Restaurant L'Olivier

A couple of weeks back, Andi and I went to do our taxes. The woman who does them is Russian and I asked her what are some of her favorite Russian restaurants around the area. She didn't have any traditional Russian restaurants but recommended a place in San Francisco called L'Olivier. It's a fusion of French and Russian cuisine.

Their menu is small but has some great stuff on it! It's also very reasonably priced.

We started off with two appetizers: Trio of Salmon and Veal Sweetbreads. The salmon had a great presentation with salmon tartare topped with salmon caviar wrapped in gravlax with two toast points sticking out the top. The sweetbreads were crusted in porcini powder and had an amazing demi-glace sauce that was to die for. I sopped up every bit with the delicious french bread you see in the back.

For our second course I got Salade Landaise- frisee, duck confit, smoked duck breast, candied walnuts, and potato chip.Very light, the perfect second course.

Andi had the traditional French Onion Soup. Nothing to go crazy over, just good soup!

For our entrees, Andi went with Scallop Risotto with Lobster Sauce. The dish came out held together with a metal ring mold which the server pulled off upon presentation. Very well done(I love the bowl!) and great flavor!

I went with the Cassoulet de Toulouse which had braised lamb shoulder, duck confit, toulouse sausage and cannellini beans. Most cassoulet's that I have had can be quite heavy but this was just the right portion to not make me feel completely full.

Before we even started our meal, our server recommended the Souffle which he said they had won awards for. Since Andi had never tried a souffle before we went for it. It was cooked perfectly and the server broke the center for us and added the cream. Very light in flavor and the perfect ending to a three course meal. We washed it down with a glass of port and Frangelico!