Dinner at S

Friday, October 12, 2007

Met friends at MAWL wines for a quick tasting and then ventured forth to a restaurant called "S". http://www.sfinedining.com/, David at MAWL wines had hosted a dinner at this place last week and unfortunately I was having a medical procedure preformed the next day so I could not attend. Everyone that went to the dinner that I talked to raved about it, so I was anxious to try it.

This restaurant is at Westminister Mall. It faces Bolsa and is a separate building from the mall. It basically in front of the Macys/Target area.

I thought the ambiance was really good and they also had a piano player for your enjoyment. I pictured this place in Saigon, before the war. A place where the upper class would go for a fine dining experience.

I had only had Vietnamese food once before and that was at a wedding, so everything was pre-ordered . The Vietnamese wedding and reception was a great experience. Different from our traditional western weddings.

So five of us ventured forth and took a look at the menu. Its a good thing that a couple of dishes had been highly recommended, because the menu was very extensive. But it did have very good descriptions of the dishes and they all sounded great.

We settled on an appetizer plate to start with, two types of spring rolls, one fried and one wrapped in lettuce. Some type of shrimp batter on a sugar cane stick that was fried, spicy meatballs (very good), shrimp, chicken and beef skewers and two great dipping sauces, one peanut and one fish sauce.

We decided to each order one dish and then we could share the meal. Our waiter was top notch (naturally a wanna be actor - in California is there anything else ?), he had the kitchen separate the dinners and put each item on a separate plate. The spinach was on one, the rice in a bowl and the salad also separate. Each of the meat/fish dishes were also kept separate which made for a nice "family style" dinning and a lot less messy than trying to take portions off everyones dinner plate. We had lamb chops, halibut baked a banana leaf, shaking beef (recommened), Chilean sea bass with black bean sauce (also recommended) and duck breast.

All the food was very good, the service and the ambiance was good. Its definitely worth going back again. It is not he most inexpensive place to eat. Most entrees were in the $18 to $22 range and corkage was $12 a bottle which they waive for us which was nice because we had 6 bottles of wine. So the waiter did get a generous tip. I did not look at their wine list but Terry did make a remark about it "You don't want to see it". High priced

I did not keep track of the wines everyone brought, but there was a Zind-Humbrecht Pinot Blanc. I brought a 2002 Saxum Broken Stones Syrah, which was outstanding, and a 2005 Federspiel Rhein Reisling which someone brought back from Austria for me. This wine was dry with a little spice to it and light fruit. It was a nice drinking wine. There also were 2 other red wines and a French white wine. Cannot remember what they were and I did not take notes. I was too busy eating and drinking.

I feel that I am a very lucky person to have good friends and be able to enjoy their company along with good food and wine.