We’re pairing up with David Bacco Chocolatier to create a unique Chocolate Seafood Dinner for Valentine’s Day this year!  Keep reading for all of the details and make note that we’ll be offering this menu exclusively both on Monday the 13th and Tuesday the 14th (for those industry folk out there and anyone else who likes to beat the crowds!)  There will be 2 seatings available each night, at 6pm and 8:30pm.

MENU

Ménage a trios
Oyster + sea urchin + pomegranate-ginger ice + espelette + white chocolate

Albacore Carpaccio
Chipotle-chocolate paint + pickled strawberries + mint pistou + lavender salt

Thresher Shark Almandine
Smoked mole + almond foam + banana puree + swordfish pancetta + basil

Romance de Chocolat
Warm 71% Bittersweet Truffle + passion fruit coulis
served with
Sea Rocket Bacon Jam Caramel + fig vinegar + 38% milk chocolate
Passionfruit Caramel + 42% milk chocolate
Vietnamese Cinnamon-Nougatine Truffle + 65% bittersweet chocolate
Fresh Orange & Wildflower Honey-infused 68% bittersweet chocolate

About David Bacco
Single Origin Cocoa Beans and “Grand-Cru” (noble grade) Couverture are the foundation for David Bacco Chocolatier.  Focusing on the individual flavor “personalities” of the chocolates and combining them with the purest, freshest, all natural ingredients brings out the utmost expression of decadence.  In addition, David Bacco Chocolatier uses organic and local ingredients in their chocolate whenever possible to promote sustainable agriculture both close to home and abroad, and they abide by strict standards of using Non-GMO products.

About the Chocolate
The espelette will be made with a Venezuelan 34% white chocolate.
The chipotle paint will be made with an organic Elvesia 74% bittersweet from the Dominican Republic.
For the Romance de Chocolat the first truffle will be made with Sambirano 71% bittersweet chocolate truffle from Madagascar.
The Sea Rocket BJ will be with a Hawaiian 38% milk chocolate.
The Vietnamese cinnamon truffle ganache will be made with a 65% bittersweet chocolate from the region of Sur del Lago in Venezuela.
The fresh orange and wildflower honey-infused chocolate will be made with a Madagascar 64% bittersweet chocolate, and enrobed in a 38% milk chocolate from Venezuela.

This special menu will cost $65 per person, and an optional Wine Flight will be offered for just $20 more which will include half pours of a California Sparkling Wine, White Wine, Red Wine, and Port to pair with each course.  Call us today at 619-997-8043 for reservations!  Again, 2 seatings will be offered each night at 6pm and 8:30pm.

There’s a new California wine company called 12 Signs Wine, which has developed wine styles based on astrology. Their website is a fun read- check it out and see if you agree with their pairings of signs with wines!

We’ll be featuring their wine on our list starting next week, beginning with the Aquarius Chardonnay, and for those of you with birthdays between January 20th and February 18th, we’ll offer the wine to you at $2 off the glass price!  Each month, we’ll bring on the next “wine of the sign” and offer the same discount- all you have to do is show us your ID to get the special zodiac price.

On Thursday, January 26th, winemaker Marie Fox will be bringing in four wines for a complimentary tasting to accompany our next Artist’s Reception with wedding photography from Bryan Miller.  This will be your chance to taste all of the “sign wines” and know what to expect when we get to them throughout the year.

We hope you’ll take advantage of this fun, ongoing wine discount program in 2012!  Of course we’ve pre-tasted the wines for you already, and they are all quite delicious and complex.

Cheers!

Happy Hour Additions
Great News!  We’re expanding our Happy Hour Drink Specials in 2012, including $2 Chilled Sake Shots (read about our domestic Sake here), $5 Glasses of Sparkling Wine, and $5 Glasses of our House Sangria (red or white).  This will be in addition to our continuing $3 Tapas, $3 Fish Tacos, $3 Select Drafts, and $5 House Wines.  Come take advantage any night (except Tuesday) between 5-7pm!  Tuesdays we’ll continue to focus on $1 Raw Oysters but also offer the $2 Sake Shots since we think that will make a great match!

