Bushi-Tei instead of Birthday

Today is my birthday and I'm having a lovely time relaxing. I actually celebrated the event this past weekend up in Napa and had one of the best meals of my life with some of the best friends anyone could ask for. However, blogging about that insane 9 course meal right now is not relaxing enough for my birthday. So, I will instead briefly tell you about a meal I had Thursday night (before the Napa trip). I had wanted to try Bushi-Tei for a while, so I was happy to finally get to go with a foodie friend of mine who also had it on her list. Plus, it was close to the movie theater for easy Sex and the City 2 access afterward (yay!). But I digress.

Bushi-Tei fancies itself a fancy place (French California fusion to be exact), so the above was my amuse bouche. Well, technically, it was my second amuse bouche because the first one they brought was beef. Communication among the staff, at least regarding my veganism, was nil. Anyway, the shroom was good enough, and we moved on, my bouche amused.

Next up was this beautiful beet carpaccio. Thinly sliced beets with a roasted paprika coulis and truffle tapenade blend perfectly and have the most wonderfully smooth mouth feel. I loved this sweetly savory dish, and that's good, because my entree was pretty lame.

Here was have some pretty dang boring vegetable risotto. The rice was perfectly cooked, as were the veggies, but the flavor was nowhere to be found. Salt and pepper? Not that I could tell. Oh well, you can't win 'em all I guess.In keeping with its desire to be all fancy, Bushi-Tei gave me a little spoon of sorbet to end the meal even though we ordered no dessert. I must say, it was pretty darn good. We still went to Fraiche afterward for real dessert though. I can't be within a few block radius of that place and not go have some organic soy frozen yogurt. So good.

Now that BT's crossed off the to-try list, I don't think I'll be back any time soon. I've got some good eats coming up this week, however, and don't forget the full Napa report is coming soon, so stay tuned... and have a great week!