VALENTINE'S DAY DINNER

I have two fav nearby restaurants: The Peasant & The Pear and RÊVE Bistro. Plus, I have four fav strategies for V-Day: #1 dine out #2 take out #3 cook at home #4 take out on another night next week

I am taken by takeout!

In the past month, I’ve brought takeout meals home from The Peasant & The Pear and from RÊVE Bistro here in the East Bay area of San Francisco. Both are fine restaurants. Both were fine meals. RÊVE, as it happens, has earned Michelin Guide recognition of late. The Peasant & The Pear is a roaringly celebrated local killer of a restaurant. Think about it. V-Day surely calls for good stuff from such restaurants . . . maybe lobster ravioli, beef Wellington, short ribs, salmon.

But better hop to it! Even take out can sell out . . . .

The Peasant & The Pear Trip Advisor Review | Yelp Review | Web Site

RÊVE Bistro Trip Advisor Review | Yelp Review | Michelin Guide | Web Site

The Peasant & The Pear

Lamb shank slow-braised, served with polenta, demi-glace, gremolata

French onion soup

Cassoulet

Flourless chocolate cake with caramel sauce and crushed macadamia nuts

RÊVE Bistro

Unctuous Beef Bourguignon made with beef cheeks

Sourdough bread

French onion soup topped with croutons, gruyère & Comté cheeses

Caesar salad

Ile Flottante is poached meringue over creme anglaise, caramel sauce & pistachios

What’s your dine-somewhere-extra-special restaurant?

The San Francisco Bay Area is packed with restaurants —from the simple to the sublime. It’s a multicultural hub: French, Indian, Italian, Korean, Thai, Chinese, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Moroccan, and Japanese, for starters, folks live her. So, naturally, the food of those nationalities is among the types of restaurants here. But the point is not what a bountiful area I live in, but this: What do you like to eat on a special occasion such as Valentine’s Day, wherever you happen to live or be visiting —above the fruited plain here in America as the lovely hymn America The Beautiful celebrates— in countryside, in small towns, in medium-sized cities and, yes, of course, in those big cities with a gazillion choices?

As a matter of strategy for your future reference, I’d like to tell you about an experience I had when I wanted to dine for the first time at RÊVE Bistro recently. I really wanted to go there on my birthday in January. As it happens, my wife and I were dog-sitting on that day, which triumphed over my plans —but just for that day. We rescheduled dinner for the next weekend. Even did takeout. That turned out to be a worthy Plan B.

Another Plan B might well have been to make a special lamb shank meal myself since that’s what birthday boy was hankering for. I could have checked out a couple of my fav recipe newsletters/blogs: Yummly | Relish | Taste. Each had worthy suggestions. But all those recipes on those websites are way more than I usually want to process, although I could have just skimmed the long lists and come up with one acceptable dish. Then on to the pureed (not mashed!) potatoes. Pommes Puree. For an unusual vegetable, I’d check in with a new bestie chef. He’s got beaucoup creative ideas—or bookoo in English, if you will, but I’m leaning here on a lovelier French word in a pathetic effort to teach myself some French. He is Jamie Oliver. I don’t really do dessert, so that’s it for this special meal.

So have at it, one way or another, Valentine’s Day special occasion seeker . . . .

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