Bottle Nights!
We’re introducing a new promotion to our weekly schedule- Wednesday Bottle Nights- which will mean that you can get 20% OFF any bottle in the house whether it be Beer, Wine, Mead, Cider – anything alcoholic in a bottle!  In addition, on Bottle Nights we’ll waive our $12 Corkage Fee so even if you bring your own bottle of wine in to dine, you’ll still save!  We hope you’ll enjoy and take advantage of this new promotion, which CAN be combined with our Happy Hour discounts from 5-7pm…but Bottle Night discounts will run all night long even after Happy Hour is over!

Sunday Brunch & Saturday Lunch Discontinued
Our Sunday Brunch menu is being discontinued as of January 1st, 2012.  It simply didn’t make sense for us to create an entirely different menu just for one day of the week, so for the time being, we’re stopping our Sunday 10am-3 pm hours.  We’ll miss those guests who did enjoy our brunch menu, and of course we’ll keep the possibility alive for special occasions and revisiting in the future…maybe we’ll just make it a summer thing!  We’re also going to discontinue our daytime hours on Saturdays and just concentrate our efforts again on our 7-night-per-week dinner menu.  As business continues to grow, we may very well bring these weekend hours back, but for now we thank you for your support and understanding.

To wrap it up, our new Hours of Operation will be simply Monday-Sunday 5pm-10pm.

Winter Menu
We introduced our new winter menu last month.  If you haven’t been in recently, you need to come check out some of Chef Chad’s creative creations, such as our Sardine or Veggie Flatbreads, Smoked Fish Tzatziki, Black Cod Foie Gras, and Shredded Brussel Sprouts.  Some repeating specials also include Whole Grilled Local Tilapia, fresh from just a few miles up the road at the IRC New Roots Urban Farm, and Grilled Fish Collar served with house-made kimchi.  Super tasty, local, sustainable seafood awaits you at the Rocket every day…in many forms!

If you haven’t made New Year’s plans yet, there’s still time to make a reservation for our dinner + dance party.  Just call us at 619-255-7049.

Thanks from all of the staff at Sea Rocket for making 2011 an incredible year – we wish you an extraordinary year ahead!

We’ve just introduced a new section on our drink list which features a domestic (California) sake called Yaegaki Dry.  We’ll be serving Chilled Sake Shots for $3 (just $2 during Happy Hour and all night long on Tuesdays!) and Juiced Sake with orange or cranberry for $5.  We’ll develop more mixed sake drinks in the near future.

Here’s some information about the Yaegaki Corporation and a description of the sake:
YAEGAKI Dry represents the top of YAEGAKI’s domestic sake line. It is made with rice polished to the extent that the nearly 40% of each grain has been polished away, and is brewed at a low temperature for a long period of time. YAEGAKI traces its roots to a sake brewery founded in Banshu, Japan, in 1666. They brew pure rice sake with a rich local flavor using traditional methods and top-quality ingredients. The sake is highly regarded throughout the world and has won eight consecutive Gold medals at the prestigious Monde Selection Awards in Europe. Now YAEGAKI is producing the same quality sake here in the U.S. Brewed under the supervision of Reiko Kushibiki, the first female Sake Master in the U.S., YAEGAKI Sake is silk-smooth and full-bodied.

Try it out next time you’re in and let us know what you think!

We’ll be offering a 3-Course Prix Fixe Menu for $35 this Saturday, December 24th for Christmas Eve, in addition to our regular menu.  We hope you all are enjoying the holidays so far!

