Ladies Dessert Night at TwentyFive Lusk

When you're ready to hit the town and yearning for dessert, check out Twenty Five Lusk. NuffnangX got a group of us in at a prime time one weekday evening. Angela enjoyed a dessert and wine pairing which included notes from the Chef, as well as the Sommelier. Twenty Five Lusk follows in the tradition of naming the resto after its address, a short jaunt up Lusk street (not too far from the Cal-train station) and you'll see the spot. (Look for an Uber car outside the front door, disgorging its hipster passengers...) Don't worry though, no one is left out in the cold at this restaurant. Our food blogger gang saw a wide variety of people there eating dinner or getting drinks, and even a few families braving the romantic dark din of the lower level. We all experimented with trying to capture our food and wine in the dim lighting with lots of laughter and joking throughout the evening about flashes and odd photos.

 Experimenting with photos and waiting for dessert!

There were five beverages, one for each dessert. The Sommelier suggested we sip the wines prior to pairing them in order to see what changes would happen once we tasted them with food. I don't have a great wine vocabulary, so I was happy he was so down to earth about sharing what we "could" taste and why they choose to pair specific wines with desserts. Of course there were five desserts as well and they each had multiple layers of flavor and texture.

Candle light and wine.

Twenty Five Lusk also offers these pairings on their menu, so you can do your own tasting!

(FYI: 25 Lusk is big into sustainable and seasonable, so menu offerings may vary on your visit)

UPSIDE DOWN PINEAPPLE CAKE--dark and stormy caramel, coconut sorbet, 

jaboulet aine le chant des griolles muscat de beaumes de venise 2010 france

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM SANDWICH strawberries, basil,vanilla powder 

elio perrone “bigaro” 2011 piedmont italy

TEXTURES AND CHAOS-- sugar glass, exploding cocoa, passionfruit, raspberry sorbet

maximin grünhäuser abtsberg auslese riesling 2009 mosel-saar-ruwer germany 

SALTED CARAMEL SWIRL BROWNIE --mint chocolate chip ice cream, anise meringue chip

niepoort colheita port 1999 portugal

LIME POSSET--kiwi, mint, champagne granite

saracco moscato d’asti 2011 piedmont italy

The melting masterpieces.

LIME POSSET

TEXTURES AND CHAOS

SALTED CARAMEL SWIRL BROWNIE

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM SANDWICH

I'm not really sure why I didn't take a close up photo of the Pineapple cake. Anyway, it's sitting in the lower right had corner of the photo of the big plate. Let me just say we were all in agreement that the desserts were very good.We each had our favorites, and there were often exclamations when one of the girls would try a new dessert. Textures and Chaos, which is a deconstructed dessert, was a star with fun sugar glass and house made pop rocks. Our Chef was very specific when he described each dessert to us, including some back story and pointing out that all the ingredients are vegetarian friendly, including the gelatin! The Lime Posset was a bright blast of citrus, and all the ice creams were full of flavor as well. The Port with the Caramel Brownie was the best pairing, bringing new sensations out in both when sampled together.

The Chef, working through a rush in the kitchen.

Twentyfive Lusk features an open kitchen, behind glass.

Do you have a favorite dessert spot in the city? There are a lot of bakeries around, that's for sure. However Tea Time has had notable desserts at restaurants that serve savory foods as well, and that is a great trend! You know we always save room for dessert! Check out Twenty Five Lusk (for lunch, brunch, dinner or desserts!) and enjoy New American Cuisine created by a passionate and creative team. Also, thanks to NuffnangX for an excellent Ladies' (you know who you are) night out!

The Feast of Scoma

imotiv, an amazing iPhone app (formerly known as NuffnangX) that works like an RSS feed (only better and with more features, collecting all your blogs in one app to read on your iPhone), invited a group of us food bloggers to Scoma's for a Seafood Extravaganza on March 23. It was the night before a busy day at the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon, but we just couldn't turn down such a generous invitation from such wonderful people! Angela and J.K. signed up for this event  and wrangled our new blog partner Mel into attending as well.

Picture perfect weather!

Their mural on the fish processing building. That's right, they own a boat!

Valet available.

Your portal to seafood heaven!

