the return of dinner club

last saturday geoffrey and i went out for a fun dinner at a relatively new restaurant in the mission, maverick. i had read about maverick on the latest edition of the san francisco magazine, in their best restaurants august issue. maverick had been voted one of the top three new restaurants in the city. once i read the review and noticed they had a southern edge i was intrigued and checked on open table for a reservation. we were lucky to get one that night for 8:30pm.

the main point of this post is not write a new review of maverick, i already have one yelp, but to let you know that with this meal geoffrey and i revived our monthly dinner club. we had a strong dinner club going for about a year during the 2004-2005 year. sadly it ended about a year ago when our friends sean and katherine moved back to nc. they were our steady dinner club companions and we miss eating with them. you are probably wondering by now "what exactly is dinner club?"

well, dinner club, you see is a once a month visit (sometimes every 2-3 months due to scheduling problems) to a restuarnt of choice. each month, in a rotating order, a dinner club member picks a restaurant they really want to try. before this choice is made official they have to check to make sure no other members have been there before and if they have, they cannot have been to the restaurant within 12 months - this is the only way a veto is made. no one in dinner club is allowed to veto that month's selection based on their own food likes and dislikes - this allows for some picky eaters (not naming names) to try some new, exciting dishes for the taste buds to savor. (although i will have to say that an official rule is there at least be one vegetarian entree since geoffrey and i are veggie, although sometimes i will eat fish if it sounds amazing.)

we had a fabulous dinner club with sean and katherine. our friend chris was also a frequent dinner club member and came into the mix a little later in the game. we tried some great places, see for yourself:

Bissap Baobab
Firefly
Slanted Door
New Ganges
Chez Panisse
Foreign Cinema
Medjool

for this past year we have grieved the loss of our dinner club friends - yes, i know it's a little dramatic... chris still lives out here but we hardly ever see him. we hadn't much thought about having dinner club since last summer. we still of course ate out a lot this past year and tried new places but i never really felt like dinner club until this past saturday. i don't know why, it just came back to me. SO, dinner club is officially back!! this means we'll be recruiting some of our friends to join. i think we already have hao in the mix.

here is what i wrote about maverick on yelp:

"i went to maverick last night after reading a few reviews and seeing they were voted as one of the best new restaurants by the san francisco magazine's best restaurants august 2006 issue. i looked over their website and was excited to see they did indeed have a vegetarian entree in addition to plenty of appetizers and sides.

i was easily able to make a same day reservation for 8:30pm through open table. and once we arrived, we didn't have too wait long, just about 10 minutes to be seated.

we (2 of us) started with the fig salad and the fried green tomatoes. first off the portions were generous which pleasantly surprised me. i thought the salad was good but a tad boring. the fried green tomatoes were wonderful and the goat cheese complimented their tangy flavor.

for dinner we only shared one entree, the pan fried tempeh. we were going to order two but they only had one left. i found this a little surprising since it was only around 8:45. however, it all worked out fine because we ordered the roasted cauliflower and the mac&cheese as supplements. this ended up being more than enough food and left plenty of room for dessert. i thought the cauliflower was amazing - make sure you order it. the mac&cheese was standard. i loved the tempeh dish. you get two hearty pieces of tempeh that have been pan fried in a vinegary gravy with mushrooms and baby bok choy. i love vinegar so i had no problems with it. i also appreciated there being an interesting vegetarian dish even if there was just one.

for dessert we shared the pecan pie and the double chocolate bread pudding. i thought the pecan pie was excellent and the bread pudding was enough to share between two. i wished it had been a bit more gooey.

overall i would go back to maverick just probably not anytime soon. i'll probably keep an eye on their menu for changes. also, be prepared to drop a little bit of cash here. our meal, as described above, plus one beer and a glass of wine totaled 95 dollars (with tip). of course you could do it cheaper if you didn't get appetizers, drinks, and desserts but what's the point?"

i look forward to more fabulous meals like this made possible through dinner club.