Thanks for the tip! DH likes the bison burger at The Counter. We'll have to try Umani soon.

I like the turkey burger at The Counter.

Because it was our wedding night and we were staying in a hotel.

May I suggest you eat very lightly for the day or two before going to La Folie. The food was wonderful, but the portions were humongous. I ended up having to tell the waiter halfway through our meal to not bring me the next course at all, even though we would still have to pay for it. While I've never had to say this about a fine dining experience before or since, La Folie was just way too much food. I wish the portions were half as large.

I've been to Asian Box a couple times, ordering either the vegetable slaw or brown rice, the chicken, wok tossed veggies, all the toppings except the jalepenos and picked vegetables, and the fish sauce dressing. It's in my top-5 for takeout in PA, with Oren's, Pluto's, Sprouts, and Le Bou. I wish Asian Box was closer to the office.

Ditto. My chicken burrito was the most bland, tasteless, awful thing. I'd rather eat a bowl of cereal for dinner than ever go to Freebirds ever again.

I'm so sorry to hear this. It has been so wonderful to enjoy a truly delicious non-dairy ice cream, and the luscious sorbets that burst with fruit. Your products are amazing. I hope you can find the investors and business management experience you need to support your remarkable vision and talent.

I agree - it seems like such a tourist trap and it is, but they also have really good seafood, and the view is lovely. We always order things simply prepared both so we can really taste the great fish and also because we're not keen on their sauces etc. I had a really beautiful piece of grilled wild salmon there last year.

Draegers (supermarket with 3 locations) does fabulous gift baskets. They always have some ready to go, or you can order a custom one. Give them a price range and some do's and don'ts (sweet or savory, no red meat, no white chocolate, local only, kosher, whatever), and they will put something together.

This blog is totally parve i.e. dairy free. I've made several of her recipes and they turned out great.

http://www.couldntbeparve.com/

The other place you should check is Pinterest. There's an absurd number of dairy-free/parve recipes there.

Thanks for the tip!

We tried the Suki's Chicken Tikka Masala (refrigerated, with the ravioli and the pesto) - nay. The chicken was so very dry, even though we warmed it in a covered pan on the stove on low. Pass.

I went yesterday and enjoyed it. We got the Beijing noodles - great noodles, nice texture, not watery for us; the vegetarian dumplings - again nice work with the dough, a little bland without that great chili sauce; the s&p tofu - arrived wicked hot, not greasy; and the pork and shrimp dumplings - nicely shrimpy and porky. Very, very weak tea. All this for $29, before tip. I saw they also sell the fresh noodles on their own, presumably for takeout. We got there around 8, so by the time we were wrapping up, the staff was eating their meal at the table next to us. It looked like ma po tofu, boy choy, and some noodle plate. The ma po looked really good. I would definitely return to try more things, and be sure to get fresh noodles to take home, too.

Yep, if I was eating on someone else's dime on the peninsula, Fuki or Sakae would be my choice. Either would be glorious, and fantastic for a solo diner sitting at the bar.

Yes, the wait will be crazy, depending on the time of day. If you get there right when it opens, it isn't bad. Santa Ramen is very meh. I don't bother going there ever. My second favorite after Ramen Dojo is Ramen Parlor, across the street and owned by the same people. Different style of ramen (way more stuff in the bowl, more seafood-y) which is also delicious. If Ramen Dojo's line is too crazy, I just cross the street to Ramen Parlor. I also like the clam butter ramen at Himawari, and their other bowls are pretty good, but I don't think in the same league as Dojo or Parlor.

If you search for Melanie Wong's ramen rankings, her reviews (over a hundred bowls) are the gold standard for ramen evaluation.

Ramen Dojo's miso ramen (my order is mild spicy, extra kikurage) is my favorite ramen in the bay. Not sure how to judge thick or thin... seems just right to me!

Yelp says it's closed. http://www.yelp.com/biz/sri-santa-cruz

Fish! http://www.331fish.com/ Note there's always at least four daily special entrees and four special starters in addition to the regular menu.

Very bikeable from the bridge. Great food, gorgeous views, and totally normal to see diners in full spandex bike gear.

The biscuits with red pepper jelly. So, so good.

Atelier Crenn gave me the most interesting, inventive, beautiful, thoughtful, different meal I've ever had. So much to delight and surprise. I think the only meal I liked better was at the Dining Room at the Ritz five years ago. AC was about $300 and totally, totally worth it to me. I loved practically everything about the meal. I know I owe a write up like mariacarmen but the number of words it would take to properly describe the meal are totally daunting to me.

I have not been to the other three contenders.

