Thai fusion meets Californian cuisine– that’s Kitchen Story. The restaurant is located in one of my favorite districts in San Francisco, the Castro. Dinner-goers are met with a busy dining area, the smell of bacon, and excellent service.
Kitchen Story’s most famous dish is their millionaire’s bacon, which has swept San Francisco like a storm. It originated in their first restaurant, Sweet Maple, which is open solely for breakfast and lunch. Kitchen story, on the other hand, is available for dinner, and even accompanies another one of their restaurants, the aptly named Dessert Story.
Naturally, we had to start with their most famous dish, the Millionaire’s Way, which comes with two strips of millionaire’s bacon and asparagus. Their bacon was unashamedly the best bacon I have ever had (and trust me, I’ve had a lot of bacon in my humble years). It’s coated in delicious Maple syrup sauce, which they somehow manage to make both spicy and sweet. The bacon itself is perfectly cooked, fatty but crisp. Any Kitchen Story or Sweet Maple goer should definitely give their bacon a try. No regrets!
For entrees, we tried both the Pacific Pad Thai and the Open Faced, based on our waiter’s recommendation. The pad thai was among the best I’ve had, helpfully coming with sides of both red pepper flakes and peanuts. The accompanying seafood– calamari, shrimp, scallop, and crab–was fresh and delicious. Warning, though: do not put all of the red pepper flakes in at once! We made that mistake and our mouths were burning for hours afterward. Luckily, Kitchen Story offers homemade thai tea to stop the burning. Give that a try, too!
See that crunchy side up above? I may be a sucker, but that stuff is almost as delicious as the pad thai itself.
Like I said, our second entree was the Open Faced. Served on a layer of ginger rice, the entree is basically a deconstructed burger with bonus pork belly and fried egg. While a bit on the pricy side, the burger patty is made of Wagyu beef, which stands uncontested as the best kind of burger out there. The entree is also extremely filling, but well worth it for a taste of the combination of avocado, wagyu, pork belly, fried egg, mushroom, spinach, and cheese.
This meal left me more full than I’d been in quite some time– a testament to either the quality of the food or the large amounts of thai tea I drank. It’s probably more of a combination of both, which, either way, speaks to how truly amazing this place really is. Kitchen story is one of the best of San Francisco, and I highly recommend it.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 1/2
Over and out!
Anya
Website: http://kitchenstorysf.com/
Menu: http://kitchenstorysf.com/dinner/