Every once in a while, it’s important to mix things up, and try a glass of wine.  Or a box of wine, as the case may be.  Last night Foodbuzz and Blackbox Wines treated a group of camera-bloggers to a meal at Spruce, in San Francisco.  Who am I to snub my nose at box wine?  Spruce has a reputation of refined ingredient focused new-american cuisine, and I was excited to see if they lived up to it.

They did.  Spruce put out a stellar meal of excellently prepared, classic combinations. The Blackbox wine was a nice drinkable everyday kind of wine.  Like many other green packaging options, you’d never know it came from a box once it’s been slyly moved to a decanter.

Before dinner started, I poked my head into their kitchen to say hello.   A scallop dish was being put together when I came in.

Sadly, the scallops weren’t bound for our party.  Luckily, other things were.

These steaks were for us:

Finally we were ready to start.  First was house-made charcuterie.  The pigs ear was especially good.

First course was a beet & pear salad, served with aged goat cheese and a walnut vinaigrette.  It was paired with a 2008 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.  The aged and shaved goat cheese was a nice change from it’s regular soft form, and the carpaccio presentation was stunning.

Roasted halibut with fennel, chanterelles, and fennel fumet. Paired with two chardonnays: a 2008 Napa and 2008 Monterey.  Again, the fish was perfectly prepared, and the mushrooms brought out the earthier qualities in the wine – I preferred the pairing with the monterey chardonnay, which had hints of tobacco and spice.

Then the red wines started to come out.  a 2007 California Cabernet Sauvignon  - my favorite of the night – was paired with a bavette steak served with duck fat (!) fries and bordelaise sauce.  Yes, duck fat really does make everything better.

A Moroccan spiced chicken was happily offered for a non red-meat lover.  Our service through the night was exactly what you’d want a white table cloth place like this: fast, observant, unobtrusive and very responsive.

Last was our cheese course, served with a 2007 central coast shiraz.  The accoutrements were nice – almonds, honey, cherries, black pepper – the basic flavor profile of the wine, but I was underwhelmed by the cheese selection.  To safe, too dull – nothing runny, blue, or at all funky.   This is my only real complaint about the meal – everything was impeccability prepared, but none of the flavor combinations were challenging or surprising.  This may very well have been more the nature of the planned dinner than the kitchen – I spy foie and sweetbreads on the regular menu.  Have to save those for next time.

And for our last bite, pear candies topped with marshmallows – a delicate last touch to a great meal.

Tags: spruce, wine

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.