Mr Al Young Dot Com

Its time for another post about fine dining. I have not wrote about food for awhile because I have not had the opportunity to go out for a nice meal lately. Until now. Last week we had the chance to celebrate my 41st birthday at Boulevard in San Francisco. Boulevard is one of the finer restaurants in San Francisco, and one we always enjoy, but don’t get to very often. Boulevard is very busy during the holidays, and despite being fairly expensive was booked up for most of the month. We were lucky to get a cancellation, so we grabbed it, and had a early dinner on a Friday night.

The only thing better than a fine, relaxing dinner without kids is a free relaxing dinner without kids. Thanks to a $150 gift certificate we received for Christmas last year, we had a free dinner at Boulevard…….almost. I’ll explain later. I made the cardinal mistake of blogging by forgetting to bring my camera, so I can’t share pictures of my meal. If you need a visual picture to whet your appetite, here are some pictures from the restaurant’s web site. Also, here are some pictures of another fine meal I had in Carmel.

For starters, Christine had the slow cooked homemade bacon, maple cured and applewood smoked on a Japanese Pumpkin Bisque, and Baked apple with farm house cheddar and walnuts. Interesting dish, tastes like bacon, but has the texture of ham. Not bad. For my appetizer, I had the Monterey Calamari stuffed with Dungeness Crab. It was on a watermelon radish sauce that was very tangy. As is often the case, the appetizer was the highlight of the meal. It was excellent. I guess you can be more creative with appetizer dishes. There is only so much you can do with chicken or meat, that has not been done before. Maybe next time I will try several appetizers instead of ordering an entree.

For the main course, I had the Suckling pig which was pig prepared 3 different ways, wood oven roasted, slow braised, and saltimboca. It was served with carrots and truffled potatoes. It was very flavorful, but my only complaint is that the roasted pig part looks like a piece of pig with skin just like you get in Chinatown, except for that price I could have got the whole pig in Chinatown, and not just 1 bite. As expected, the portions were small, but fortunately Christine had the rack of lamb which she could not finish. Not spectacular, but no complaints form me.

For dessert, we shared the Chocolate cake with English Toffee Crunch. Desserts are pricey at Boulevard, almost $11, so we decided to share the dessert. I thought that might keep us under the $150 gift certificate, but I was wrong. I must have miscalculated in my head because the bill came to $160. Probably a drink or appetizer too many. After tax, tips, and valet parking, I was about $50 over the limit. Still, $50 for dinner for two at a nice restaurant in San Francisco is not bad. If you get a chance, give Boulevard a try.