A small turn out for this month’s Dine About SF at Fish and Farm restaurant, with just the Phans and the Chos. I like to congratulate Avis and John on becoming proud parents to two beautiful little girls, Juliet and Sabrina. We hope to see them soon in our future DASFs.
Fish and Farm is another one of the many new restaurants that is following the trendy concept of the moment – organic and local (all its ingredients are sourced within a hundred miles of the restaurant). It is a small restaurant (in the Mark Twain Hotel) that serves up delicious “New American” cuisine. We walked away satisfied and quite please with the food.
On to the reviews:
Food = 88
The appetizers were the standouts, we had the grilled Monterey squid will citrus and fennel, fried oysters with a celery root remoulade and Meyer lemon marmalade and a home made parpardelle pasta with winter vegetable. The pasta was perfectly cooked and the sauce flavorful. The squid was tender and nicely seasoned. The fried oyster was light, crunchy on the outside and moist and creamy on the inside. The celery root remoulade that accompanied the oysters was excellent. Main courses were solid all around. We had the bone-in rib eye, the sable fish and the gnocchi. Particularly good was the house-made gnocchi with roasted pumpkin. The Chef definitely has a knack for home made pastas. For desserts, we ordered the persimmon bread pudding with cinnamon sabayon and the huckleberry and pear crumble. I’m a huge fan of persimmons and when I saw the persimmon bread pudding, my eyes lit up but when the desserts came out, I was disappointed to see that it was regular bread pudding garnished with a few slices of persimmons. The huckleberry and pear crumble, however, was quite delicious. We also noticed that the same ingredient was used multiple times on the same menu – a must for a small restaurant.
Atmosphere = 85
Fish and Farm is a cozy small restaurant. We sat in a chocolate-colored booth, very comfortable. The room is decorated with vintage boat oars, a giant clock, and paintings of fishermen and farmers. It was a little on the noisy side.
Service = 83
Service was solid all around but on the slow side…perhaps intentionally. They kept our water glasses full.
According to Victor, the “John” was part of the Mark Twain hotel and does not deserve a "John on the Jon" haiku!
