: views from the Hill

Monday, September 19, 2005

[FOOD] Jaeger's on Broadway

300 Columbus Ave @ Broadway
SF 94133
Open 6 PM - 2 AM Daily
415.781.8222

Went off to dinner last night with the last folks left from the "open." They were game for almost anything in North Beach so we suggested Andrew Jaeger's House of Seafood and Jazz located in the Condor Club, Carol Doda's famoose setting.

Jaeger's from New Orleans and had plans to open a satellite restaurant in San Francisco and get it settled before heading home. His heading home plans have been delayed.

We'd read about his restaurant in the Chron on the day Karin Slaughter was in town. We didn't want to surprise her (or us) by taking her someplace we'd never been, so we hauled her off to Ristorante Cinque Terre, mentioned a while back, and had a nice, quiet dinner.

On our way back home from walking Karin to her digs at the Mark Hopkins, we stopped by to check out the menu at Jaeger's. The jazz band was sitting by the window that opened near the posted menu. One of the musicians turned toward us. "Great food," he said. "I've eaten here every night this week."

"Well," we answered. "We've already eaten, but we'll give it a try some other night."

Last night when we stopped in, the waitress, who was herself an evacuee from New Orleans and had only started work two days before, told us that there were troubles in the kitchen. Nothing grilled from the menu, nothing fried ... no grilled Andouille sausage.

We shared a bottle of wine for the four of us. Our partners in dine shared a salad while I had some file gumbo and his nibs had turtle soup, with a small glass of sherry 'longside to add to taste. He added all of it, of course.

For the main course, I opted for jambalaya, as did his nibs and the other guy. The other gal opted for Taste of New Orleans, which had a sampling of jambalaya, file gumbo, red beans and rice and fried catfish. She has a wheat allergy and after a taste of her cornmeal dusted catfish, wasn't sure they weren't mixing the cornmeal with wheat flour, so she gave us her bits of catfish.

Everything was great. Spicy with a nice zing. We'll be going back again to explore the menu further, to try some grilled/fried items from the menu. The kitchen should be fully operational tonight, shouldn't it?

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