Mayflower Sinks, Pizza Rises

Sorry to be lagging a bit; it's time to catch up with the end of the second week while we move into the third. We had a day off (Christmas) so there were only four eating out opportunities, as well as treatments, last week. We returned to the Mayflower with high expectations, and even dragged two of our friends there for a Christmas Eve lunch. Maybe it was the large number of people ordering fancy dishes like lobster to celebrate, or maybe the chief cook had the day off; whatever the reason, the Mayflower let us down. Dishes that were both novel and nicely prepared just a week ago were suddenly sticky, misshapen, not as crisp, and not as neatly served. I can't blame this simply on being busy, since the Mayflower seemingly serves an overflow crowd every day at lunch (we have not visited for dinner.)Rather than dwell upon the negative, let me simply suggest that there could be a consistency problem at the Mayflower, or it could just be the one bad day out of many good ones. San Francisco is overstocked with good restaurants in every price range. It might be a while before we give the Mayflower another chance.

In what might be seen as an exercise in masochism, we cooked up a couple of our Chinese specialties for our Christmas party for 10. Apparently we can not get too much of a good thing. On the menu were egg rolls and scallion pancakes. There is a lesson to be learned here, which was further reinforced by our added self-flagellation when cooking latkes last night: fried food is best served right from the cooking vessel. The less time spent between hot oil and your plate, the better. Unfortunately, the dynamics of the party dictated that we do advance prep. Thus the oven was used to keep both scallion pancakes and egg rolls at a palatable temperature. While the egg rolls only suffered mildly, the scallion pancakes lost most of their moisture and became scallion pancake crackers. While they were still appreciated by our friends, I have to think that overall they were being charitable. This is quite sad, because a freshly cooked scallion pancake is a wonderment, and while our version may not have achieved world-beating status, it is already better than 74.8% of restaurants, and it's going up the charts with a bullet. I will let you all know when we have perfected it. BUT - - you'll have to taste it right from the stove!

We went into the city with our daughter Sophie on Friday, day after Christmas, with every intention of having lunch at Dosa on Fillmore Street. This is the second outpost of this very successful restaurant, and I can attest that after a recent dinner, I completely grok their achievement, namely, taking Indian ingredients and recipes and doing two things with them. First, they reinvent traditional recipes but make them healthful by reducing gratuitous fats. And second, they appreciate the aesthetic of Indian cooking and use ingredients and cooking methods to create novel but relevant dishes and variants. But enough about Dosa; we will return for lunch and will cover this fascinating restaurant in more detail. What transpired instead was that we got there about 10 minutes before opening, which led to a somewhat aimless ramble up Fillmore Street. This section of Fillmore, above (that is, north) of Geary Ave and below Pacific Heights is a wealth of independent businesses; wine bars, Japanese restaurants from the Japantown era, hair salons, and perhaps the last outpost of stores that sell modern lifestyle accessories. I am not sure what to call a shop like this; some among us might recall Design Research, which sought out beautiful, useful (and perhaps useless) items for the office, dining room and bedroom, many sourced from Scandinavia. Fillmore Street has a few such places, along with boutiques, liquor stores with global Champagne selections, and so on. A Yuppie paradise if I ever did see one. In the process of drifting up this panoply of goods and services, we once again espied Defina Pizza. This is the third enterprise of the burgeoning Defina empire, which now includes their Mission District restaurant; the adjacent pizza outlet; and this more recent pizzeria just off Fillmore. We had eaten there before, but suddenly it beckoned once again. Oddly, there were a few parties waiting outside, despite the fact that we walked up after the putative 11:30AM opening time; turns out that, since it was the day after Christmas, they had arbitrarily moved the opening time up to a hangover-friendly 12 noon. So we dutifully got in line, and were quickly seated. Delfina makes a pizza with a thin crust and bubbly seared edge. They incorporate only the highest-quality ingredients. When it comes to pizza, this is a winning formula, since ingredients are few and flavors stand out starkly. Their salads are equally fresh, and are dramatic only because each component is packed with flavor. A calzone we ordered came packed with esoteric, delicious meats and startlingly fresh ricotta cheese. While it did not seem huge on the plate, the richness and quality of the ingredients were immensely satisfying. In fact, about the only thing I can find to complain about was the background music. This was clearly chosen by a meth addict who dialed in the selection from a mental hospital. The restaurant is loud enough without music, like so many ill-conceived spaces where the owner somehow mistakes chaotic noise for excitement. If they only knew that at least half or more of their clients are gritting their teeth praying for the music to be turned down. Now let it be said that, having reached the age of 60, I am in peril of being called a fuddy-dud. And our daughter at first did indeed compare the music to the Rolling Stones - - "It's no different" - - only to change her mind about 12 minutes later, and say, "You're right - - the music does suck." What you had on the overhead speakers was some continuous version of the primal scream. It would not have been quite so awful if it had not also been turned up to a level that rode over the already-tumultuous riot of conversation. So: Delfina - - if you're listening - - not all of your clients are 12-year old pubescent boys in rebellion against the system. Don't let the guy that takes out the garbage select your audio selections for the day. Keep making that delicious food; turn down the volume and do take stock of your actual clientele. I think most of them would not be heartbroken if the level dropped about 20 decibels. That said, you still get four out of five stars in my book.