Lazy Bear, San Francisco-8/16/2022

1- Whipped scrambled eggs

Bacon, Maple, Hot sauce

The eggs came out on a wooden tray and wooden spoon in a glass measurement cup.

It reminded me of the Egg custard from the French Laundry and also the Egg Arpege from Manresa.

The whipped scrambbled egg is layered with bacon flavor, maple syrup and a house made hot sauce.

The top is creamy and the surprise is the tangy and spicy at the bottom. 

Very lovely first bite.

2- Seafood Duo

Kusshi Oyster, Eureka lemon, Vodka, Honey

Gulf Shrimp, Cherry, watercress

The oysters are inspired by lemon drop martini which was invented in SF in the 70s in a Russian Hill saloon called Heny Africa's.

The bright citrus of a lemon drop is an obvious pairing with oysters, but the little bit of alcohol from the vodka fixes and volatizes the floral aromatics of the citrus zest, really showcasing the unique qualities of the citrus beyond just its acid. Barrhillgin vodka, which is fermented with raw honey, infusing rich aromas of nectar and elderflower. To echo those notes and provide some sweetness local honey is used.

Eureka lemons from local farms at peak season, when they are plump and juicy and ready to surprise everyone with incredible complexity. In addition to the fresh lemon, preserved Meyer lemon that were stow away the previous winter. Through the process of salting and aging in their own brine, they lose their bitterness and acquire a candy-like, intensified, and savory version of their initial flavor.

Cheers to to beginging of the meal.  So far so good.

3- Dry-Aged Beef tartare

Sun gold tomato, shiso, puffed beef tendon

The beef tartare is sandwiched between 2 piece of light and airy puffed beef tendon.

The crispy beef tendon is so light and airy and the beef tartare has a nice texture and so much flavor.  I enjoyed the addition of shisho leaves and the sweet and tart taste of the black berries.

4- White Sturgeon

California Caviar, Apple, Wild foraged greens

What a beautiful presentation!

In the bottom is a delicious creamy sturgeon pate, on top you have 2 types of apples: poached apple (round), and sliced apple, topped with a generous portion of California sturgeon Caviar.

Very decadent and so delicious!

5- San Francisco Halibut

Sorrel, Buckwheat, Cucumber

Halibut Sashimi paired with different cucumber preparation in a sorrell buckwheat sauce.

Beautiful presentation and I really love this dish.

The halibut has such a nice texture combined with the crispiness of the cucumber and the freshness of the buckweat sorrell sauce worked so well together.

6- Lazy Bear Cultured Butter

Pretzel Roll

The following notes are from Lazy Bear's Facebook account:

We’re celebrating a very special occasion today. The first time Chef David served Lazy Bear’s housemade cultured butter was June 8, 2012. It’s our butter culture’s 10th birthday today! Over the past ten years, Chef David and the Lazy Bear team have kept that same unique culture of microorganisms going over time (like a sourdough starter, but primarily lactic acid bacteria, rather than yeast), propagating it from each batch of butter to the next weekly batch.
The bread with which we serve it changes over time, from the classic brown butter brioche toast, to black bread baguettes, spelt & rye parker house rolls, brown bread loaves currently pretzel rolls.
To make the butter, we inoculate fresh strausmilk cream with buttermilk from our last batch (which is full of our culture of lactic acid bacteria). We let that fresh cream ferment for about 5 days in just the right conditions, which turns it into a unique crème fraîche, too acidic to be tasty on its own. After chilling overnight, it's churned in a big stand mixer, eventually separating into butter and buttermilk.

After churning, we hand-squeeze the butter to remove excess buttermilk, but we don’t wash with fresh water. We want to keep a little of that buttermilk present since it provides so much complexity and lactic tang. Then we salt the butter to taste because every batch is a bit different (usually around 1.5% by weight), and then let it age for a couple of days, allowing the salt to pull more buttermilk out. Finally, we re-squeeze to remove excess buttermilk and bring it to its final butterfat content, and re-salt to taste for any final adjustments.
After 10 years, the culture itself has evolved in so many interesting ways! It’s gotten really cheesy in flavor, and super complex. We’re pretty humble about most of the things that we do, but our butter is pretty fucking delicious. With all appropriate humility, it might be the best butter in the world.

