Sea urchin comfort food at Anchor & Hope, San Francisco

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
1

While out in California my lady and I had dinner at Anchor and Hope. It was a solid meal but one dish definitely stood out and if you are a Sea Urchin fan I would recommend checking this place.

Basically it is warm sea urchin and dungeness crab served in the sea urchin shell with lemon beurre blanc sauce. Its certainly not the most elegant dish and I still think sea urnchin is at its best with nori and perfectly cooked sushi rice but on a chilly San Fran night this dish was pretty awesome. The first order was gone in about a minute so we ordered a second. At $16, a pretty good deal too.

Anyone else have any sea urchin comfort food favorites?

2

Years ago we had a very good sea urchin soup at a Yountville restaurant. Other than that it’s always been uni sushi or sashimi.

3

Had a really nice sea urchin and egg combination, served in the egg. It might have been at Bazaar? I’ll try to figure it out.

4

Thanks for the tip on Anchor and Hope Chris. Another place to go with my “orange” wines. The only other place in SF that I’ve had good urchin lately was at La Ciccia in Noe Valley.

5

Love those orange wines! Off topic, check out Zidarich, another producer that maybe up your alley.

We also had pretty good straight up urchin at the Swan Oyster Depot. Little guy was cracked right open in front of us and they have great bread to scoop up all the goodness. No idea whether they have them on a regular basis though.

6

Egg and urchin sounds like a great combo.

7

I like it best as sashimi or nigiri sushi (as you mentioned). That said, a couple of interesting uni-related dishes come immediately to mind: an uni fried rice that had a faint nuttiness to it, and oysters in an uni-champagne sauce topped with caviar. The latter is undoubtedly over-the-top and may sound a bit muddled, but the chef somehow pulled it off very well.

8

Oysters with uni Champagne sauce and caviar an over the top, muddled dish? My first thought is I want that to be my midnight snake right now! Where did you consume this? I may have to attempt to make that…

9

I used to have it often in Manila many years ago, at the fine dining section of a restaurant of a chef friend/client of mine, though I have certainly had it in some French restaurants in the US as well. Problem is, I don’t remember which ones. It’s an old recipe. My friend’s restaurant hasn’t had it on its menu for a few years, but he told me he can easily make it with a few days’ notice.

I’ll see if he’ll give me his recipe for it. If he does, I’ll send it to you.

10

Very kind, thank you so much. My girlfriend is already expecting me to figure this one out.

Cheers!
Chris

11

I actually am just now finishing the last of my urchin and oyster stew. Fairly traditional oyster stew preperation (though I add sliced fingerling potato and sherry) and toss the uni in at the very end. This time I also diced a small amount of hatch chile to give the flavor some warmth on the finish. I’ve also topped with paddlefish roe before, though I found that the paddlefish flavor gets lost.

I got lucky on some live Urchin for $2.50 a pound.

12

The live urchin was a treat. You really feel like a killer as you cut the mouth open and hear the crunch of shell. I felt like Ted Nugent. [worship.gif]