Zuni Cafe is a San Francisco establishment and their roast chicken has something of a cult following. When a visiting friend offered to take us out to Zuni I said I would happily go(and would finally be able to test out the chicken for myself). We put in an order for the chicken immediately (it takes an hour to cook) and then began to pore over the menu. We ordered the burrata on crostini with cherry tomatoes and cucumber to start. I love burrata,although this particular specimen was not particularly flavorful and left me wanting a little something more. I chose the spaghetti with nettles, toasted breadcrumbs, and ricotta salata. The pasta was fine but a bit heavy on the oil.
For our main courses (in addition to the chicken) we ordered roasted rabbit leg with a strong cilantro-garlic sauce and the "carne asada" with corn and zucchini (in a sort of succotash), pickled onions, and purslane. The rabbit was flavorful and juicy but the sauce overpowering. The "carne asada" was a fine piece of meat, and I guess in the truest sense of the word it was authentic (being beef that was roasted), but nothing about it was Latin . . .or particularly interesting for that matter. Once again, it was another of those good, not great dishes - the purslane was sauteed in a lot of oil and I think that if they had left it raw it would have provided a nice refreshing taste in contrast to the rich meat and buttery corn. Finally - THE CHICKEN - one more to add to the list of Zuni's good but not great dishes. The meat was cooked well but some parts were a tad bit dry, and there was no evidence of herbs (as per Judy Rodgers' own recipe!)leaving it tasting a bit bland. I feel as if I shouldn't even go into the bread salad so as to prevent this from seeming like a rant, all I will say is that I can soak bread in olive oil and warm it up at home ...ok I'll stop. Zuni was by no means a bad restaurant, it just didn't live up to the hype.
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