What’s Sauce for the Goose
The marvelous SF Jazz Center
Sunday night we enjoyed seeing Chris Botti again, this time in the new SF Jazz Center. The Center is a magnificent facility, purpose built for concerts. There isn’t a bad seat in the house, and the acoustics are everything you could hope for.
Chris Botti puts on a great show, not just with his own playing but with singers and musicians to whom he gives an impressive amount of stage time. Indeed, the main show finale is a solo by his drummer! I’ve never seen a show as open and generous as this one.
After the music, we moved down 3 blocks to a restaurant named Sauce: Gough. That’s to differentiate it from their other location, Sauce: Belden Place. The Gough street location also includes a 9 room boutique hotel.
This was Restaurant Week, which means they had a special $40 prix fixe dinner. I didn’t want the entire menu (too many mushrooms), but definitely wanted the braised leek and brussels sprouts salad. Sadly, house rules precluded that simple choice. I had to cajole the waitress to cajole the chef to let one of his prized salads out of the kitchen unaccompanied with the remainder of the special. Fortunately, common sense finally won out, and this beauty hit the table:
Braised leek and brussels sprouts salad, topped with strips of white sweet potato.
Gail loves Caesar salad, but isn’t doesn’t really care for the tough ribs of the romaine lettuce. Sauce improves on the norm by making their Caesar with little gem lettuce, and is generous with the anchovies, too.
Caesar salad done right.
My salmon Saturday night was so-so. My salmon Sunday night was great. A decent size portion of properly cooked fish, served atop a spinach salad dressed with olive oil and horseradish–something I’ve never seen before.
Turns out horseradish is a pretty good salad dressing. I really liked this–how often is it that the side dish on the plate upstages the main entreé?
Gail had the stroganoff, and pronounced it excellent.
Braised Beef Short Rib Stroganoff, with Hen of the Wood Mushrooms, Papardelle and asparagus.
Sauce is tres modern, with all local, organic, tree-hugging ingredients. The food is excellent, the service was first rate, the prices were as upscale as the food. We liked it, and will be returning following more concerts at the Jazz Center–they make a good combination.
Totally Unauthorized 