IT'S OFFICIAL

QUINCE IS THE BEST RESTAURANT IN SAN FRANCISCO. I mean it! I had my 35th birthday dinner there Thursday night, and even though I've rehashed the details ad nauseum with many people, including the cashier at Walgreens, I need to go over it one more time ok?
Quince is my kind of place. The chef, Michael Tusk used to work with Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, so he only uses the finest, most special ingredients, like Valentino Felicetti spaghetti, fiddlehead ferns, and Laughing Stock Farm pork. I know, I know, it's not stuff you can find at Safeway, so you should just go to Quince to get it.
If it were possible to taste LOVE in food, this is where you could do it. I can't count how many times D and I said throughout the meal "this is THE BEST thing I've ever had."
We stuffed ourselves early with an oxtail, horseradish and beet appetizer; pasta with morel and fava bean sauce; and another pasta filled with veal, pork and rabbit. Pure heaven. They had types of pasta I've never even heard of, like paccheri and agnolotti, and each one is uniquely delicious, perfectly cooked and surprisingly light. The presentations aren't complicated or showy, and it's irrelevant anyway, because the food is so amazing. Did I mention they even had a special menu printed just for us? Yeah! Between my surprise party posters the previous night, and now this, I was starting to feel like an aging (but important) rock star.







Speaking of stars, James Spader was eating there too! Not because it was my birthday of course, but it was fun secretly staring and trying to name movies he's been in, while we stuffed ourselves silly.
Back to the food! Have you ever had a meatball pillow? Me neither, until now. I've discussed and analyzed the importance of meatballs in this blog before, but never again...I've seen the light, and now above all, I worship this ethereal orb of meaty achievement. Forever and ever amen. Three of them on a plate with buttered potatoes and wild arugula...it sounds so simple, but I get misty-eyed just thinking about it. The Watson Farm spring lamb was no joke either. I think I'm just running out of words to describe how joyous the experience was.
Time for dessert, and we only had room for the fresh strawberries in vanilla sauce, with pound cake croutons and spun sugar. Pound cake croutons?! Why didn't I think of that?
So there ya have it...the best birthday dinner ever. Even better than my eleventh birthday at Chuck E. Cheese, gorging on cheap pizza and playing Ms. PacMan until way past my bedtime. It's good to be all grown up!