The Tea Time Adventurers (nickname coined by Ezen of imotiv) arrived early and decided to walk around the area behind the restaurant. It was a good decision. The sun was out, the bay was beautiful and we witnessed a marriage proposal, which was accepted. Attending the dinner with us were Jo of mahal to the macs, Ngoc of San Jose Food Blog,  and Melissa of Serving Seconds. Jerome, who blogs over at A Spy in the House of Food and is the organizer of the Bay Area Food Bloggers group, had a previous engagement, but made time to drop by and have a glass of wine with us before dinner.

Scoma's provided us with bottomless glasses of  a light, crisp chardonnay that paired well with all of our food from seafood dishes to dessert. While our dinner was being prepared, we sipped our wine and nibbled on breadsticks and sourdough bread. Scoma picked our appetizers, while Ezen and Gabriel from Nuffnangx conferred with the restaurant staff to decide upon our main courses and sides. We shared everything family style which was perfect since we could eat more! The portions (as you'll see) are ample for one person as a main course, so try to get a group together in order to taste as much as possible. Of course once you sample some items on the menu you'll have to go to Scoma again and bring Different friends.

Sticks of bread, butter.

Good wine, great company.

Our first appetizer was scallops, sauteed in a saffron cream sauce, with fried leeks on top.Our introduction to the seafood at this resto was a perfect example of the delights to come out during our meal. Verdict? Delicious. Next we had  two platters full of crab cakes and fried calamari with plenty of lemons to squeeze over our seafood. Plus three dipping sauces including remoulade, tartar and seafood sauce. The calamari was sweet and well-cooked, while the crab cakes were all crab baby!

You like scallops? Order this one.

Tender calamari and no-filler crab cakes, yum!

This was the tip of the seafood iceberg. But this group is full of professional eaters, some even tackling the 7x7 top 100 restos (and completing it, wow Melissa!) Scoma's brought out the bibs and we were ready to crack the crab. Our group was blessed with two kinds, sweet fresh crab (amazing with lemon squeezed on it!) and a garlicky, buttery crab. Silence descended. Perhaps we heard the bells of the boat that brought the crabs in from the bay, but either way the whole table was too busy savoring the crab to make idle chit chat.

So happy with our bibs!

Fresh Sweet Crab!

Garlic Crab, ah memories.

Ready to dig in!

After the triumph of fresh crab, how could it be topped by any other seafood dish? Bring out the lobster and scallops and shrimps and maybe we're even missing some other fishy goodness...because this was all in one dish. In fact we'll give two views of these tempting morsels, just so you can see the variety. Scoma's famous mixed shellfish saute, served with penne pasta, rice and tasty veggies has an amazing sauce as well. What's the secret, chef?

Starchy goodness to soak up the sauce.

More seafood and more lemons please.

We also got in some more veg and pasta before dessert. Of course we couldn't do it all justice. The grumblings of, "I'm getting full," started turning into, "I can just take one bite, sorry." One more reason we love Nuffnangx and their blogger outreach is that they aren't shy about taking home leftovers. (All the bloggers declined, most saying they were too full to carry anything home.)

Pasta Pesto

Pasta Pomodoro

Steamed spinach "action" shot.

Overall this meal lived up to its name of 'Feast'! Especially the camaraderie of new friends around the table. Tea Time is doubly excited about how this event turned out because not only do we now have a local "know" on where to go to eat local fresh crab, but we have a new group of bloggers to share resources and conversation with, possibly even blog collaborations for future posts.

We were all convinced that we were far too full to eat dessert, but one look at the platters changed our minds. Each group of four shared a plate that showed off the 'best of' Scoma's desserts, including Raspberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Torte, Spumoni Ice Cream and Black Cherry Sorbet. This many days later, we're all still chattering about the house made Black Cherry Sorbet. Angela thinks she'll just go sit at the bar, order some wine and a huge helping of this scrumptious flavorful dessert.

Dessert Platter

Scoma's was rocking with diners by the time our feast was winding down, but the wait staff was attentive and thorough, cleaning our detritus and refilling wine and water glasses almost as soon as you set them back down on the table. If you're looking for a local resto with fresh seafood and great service, Scoma's is it!

Crab shells were flying!

No leftovers here!

Plus! After all that, there were mints. Angela did take one to go.

After-Dinner Mints