Zuni Café

I have long considered it a gross oversight that I've never eaten at Zuni Café in San Francisco, so tonight after an amazing performance at Zellerbach hall, we had a late dinner at Zuni. I decided to stick with the Zuni "classics:" Cesar salad and a burger. The salad was very good. Lots of anchovy, lots of parmesan, crisp croutons, young romaine leaves all arranged horizontally. After that, I had the famous Zuni burger, which I've made at home from Judy Rogers's recipe in one of the SF Chron books but never eaten there. The secret is to take some good meat, cut it into strips, salt it with something like a tablespoon of salt, and leave it to marinate overnight. Then grind it and cook it. Obviously your meat needs to be fresh, and your grinder needs to be perfectly clean. The burger at the restaurant was really good, though I have to say mine was better, grilled on charcoal! Shoestring potatoes were great, but an extra $6, which makes it an almost-$18 burger and fries (yow!). For dessert I had a grapefruit and Campari granita, which was perfect after a fairly heavy meal.
We had a table right on the edge of the balcony, which was great for watching SF's beautiful people. All in all, a very pleasant dinner, though I have to say I'm not totally blown away or anything. It was good, but not transcendent. The burger at the Palace Kitchen might be a bit better.