My first 3 Michelin Star - Benu SF
For my birthday this year, Juan made dinner reservations at Benu SF, and it was truly an unforgettable experience! The dinner was booked for 9PM, and the tasting menu took us on a 3 hour adventure with over 15 courses and 9 pairings of wines, sakes, and beer. We had familiar ingredients with foreign flavors prepared in surprising ways that I never even considered possible.
This post details each course we had from the first bite to the last, along with photos to try and capture the flavors!
Background: Benu was opened by head chef Corey Lee, and the concept could be described as a creative twist on Asian cuisines made with California ingredients and prepared with French technique. Before getting started, let us review the Michelin Star guide.
1 star signifies high quality cooking that is worth a stop if the the restaurant is on your way.
2 stars signifies excellent cooking that is worth a detour.
3 stars signifies exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey out of your way to visit.
With that being said, let us get into the tasting menu adventure, starting with the ‘small delicacies’.
small delicacies
These were the first 7 courses on the tasting menu, listed as ‘small delicacies.’ The bites indeed were tiny but each bite was an explosion of flavors. A few of my favorite plates from the entire night came from this set, including the thousand-year quail egg, stuffed mussel, and the ‘shark fin’ and dungeness crab custard.
thousand-year quail egg, potage, preserved ginger
I grew up eating Pi Dan/thousand year/century eggs, which are preserved for sometimes months with clay, salt, ash, and quicklime (calcium oxide). This quail century egg was served in a beautiful little dish and the flavors were incredible. The potage was very ‘homey’ and comforting, and reminded me of 皮蛋瘦肉粥(century egg congee with pork).
mussel, glass noodles, fine vegetables
This massive mussel was stuffed with glass noodles and vegetables and the entire bite melted in my mouth.
squid, soondae (Korean blood sausage), sesame leaf
jelly-fish wrapped shrimp with kamtae seaweed
acorn tortilla, black truffle, iberico ham
chicken wing stuffed with abalone
This chicken wing was perfectly stuffed with abalone that we couldn’t tell where they even cut it open!
“shark fin”, dungeness crab, steamed custard
Don’t worry, this was pretend shark fin prepared with crab over a steamed custard. I’ve also had shark fin soup before and the flavors here were a great imitation.
main courses
Moving on from the appetizers (at this point we were 3 or 4 glasses of wine in), we have the main courses that are slightly heavier and more fulfilling. From here my favorites were the lobster coral soup dumplings, the marinated sea urchin, and the chrysanthemum soup. Oh, and the caviar was exceptional. Even though the entire meal took 3 hours, I actually wish I had slightly more time in between each dish to digest a little and have some more space to fully enjoy everything.
lobster coral xiao long bao (soup Dumplings)
I can usually eat a whole dimsum serving of 10 soup dumplings myself, but these two bites with housemade vinegar/soysauce were terrifically satisfying.
‘Xiao long bao’ sour ale, the rare barrel
These three characters ‘xiao long bao’ translate to soup dumplings, which is perfectly paired with the soup dumplings we had to the left!
sea urchin (uni) marinated in fermented crab sauce
SO CREAMY. This uni was paired with rock seaweed and rice.
spicy caviar and egg yolk
This spicy and salty caviar was delicious and the egg yolk was actually that brilliant orange color.
just some honey butter and bread
This was nice but wasn’t a part of the menu and took a little too much room in my stomach that I should have saved for the entrees below.
autumn chrysanthemum tofu soup w pine mushroom
We absolutely loved this soup! It was so light but full of flavor and would be the perfect soup for a cold fall night.
barbecued quail w xo condiment and pickles
By the time the entrees arrived, we were not full but pretty satisfied already so I don’t think we fully appreciated the meat-heavy dishes.
korean style beef rib steak w sides
This meat melted in my mouth and the sides (radish and pear kimchi, kohlrabi kkakdugi, and tomato meju w lettuces) were the perfect pairings that cut through the fat. The other meats that came with this dish were the beef tongue (top right) and the rib steak (bottom right).
Dessert time!
Moving on to the final few courses of the evening. At this point we are very full but have just enough space for the plates below. Because it was my birthday, the server brought out a little music box that played the birthday song as I wound it up, and inside was a tiny cake!
The little cake from inside the music box
omija berry ice cream and olive oil
milk pudding, salt, smoke, peat
The omija ice cream in olive oil definitely stood out as the highlight of the desserts. There were other treats that I didn’t highlight including the seaweed chip (the pringle look-alike in the first photo) and the after-dinner tea.
Wine pairings
I didn’t take photos of all of the wine, beer, and sake pairings except for a few notable ones that we really enjoyed. Below is the wine pairing list along with the evening’s full menu. I loved how they took the time to print everything out to easily follow along in the tasting journey.
Overall,
10/10 stars from us!! In the future I would love to come and experience it all over again. I also recommend trying new ingredients or odd and interesting flavors with an open mind. The best part of these experiences is sharing your thoughts and impressions with the special person(s) you’re eating with and laughing and talking through the entire night. Benu is an amazing place to reserve for special occasions and celebrations and worth travelling out of your way to visit. It definitely is not a restaurant that I can frequent whenever I want to (which would be nice), but I definitely will be back!
I hope you enjoyed this read and got a little hungrier.