed the mark – the grilled peach in the peach salad was very under-ripe, the fried cauliflower had no texture other than being very soft, and so on. Basil also cost much less than La Balena (although we still found it fairly pricy for what it was; I guess that’s what happens in a town like Carmel).
On our way back to SF, we had lunch at AappaKadai, which was one of my favorite places of the trip. As I mentioned when @bbulkow recommended it, we’ve never been to a specifically Chettinad restaurant, and we really enjoyed trying the appams and a Chettinad curry. The curry was not as spicy hot as I thought it might be, but the flavors were wonderful. Now we’re excited to try more Chettinad food when we have a chance.
Dim sum at Dragon Beaux was excellent; I think this is the first dim sum restaurant I’ve been where there’s an actual tea menu. We really like Taiwanese high mountain tea, so it was great to have some with the meal; my one criticism is that they kept the leaves in the teapot, so the tea became stronger as it sat - a pity for such good tea. Everything we ordered was well-prepared, and we particularly enjoyed the baked BBQ pork bao, abalone and chicken sticky rice in lotus leaf, and abalone tart. The menu had so many interesting-looking dishes that I wish we’d had an opportunity to go back and try more!
We ate at a couple of Sichuan places, Royal Feast and Chef Zhao Bistro in San Mateo. We enjoyed both, with the food at Royal Feast seeming a little more complex to us. (But it’s hard to make a direct comparison since we ordered completely different things.) One of my favorite dishes at Royal Feast was their cold eggplant salad; it was quite an odd color (more blue than purple) but really refreshing.
And we had a couple of modern South Indian meals at Rasa and Dosa; had we realized how similar they were, we probably wouldn’t have gone to both, but we don’t have restaurants like this in Boston, so we still enjoyed them.
While I was in my baking class, DH checked out a bunch of other places and especially praised Arsicault’s croissant, Noosh, and Oren’s Hummus. And we were both very appreciative (and envious) of the abundance of strawberries and peaches in the farmers’ markets!
Thanks again to everyone for helping us have a great trip!