For a new place that's almost painfully hip, Central Kitchen is surprisingly good, with a lot of attention paid to the complex, flavorful ingredients rather than just having arty farty descriptions given to the dishes.
In fact, the menu was missing any arty or farty items. Instead, plain English was all that was needed to describe each of our tasty, carefully composed courses.
My adorable partner chose the squid, avocado, celery, and pine nut mousse. I went for the plain sounding, but fabulously rich ham, greens, herbs, marinated bread, and white cheddar. Then we shared an in-between course of lamb belly, cumin, eggplant, basil, and salsa verde, and each had the hen, roasted and confit, nettle puree, and crispy potatoes. Just because it was our first time there, and we wanted to see what else they could do, we had the excellent lemon cake, nectarine, yogurt mousse, and almonds.
Central Kitchen almost made us wish we still lived on that block, because the locals now have that plus Universal Cafe, Blowfish Sushi, and Flour and Water within just a few yards.
Despite its Mission location, Central Kitchen doesn't appear to be aiming for a budget-conscious crowd. An eighty dollar bottle of Vouvray pushed dinner up to $250 for the two of us, but I'll be itching to return there nonetheless.
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