Dinner at Gary Danko

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Spectacular dinner at Restaurant Gary Danko in San Francisco. All courses masterfully executed, absolutely delicious, in a super comfortable non-stuffy setting, and very good perfectly-paced service. Extremely fair value (~$100 prix fixe), compared to most similar level restaurants in the Bay Area. Overall, impressive and definitely deserving of going back to. No wonder this place is always booked and so hard to make a reservation. We got lucky because of a 49'ers play-off game! (which I was recording...)

We paired the appetizers and seafood entrees with Fleury "Carte Rouge" Blanc de Noirs Brut NV Champagne, a most amazing match with the Thai coconut curry seafood dish. And for bird and meat courses, I had brought a bottle of the venerable 1990 Leroy Chassagne-Montrachet rouge. Several years ago it had been a magnificent experience, but this time before opening, I was concerned that the wine might be past its prime. Fortunately it was sublime - didn't appear to age since the last time, didn't fade one bit throughout the 3-hour meal, still mildly grippy, with incredible flavors of earth, pine, forest floor, red and dark berries, distant hints of chocolate, delicious acid balanced by deep melange of flavors. It seemed this wine could easily stay at this level for many more years. Absolutely incredible for a village-level from a commune Chassagne not particularly heralded for reds. Testament to the producer and the vintage. Wow! The corkage at $45/btl for up to two bottles seemed normal for this level of a restaurant. And the sommelier had to work hard to cleanly pull the extra-long 24-year old cork.




Here are some of the dishes the four of us had (unfortunately in the blur of the moment, I didn't capture every plate).

Appetizers

mushroom broth
lobster salad
risotto
oysters with black caviar

Mains

thai coconut curry seafood and mushroom
bass
lobster mash potatoes
scallops
lemon pepper duck breast
squab
pork
filet

Desserts



Definitely coming back!

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