Well Fed On the Town

Shuna “Fish” Lydon is known and loved by many people in the foodblogging community, bloggers and readers alike. She is admired in the blogosphere for her professional perspective on food, as well as her sensual prose. I have taken several cooking classes with Shuna and found her to be an engaging and knowledgeable teacher, encouraging her students to use all their senses when learning to work with food. At her classes, I had the privilege of tasting some of her unique desserts, such as goat yogurt panna cotta with rhubarb compote, and lemon verbena meyer lemon ice cream. Her desserts are complex, unusual, not too sweet, and “fruit-inspired”–a pastry chef after my own heart.

I was glad to hear that savory chef Michael Dotson and Shuna were to collaborate on a new restaurant, and quite excited to attend a pre-opening dinner and the opening festivities. Starting a new restaurant is an enormous endeavor, but also a great opportunity for Shuna to user her talents unencumbered. I am pleased to support Shuna at her new position, especially when doing so is such a delight to the senses. (As you may have guessed, the preceding two paragraphs are ample evidence of my lack of objectivity regarding Sens Restaurant.)

The cuisine at Sens Restaurant is “inspired by the Southern Mediterranean, focusing on Turkey, North Africa and Greece.” The menu includes an abundance of lamb, fish, and seafood, as well as goat and sheep’s milk cheeses. A number of dishes are baked in the traditional wood-burning oven, such as the Turkish flat bread and the market vegetable casserole. Everything is prepared from locally sourced, sustainably grown vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish–and it shows. The wine list is fairly extensive. In addition to French, Spanish, and Italian wines, the list includes wines from a variety of other regions including Lebanon, Israel, Australia, and Greece, to name a few.

The look and feel of Sens is both magnanimous and cozy. The walls are stone and brick, with rustic wood beams here and gauzy curtains there, and large windows overlooking the bay. Tables are intimate yet accommodating, with leather chairs comfortable enough to pass as living room furniture. I was charmed by the warm-toned earthenware plates, the recycled wine bottles turned water glasses, and the beautiful wooden grain threshers discreetly covering the entrance to the restrooms. The WC area even has a small external waiting room, replete with a comfortable leather bench, food magazines and a view of the bay. The open kitchen enhances the homey atmosphere, without being messy or loud. I wondered how all the cooks and chefs manage to work efficiently without raising much of a racket, but the background music piped through the restaurant may have something to do with it. I was amused to hear Ofra Haza played among the Mediterranean and North African music.

The service at Sens is attentive and knowledgeable, without being overly formal. Both servers had first-hand knowledge of the menu, and were able to offer recommendations and guidance. Flatware and plates were promptly cleared, and new flatware was provided for each course. (A pet peeve is being handed back my own used cutlery from a dish as it’s being cleared.) Servers were even kind enough to clear away crumbs between courses, not just before dessert.

Following are my first impressions of various items from the current menu:

