Saturday, December 13, 2008

Date Night Dinner with Melissa Perello

Kevin and I like to do monthly date nights. You know, keeping the romance alive, getting away from the daily grind and all that good stuff. Oh yeah, and creating an opportunity to indulge in culinary decadence of some sort on a monthly basis ...

December's date night happened to fall on a Monday -- one of those Mondays when Melissa Perello (former chef of Fifth Floor Restaurant) happened to be serving one of her $45 four-course dinners at Sebo. Turns out that she misses feeding a restaurant crowd (her new restaurant Frances is in the planning stages) enough to start serving a pre-fixe dinner to a reservations-only crowd on Monday nights when the restaurant is normally closed.And we also happened to snag a reservation for what apparently is rather a hot ticket in this foodcrazed town. And frankly, it wasn't even that hard - I read about it on tablehopper (or was it the Chron?), immediately joined Melissa's email list, and then responded with our reservation request as soon as she announced the dates for December! Easy Peasy... and I told myself that finally I had discovered an upside to working a lot - one can respond to important emails like these as soon as they are received!

We had reservations for the 2nd seating at 8:15pm (the first one is at 6pm would be way too early for us -- and I can see my friend Laura shaking her head in dismay at this!) and showed up at the restaurant, miraculously on time. We made our way through the small throng smoking just outside the door -- majority of the guests that night appeared to be from the bay area restaurant industry, and they were busy socializing with each other and with the servers sneaking in a quick smoke break before start of service.

We were greeted warmly and seated promptly at table 1A, close enough to watch some of the plating action in the open kitchen. This was my first visit to Sebo -- I could not find a website for it, but rumor has it that it serves very pristine and very pricey sushi on other nights in its true incarnation as a sushi joint, and is quite popular in foodie circles. Rumor also has it that Danny, one of the co-owners of Sebo, who is not at all coincidentally Melissa Perello's current arm-candy, also happens to be rather hunky eye-candy.

The restaurant is located in a smallish space with mellow lighting and soothingly uncluttered modern decor in a vaguely Japanese vein. The music playing on the night of our visit is probably best described as danceclub-ish, but thankfully just the thump thump thump of the bass beat was the only thing audible, and it was easy to have a conversation at the table.
The pleasantly unobtrusive but very capable service continued after we were seated and throughout the meal. Given that most of the staff working that night had also worked with Melissa at The Fifth Floor, it was not at all surprising that the service was at least a notch or two above what one could reasonably expect at this price point. Once we got the mildly annoying "bottled or tap/ fizzy or flat water" question out of the way, we were presented with the night's menu: 4 courses for $45 with no choices, based upon whatever was fresh at the previous days' Farmers Markets.

We started with lightly fried almonds - simple but yummy, salty crunchy and warm -- what's not to like? And not too filling - a much better alternative for starting the meal than bread or chips. Already excited at the prospect of a nice meal with a very reasonable $10 corkage, we were even more excited to see roast suckling pig as the main course. We requested the waiter open the bottle of 2001 Scherrer RRV Pinot that we had brought with us. It was smooth with muted but discernible fruit, and just enough mild tannins and acidity to be a good food wine -- once again I was reminded why I like drinking wines, and why I love drinking Fred Scherrer's wines.

The first course of roasted caramelized squash with pickled (and crunchy) currants with a sherry vinaigrette was the highlight of the meal for me - the contrast of the sweet squash with the sourness of the vinaigrette and and the interplay of soft and crunchy textures was just perfect.

The next course was a dungeness crab soup with chunks of very fresh tasting crab - a great way to showcase our local crab which has just come into season. The accompanying mini creme fraiche biscuits stole the show however - the warm, flaky, buttery golden orbs were just irresistible, and it did not matter that they were a bit too heavy for the rather thin soup.

The main course of roasted suckling pig was perfectly cooked, but a bit bland and overly fatty for my taste. I needed the accompanying scalloped potatoes and braised kale in every bite to "brighten" up my meat, but given its perfect symbiosis with our mellow aged pinot noir, I had no complaints. However, in the absence of the wine I might have been slightly less thrilled.

The dessert course was a light and buttery brioche bread pudding with distinct savory notes and it would have been nice with the black tea we asked for, but sadly none could be located. The bread pudding was served with a babyfood textured applesauce that did little to enhance it -- I would have much preferred a scoop of ice cream or caramelized apple slices instead. But my real quibble is that this applesauce was referred to as "apple confit" on the menu. Confit - pray why I ask? Confit = preserve in fat, or in the cases of fruit, perhaps candied. This apple sauce was neither -- even my lazy microwave apple sauce tastes far better.

Thankfully, my disappointment did not last long - the peanut brittle served at the end with our check more than made up for the lacklustre bread pudding. Made from the chef's grandmother's recipe, it was crunchy and yummy, with just the right balance of sweet and salty, and since my date dislikes brittle, I was more than happy to eat both our shares.

Overall, it was a very pleasant experience at a reasonable price -- particularly, the white tablecloth service at no-tablecloth prices. I am not the sort to be star-struck but I enjoyed the opportunity to comment about the meal to a celebrity chef right after she had prepared and served it to us (she stopped by all the tables at the end). I hope she was not offended by my comment that she should consider selling the cool burlap aprons that she had made for her wait- staff. And, if you are interested in repeating the experience, hurry up and email monday_night@me.com - you never know when she will stop doing these fun intimate one-of-a-kind dinners!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

'Twas a nice night! Food had some ho-hums, but some definite highs... And the setting, and the sense of "grasping opportunity by the horns" certainly was sweet -- especially when shared with my cutie :).

Liz Rosas said...

Monthly date night, eh? I may need to steal that idea ;) Let us know if you ever want to double! Hope you guys are well... I am so glad I just "discovered" your blog, Rupa! :)

Dola said...

Honestly Sats, the idea - date night dinner sounds greeeeaaaaat! Njoy, keep eating, keep posting :) Can you post a fine chicken roast that can be cooked for Christmas. exotic herbs will be available in our markets here in Gurgaon , so you need not only think of India friendly ones.