My colleagues Eric and Kim took me to a little restaurant in San Francisco called Zuni Café.  We stepped outside the hotel to pick up a cab and the damp evening wind cut through me leaving behind an achy chill.  Of course, I did not bring a jacket with me on this trip so I toughed out the cold until we arrived at the restaurant.

Once there, we walked into a cozy, casual – yet elegant – café with a large brick wood-burning stove hearth at its center that warmed me up and took away all traces of the evening chill.  The smell of food and wood-smoke perfumed the air as we walked upstairs to a corner table.

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Both Erik and Kim are red wine drinkers, so we picked a bottle of 2003 L Cru de Mare Chateauneuf de Pape, which offered us subtle and complex flavors without any tannic bite.

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We decided to order family-Style and share.  We began with a series of Quilcene, LACE w:st="on">LACENAME w:st="on">StellaLACENAME> LACETYPE w:st="on">BayLACETYPE>LACE>, Eld Inlet Kumamoto and Malpeque Oysters, each offering varying degrees of brine and sweetness.

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Next we tried the restaurant's famous Caesar salad, which is a relatively dry Cesar with well dressed, whole leaves, tasty croutons and shaved cheese.

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The following two appetizers were truly outstanding; we ordered halibut cheeks braised in a butter sauce with okra and corn and topped with chunks of avacado.  The balance of flavor and texture between the okra, corn, butter and strands of fish that flaked off in our mouth were phenomenal.  They also served us a ricotta "Gnocchi" that they made with cheese instead of potato.  These cheese dumpling pastas left a hint of welcome sweetness in their finish.

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For our main course, we ordered Zuni Café's signature roasted chicken, which had to be the best roasted-chicken I have eaten so far.  There is just something about a wood-stove that makes magic out of this tender meat.  We also ordered a yummy pork chop with a crisp pan-fried wedge of polenta and green beans.

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For dessert, we ordered aperitifs; Kim and I had the Fonseca Bin 27 while Eric indulged in a glass of grappa.