I absolutely love when friends visit. Mostly, so I can go out and try all the restaurants and food that I’ve been wanting to try (I mean with them of course, so they can try them too). I know San Francisco is a city with fantastic food that I had enjoyed every time I came to visit, but when you actually live here, you ultimately end up doing that cooking at home thing, so you don’t get out as much as you’d like. When a certain friend told me she was visiting, I immediately said “How do you feel about getting a whole pig’s head?” (To be fair, I’m pretty sure she’d say yes, it’s not as if we hadn’t eaten a partial pig’s head before at a barbecue place in London that involved a bit of an eye-eating fiasco.) So I booked it, and we headed over there get our pig’s head on one Friday night.
The restaurant itself has that rustic/wooden/hipster look that everyone seems to love these days. You know, when you feel like you’re eating in a converted garage or barn or something. There is a deceptive amount of seating in the restaurant as there is an upstairs area. Luckily, they didn’t go the “this restaurant is so tiny that they have to cram as many people as possible in” route so we didn’t feel like we were dining with three other tables of complete strangers. Our lovely server Jasmine (who reminded us of my friend Jamie, and weirdly only has a few extra letters in her name) was giving us the rundown on the specials that night and how they are all about sharing plates when I said “Yeah, we definitely want the pig’s head” so she went to reserve one for us. Then she came back to tell us they only do four of them a night, and the last two were just ordered! It was a dining tragedy I tell you. We were quickly swayed by the promise of some roast pork belly with lobster (thank goodness for lobster), so we ordered that for our main, plus some foie gras and a grilled cheese to start, with corn, potatoes and cauliflower on the side. (It turned out there was also some sort of meat with scallops dish that we all swear we didn’t hear about, but maybe we just weren’t listening past the word “Lobster”.) We also each had a cocktail to start, but switched to some red wine. The cocktails were pretty good, and I was a bit interested to try the negroni on tap (how hipster), but I decided I wanted them to work to make my drink that night, so I ordered one that had to be mixed.
The foie gras was served seared and with some pineberries (at least I assume they were given they looked like white strawberries). And it was pretty fantastic. Although I’ve never really had foie gras I didn’t like. The acid cut through the fat well, and it was cooked excellently. The grilled cheese sandwich was practically perfect. It had just the right amount of cheese, and the fried duck egg on top made me feel like I was eating a non-meat version of a croque madame. The addition of honey really lightened it up and gave it a bit of sweetness, and honestly, I’m always partial to a bit of honey with my cheese. The starters were stellar, and it really made me eager to see what the main was going to be like.
When it arrived, it looked fantastic. It’s hard not to think that when you see a whole lobster come out in a bowl. We tried to split it evenly (it’s not that easy to split a whole lobster three ways), but we did a better job with the pork belly. Both the lobster and belly were perfectly cooked, and the sauce they served with it was brilliant. It was spicy and sweet, and I just kept wanting to go back to dip everything in it. The sides were also really delicious. The corn was really tasty, the potatoes were crisp and had great seasoning, and the roasted duck fat cauliflower had a ton of flavor. It did make up for the fact that the pig’s head wasn’t available because the flavors were spectacular. All three of us were really blown away by the cooking up until now and we knew dessert was in our future.
Jasmine went through the list of desserts for us, and we were all interested in the summer berry pudding. She was explaining to us that it wasn’t a pudding like Americans know, but more like a bread pudding. We knew exactly what it was, as it’s a really common summer dessert in the UK, and we knew we wanted to order it. There was also a blue cheese, peach and honey dessert that we went for as well. The summer pudding was really light and fresh with a great mix of berries that was a great way to end the meal. The blue cheese dessert was nice, but it didn’t really wow us with flavor the way the rest of the meal had. It was still good; it just felt like it wasn’t quite on the same level.
I was really impressed with almost everything at Cockscomb. The service was top notch (and poor Jasmine had to deal with me moaning about no pig’s head, so that’s something), and of course the food was brilliant. I basically wanted to come back immediately to get the pig’s head, but I think that may have to wait a bit. I also plan on bringing my parents here when they visit next year, as I think it will be something they will really enjoy. I think it is really telling on how good a place is when you finish your meal and you really want to come back to try more things almost immediately. Cockscomb is definitely at the top of my “return” list. Perhaps even to give their happy hour oysters a try…
Food: ★★★★★
Service: ★★★★★
Atmosphere: ★★★★★
Value: ★★★★★
Overall: ★★★★★
Cockscomb
564 4th St
San Francisco, CA 94107
Every single item sounds and looks absolutely phenomenal– And Jasmine also sounds quite lovely indeed 😉
I would make a special trip to SF just for a pig’s head, hint-hint…
She was very lovely. And maybe we should make a plan for that….