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Alaska Airlines Magazine
April 1996

Imagination and Ambience Characterize San Francisco Dining

The atmosphere at Tommy Toy’s (655 Montgomery Street; 415-397-4888) is in many ways traditional for topnotch Chinese restaurants. Exquisite Asian antiques line the halls and perch above the dining tables, and ranks of waiters greet diners as they enter. Mother-of-pearl gleams amid dark wood; even the man-sized orchids are genuine. It’s the cuisine that is nontraditional: Toy married classic Chinese with French cooking when he opened the restaurant in 1986.
Toy’s signature dinner, a fixed-price $49 set menu, is an intriguing juxtaposition of ingredients and styles that would (and frequently does) startle adherents of both cuisines. Minced squab is a traditional French appetizer, for instance; Toy offers it wrapped in a leaf of lettuce. Seafood bisque comes in a coconut shell, where it picks up hints of sweetness from the coconut meat. Sauteed lobster rests on a bed of angel hair noodles with pine nuts and mushrooms. The dinner winds up with peach mousse in a strawberry compote.

This explosion of styles prevails throughout the menu. Barbecued duck comes in a sesame crepe; black bean sauce is ladled over eggplant stuffed with fish mousse; prawns arrive on a bed of marinated spinach. It’s a delightfully adventurous cuisine, offered up in opulent surroundings.

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