To: PowellFrom: ReardonSubject: Aqua Yes, I believe Salt House was one of my recommendations? I go there after meetings downtow and it is decent. However, I am still convinced that the best food in the city is Michael Mina. I used to go to the restaurant when it was called Aqua and Mina was the Chef de Cuisine. It was mind-blowing. Then, as so often happens in the restaurant biz, tons of drama and terribly poor management drove the quality down, tearing the stars--TWO FUCKING STARS--from the firmament that once cradled the very gods. I stopped going except in extreme cases where I was so blackout-drunk in the FiDi that I was hardly even responsible for my choices. During this dark time, Chef Mina left; smart guy. He was all like "I is otta here you crazay bitchizzzz!!!!!" and proceeded to go all pimp with Andre Agassi, opening up RN 74 and his eponymous Michael Mina in SOMA. You know all this. However, did you know that I am not the only one who still holds memories of his foie gras as fondly as a guy's childhood porn stash. Yes. That good. (I should mention another driver in the Aqua demise was the negative press it got about that foie gras by PETA, those assholes.)
So a couple years pass and Aqua, gone to shit and riddled with debt, closes like the lonely alcoholic death of a former hero. What with all the macroeconomic gloom surrounding the city at the time, the darkened shopfront at 245 California Street made the recession suddenly feel undeniably real. "This economy sucks so bad already," a collective San Francisco whispered in panic, "and now we're going to starve to death!" After nightfall, bums pissed and hookers sold blow jobs in the same hallowed entryway where coked-out executives once urinated and the mayor himself was regularly felated. Sad times in the Fog City.
San Francisco foodies struggled to come to terms with their feelings. As the days wore on, our spirits hardened so we took "cooking classes" and ate sushi and switched over to places like Salt House and NOPA. And they were good. But the pain and emptiness remained.
And then one day, he came back.
I was at a big international solar pow-wow at PG&E, down there near today's Town Hall, and afterwards me and a bunch of lawyers gaggled 'round the corner to a place called RN 74. And he was there. Michael Mina. It was his place and you could feel the magic on your palate like a lover's caress. Then one day, with the certainty of a legend, Mina stepped forth to claim his destiny: 245 California Street, which had come up for lease. And so today he reigns from a throne rightly his. And if I am not mistaken or straight-up delusional, seared foie gras is back on the menu.
No matter what douchebags like Timothy Geitner say, SF's economy feels like it is on the mend thanks to Mina. Little things: rabbit leg roulade in tarragon mustard sauce, impeccable service, amazing head. We got through horrible times, but we're learning to feel again; we're healing. It might be nice to go there again.
So a couple years pass and Aqua, gone to shit and riddled with debt, closes like the lonely alcoholic death of a former hero. What with all the macroeconomic gloom surrounding the city at the time, the darkened shopfront at 245 California Street made the recession suddenly feel undeniably real. "This economy sucks so bad already," a collective San Francisco whispered in panic, "and now we're going to starve to death!" After nightfall, bums pissed and hookers sold blow jobs in the same hallowed entryway where coked-out executives once urinated and the mayor himself was regularly felated. Sad times in the Fog City.
San Francisco foodies struggled to come to terms with their feelings. As the days wore on, our spirits hardened so we took "cooking classes" and ate sushi and switched over to places like Salt House and NOPA. And they were good. But the pain and emptiness remained.
And then one day, he came back.
I was at a big international solar pow-wow at PG&E, down there near today's Town Hall, and afterwards me and a bunch of lawyers gaggled 'round the corner to a place called RN 74. And he was there. Michael Mina. It was his place and you could feel the magic on your palate like a lover's caress. Then one day, with the certainty of a legend, Mina stepped forth to claim his destiny: 245 California Street, which had come up for lease. And so today he reigns from a throne rightly his. And if I am not mistaken or straight-up delusional, seared foie gras is back on the menu.
No matter what douchebags like Timothy Geitner say, SF's economy feels like it is on the mend thanks to Mina. Little things: rabbit leg roulade in tarragon mustard sauce, impeccable service, amazing head. We got through horrible times, but we're learning to feel again; we're healing. It might be nice to go there again.
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