Lunch at Slanted Door

San Francisco is a foodie town which has numerous restaurants opening and closing every day.
Especially for trendy restaurants, it's hard to keep up with the ever-changing style and rare to find restaurants who have kept popularity, reputation and quality for long time.
There is one of these rare restaurants in Embarcadero.

Slanted Door is a Vietnamese restaurant. They first opened in 1995 in Mission, then relocated to Ferry Building, and have always been a popular spot with high reputation.
On beautiful sunny day, we had lunch here.

We were led to the table with a gorgeous view of San Francisco Bay.
Appetizers are always my favorite in Vietnamese restaurant. We had two rolls and Daikon Rice Cakes.
Both of rolls were tasty, but crispy one was amazingly delicious! The combination of salty sauce, herb and subtle sweetness of the roll wrapped in the crispiness.

Daikon Cake has good flavor and texture. This kind of food tend to become a little too salty, but this one didn't.

JC chose wine: Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia Reserva, Rioja.
White wine from Rioja, Spain.
This wine had savory flavor which went good with all the food we tasted the day.

The salad in front was Green Papaya Salad. It's always good to have this salad among the dishes with strong flavor sauce.

 

The main dish was Grass-fed Estancia Shaking Beef.
The meat was soft and juicy.
Cellophane Noodles had a lot of Dungeness Crab flavor and Brentwood Farm Spicy Corn was simple yet so flavorful! I can't really eat spicy food, but this one, I couldn't resist!
Full Belly Farm Japanese Eggplant had good spiciness and sweetness.

When the food was this good, our expectation for dessert became so high, and we were not betrayed.

Meringue was on the top of Elderflower Gelato.
It had decent amount of sweetness, and it was a perfect choice after the big, satisfying meal.

I heard that Slanted Door is also one of the few popular restaurants who have a same chef from their opening.
That consistency must be one of the keys for their long time success.