Sometimes, it’s tough living the life of a SacFoodie. Just a few weeks back my job required me to travel to sunny San Diego and partake in a five-course lunch at “Top Chef” Brian Malarkey’s highly praised restaurant Searsucker with a group of lively and personable media on behalf of our client, the United States Potato Board.
Chef Brian Malarkey and his team went the extra mile in creating the special potato lunch menu just for us. The meal began with an amuse bouche of a fingerling baked potato – one heavenly bite of fingerling potato topped with melted cheese, crispy bacon, sour cream and chives.
Next up was my favorite course (with the exception of dessert, that is). The surf clam chowder featured petite potatoes in a rich yet light-bodied broth with fresh seafood – oh, and bacon too.
The meal only got better from there with a third course of Yukon salmon and Yukon Gold potato mash, and a fourth course of bacon (yes, more bacon!) chicken terrine and red potato salad. (Chef Brian, if you will tell me what the sauce in that red potato salad was, I promise we can be friends forever).
Little did we know, the best was yet to come with dessert – purple potato pie created by Searsucker’s pastry chef Rachel King. This square of purple goodness with a creamy whipped cream-like topping was to-die-for. In fact, it’s so great that we asked Rachel for the recipe – which she was kind enough to share and we will be posting next week.
As if we weren’t happy enough after the dessert course, the elevator doors opened (did I mention we had to take an elevator, complete with couch-like seating inside of it, to access the private dining room?) and in walked Chef Brian himself. He posed for pictures and chatted with all of us – and, it was even his birthday! What a guy, right?
Did I mention this was all in a day’s work?
Searsucker
611 Fifth Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101
Leave a Reply