Restaurant LuLu - 816 Folsom, San Francisco
Written: Jul 28 '01 (Updated Aug 04 '01)
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Pros: Excellent food and winelist, walking distance from BART.
Cons: Small tables, no seating until the entire party has arrived, not vegetarian friendly.
The Bottom Line: Good food, good crowd, and good service at premium prices.
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| zzJulia's Full Review: LuLu Cafe |
Preparations to dine at LuLu (or anywhere in the City) were painstakingly made nearly a month in advance. For a suburbanite like myself, no detail could be left unattended for venturing into the City.
It's an hour drive from the Valley into the SOMA area, and parking would be unbearable on a Friday evening. We opted for early reservations at 5:30pm, and I drove into Daly City to park my car and BART in.
The dining party was small, only 4 of us had the budget for a big evening out at the time the plans were made. My friend Kevin and I walked over from his office and Maria and her partner were to meet us there later.
When Kevin and I arrived at the restaurant, we were greeted by perhaps the uber SOMA experience--a pink slip party of yet another failed startup. The former employees didn't appear to be drowning their sorrows, and instead concentrated on spending their severance pay.
Ambience
The restaurant has an elevated curvy bar that wraps around the right side of the place. The bar was packed with the members of the pink slip party yet there was still enough space for the waiters to get by to the diners. The lighting was masterful, casting a warm amber glow that wasn't so dim that we couldn't read our menus.
Food
LuLu is one of chef Jody Denton's many culinary successes in the San Francisco Bay Area. He took it over in 1995 and the wonderful provençal style menu rapidly attracted a hip crowd and glowing praise for the food. Denton offered up yet another place for trendy dining in 1999, Azie which is just a few minutes away from LuLu. Of course, many of us living south of SF are more familiar with his successful Mediterranean styled place Zibbibo in Palo Alto.
The food is served up family style, which made our dining party of 4 ideal. If I had been there with just my husband, we wouldn't have been able to sample very many dishes! The menu is seasonal, and kicks off with interesting antipasti dishes like roasted beets with walnuts and a leek, goat cheese and bacon tart. There were also the "small plates" including the famed iron skillet roasted mussels. I was very tempted to order the mussels but unfortunately the others in my party were not into seafood. Ahh, the pitfalls of family style dining.
I vow to have the mussels when I dine there again in a few weeks. In any event, we began with a lovely fired pizza topped with wild mushrooms, fontina and thyme. It was a bit mundane, but the crust had a great crisp but chewy consistency. It was sort of a "safe" dish for the group to begin with. The fontina cheese was very nice and gave a slighty sweet flavor to the pizza.
As the dishes began piling around the table, we started to feel extremely cramped. Especially because it was family style dining,so dishes had to be divided up quickly so that they could take away the empty plate.
We also ordered the Rosemary Chicken on a bed of warm potato and lettuce salad. The chicken was quite flavorful, but difficult to separate out as it was still boned. I enjoyed the potato salad for it's pleasant creamy taste and grainy texture, but avoided all the lettuce which had started to wilt from the warmth of the chicken. Wilted lettuce may be trendy, but I'm not a fan.
The pork loins were a big favorite with the group, as they were very tender and nicely seasoned with fennel. The mashed potato side to the dish vanished rapidly amongst the four of us.
Restaurant LuLu also has a unique daily rotisserie special. That evening was Friday, so the offering was Suckling Pig with Baby Arugula, Bread and Roasted Onion Salad for $21.50. I couldn't talk anyone else into it unfortunately as it sounded quite tempting (and as many of my friends know, I dig the pig). Saturday's special looked even better, as it was Roast Duck with Baby Fennel, Leeks, Arula and Tangerine Vinaigrette. I'm a sucker for unusual vinaigrettes and was quite taken with the lavender vinaigrette paired with duck at Boulevard.
The surprise hit of the evening was the assorted vegetable platter. The brussel sprouts were fabulous, and I think they'd been tossed in a pan with seared garlic. The carrots likewise very tasty and might have had ginger bits in them. This dish was so popular with all of us that we could have easily ordered a second one, but we had our eyes on dessert...
Dessert
Lulu has a wonderful warm chocolate cake. The chocolate was very dark, with a deep bittersweet tang. I loved it for it's extremely rich flavor with little sweetness to distract from the pure cacao. It was topped with vanilla ice cream, which I had requested in lieu of the coffee ice cream that it is normally paired with. If I have only one complaint about this dish, it's that mine was slightly overbaked, and not very molten at all and the bottom was a tad crusty!
I'll simply have to have another one soon to make sure they get it right.
One of our party ordered the profiteroles, and she too substituted out coffee ice cream for vanilla fillings instead. The chocolate dripped cheerily over the entire dish and I was lucky enough to sample a bite. The pastry was eggy and slighty denser than I imagined, but quite good.
Service and Wine List
I had heard about snotty waiters and such so I was prepared for cruddy service. Instead, we had a very thoughtful and attentive waiter who seemed to know when to leave us alone and when to check on us. Hopefully, that wasn't just a fluke and we have good service on our next visit as well.
LuLu has truly the most impressive winelist that I've ever seen. It was a shame that it was really wasted on me as I haven't kept up with wine for years now. They offer about 70 wines available by the glass, with a 2 oz. tasting size as well as the regular 6 oz. glass.
Though mostly Californian wines, I saw a couple Australian labels and even Châteauneuf du Pape. We lucked out with a wonderful Sangiovese from the Dalle Valle vineyard of Napa Valley. At $16 a glass, it was pricey but absolutely delicious. I was delighted to find it also offered at Boulevard a week later and indulged the party then to two bottles at $60 each.
Overall
Our dining experience was very good and marred only by the delay of our friends which prevented us from being seated. The food was flavorful and light, and there were many more items on the menu that I plan to try out in the future. The bill averaged out to about $60 per person, which seemed par for the good food, trendy atmosphere and good wine. It was quite an extravagance on my grad school budget though! I definitely recommend this restaurant for small group dining.
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: No
Best Suited For: Trendy Crowd
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Epinions.com ID:
zzJulia
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Member: Juls W.
Location: Sunny California
Reviews written: 130
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About Me:
Silicon Valley Girl.
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