When I was in San Francisco, I managed to score a seat at Benu, the two star Michelin restaurant in the SOMA district. It is headed up by Corey Lee, whose career has seen action in seven 3-star Michelin restaurants in England, France and the U.S. He was also the chef de cuisine at The French Laundry.  The Real Deal.  And, my first Michilen starred restaurant (Next doesn’t count, right?).

As is becoming my custom, I won’t wax poetic.  Just bad camera photos. Enjoy!

Read that again. Foie Gras Xiao Long Bao.  Full on Euro-Asian collision.  And he pulled it off.  That is cool.

This wasn’t really shark fin but an artificial creation of his own making. It had great texture and flavor, and if I had had shark fin before, I might say it was a perfect replica.  But I have no idea.

And that was that.  But, I saw the table next to me getting some serious VIP service.  The waitress was going person to person, shaving huge chunks of truffle onto their dishes.  I wanted in on the action.  I asked her if I could have some shaved truffle as well.  She left and came back with a little truffle trinket for me to taste.

I asked to go back to the kitchen and meet Chef Lee, which they gladly obliged.  The kitchen hummed away with action, and Chef Lee was very nice and I appreciated him taking a brief moment to speak with me.  The staff was stellar and I had a taste bud blast.

Now if only they had a cookbook so I could do this at home.

Jethro