At long last, my final SF post from before my trip to France. This is a nice lunch from Piperade (older visit here) with my mom. Somehow, my mom never tried Piperade even though it's just down the street. I think it's the best restaurant in the immediate area. I still have memories of that foie gras/calamari dish - it was one of the most memorable things I ate last year. This time, since I was with my mom, I didn't want to have to finish one of the huge main dishes by myself, so we went with just stuff from the small plate section. 
grande white bean salad with boquerones, roasted pepper and chopped egg - $9 Stupidly, we forgot to inquire about what boquerones are before ordering this. It turns out they're sardine-like fishies, which is bad because we for some reason assumed this was vegetarian. I liked the dish quite a bit - the beans were very hearty, the chopped egg was wonderful, and the fish were quite good if a bit sour from the dressing. 
warm sheep's milk cheese and ham terrine with aged sherry - $11 I'd been wanting to try this dish after seeing it on the menu, and it did not disappoint. Gooey, salty and delicious! I'll admit I'd rather share this than eat it all myself though - it got pretty heavy halfway through. 
small fries - $4 I must not have noticed fries on the menu last time or we would have surely gotten them. These fries were quite thin, crispy, and potatoey all at once. We asked for some aioli to dip them in, which made them even better! 
crab salad "txangurro" with mango and red pepper - $12 At this point I started to think that maybe we'd ordered too much. The crab salad was pretty good, the mango slices were great, but I'm not sure I'd order this again. I guess I expected something more interesting because of the cool Basque name. 
golden beet and braised fennel salad with lemon-cumin vinaigrette - $9 This dish was very good. I rarely see beets cut into such big pieces, but they were all tender and refreshing. I've also lately become more fond of fennel - it has a nice, subtle flavor that I'm learning to enjoy. The toasted almonds (?) were a nice touch. 
whole prawns with garlic, parsley and lemon - $12 These were some great, fresh prawns. My mom and I were both surprised by how similar the preparation was to Chinese-style whole prawns or shrimp - it really tasted quite similar! The juice/sauce was delicious, just like the Chinese kind. I expect Piperade to become a semi-regular stop for me when I'm in the city. It's not really the type of food you could eat every day, but I sure love a lot of things that they serve. I'll start posting about France tomorrow!