Last night, a friend and I went to try Plaj, a new Scandinavian restaurant in the Inn at the Opera which opened on June 29. Their website is not fully up, but the Chron had the menu on its blog:

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/...

We were very impressed with the meal, with only one hiccup across six dishes. The food here was different than I've had at any restaurant in the Bay Area, as far as I can recall. We split everything, and let the kitchen course the meal as it thought best. Pacing was excellent, with a new dish arriving shortly after we finished the prior one. I am unfamiliar with Scandinavian food, so each dish's flavors were surprising and interesting. It was all very different than anything I'd had before, but in a good way.

Table bread comes in a little wax paper bag on a little bamboo cutting board, which I thought was pretty silly. The butter was nicely soft, and sprinkled with sea salt and pepper. We had the burata salad, the taste of herring, the gravlax, the halibut, the charcuteri, and the chocolate torte. I really liked the first three, and would return to Plaj to order each of them. Flavors were light, bright, and balanced, or perhaps a touch on the acidic side. The burata salad, for example, did not taste like the usual burata salad offered at so many restaurants in SF. The halibut was also excellent, though not as surprising and interesting as the first three dishes. The charcuteri was not a success for us... the pork belly one in particular was not to our tastes, but we didn't much care for the lamb either. The chocolate torte was surprisingly light and airy, with a really delicious and not sweet sorbet, with bits of meringue scattered about for crunch. A really lovely dessert. Aside from the charcuteri, each dish had bright, fresh, interesting flavors, including the frequent appearance of not-sweet berries. We also had two Icelandic beers. I liked the white ale, and my friend the monk's brew.

Service was pretty good. The only hitch was that we asked for a sharp knife to better divide each plate - the waitress graciously brought us a sharp knife in its blade case, but when I took the case off the blade, the blade was filthy. I imagine she had no idea, but needless to say, we didn't use it. Once we requested a change of plates after the first course, our waitress changed plates after each subsequent course without having to be asked. She was friendly and engaged.

The decor doesn't match the food at all. Maybe I'm too influenced by Ikea, HGTV, and movies, but I think of Scandinavia as more slick and modern, with glass and metal. The food was fresh, bright, and, to me, inventive. Yet the room is windowless (at the back of the hotel) and old fashioned, covered in wood with a fireplace and a big wooden bar.

My friend and I both plan to return. It's not often for me to come across a totally new cuisine, so it was a real pleasure to be introduced to Scandinavian food at Plaj. I hope Plaj gains in popularity and sticks around.

I wonder if the creme brulee cart guy might sell you 10. Might be worth facebooking/tweeting him to see.

The quality at new Fraiche hasn't changed. They even have another machine now, for two more varieties, which are often oreo (dairy, really does taste like an oreo, in a good way) and red wine sorbet (non-dairy, so refreshing). The menu is bigger in general - more coffee options (all Blue Bottle), plus a hot quinoa cereal option, I believe. I would eat here every day if I could.

Fabrique Delices had it at the CSM farmer's market today, with both the mouse and foie with armangac frozen. They will also be giving away large frozen foie with armagnac for free after July 1, though shipping will be $120.

http://fabriquedelices.com/product/duck-foie-gras-mousse-large/

http://fabriquedelices.com/product/wh...

totally fantastic, with two exceptions - the eucalyptus amuse, which i personally did not care for as i don't usually like eucalyptus anything, but the rest of my table loved, and the abalone/very salty sand thing, which i personally found too salty, but was somewhat my fault for not better controlling my use of the "sand." everything else was utterly spectacular and all of the dishes were incredibly beautiful.

I had it last night. It was *amazing*.

I saw Breyers Lactose Free at a speciality grocers near me (Draegers) and tried it. It tasted fake and wasn't that creamy, but then again, I didn't care for Breyers before I became lactose intolerant either. I didn't buy it again. Instead, I like the Purely Decadent soy based ice cream, and the nut milk based ones like Scream in Oakland, CA. I'm looking forward to trying Genuto as well. The So Delicious coconut ice cream tastes really great, but is way too fatty for me to enjoy often.

I did recently come across Lactaid cottage cheese. It was salty and delcious. And the Green Valley Organics lactose free sour cream, yogurt, and kefir are wonderful. Maybe you could make ice cream using the kefir?

I was actually blown away by our meal at Prospect. Fabulous from start to finish. Best meal I've had in years, and we eat quite well. Not sure if there's more than one foie dish, but he got the hot/cold combo app. We may have to return before the month is over so he can eat it again before it's banned.

My DH adored the foie app he had at Prospect a few weeks ago. His favorite foie by far, much more than La Folie, which was just too much foie (something he never, ever thought he'd say).

I saw it a couple weeks ago at CSM.