Farallon

450 Post Street

Tel: 415.956.6969

Jules Verne meets Ray Bradbury and together resuscitate the lost language of Atlantis…and more shall be revealed. A sensory maelstrom proving that 'more is more' and little else.

Farallon is another vision of Pat Kuleto, the Michelangelo of contemporary culinary trivialization. The place is a visual 'Knock-Out' from the bottleneck one confronts upon entering the stylish and heavy glass front doors, into the cramped-free flowing bar, through the multitude of exposed cooking, prep, assembly and deployment areas that abound throughout this 'grazing ground.' It resembles a military staging facility that Generals Patton or Eisenhower would be proud of as the US launched the landing at Normandy to win the World War II.

Farallon is visually breathtaking in almost every square inch of its premium square footage, and it's truly professional in every aspect of design and operation the patron encounters. It's well thought out and requires enormous amounts of floor space to accomplish its mission to serve great seafood in an almost surreal environment. Kuleto's mastery of function and design couple with whimsy and grace shine in this ambient and exciting restaurant. There are virtually no hard edges at Farallon, and almost everything flows like its creator's vivid imagination from the beautiful lighting and fabrics to the vibrant and colorful art that abounds throughout. The only significant shortcoming is the narrow and tight feeling bar and adjacent cocktail area where tables and customers are 'jammed' together like sardines in a tin can.

On this visit we were a party of eight with reservations, and were going on to the theatre for an 8:30 performance which was duly noted by a huge, swarming and well trained staff. We were seated at a large table in the rear, and required help to move the table so some had room to have enough space to keep the circulation flowing through their outer extremities, a minor drawback, but duly noted when we started examining the menu which is expensive, quite expensive.

Bread and butter, iced water were promptly placed before us, and cocktails were offered. The wine list was perused and a non-vintage Chardonnay was selected that was about the cheapest wine on the list at $30.00 per bottle, and appetizers were ordered. The menu is long and verbose, featuring exotic nomenclature for a variety of presentations of high quality seafood. Cold and warm appetizers are offered in an almost arrogant description which one finds throughout all the menus here.

Here is an example of what I mean: under Warm Appetizers we found the following:

Seared Truffle Larded Foie Gras…Apple Confit…Galette & Calvados Gastrique at $14.95

Two in our party ordered this 'fabulously described,' small portion of excellent pate and it was delicious. The entire menu is rife with this type of descriptive verbiage that might dull, rather than peak the culinary curiosity of many diners. I chose the proscuitto wrapped giant prawn…potato gnocchi, English peas & mint pesto at $13.50 and was greatly disappointed with the overcooked single prawn nestled in dribbled, mild pesto and a handful each of tiny gnocchi and petite peas. A big mistake at these prices. The soup offering was a hot & sour bisque with chrysanthemum prawn, nori & scallions at $7.50, again a small serving and not accurately described. Served in a vast bowl, the soup resembled more of a broth rather than a bisque. Other offerings tried by our group included excellent oysters on the half shell at $12.75, a Dungeness crab timbale with three oysters, Sevruga caviar & champagne sabayon at $13.95 and an excellent ahi tuna carpaccio with truffled ginger-miso vinaigrette, pea sprouts & housemade caviar at $14.75.

Moving swiftly onwards to the entrees with virtually no oohs and aahhhs from our starters, and more of that bedeviling menu-speak that brands everything Farallon communicates: I chose the seared Sea of Cortez scallops with mashed potato pave, fennel nage, lobster, celery root & black truffle salad at $24.95 which was superb but again small, featuring only three scallops. Several in the party chose the roasted pheasant breast filled with sweetbreads, foie gras & black truffles, on braised cabbage, potato gratin & Madeira jus at $26.95, and found it sensually satisfying.

The only selection 'raved' about and selected by two was the grilled "Export A" rib of beef with cipollini onion-potato galette, frisee, quail egg & bacon salad at $29.95.

I want to share the comments of one member of our party as an exquisite accounting of the dangers one can encounter in dining situations where one can be totally disarmed and deceived by a menu like this:

"I've long felt that unless I ordered a 'stew' or 'goulash' entrée, it should be up to me to eat the meal served and its accompaniments in any order I desire, so I'm not much impressed with the 'fad' of stacking food into a wobbly, pretentious pyramid that makes me have to use my dining utensils with the skill of a surgeon to enjoy what's in front of me. This fascination of function following form reached an idiotic zenith at Farallon when I ordered poached Atlantic turbot & fresh shaved perigord black truffles with braised leeks, lobster sauce, potato puree & American black caviar at $26.95, and was presented with a piece of unboned fish teetering on a pile of mashed potatoes themselves nesting on braised leeks, swimming in a paltry 'bay' of lobster sauce glittering with small flecks of 'American Caviar.' The 'American Caviar' was saltier than the great Salt Lake and reminded me of what my Mother served as an hors dour alongside Vienna sausage before Martha Stewart taught her how to entertain in her castle. Disaster lay in the fact that the preparation and presentation of this piece of fish, unboned in the kitchen, was impossible to debone at the table, nestled precariously atop the other ingredients, and the ensuing debacle lasting a good 10 minutes yielded little more than several bites of mashed fish, potatoes, stringy leeks and rock hard pieces of bone in the now cold lobster sauce, an unmitigated disaster of cuisine nouvelle gone completely to hell."

I believe that had this diner expressed his dissatisfaction with his meal, his grievance would have been addressed by the house, but facing the time constraints of an impending curtain call at the theatre, nothing was said and I want to add that the service was excellent throughout the whole evening.

We did have time for desserts and they were again very good, but small portioned and expensive. The highlights from that menu were at our table: the meyer lemon soufflé cake served on a nest of blood orange segments in a pool of crème Anglaise at $7.50, the persimmon pudding cake with rum raisin ice cream & orange sauce also at $7.50 and the hot chocolate fudge cake with chocolate chunk malt ice cream at $8.00.

Farallon was a great experience for a pre-theatre group, the food served so professionally is of the highest quality and freshness, but the probability of any in this party choosing a return visit is highly unlikely. One in our party commented that at these prices perhaps Fleur De Lys or Masa's might be better choices for a truly memorable meal rather than a visitor's pass to the excesses of Pat Kuleto's 'private Idaho.'

I recommend Farallon to anyone with deep pockets, a sense of adventure and with the willingness to pay dearly for food more ambitious in concept than execution.

Stu Smith

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