Olea

Part Two of my much anticipated series on our magnificent San Francisco vacation.  This installment consists of our dining experience at Olea.

After our grueling day of flying, we stayed close to the apartment for dinner.  Olea is a bright, little hole in the wall at the corner of California and Larkin Streets (although please strike from your mental image any dinginess); our first dinner in San Francisco was a lovely welcome.  In my husband’s eagerness to get his seafood fix covered he chose the clam  and chorizo appetizer with the familiar Duvel for his drink.  I chose the Fiddlehead Sauvignon Blanc (of which I recall nothing either good or bad), but none of the appetizers called my name.  Instead I chose to save room for the dessert: Gateau Breton.  For my main course I chose the vegan option (mind you this was not a vegetarian restaurant), a nice quinoa vegetable medley; it was light and tasty, but I regularly make a comparable dish at home so I wasn’t overly impressed with the dish.  The quinoa was fluffier than my home style preparation, but the plating was identical (as you can see from the crappy photo just dump it into a bowl).  My dessert, the best part of the meal, was buttery, much like a heavy pound cake.  The delightful tartness of the fruit sauce cut through the overpowering buttery flavor to create a lovely dessert, but the cake was served with slightly less sauce than required to complement it.  My husband shared my cake assessment; he thoroughly enjoyed his duck (it was a fair portion, too), but I did not partake.  Our server handled the entire thirty seat restaurant as host, server, and buser well.  Halfway through our meal a group of eight or so high heeled and tight skirted women descended upon Olea, and our server continued to run the front of house smoothly.

Olea Quinoa

Olea Duck

Olea Gateau Breton