The House of Michaels

We had a nice holiday dinner at Paul K last night with our friends Keiran and Hersha.

We had dinner with Matt & Marc last night at a new (new for us at least) restaurant last night in Forest Hill called Chouchou.  The place is 1/2 block from the MUNI stop so it’s easy to get to without a car (it also has a parking lot).  I started off with the onion soup which was amazing.  Mikey and Marc both had the frisee salad which came with a nicely poached egg.  Matt started with the carrot & ginger salad (the soup de jour).  All the starters were solid and we would definitely order them again.  For the mains, I chose the bacon wrapped duck breast.  I can not begin to tell you how awesome it was.  It managed to preserve all the flavor of the duck while also bringing in the wonderful  smokiness of the bacon.  Definitely the winner dish of the night.  Matt had the Fillet which was prepared perfectly.  Both Marc and Mikey had the port tenderloins.  This however, was the one area where the kitchen stumbled that night.  The tenderloin was a bit dry and overcooked and under sauced.  While not horrible, it definitely was not up to par with the rest of the meal.  We decided to pass on dessert, but to our surprise, our waiter brought out a phenomenal mixed berry tart for us on the house.  It was a nice treat and will definitely ensure that we will be ordering dessert on our next visit.
Overall, Chouchou score as a great find and is only a short MUNI ride away.  We’ll definitely be going back.