http://www.conduitrestaurant.com/

We went to dinner for Virginia’s birthday at Conduit Restaurant on Valencia St in SF. They very nicely accommodated our party in the cellar in the back of the restaurant. It was a bit warm inside but they are in the middle of installing ventilation.

We had cocktails and appetizers as we waited for the birthday girl since they had gone to Marine World in Vallejo to relive a bit of their childhood.

I ordered their “Nouveaux Noyeaux” made with Ketel One vodka, prosecco, stone fruit, and lemon. It had quite a bit of alcohol and I couldn’t really find the “stone fruit” flavor.. but that may be because I was looking for a melon-like flavor since I’ve heard cantaloupe called stone fruit before. But now I find out that stone fruit usually refers to peaches, plums, and the like with seeds.

I only photographed a couple of their appetizers but we ordered most of them on the menu. Here is the fig appetizer with blue cheese and argula. This was really light and delicious. The figs were very delicate but yummy.

Here is the hamachi appetizer which I don’t really remember, wasn’t as mouth watering as the fig salad even though hamachi is my favorite fish for sashimi…

We also had the watermelon, tomato, and cheese appetizer. Who knew watermelon and cheese could go well together? We also had the beef carpaccio which was pretty good as well.

After the birthday girl arrived, we ordered our wines.

One white:

One red:

I ordered their halibut roasted with summer squash and smoked tomato. The piece was a bit small for me but left me enough room for dessert so that worked out well 😀

Ron had the grilled salmon with lobster mushroom and hearts of palm. The salmon was a nice sized portion and the lobster mushrooms were very nice. It’s orange and is a bit crunchy and also soft.

After our dinner, we were all treated to delicious cupcakes! Virginia had one candle to make her wish.

We almost had enough for 2 per person.

This is a red velvet cupcake with white icing and sprinkles.

This is a lemonade cupcake with pink frosting. The straw is more of a decoration than a utility, no lemonade to suck up 🙁

Another red velvet cupcake but with chocolate frosting.

The yummy moist inside cake:

Afterwards we went for a drink closeby at Nihon, a Japanese whisky bar. We’d been there one time before but thought it’d be fun to try their other drinks. They have whisky cocktails, champagne cocktails, and LOTS of types of whisky. As cocktails go, I’d recommend the lychee mermaid and ginger indochine. I don’t know enough about whisky to say much…

A word of caution, the lounge gets busy in the evening so you may have to stand for a while before getting a seat on one of the couches or tables. They serve food upstairs so you can make a reservation for dinner.

A fun evening…

Conduit Restaurant
280 Valencia Street
San Francisco

Nihon Whisky Lounge
1779 Folsom St @ 14th St
San Francisco