San Francisco Eats: Commonwealth

Today's main star attraction didn't happen until dinnertime. I had booked a reservation for Commonwealth, an interesting-looking restaurant in the Mission District of San Francisco. They were offering a chef's tasting menu of 6 courses, but the a la carte menu looked more intriguing to me, and so I compiled a little multi-course dinner for myself.

As soon as I sat down at the table, a bowl of homemade chips were brought to the table instead of bread. They were dusted with seaweed powder, and a malt vinegar foam accompanied it as a dip.

Chips were crispy and not too greasy. They were much better eaten alone;
the malt vinegar foam was just odd; it didn't taste very good, and the foam
texture was actually unpleasant next to the crunchy chip.

Next, they brought out two small amuse bouches. The first was a tiny cube of panna cotta topped with some caviar, and served with an equally tiny sphere of cucumber. All this is pooled around a small spoonful of apple-flavored water. The second was a cold zucchini soup.

Panna cotta had a slight cheesy flavor. The cucumber and apple water
made the whole thing very refreshing and light.

Zucchini soup was surprisingly thick. This was topped
with mint oil, which quickly became the dominant
aroma as I sipped from the cup.

The first course was a sea urchin dish. The official menu item description: sea urchin, trout roe, potato, gem lettuce, lime cream, corn chip, pickled wasabi leaf. Quite a mouthful, no? This actually ended up being the most successful dish of the night. Most of the components came together quite nicely in harmony, with the lone outlier being the potato mash. A bite containing sea urchin, trout roe, lime cream, and lettuce was amazingly fresh and creamy, with a burst of citrus that complemented rather than overwhelmed. The trout roe and lettuce provided two completely different but interesting textural contrasts

Closeup of the dish

The next course: corn pudding, snap peas, crispy okra, basil seeds, brown butter, yuzu kosho aioli. Lots of components to these dishes! Unfortunately, this one didn't work out nearly as well as the first one had. Here's a picture of it.

The two white circles on either end is the yuzu aioli. The powdery
substance is actually the brown butter, and the long yellow streak in
the middle is the actual corn pudding.

See, the corn pudding part of the dish is quite small. It was deliciously and intensely corn-flavored... but was also really delicate. Added to anything else on the plate, it got lost and I couldn't taste it at all. So for all the folks who have watched 'Iron Chef', you'll know that when the star of the dish isn't the secret ingredient, then points get deducted!! I also didn't think that all the ingredients in the dish worked well together. Everything tasted good; but I never thought of this as one cohesive dish, but rather a plate of separate ingredients.

For my last savory course, I chose to have more seafood. The long description: smoked mackerel, avocado ice cream, fennel, seaweed brioche, sesame, berry kimchee.

Mackerel is on the left and right sides. The sesame ball has the avocado
ice cream inside, and the round flat is the brioche. The small red dots
is the berry kimchee sauce.

Once again, each component of this dish tasted good, but I didn't feel as if it all particularly blended well together. The avocado ice cream actually tasted more like lime, but added an interesting burst of cold and freshness to the fish. I liked the kimchee sauce a lot, but the brioche did nothing for me.

Overall, I thought all three of my savory dishes were on the light side. There were no heavy sauces or flavors, mostly everything was light and subtle. So when dessert came by, I passed on the more seasonal fig dessert to have something chocolately instead.

Peanut semifreddo covered with chocolate ganache. Caramel, and
frozen popcorn puree.

A classic flavor combination. I thought it was well balanced, and not too rich. I surprisingly did not like the popcorn component, which tasted like butter.

I had an interesting experience at Commonwealth; even if I didn't think a dish came together very well, each component was prepared well and tasted very fresh. I'm glad I got the chance to visit a local restaurant featuring rather experimental cuisine.