MENU

1st Course
Celeriac Soup (gluten free & vegan)
black truffle, micro celery

—

2nd Course
Market Fish Confit (gluten free)
cauliflower, chantrellles, chestnuts, raisin gastrique, caper gremolata

Roasted Duck Breast
pumpkin, sage, cippolini, cranberry reduction

Persillade Grilled Seitan (vegan)
Cippolini onion, grape jelly, rapini, lima beans, tobacco soy cream

—

3rd Course
Chocolate Mint Bread Pudding
candy cane chantilly
***Gluten Free & Vegan Desserts available upon request

Happy Winter Everyone!  We forgot to send out a newsletter last month…guess there was just too much going on!  I hope you all were able to get out and enjoy some of our unique San Diego Beer Week Events- for our part, we wish beer week could happen every month!  So here we are at the end of another year, still planning our last few special holiday menus while already looking forward to more fun collaborations in the new year.  (Such as a Wedding Photography Art Show + Wine Tasting, Mustard Madness, A Chocolate Valentine, Blackout Dinner V.3, and Green Flash Beer Pairings to name just a few of our current brainstorms.)

Here’s a quick look at the next few weeks’ goings-on:

Monday, Dec. 12th – Sea Rocket Holiday Party, with tray passed hors d’oeuvres all night (RSVP on facebook here)

Wednesday, Dec. 14th – Chef Chad White cooks at BO-Beau in OB for their 1 Year Anniversary Celebration

Wednesday, Dec. 21st – Third Wednesday DrinkAbout (We’ll offer a $10 beer pairing special as usual!)

Saturday, Dec. 24th – Christmas Eve 3-Course Prix Fixe Menu for $35 (Menu is still TBD but will include an assortment of choices from our regular menu in addition to some Christmas specials)

Sunday, Dec. 25th – RESTAURANT CLOSED – Have a Great Christmas!

Friday, Dec. 30th – 30th on 30th

Saturday, Dec. 31st – New Years Eve: $65 Prix Fixe for 4 Courses + Amuse + Champagne + Dance Party after 10pm!

If you haven’t liked us on facebook yet, please do as those posts are often much more current than our blog.  If you’re interested in reading some of the great media attention we’ve received lately, you can browse here!

Thanks to all of you for your continued feedback, support, and wonderful company!  It’s been a real joy getting to know you better.

On Monday, December 12th we’ll be ditching our usual $10 Grass Fed Burger Night to throw a holiday party for anyone who’d like to come!  $25 will get you Chef Chad’s creative tray-passed hors d’oeuvres from 6pm ’til close, and we’ll offer our Happy Hour drink specials (as well as a few others) all night long- at least one $3 draft beer, $5 house wines, $5 sangrias (a new addition to our everyday happy hour!) and we’re throwing in $2 sake shots as well just to make sure you have a particularly good time!

Because the holidays are approaching, we’ll also be offering discounted pricing on some of our house made goods- Bacon Jam for $10/jar and Tomato Jalapeno Jam for $5/jar (a $2 savings per jar on both).  These jams are awesome not only as holiday gifts, but also to enjoy with your holiday meals.

We hope to see you then, and in the meantime, make sure you’ve Liked Us on Facebook so you don’t miss out on any in-between-the-blogs goings on!

This Saturday (Black Saturday as I’m going to call it) is also Small Business Saturday, a day that encourages consumers to “shop small” – instead of heading to your average big box stores – as you begin your holiday shopping.  Some small businesses, including Sea Rocket, will offer discounts or other incentives as an added bonus to shopping small (and local!)  Councilman Todd Gloria will make an appearance at North Park Main Street at noon to present speeches and do a raffle if you’d like to join!  (Speaking of North Park Main Street, don’t forget that the North Park Toyland Parade is happening on Saturday, December 3rd starting at 11am!)

Here is our special offer: Visit Sea Rocket Bistro for lunch or dinner on Saturday, November 26th and get a voucher for 2 Free Tapas for use during any following visit, in honor of Small Business Saturday 2011.  I’m going to suggest that they amend their tagline to “Shop Small; Support Great Things!”  But I’m sure if you’re already on this mailing list you already know that you’re doing this, and want to support great things when you come into Sea Rocket.  Hope to see you then!

