DINING IN SAN FRANCISCO AT THE SLANTED DOOR

For those of you who haven't heard of the Slanted Door, it's a super famous Vietnamese/French restaurant in SF. In keeping with the style of the Bay Area, they use all local, and heavily organic produce. And as you might imagine, it's kinda pricey. So taking advantage of the fact that my parents were in town, we headed off for lunch at the Slanted Door, which is located in the Ferry Buildling.

The actual restaurant in quite stunning. It's very modern and it has these huge floor to ceiling windows that look out on the bay. I had to make an earlier reservation (11:30) since they were booked for anything later. When we walked into the restaurant, it was about a quarter full, but it would fill up quickly as we sat there. Lots of people were having business lunches, but there weren't as many tourists. Here's a pic I took of the inside:

They do everything family style here, which was fine with us. We had five people, so this just meant we could order more dishes and try new things. The menu was actually heavily Vietnamese, so the dishes were quite familiar. Out able started off with some fresh summer rolls, which I skipped due to the addition of pork.

Actually, I skipped a lot of the early dishes, like this scallop carpaccio that my dad wanted. But he seemed to like it and said it was very fresh.

Oh, here's a dish a tried which I really did like. This is a Vietnamese crepe. I've only had it once before at a restaurant in Boston, but I really like the crispy texture of the crepe which contrasts with the warm, soft interior. Also, this was full of fresh veggies, which I really enjoyed.

Next up, my parents ordered this dish of spicy squid, which was yet another dish I avoidedBut I was quite happy with the arrival of the green papaya salad. It was again, super fresh, crunchy with clean flavors, though it could have been a bit spicier.And we ordered two noodle dishes. To be honest, we actually ordered a few more dishes than that, but I didn't take pics of all of them. This dungeness crap dish with crystal noodles was quite goodBut I was disappointed by my dish on lemongrass chicken. The chicken ended up being quite touch and not anything special. Overall, the food at the Slanted Door is characterized by super fresh, clean flavors. But there are certain cuisines that I don't feel great about pay a whole lot of money for. I know that's unfair, but it's true. And when you order a place of sauteed bok choy for $8.50 (which we did) it'd better be the best freaking bok choy you've ever had in your life, or you're probably paying too much. For me, I enjoyed our lunch at the slanted door, and I'd glad go back if someone else were paying. But for me, I could be just as happy as going to a hole in the wall and paying half the price.