7- Summer Sweet Corn

Black Truffle, BBQ Rib, Molasses

A traditional American BBQ dish elevated with truffles by Lazy bear.

Our waiter told us that he could make it " rain all day" with the truffles.

The corn was really incredible sweet and the addition of the truffles took it new heights.  The BBQ rib was tender with a killer BBQ sauce.

I can probably eat this all day.

8- California King Salmon

Stone fruit, Almond, Nasturtium

The following notes are from Lazy Bear's Facebook account:

Summer in the Bay Area is mostly about beautiful produce, from flavor-packed tomatoes to melons and berries, but one of our favorite summer treats is our local run of king salmon. This exquisitely rich and meaty salmon is arguably the best salmon in the world, and we have it right in our backyard. The salmon are hook-and-line-caught within an hour or two of us (at the moment up in Bodega Bay). We get it so fresh from water 2 table that the fish smells like freshly sliced cucumber. We’re using the loin and the belly, paired with stone fruit and almonds.
We’re serving the salmon with grilled peach, fried almonds, nasturtium flower petals, and wild nasturtium capers we made a year ago. The capers (seeds from the nasturtium plant) start out firm and pungent, but soften and take on caper-like characteristics once brined and fermented over time. We also make a vibrant green nasturtium oil to season the almond cream, adding a peppery, herbaceous quality to the richness of the sauce. We swirl the nasturtium oil in along with some of the reduced stone fruit consommé.

Salmon and stone fruit hit their peak seasons around the same time. Chef Tayzoller paired them to let the sweet and acidic fruit compliment the fatty salmon. We weave stone fruit flavor throughout the dish by glazing and marinating the salmon with a consommé made using a blend of the best available peaches, apricots, and nectarines, and letting it reduce to an almost syrupy consistency. We marinate the salmon in brown rice koji, then steam, brush with consommé, and sear to order, letting the glaze caramelize while firming up one side of the filet

Alongside the main plate is a side of smoked salmon belly marinated in a tare that ends up tasting like a stone fruit teriyaki. We tell guests to pick up the salmon belly in the nasturtium leaf and eat it like a taco. 

There is no denying the both dish were delicous but we are getting a bit full by now.

9- Morel Mushroom

English pea, Wild onion, goat cheese

What a gorgeous presentation!

I love the morel (the black little piece sticking out in the first picture), it is very meaty and flavorful.  I also love the sweetness of the peas but I thought the goat cheese emulsion/topping was too salty.

10- Grilled Lamb

Summer Squash, Shishito, basil

The following notes are from Lazy Bear's Facebook account:

Spring lamb–the youngest, least flavorful lamb–has become an unfortunate cliché. We want our lamb to taste like lamb! And we want it nicely marbled. And bigger racks mean we can develop more flavor on the grill. We want that backyard barbecue char! And all of that means not serving “spring lamb.”

We get huge racks from Emigh Ranch, about an hour and a half from us. Continuously operating for over 100 years, Emigh Ranch developed a feeding program that lets them raise lamb nearly to mutton size while keeping that characteristic flavor of lamb (sometimes called “gamey-ness”) in balance. We don’t want to avoid that flavor entirely, or else the lamb won’t taste like lamb. We just want that flavor to be in balance and well-integrated with the other flavors of the lamb

We dry age these racks for two weeks to tenderize and integrate the flavors. We sear the fat caps to start rendering and developing Maillard browning, chill, then marinate in fish sauce and sugar, with a bit of garlic and mustard. The marinade adds umami, balances flavors, and helps with caramelization on the grill. We cook the racks sous vide, á la minute, to get a consistent internal temperature, rest, then grill over charcoal, rendering, caramelizing, and browning. Only after that browning do we start to baste them with a barbecue sauce made from fresh local dates and black garlic.

On the side are three summer squash preparations. In the front, a squash puree. In the middle, a grilled squash heart dressed in shishio and basil and over dried squash blossoms chips. And in the back,  pesto made from nettles, mint, nepitella. We encourage guests to pick these chops up and eat them right off the bone.

Amazing lamb!

NEXT.... Desserts

Filed under: Restaurants