• Olives–According to our server, the olives served at Sens are unpasteurized, apparently a rarity in the United States. These olives are excellent, mainly salt and brine-cured, as far as I could tell.
• Turkish flat bread–Baked in the restaurant’s wood-burning oven, the flat bread is crisp on the bottom and slightly soft on top. It is topped with braised greens, Sonoma Crescenza cheese, walnuts, and carmelized onions. The cheese is delicate, not overwhelming, the greens earthy, and the walnuts–with their bittersweet crunch–are a nutty foil to the bread and cheese. Sens serves the flat bread cut in ribbons, piled neatly in a sunburst pattern. The ribbons are far less messy to eat than a round or oblong pizza. This clever presentation also lightens the dish by turning it into dainty finger food. My only reservation about the dish was the strong flavor of caramelized onions. While their sweetness balances the bitterness of the walnuts and deepens the flavor of the greens, the onions overpower the other flavors. Rather than topping the flat bread with chopped onions, perhaps a few thinly sliced rings would suffice.
• Grilled vitelloni tongue–Served with chunks of green olive and cranberry beans, this dish is perfect. The soft, tender slices of tongue fairly melt on the, er, tongue, contrasting with the plump, turgid beans. A savory reduced sauce enrobes the whole lot, speckled with the acid saltiness of green olives. It’s a pleasurable combination: the feel of the soft meat and the firm bite of the beans as they release their creamy starch.
• Seasonal greens–This salad includes greens, parsley, and pomegranate, and is dressed in a honey-coriander vinaigrette. The use of parsley in the salad is a nod to traditional Middle Eastern salads. The vinaigrette is quite tasty, and the salad was perfectly dressed with neither too much nor too little.
• Market casserole–A lovely vegetarian dish fit for an omnivore. My companinon “A” was very pleased with this dish, and I was pleasantly surprised. The vegetables are stuffed with farrakeh (an ancient grain), and dotted with squares of halloumi cheese. Having been baked in a wood-burning oven, the vegetables are permeated with a delightful smoky flavor. The high temperature oven allows the vegetables to remain firm and juicy.
• Wolfe Ranch quail–Sens serves their roasted quail with cockles, merguez meatballs, and fingerling potatoes in jus. The quail is perfectly succulent with a crisply browned skin, and is stuffed with the sourdough bread served at the beginning of the meal. The sour softness of the stuffing is a pleasant surprise. The potatoes are starchy and soft while still retaining an al dente firmness. The potato skins are an astingent, earthy balance to the richness of the jus and the creamy potato flesh. While I enjoyed the bread stuffing, it was a bit too soft, and might have used a good toasting before being filling the bird. While the merguez sausages are very well spiced and the lamb meat pleasantly gamey, they could have used a little more heat. Indeed, authentic merguez sausages are very spicy. Authenticity is not necessarily the goal here, but a bit of North African heat might enliven the dish.
• Soft & evocative–A ordered this rustic dessert consisting of poached pear, a slice of buckwheat cake, and brown butter crème anglaise. A loved the pear, I was mesmerized by the nutty density of the gently sweet buckwheat cake. I am an enthusiastic consumer of buckwheat or kasha, usually in savory dishes. I particularly enjoy its nutty flavor and toothsome texture. Its use in sweet cakes is both highly unusual and yet completely sensible. The crème anglaise was a perfect foil to the grainy earthiness of the cake.
• Late summer/Early autumn–This dish is Shuna’s foray into kadaif pastry, or thin noodles of dough shaped into a loose bird’s nest and subsequently baked or fried. A traditional kadaif dessert called knafeh is topped with soft cheese (usually of sheep or goat’s milk), sprinkled with chopped pistachios, and drizzled with honey. Shuna’s version is topped with soft manouri cheese, with a side of sorbet and fruit. The late summer dish included woodleaf peaches sauteed in verbena butter, along with peach sorbet. The peaches were soft and buttery, yet still firm to the bite, a perfect foil to the crunchy kadaif. Shuna has waxed poetic about woodleaf peaches on her blog, and with good reason. The autumn version of the dish includes a nearly red quince paste and light pink rosweater sorbet. Its colorful presentation alone is very appealing. The sweet/tart quince and the sweet floral sorbet complement the creamy cheese on the kadaif. A thin line of tart syrup around the plate tantalizes the taste buds with its citrus perfume and hints of caramel. (I couldn’t, for the life of me, guess the syrup’s ingredients. Hint: lemon verbena is one of them.) Shuna’s interpretation of kadaif pastry is reminiscent of another traditional Middle Eastern dessert, mahalabiya, in which a creamy milk pudding made with powdered orchid bulb is drizzled with a sweet rose syrup. Kadaif is an unusual ingredient with a unique texture that crunches and crackles between the teeth. It’s fun to see it on a San Francisco menu, and I hope it remains a staple at Sens.
• Icy bright–Shuna hit this dish right on the head. With its cool melon granita, diminuitive watermelon cubes, and creamy almond milk gelée this dessert is precisely icy bright. The combination of textures is positively delightful: creamy softness on the bottom, turgid juiciness in the middle, and crunchy ice on top. Similarly, the dish offers varying levels of sweetness with the mildness of almond milk, the sugary starch of watermelon, and the cool mellow sweetness of melon. Sexy, soft slices of fresh figs top the granita.

With its attentive staff, focus on quality, and skillful execution, Sens Restaurant is off to a good start. I look forward to sampling the menu as the seasons change, especially the desserts.

This piece reflects my impressions of Sens Restaurant over the course of one week, both before and after opening, including three visits.

Sens Restaurant
4 Embarcadero Center
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 362-0645
Opentable reservations
Menu

LUNCH Monday-Friday: 11:30am - 2:30pm
DINNER Monday-Friday: 5:30pm - 10:00pm Saturday: 5:00 - 11:00