Conduit (SF Cocktail Week)

For some reason, Conduit Restaurant has never made it onto my radar screen. But after the SF Cocktail Week event they hosted last night, they are smack flat in the middle of my consciousness. Kudos to all the people who put on the Gin and Gen event last night; it was a fantastic evening all around.

The concept behind the event was a free ladies' night. I guess they wanted the women to feel free to get sloshed and to concentrate on what was being promoted: new gins and a Dutch liquor called Genever.

The darling of the evening was Bols Genever. Genever is the predecessor to gin; in addition to the usual aromatics in gin it includes a malt wine made of grains. Therefore, it has a whiskey/anejo tequila aroma that gin lacks. For my money, genever is the better product. It's traditionally served neat in these fun little glasses.

Everywhere I looked, bartenders were muddling this and squeezing that. Here is the setup for both the Poisoned Rose cocktail and Green Party champagne cocktail (both from Range).

Ah, Poisoned Rose. Simultaneously rosey and lemony, without too much flower flavor. I should have done a better job photographing the over dozen cocktails I sampled, but it was tough! Not only were my hands full, every time cocktails were placed on the table they were snatched up by thirsty women within ten seconds! I couldn't get a shot in edgewise. After awhile I just decided to enjoy myself. But I did get the names (in rough order of favorites):

• Hot Mama
• Wanderlust
• Siren
• Poisoned Rose
• Green Party
• Basil Gimlet
• some kind of punch
  

And there was food! My favorite was the carpaccio with truffle oil and roasted peppers. The bread it was served on was incredibly buttery, cheesy, and melt-in-your-mouth. One woman joked that the chef must have called the Devil for the recipe.
Spring peas were featured both inside and on top of these ravioli.
Dungeness crab with pickled cucumbers and red onions, on top of mini biscuits. The food at Conduit was all incredible. There were also meatballs dipped in yogurt sauce, and the staff was quick and friendly while putting out as much food as we could swallow.

Needless to say, I came home deliriously happy and am hoping to see more publicity for these kinds of events in my future. Plus, I was given a goodie bag! Yay for San Francisco. I love this town.