You’re getting creative beverage pairings, creative food, and because Chef Lee is Korean, the food is inflected in that way. One of his signature dishes is a faux shark fin soup, which has no actual shark fin in it, of course. I consider the broth in the faux shark fin soup at Benu to be the best broth I’ve ever had, with Shaoxing wine, Dungeness crab, and clear noodles that are both soft and almost crunchy at the same time.
It takes me out of French fine dining or Italian fine dining or anything like what I do on a daily basis. Chef Lee uses ingredients and methods that are entirely unfamiliar to me, and so I appreciate that, because it feels like a really special experience.
Can’t Miss Bites
Take the cable car to drink Irish coffees in a bar untouched by time, wander through one of the world’s best farmers markets, and dig into the platonic ideal of roast chicken. You can’t leave San Francisco without making these stops.
