Supper Club Street Cred

Internet memes seem to have increasingly truncated and predictable shelf-lives. You hear about something funny on Twitter. You link to it on your blog. Next thing you know, everyone you went to high school with has posted it to Facebook, and then your Aunt Nancy is forwarding it to you in an email because she read about it on USAToday.com. Within three days of your initial discovery, it's now officially old news.

So too come San Francisco trends. Street food carts started springing up and in the course of a few months were given their own festival. Unmarked bars with speak-easy-style passwords are now listed in every city guide book. And then there's the underground vegan supperclub. 

For a while I debated about even listing Brassica Supper Club on Veg Table because I knew they were trying to keep it on the down low, but given their recent spike in press, I figure they're safe. We went to several of their dinners early on and then dropped off for a while this summer due to traveling or other plans. Returning this past weekend I couldn't help but notice that there seemed to be a shift in the crowd.

The news of Brassica has indeed spread to the "Aunt Nancies" of the vegan community who went so far as to poll fellow diners about how they'd heard of this since it only just came out in VegNews. (Aww, you get your news from print media? That's so quaint.) 

I kid. Their enthusiasm was actually kinda cute. But publicity can also alter expectations. To wit, we were seated with another couple who grumbled throughout the meal about having to sit on the floor and seemed impatient all night. Jeez, people, the wait staff are the chefs serving you in their home. You're not at Fleur de Lys.

Anyway, like the fans of indie bands now playing in packed venues, it's easy to feel indignant because you knew them back before they got popular. However it's also easy to see how ridiculous that sounds when discussing a supper club that opened a mere four months ago -- especially a vegan one. I want every vegan enterprise to do well and when it's run by three talented chefs who work their butts off to make it great, I certainly don't begrudge them their success.

It's well-deserved. I mean, check out this photo of Friday's dessert, a Belgian Stroopwafel with Toasted Almonds, Huckleberry Sauce, and Almond Anglaise:

It tasted even better than it looks. It's hard to take photos of the food there with the low lighting, but I've tagged the ones I've taken from all my meals there. I especially loves their soups since I'm a bit of a connoisseur. So the secret is out now, and I'll just have to compete for a reservation each weekend they're serving. But at least I'll always have the indie cred of having dined on their first weekend.