We were contacted recently by the Community Fisheries Network, who let us know that a couple dozen fishermen would be getting together here in San Diego (during Beer Week) for some meetings.  They wanted to host a event that would allow the public (you, the consumer of seafood) to shake hands with the hardworking folks who fish our food for us all over the country, and experience the wonderful flavors that can be garnered from such incredibly fresh catch.  They’ve come together with our local Fishermen’s Work Group to discuss how better to market their products directly to restaurants, thereby getting a better price for their efforts while ensuring the highest quality seafood to their buyers.

We at Sea Rocket know what a big difference it makes to get fresh fish and other seafood straight from our local fishermen, so of course we jumped at the request to host this party!  Executive Chef Chad White, along with Executive Chef Katherine Humphus of Bo Beau in Ocean Beach will be creating a unique menu to highlight the seasonal catch of some of the attending fishermen.  On tap we’ll offer three excellent craft beers (it is San Diego Beer Week after all!) from Ballast Point Brewing including their Big Eye IPA, San Salvador Saison, and Abandon Ship Smoked Lager.

MENU

Seared Black Cod Foie Gras
Brioche, verjus gastrique, macadamia brittle

Charred Sardine Tart
Mustard, mint, tomato jam, gruyere

Sea Urchin Crostini
Uni, chorizo induced burrata, sea salt, honey

Spiny Lobster Eclair
Sweet corn, leeks

Scungilli a la Escargot
Smoked gouda risotto

Black Cod en Pappillote
Ginger, red creamer potatoes

Persillade Grilled Swordfish
Pancetta, concord grape compote, shaved brussels sprouts, tobacco cream

Sea Urchin Gelato
Lavender sea salt, orange honey, candied ginger

We’ll start the event with a cocktail hour and tray-passed hors d’oeuvres, then move onto a seated 4-course menu, with Chefs White & Humphus taking turns preparing each course.  The cost for the event is $60 per person all inclusive of food, tax and service, and beverages will be available at the bar.  Reservations must be made in advance and the restaurant will be totally dedicated to this event so please note that our regular menu will not be served as well.  Event starts at 6pm, with dinner starting between 7-7:30.  We hope you’ll take advantage of this unique opportunity to meet some of the people who are out on the water every day, as in our experience, fisherman are some of the most interesting characters we’ve ever met!

San Diego Beer Week is quickly approaching (November 4-13) and we have been steadfastly planning events here at the Rocket.  This one will likely be the talk of the town- a collaborative effort between LOVELIKEBEER, San Diego Beer Blog, Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, and of course a special menu of creative local foods provided by yours truly!  We’ll have a surprise 5th beer on draft that will not be included in the meal, but will be available for purchase for those die-hard fans who may want to taste one more over the course of the night.  All pairings, food and beer, will be completely and scrumptiously vegan!  And, a percentage of all sales for the night will be donated to Engineers Without Borders.

MENU

TERRA BELLA FARMS PEAR SALAD
Belgium endive, chipotle cinnamon walnuts, aged cashew cheese, clove-honey, port gastrique
paired with FUEGO DEL OTONO

PUMPKIN GNOCCHI
Cured black olive puree, fennel confit, nutmeg-roasted pepitas
paired with LA PARCELLA

SMOKED SEITAN SAUSAGE
Spiced apple-chai tea, sauerkraut, crostini, mustard
paired with BAM BIERE

COFFEE-MALTED CHOCOLATE CAKE
Ganache, beer maserated cherry & curry gastrique
paired with BAM NOIRE

Tickets are $75 per person all inclusive of food, beer, tax & service and are only available on-line here!  Doors open at 8pm with introductions of each beer & pairing before each course is served.