Calf's brains

Restaurant: Incanto (San Francisco)
Food description: Calf's brains with white chanterelle mushrooms, capers, and lemon
Food rating: 8.5 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

Sorry if brains gross anyone out, but I think it's fun to get a little avant-garde with my cuisine. I had all these bad brain jokes lined up for this post, but then I remembered I actually want to keep my readers. So for those of you who never had brains, here's your chance to live vicariously through mine (I couldn't resist). I've been dying to try them for a while but was advised against it by a chef friend of mine cuz of all the mad cow nonsense, not to mention my organ of choice has typically been sweetbreads, which I thought would be hard to beat. But dowse anything in chanterelles & gravy and it's tough to go wrong, no? Anyway, after first cutting into a brain, the inside was white and soft like silken tofu--no muscle fibers to speak of. The texture was incredibly smooth and basically melted in your mouth the same way uni does. It's extremely fatty and rich like pâté, but milkier and only a tad livery. With the wonderful chanterelle gravy and a little lemon and capers to cut the heaviness, it turned out fantastic! I'm sure there's places where you should and shouldn't order brains, but Incanto can definitely be trusted with a tricky dish like this. I encourage all you squeamish ones to try it just once here. Just close your eyes and you won't be disappointed!

Braised pork shoulder

Restaurant: Incanto (San Francisco)
Food description: Braised pork shoulder with grilled watermelon, tarragon, and onion
Food rating: 6 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

Pappardelle with faraona sugo

Restaurant: Incanto (San Francisco)
Food description: Pappardelle with faraona sugo (guinea hen), escarole, and grapes
Food rating: 8.5 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

Pasta too thick, hard to fork
Crispy skin awesome and stayed crunchy but very oily and rich (deep fried)
Hen was shredded, tender, but heavy, darker gamier meat but flavorful
Got boring after a while
grapes very sweet but couldn't overcome oilyness
No sauce, just juices from veggies and meat
endive crunchy and added nice flavor to meat
Overall very unique combo of ingredients, but left my mouth too oily

Chitarra al nero with braised octopus

Restaurant: Incanto (San Francisco)
Food description: Chitarra al nero (squid ink pasta) with braised octopus and cherry tomatoes
Food rating: 8.5 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

This dish was the star of the evening

Sauce was thick and just salty enough, seafoody, thick and hearty but light finish, ink not bitter, tomato added just right amount of acid to balance
Octopus tender and fatty (not oily) and copious, delicious!
Tomatoes a little awkward, pushed those aside

and for a nominal $16 bucks, who'd have thunk it?

Food review: Beef short ribs and oxtail adobo

Restaurant: Firefly (San Francisco)
Food description: Slow braised beef short ribs and oxtail adobo with jasmine rice, sauteed long beans, quail egg, and spicy banana condiment
Food rating: 7.5 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

This dish was pure deee-li-cious-ness! It's one of those dishes that you savor each bite v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y to the point that you're still eating it when it's cold, which is basically torture since you really just prefer to inhale it. It'd be totally worthy of a higher score if the short ribs weren't tragically overcooked. I really think that overcooking stuff is a big no-no for a restaurant of this caliber, but luckily, everything else about the dish was a big yes-yes. So now that I've gotten the ugly part out of the way, let's talk about the luscious sauce. The meat was braised in a wonderful adobo sauce, which was really my favorite aspect of the dish. It was just the right consistency, not runny, nor thick, and wow--what amazing flavor! It was as if you cooked 10 steaks and reduced the drippings down into a concentrated beef gravy and then stewed it with the meat for several hours. After combining the sauce with the fattiness of the meat, you've got yourself some impressive flavor. As for the meat, the oxtail was so tender it just fell apart with one touch. It was flavorful and fatty, but the fat was marbled so it just dissolved without needing to be trimmed. The short ribs were less fatty and didn't have as much flavor as the oxtail, so regardless of the fact that they were overcooked, I would've preferred another oxtail instead of the short ribs.

Given the heartiness of all that red meat, you'd think it'd be heavy, but it wasn't, especially with the side of plain jasmine rice. I was literally eating it well after it had gotten cold. As far as the other sides are concerned, I barely paid much attention to them. The quail egg was interesting, but it didn't seem to fit, and the beans were pretty tasty and cooked to a nice al dente. The banana "condiment" was oniony, and I'm assuming was to cut the saltiness and fattiness of the meat, but it just wasn't for me. Given how tasty the meat was, I didn't really need much else to be happy--except of course that they overcooked the short ribs! Fantastic otherwise.

Food review: Shrimp and scallop potstickers

Restaurant: Firefly (San Francisco)
Food description: Shrimp and sea scallop potstickers with sesame soy dipping sauce
Food rating: 8 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

I'm baaaaack!! After a short wisdom-teeth-go-bye-bye recovery period, it's sooo great to be back and eatin' like a pro again! It was particularly great to have these potstickers as one of the first real dishes I've had in a while. Michael Bauer didn't lie when he said these were their signature dish. The savory shrimp and scallops were succulent and scrumptious and the sesame soy sauce subtly supplemented its splendid flavor. (Ok, I'll stop now.) The seafood filling wasn't your typical ground up hodgepodge of meat, but huge distinguishable pieces of tender shrimp and fresh scallops that really showcased the seafood as the star ingredients. A touch of ginger, scallions, and sesame oil accented the seafood nicely without overpowering. These potstickers deserve an award for having a skin that is exactly the right thinness to be crispy all around, yet doesn't crumble when you pick it up. Unfortunately, the skin came out just slightly overcooked (see photo) to give off a subtle burnt oil flavor--not bad enough to really ruin anything, but enough to dock the score a tad. If I had a choice between mushy & not burnt and crispy & slightly burnt, I'd prefer the latter (I'm trying to say it could've been worse). That's really my only complaint, and I'd like to try them again, since that wasn't the only thing that came out of the kitchen overcooked that night. And one last thing: even though the potstickers were really tasty and I wanted to order more, I really don't think it's good enough to be their signature dish (sorry if I sound like a b!%&$). Maybe the fried chicken would qualify for such a distinction?

Food review: Fried chicken

Restaurant: Firefly (San Francisco)
Food description: The "Fried Chicken of Your Dreams" with mashed potatoes & gravy,
peas & carrots and a "damn fine buttermilk biscuit"
Food rating: 8.5 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

When I had a craving for some fried chicken I started Yelping, and this is what I found: Fried Chicken of Your Dreams. When Cathy backed up the Yelper's, I had to give it a shot. I mean, "of your dreams" is a pretty serious promise, but the verdict is.... Firefly delivers. The skin was so tasty: perfectly crisp, not overbreaded or too greasy, and full of flavor. The chicken itself was so juicy and tender, it just melted in your mouth! Mmmmmmm... I would definitely recommend it. I basically rated this dish solely on the chicken. The carrots and peas were pretty basic--I felt like I could cook up some carrots and peas that I found in the frozen section in Safeway and get the same result--in fact I think that's maybe what they did. The mashed potatoes were ok but I feel like they could have (should have) been better, after a little bit they hardened up and stuck together and weren't very "mashy" anymore. Also they really weren't light and fluffy like any good heap of mashed potatoes to start with, and I felt like the mash should have been on par with the chicken, but the gravy was pretty damn good. The muffin / thing (biscuit?) was actually friggin awesome, served with heated butter and honey on the side, super light and fluffy but became dense in your mouth in that sticky dough yummy way. I would have given the dish a 9 if the whole was on par with the chicken and muffin, but it scored an 8.5 based mostly on the chicken and not the fillers.