out and about: huntress steakhouse

french 75: spiced gin, honey, lemon, champs

So excited you guys! One of our good friends was having a birthday celebration, and we were finally able to try huntress steakhouse. This restaurant has been on jamie’s list (yes you heard that right) for. ever. It’s one of the few restaurants, whose menu he has sent to me unsolicited and asked to go there. So to say we were hyped, was an understatement.

It happened to be a night where the dogers and padres were playing against each other in san diego, so we headed down earlier than normal to find parking and avoid crowds. This turned out to be a brilliant choice, because we had enough time to sit at the bar and grab a drink before dinner.

As y’all should know by now, the french 75 is my cocktail of choice; and often times the gold standard to which I hold a restaurant. French 75’s should always be shaken with ice people and served chilled. Just sayin’. And not only did our bartender know his stuff; he also suggested I try a new spiced gin they had just gotten in the restaurant, to which he used honey instead of the typical simple syrup, along with lemon and champs. Helllooo. This is is how all french 75’s should be made in the future. And you best believe I’ll be working up some sort of similar drink of my own, so stay tuned.

fresh baked parker house rolls: trio of butters

We started with the parker house rolls. This was a good choice. Unlike traditional parker rolls, these were baked in a mini loaf pan, and almost a pull apart layered-situation. Also… they only come with three rolls. So ya know, you’re gonna need to order more than one.

Light and fluffy, they were excellent. And the perfect vehicle to try some different butters. They came with a traditional butter, a spicy butter, and a truffled butter. Naturally I had to keep tasting to see if I had a favorite, and all I could come up with was that I liked the spicy one the least, but not enough that I didn’t stop eating it. So there is that.

Totally reminded me of when george’s used to offer bread with three specialty butters/topping before dinner service, and each and every time the three choices were different. They really need to bring that back. But once again, I digress.

tuna tartare: peppers, pine nuts, asian pear, seame oil, rice chips

We started off with some tuna tartare for the whole table. It was an excellent bite. Loved the compliment of crisp cucumbers. I loved the non-traditional flavors of asian pear and pine nut; and will definitely be back to have more of this.

seared beef sashimi: pickled kholrabi, ponzu vinaigrette

Another shared starter for the table was the steak sashimi. The description doesn’t do it justice. There were a lot more nuanced flavors throughout the dish. Again, since we were sharing with 7 other people we were only able to get a taste, but the taste that I had was delicious. I do think this was more like a tatake, than a sashimi, since the outside was seared. Which, I’m not always a fan of, because I don’t like the juxtaposition between warm outside and cold raw inside. While raw inside, it wasn’t cold, which made it more to my liking than most. All that aside, I’d definitely be up for ordering it again.

steak tartare: toasted cashew, sesame seeds, anaheim pepper oil, crispy tuile, lettuce, herbs

For our main course, jamie and I shared a few things, to start was the steak tartare. This was another description where I don’t feel like it gave an accurate depiction of what you were eating… there were so many more nuanced flavors involved. I wish I was able to know more about what was in them.

filet mignon with main lobster accompaniment

The filet was excellent. We were a little disappointed there wasn’t more lobster for the addition. However, the frisee salad was a nice touch. Also the atomic creamy horseradish was on the less spicy side of atomic, which was sad for a spicy horseradish lover like me.

chicken fried maitake mushrooms

We also shared a veggie side. This was our least favorite dish of the night. There was too much breading, what there was of it was over fried, and you couldn’t taste the mushrooms. A shame, because the description itself sounded amazing.

All in all we had a great time, and are looking forward to heading back so we can try more things off the menu.