Thursday night’s dinner with Brooke & Jeff at RN74 contrasted starkly with Friday’s parent lunch at Lafitte. I truly believe it is healthy to have a bad dining experience (Lafitte) to make one appreciate the great ones (RN74).

Let’s start in chronological order. Brooke & Jeff asked me to join them at RN74, Michael Mina’s newest outpost in the Millennium Tower, to celebrate an assortment of things. I had been there once for lunch when it first opened but was tickled with excitement to see how Mina does dinner. I remember remarking to B&J that RN74 has one of the neatest interiors I’ve seen in SF; it’s modeled after an old-fashioned train station.

PETA members, pig-lovers, and animal-rights activists – please overt your eyes now. As an appetizer, I had the sautéed pork belly & manila clams. Pork belly: fattier and thicker version of bacon. Jackpot. Jeff also got the maitake mushroom tempura for the table to share (fried – ‘nuff said). For my main course, I had the bacon-wrapped pork loin (like I said, not a good day for Babe). Let me say, this place is pricey but the servings are generous. These are not two-bite meals (appetizers included) like many high-end restaurants. In fact, I only ate half of my main and packed the rest for the weekend. Everything was delicious, but when I’m on my deathbed, I will remember that pork belly. Ya can cut it with a fork and it melts in your mouth. All this washed down with a good glass of wine – how did I get this lucky? Seriously.

Fast forward approximately 18 hours to lunch with the parentals along the Embarcadero. On my weekly waterfront runs, I noticed a new restaurant popped out – literally – of the north end of Pier 5. The space is an enclosed outdoor dining patio (check out the website for better visuals). Anyway, the place is called Lafitte and is about six weeks old. My diagnosis here is the chef is trying to be clever and innovative with his menu options – but it just totally backfires.

Parents both ordered the “Dagwood” sandwich. Take a look at the picture: WTF is that? Let’s just say anchovies, bacon, pork pate, and four pieces of bread were involved. I’m really glad I didn’t order it because:

-I had a few bites of mom’s and it was dry
-I honestly didn’t know how approach it
o pick it up?
o Eat it as two different sandwiches?
o Knife and fork?
o Four separate pieces of toast?

I ordered the seafood chowder (still blocked up from RN74) and out came a bowl consisting primarily carrots and potatoes. Sorry to be harsh, but an $18 bowl of soup should have more than two pieces of shrimp. Oh, and I used my fork to eat it. Huh?

Thank you Brooke & Jeff for providing me with such a special treat. Thanks Mom & Dad for hanging in there during an unfortunate SF showing. We’ll get ‘em next time.