Strollin' Down the Boulevard

I always like it when my dad takes me to dinner because he picks the "hottest" places in SF. We definitely have different sources for defining hottest though... for me, I  like trying the new, weird & unique hole-in-the-walls, for him, it's all about the 10+ year renowned, Zagat rated, WSJ recommendations. I'm all about variety, so it's an awesome change.

For his bday celebration last night, he decided he wanted to try Boulevard down in SOMA by the Embarcadero. Last week, I had pre-emptively made reservations since I know this place fills up. I even had to call them in because their online service wasn't working. We were kind of late, so we called to warn them... but for some reason they had lost the reservations D: !! Luckily, they were very nice about it, and told us that they would make space for us.  Points.

The inside of the restaurant is very cute. It is dimly lit and supposed to be themed all Parisian style. I think the logo is loosely based off of a Metro sign. There are French looking show posters on the walls, and the ceiling has a really nice brickwork design. All the lighting fixtures are made of pretty blown glass as well.

We were both starving and ready to EAT :D. The bread was pretty tasty, and I highly enjoyed that they put salt (maybe even fleur de sel  :O) on the butter. For appetizers, I ordered a ricotta & nettle tortellini. As per fancy restaurant norm, it came with 3 small pieces. They were totally delicious though! I'm not entirely sure what nettle is (some black type of leaf), but it tasted really good in the cheesy parmesan sauce. The pasta tasted homemade and was the perfect chewy consistency. My dad ordered a weird calamari type dish. It had little tubes of Octupus filled with lobster and a couple fried anchovies. Weird looking but he claimed it was awesome.

fancy looking knife

My entree was the pork chop steak thing. It came out looking highly fancy, bone in and all. The meat on the pork was SOOO juicy, possibly the juiciest pork I've ever had. I don't eat a ton of pork though, so I'm no expert. I think my favorite part were the mini potatoes. They were skinned and so golden buttery delicious! My dad noted that you can usually tell you are at a good restaurant by the quality of the side dish veggies. True story. He ordered the California swordfish. I tried a piece and it was excellent! I really liked that the little cauliflower stalks on his were green. Weird colored veggies make me happy.

We of course had to get dessert. I decided to go with a really random thing: a honey pinenut tart. It basically looked like a gooey granola bar and had a very great honey taste to it. It was quite unique so it satisfied me. It also came with a little scoop of grapefruit rosemary gelato on a thin cookie which was excellent. My dad kept it simple by ordering the carrot cake. I thought his was alright, but not anything too memorable. He also ordered a strawberry cheesecake bon bon to split which was only mediocre.

 The wait staff was very nice, and although the food was quite pricey, I highly enjoyed the meal. It definitely will be an expensive dinner, but I would recommend Boulevard as a special occasion type place to check out if you are looking for something more traditional.