I had a detailed and lengthy review written about this place, The Progress, but I accidentally deleted it (AHHH! Damn it!) so now I'm retyping it. I apologize if this current post lacks details. Anyway I had the great opportunity to dine at The Progress last week. It is the sister restaurant to State Bird Provisions, one of the few restaurants in SF that lives up to its hype. The Progress is getting there. They had a lot of the same experimental recipes as SBP but some of the dishes were a miss. But the good dishes were very hype-worthy!
The ordering style is like ordering dim sum in SF: write it down with a pencil and family style meals.
Starter plate, meh. You have Malaysian style "beef jerky", fried mussels, anchovies, (weird tasting) mushy strawberries with sesame paste, parmesan crackers and radishes.
The best dish of the night by popular vote: shaved cauliflower and pig ears. I <3 pig ears!
Razor clams, meh.
Overrated Roti. It's on the 7x7 Big Eat list but it's definitely not list worthy. Those pig ears should be on that list.
Lamb merguez (aka sausage). It was delicious!
Beef, eh. Not pictured here is the squab and that was amazing. It came with chili paste and lettuce and you ate it like Korean bbq.
For desert I had the salted caramel floating island. That was pretty good, especially with the strawberries. All in all it was a good dinner. I would definitely come back again to try the other items on the menu. But if you're deciding between eating here, and eating at the original (State Bird Provisions) definitely go to SBP. They're still working out the kinks here and not all the dishes are amazing. And thanks to my friend Vickie for doing all the planning!