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Take the Quiz

Are you a true San Francisco food aficionado? By Paul Adams As a transplant to San Francisco from New York, I notice one difference between the two cities the most: California chefs' total lack of sense about cultural hygiene. Here, geography and history apparently have no advice worth listening to about what goes with what, and how, foodwise. In my East Coast upbringing, there were Italian restaurants, Chinese restaurants, Jewish delis and the like; frequently next door to each other, but never actually the same establishment. Now I don't want to stir up any NY/SF bad blood, but in New York, the city that has everything, it was not possible, last I checked, to obtain a jalapeño bagel or an asiago bagel or a banana-nut bagel, except by special order through some custom fetish-bagel baker. In the celebrated newer restaurants of New York, such as Nobu, Bouley and Mesa Grill (as well as the less celebrated and less new), the chefs are lauded for their astonishing flexibility and finesse within their particular cuisine. The food is imaginative, the dishes are clever and unanticipated, and, yes, irreverent, but it is an oddity, not the norm, to find wasabi in one's mayonnaise. San Francisco's star chefs are paid salaries among the culinary world's highest to dream up outlandish hybridizations of, well, whatever they can. But even I can fuse dishes as eccentric as theirs. Or can I? Here's a little quiz for you San Francisco food aficionados. Can you tell which of the following dishes have actually been prepared and served at the city's restaurants, and which are fake? Spicy roasted potatoes with tropical aioli Poached red snapper in green-tea Mascarpone sauce Potato-wrapped trout with foie-gras apple stuffing Pan-roasted pork chop over soba with pickled ginger, blood orange vinaigrette Broiled ahi in port sauce with baked apple Sweet-and-sour turkey-stuffed cabbage Smoked salmon with corn cakes and wasabi crème fraîche Sake-cured sturgeon and white-corn ravioli in saffron-mint broth Chimay-braised rabbit maki with hoi sin aioli Pâté spring rolls with mango sauce Boysenberry-seared duck medallions on quinoa risotto with papaya-champagne salsa Kombu-polenta cakes topped with Gruyère Guava empanada with brie Soft pork taco with chipotle, aioli and coriander salad Duck confit with fava-uni dumplings and white-ginger marmalade Asparagus and pineapple salad with anchovy vinaigrette Pickle-stuffed carpaccio in lemon sauce Sautéed Thai-curry gnocchi Whipped Satsuma potatoes with basil-chipotle butter Poached chicken-avocado spring rolls with tamarind-peanut sauce Foie gras, eggplant and Asian-pear napoleon with white miso curry sauce Grilled salmon with lemon-caviar fondue Lemon grass, smoked eel and fennel salad with coriander-citrus dressing Hushpuppies with jalapeño crème fraîche Uni mashed potatoes Five-pepper crusted chicken with oyster-pumpkin stuffing Ginger-steamed salmon and scallop pillow with prawn mousse and foie gras coulis Answers Real. Available at Backflip. Fake. Real. At Aqua. Fake. Real. Real. At Firefly. Real. Silly. Backflip. Oh, how could that be real? See number 8. Brainchild of Daniel Yang, Akimbo. Sounds good, doesn't it? Not real. Quite a tasty appetizer. At Infusion. Ryan's, gone overboard. I can't even picture how that'd work. Try this one at home, if you like. Real. At Acquerello. Oritalia. Nope, made it up. Another weird one from Oritalia, actually a good restaurant. Fake. Go to 2223 Market if you're baffled. Not real, thank God. This passes for bar food at Andora Inn. Served in a sea-urchin shell at Farallon. Phony, but with a delicate autumnal perfume. Also at Farallon, believe it or not. [ SF Metropolitan | MetroActive Central | Archives ]