The essential question – what makes a dining experience great? What are the elements that make a dinner out truly memorable?
It’s pretty clear that taste is subjective and while one person may love a restaurant’s food, another will hate it. Context is important too. What would be the point of going to Michael Mina if your enjoyment of the tasting menu is hampered by a horrible blind date? It could mar your experience of the restaurant forever. On the flip side, even the most inarguably dire establishments can seem great, depending on how you came to know it. Sizzler will always hold a special place in my heart and I’m not afraid to admit it. The less said about the food there the better, but I have happy memories of going there with my parents as a kid (childhood fulfillment was attained through some excessive swirling at the frozen yogurt self-serve bar). So, what makes a dinner truly satisfying can be a frequent bafflement for the even mildly food obsessed.
A few weeks ago, my friends and I took advantage of a “Dine About Town” deal in San Francisco and ate at Foreign Cinema. Everything about the restaurant is enchanting - the soft lightening in the warm patio, the French film being projected in the brick courtyard, the refined food, aromatic wine, the white linen tables. We had a great meal…save one thing.
It’s pretty clear that taste is subjective and while one person may love a restaurant’s food, another will hate it. Context is important too. What would be the point of going to Michael Mina if your enjoyment of the tasting menu is hampered by a horrible blind date? It could mar your experience of the restaurant forever. On the flip side, even the most inarguably dire establishments can seem great, depending on how you came to know it. Sizzler will always hold a special place in my heart and I’m not afraid to admit it. The less said about the food there the better, but I have happy memories of going there with my parents as a kid (childhood fulfillment was attained through some excessive swirling at the frozen yogurt self-serve bar). So, what makes a dinner truly satisfying can be a frequent bafflement for the even mildly food obsessed.
A few weeks ago, my friends and I took advantage of a “Dine About Town” deal in San Francisco and ate at Foreign Cinema. Everything about the restaurant is enchanting - the soft lightening in the warm patio, the French film being projected in the brick courtyard, the refined food, aromatic wine, the white linen tables. We had a great meal…save one thing.
The appetizer and dessert portions were tiny. A starter of crab cakes arrived as two 3 inch patties with a sprinkle of frisée on the bottom. We also split many of these dishes so we could try everything, leaving us each with just one or two little bites of each thing. A hefty sounding short rib, the heaviest starter option, was a small parcel of meat eventually divvied up into a forkful per person. However, the entrees were good and we all thought the food was delicious. We left the restaurant largely happy, yet with still a sense of hankering.
Being fortuitously situated in the Mission District, Foreign Cinema is surrounded by taquerías and when we eventually made it out of the restaurant, the temptation proved too strong. Not less than fifteen minutes later, the whole lot of us found ourselves at Taquería Cancun lining up for super carne asada burritos and carnitas tacos with the works. Everything was accompanied by a mound of chips and salsa. There was something about greedily biting into our massive burritos, all of us crammed together sitting on rickety stools in the noisy taquería gleeful at our abject gluttony, that was truly satisfying.
Would Taquería Cancun have been as tremendously fun (and appreciated) if we hadn’t had that meal at Foreign Cinema right before? Perhaps not. Maybe it was the contrast of the two, and the combination of both, that made the night memorable for us.
