New Delhi Restaurant, San Francisco

Do you find yourself downtown in the evening and needing a nice place for dinner that won’t break your wallet? Looking for a great restaurant experience with good value while holiday shopping in San Francisco?

If you like the rich curries and exotic spices of Indian food, then you are in for a treat. Located in the heart of Union Square, when you walk in the door of New Delhi Restaurant you are enveloped within the warmth and old world spices of India.

From the hustle of Ellis Street, as you enter you’ll see a dark mahogany bar, often full of tourists and downtown workers alike, with a bartender ready to pour you the most delicious fresh mango martini or other house specialty. This is a place that feels like fine dining, having hosted many famous local and international guests, but if you’re wearing jeans you won’t feel out of place.

Exotic spices of India

Come with an appetite or a large group so that you can taste many dishes including the tandoori chicken, the korma, or saag gosht, with tender pieces of lamb and spinach. If you are vegetarian or you have one in your group, there are still lots of amazing dishes on the menu to choose from.

One of my favorites is the baigan masala, eggplant cooked with mild spices. And every meal needs one or two of the naan breads, especially their kabuli naan. Yum! Its sweetness goes perfectly with the spicy curries dishes.

This is a wonderfully exotic choice for lunch or dinner. And if you find yourself ordering more than you can eat, they are always happy to wrap your leftovers for you to take home. Given their incredible selection of savory choices, it has happened to me a few times.

And remember that if you just need a cozy place for a night cap after the theater, their beautiful bar is open late.

photo credit to plastic bystander, warriorgrrl

Fresh peach used in Wom Kim

Hyde Park Bar and Grill in Austin, Texas is your perfect neighborhood restaurant. It is located in, you guessed it, Hyde Park. This is a lovely old neighborhodd in north/central Austin with lots of character, charm and beautiful oak trees. The restaurant itself is inside an old house that would fit in with the rest of the neighborhood except for the giant 2 story fork stuck in the front lawn. The fork is always spearing some sort of food. It has changed over the years from a katsup laced french fry to various ripe vegetables.

Inside, the food and ambiance is always the same. It is very casual but with a slight air of sophistication, ever so slight. The walls are painted a buttery yellow with revolving local artwork. There are several small rooms, one with a fireplace and all the tables are covered with white table cloths. It has a warm cozy feeling that the large dark wooden bar, dominating the main room is somewhat responsible for.

The menu has fresh and well prepared dinner table favorites. From blackened fish and garlic mashed potatoes to their tasty burger and peppered french fries that come with the house made secret dipping sauce. But, I didn’t come here to talk about their great dinners. I want to talk about their desserts…one in particular.

Hyde Park Bar and Grill has the distinct honor of preparing my very favorite dessert in Austin, Texas…if not the entire universe! Wom Kim’s Peach Pudding has been on their menu for years, perhaps since they first opened their doors in 1982. At least, I like to think so.

Let me describe it to you: A moist soft cake made with buttermilk and filled with ripe slices of peach and then served warm with a ramakin of cold thick Devonshire cream. You pour the cream over the moist delicious cake and the rivaling temperatures, texture and flavors in your mouth are worthy of a standing ovation. I can hardly stand to write about it without drooling. In fact, I better step away from this keyboard until I have my salivary glands under control!

As much as I dream of this dessert, I would still frequent the restaurant, with or without it. The laid back Austin atmosphere makes you feel like you are dining in a old friend’s house, an old friend who cooks extremely tasty meals and has a fantastic home bar. If ever in Austin, you should try out this culinary gem.

Here are some details:

House Park Bar and Grill
4206 Duvall Street
(512) 458-3168
www.hydeparkbarandgrill.com
Open: Monday-Sunday, 11am to Midnight

Don’t forget to order Wom Kim’s Peach Pudding!

Photo credit to TotalAldo

Classic drinks at Harris' Restaurant

Looking for a quintessential San Francisco steakhouse? Need an elegant restaurant for your rehearsal dinner or other special event? Harris’ is a landmark that is a must for anyone looking for sophistication in their food, its presentation and entire dining experience. They have been ranked as one of the nation’s Top 10 Steakhouses by the Wine Spectator.

This is one of my favorite places to go for birthday dinners or when I have family visiting. Definitely put on your nice clothes, bring your appetite and take a cab here, because you will have one of the best meals in the world with all the traditional sides and decadent desserts. I recommend reservations and when you make them, ask for one of their plush booths!

Harris’ also serves the coldest and wettest martinis, with your waitperson bringing the vodka or gin in its own iced single serving glass decanter and mini wooden bucket to your table, before elegantly pouring it into your glass. The refined atmosphere here is perfect for business dinners. If you have to wait in the lounge before your table is ready, you won’t be disappointed. There is a cool montage of San Francisco scenes based on an original painting by artist Antonio Sotomeyer on the wall.

Harris' Butcher Counter

Besides the upscale décor and refined menu, what makes Harris’ unique to the city is its famous butcher counter in the front of the restaurant. Every evening you can pick from aged, Mid-western, corn-fed beef. They offer it in a variety of cuts including a Harris Steak (bone-in New York), a Filet Mignon and an entire Filet Strip.

If you want a great meal with some of the best sides ever, like the divine scalloped potatoes or sautéed button mushrooms then I suggest calling now. I’m sure, like the best steakhouses in San Diego, this is the time of year when Harris’ will certainly be filled with diners celebrating the holiday season.

Photo credits to Harris’ Restaurant

Homemade tortellini

It takes more than a scorching to keep a good restaurant’s doors closed, as the owners of La Trattoria in Olde Town Greenwood have proved. The Indiana entrepreneurs recently reopened in a newly built structure, which became their only option after the original bricks and mortar went up in smoke earlier this year.

Happily, the new digs on North Madison Avenue still resemble the early 20th century house that lent such charm to a plate of spaghetti. Of course, this is the 2008 version, so the entrance is now at the front door where diners feel like welcomed guests as opposed to the side door where you weren’t sure if you were asking for a table or applying for a job. The handicapped ramps are good news as well.

And who wouldn’t feel at home walking across Bella Vernici flooring, surrounded by warm brown shades of paint on the walls and ceilings. It’s probably no accident the designers call these shades toasty.

The porch and adjacent dining room accommodate 78 diners at a sitting, the same seating capacity as before. But now the kitchen has doubled its size, which led our party to think the menu might have doubled as well.

Nope. It’s the same homemade pasta we Hoosiers know and love: a rich tortellini alla panna that I can never get over long enough to try something else on the menu, a penne with ham and peas that calls my husband’s name, and those perfect, succulent steaks that have won local awards for owners Tom and Rene Trotter. Predictably, my friend ordered hers medium rare.

Best of all, they kept the bread coming: a moist, chewy flatbread that disappears from the basket like butter on your baked potato. Everyone ate just two pieces, but somehow the five of us snarfed through 24 slices sometime between the salad and the main entree.

It was the comfort food we thought we’d lost forever.

Never mind they’ve added pounds to our waistlines — and thus hours on our treadmills‚ we aren’t the only Indianapolis residents thrilled to have La Trattoria’s authentic Italian cuisine back on the restaurant circuit. Just a few days after the official re-opening, you couldn’t spot an empty table and the new lobby was packed with dressed-up diners waiting for us to quit lingering and give them a chance at ordering.

“I never realized how wanted this place was until it was gone,” Tom Trotter told the local newspaper. Tom, dear, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it clears out the cholesterol.

The April fire may turn out to be a brilliant business turn for years to come.