Digesting The Reviews: On The Brick Road
It's always fun when a daring restaurant like Brick gets the Bauer treatment.
Chef Noah Tucker's Tendernob "free-wheeling" eatery might just have the most provoking menu items in the city, and with an encouraging, 2.5-star Chron review, it seems that taking a chance has paid off for the developing experimental chef:
How about cauliflower soup with rosemary and chocolate ($8)? Seared tuna ($19) with pickled papaya, avocado, sea beans and grapes? Or stuffed quail ($22) with foie gras, white peaches and artichokes?Perhaps more than anything, Bauer's praise will encourage more people to finally take the plunge and check out Brick. Experimental, ultra-noveau, foam-filled restaurants can be hit and miss, especially in the simplicity-driven San Francisco dining scene, but the city already regrettably lost one cutting-edge star (Winterland). Here's hoping Brick continues to thrive. [SFGate]He uses contemporary cooking techniques liberally, updating Buffalo wings with confit chicken and Gorgonzola foam ($8). He uses ginger dust on his sashimi ($10), vanilla lemon oil to flavor pan-roasted dorado ($21) with sweet corn and a bacon dashi broth.
As unlikely as some of the combinations may sound, he generally pulls them off, and even if there's a slight miss, the menu is so well priced that most customers don't resent the effort.
Elsewhere in the reviews around town: Carol Ness revisits and drops a deuce upon Alameda's Angel Fish, the Guardian's Paul Reidinger embraces the soothing traditional vibe at Jang Soo BBQ on Geary, SFist checks out the SF institution that is the taco truck and Chowhounds get all riled up over four words: "Best Mexican in SF?"
