With the closing of Devil's Slide and the crawling bumper-to-bumper traffic on 92*, what could possibly drag me down to Half Moon Bay in the middle of the working week? Well, if not for my first look at the impossibly picturesque town with atmospheric mists slinking in, then for the food at Rogue Chefs. And if not for the fabulous food at Rogue Chefs, then for the opportunity to hear Don The Rogue Chefs Wine Guy describe a glass of Burrell School Chardonnay thusly: "Take a California Chardonnay, see, and just PUMP some steroids into it!" Syrah snarfs are not pretty. They're also sorta painful -- like a nasal wine enema.
Eating at Rogue Chefs is like eating at home. If your home comes equipped with a kick-ass chef. Like many Bay Area Chefs, Kevin Koebel is all about the "farm to fork" credo. Influenced by growing up on Canadian working farms, Kevin supports and respects local farms and he works hard to maintain a direct connection between it and his ever-changing Asian-European-American menu. That's all well and good and definitely admirable, but what I enjoyed most about this particular dinner was the interaction between Kevin and his patrons. Should we start calling it, "from cook to customer"? Maybe it will catch on.
It's ridiculously easy to find good food, fabulous food, even food that could romance the pants off you after the first bite in the Bay Area. What is harder to find is a total dining experience that matches said good food. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have a close-to-perfect meal compromised by bad service or cold and impersonal treatment. In these gastronomically competitive days, chefs and restauranteurs should be looking to satisfy both stomach and heart.