1550 hyde i am loving these discussions we're having, about the intricacies of asian vocabulary and food. but on my birthday, i went to 1550 hyde. we got a super-late reservation as they were basically totally booked. we started with a sparkling rose, which was served with a bit of lemon peel floating in it, which i've never seen before -- is this typical? we got four appetizers for the table. marinated olives, which made me decide i liked olives after all -- at least the salty black ones. the green ones, not so much. the antipasto was excellent, with the same olives, delicious slices of meaty goodness, some squishy bread like thing which i later identified on the menu but still don't know what it was, and some really yummy mushroom crostini. the softshell crab was served atop a bed of pea tendrils that were lightly sauteed. and an arugula and fig salad, i think it had goat cheese on it. for our entree, three of us ordered the chicken -- it was tender and flavorful and perfect with the morel mushrooms that had that wonderful 'Q-Q' (i like that) texture. This was atop a bed of whole corn polenta. Ohhhh yummmmm. I snuck a taste of the pasta dish which was pretty good. Also at our table was the rib eye but I didn't hear anything about how that was. For dessert, the chocolate pot de creme -- rich and perfect to split even between 4. They have excellent shortbread cookies. While I was waiting for the restroom, some guy in the kitchen offered me cookies and I got to try a couple almond biscotti. Oh and the zinfandel we had was good, but I always like it. Good stuff. Discovered that my roommie's new love interest (who was present) cooks at farallon, so we'll be checking that out soon.. I need to learn to write better food porn. In the meantime, here's an update on what's been cooking in my kitchen: Last week the farm share included: fingerling potatoes, a ridiculous looking armenian cucumber (quickly transformed into a cucumber/red onion/spicy/cashew salad), plums (megan reduced them to a plum sauce served atop tofu which was too light for the sauce), green beans, garlic, corn (i love this corn), grapefruit, zucchinis, and a couple tomatoes, as a preview.. On the less gourmet end, I made devil's food cupcakes (pillsbury) and threw in a bag of chocolate chips to make them really decadent. Yesterday I was really psyched to go to the supermarket (i haven't been in rainbow in about a month), but they were closed for gay pride day!!! I love my supermarket :) Have I expounded upon my love for rainbow grocery in this venue? It's the best. My only complaint, which isn't even a complaint, is that it is vegetarian and I have to go elsewhere to buy meat. The bulk section is the size of a convenience store. The produce is organic, fresh, and comparable to chain supermarket prices -- much cheaper than whole foods. The cheese department is super helpful, and buying eggs is always a traumatic ethical experience -- they carry about 8 different brands of eggs, and they have a spreadsheet on the fridge door explaining the pros and cons of each brand -- are the chickens.. free range? debeaked? fed a veg diet? kept in cages? force molted? and so on. I end up spending about 15 minutes comparing the spreadsheet to the prices and weighing my options. Y'all need to take a field trip here.