Look, those cute "Microgreens" are creeping on my salad plate

There are many other salad greens out there and some really possess exquisite flavor such as the likes of arugula, mesclun, radicchio and lamb's lettuce. For chefs and passionate home cooks, the salad bowl is a culinary playground with tantalizing tumbles of bitter and tangy, of sweet, spicy and peppery.   Make it real fresh. 

How about “bulls blood beet greens?”

And now the “microgreens” (Sounds like you're in a lab).  Microgreens are filament-thin, delicate plants, the smallest possible incarnation of salad greens, leafy vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers.

The cute greens - those lovely little cluster of microgreens are flavorful Lilliputian members of the greens community which have been appearing with increasing frequency on today's restaurant menus.  We just had a halibut steak with Persian spices in saffron broth garnished with a rainbow mix of micros like upland cress, amaranth, and sorts of edible flower confetti.

WELLNESS PICKS is attracted to microgreens because of their punchy splashes of flavor - our favorite is the spicy, nutty and earthy microarugula - and their almost-evanescent beauty.     

At our choice restaurant French Laundry, at Yountville, California, the chef cuts what he needs from the living plants, so what we taste is a vibrant bouquet of just-harvested flavor.  A curious reading of trendy menus reveal, micro is extensive: Microfennel, microarugula, micro-spinach, microchrysanthemums, microcelery and others appear as toppings, as garnishes, or as explosive bursts of flavor.

The chefs at Martini House, in St. Helena, and Foreign Cinema and Campton Place, both in San Francisco, are now incorporating microgreens into a variety of dishes. 

We prod you to try a sampling of microgreens at these San Francisco restaurants:      

42 Degrees: Variety of microgreens tossed in a fennel salad with Meyer lemon and satsuma orange or on a warm arugula salad with salmon.

Alma: The popular bulls blood blend (beet greens) dressed with sherry vinaigrette

Andalu: Microgreens rainbow mix in Ahi tuna tacos or microarugula on rabbit potpie.

One Market: A mix of microbasil in a melted caprese salad or leek tart on salmon and a bed of micromustard greens

Kokkari: Lobster and shrimp cake topped with a mix of microgreens.

Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur: Arctic char is garnished with mixed bulls blood beet green and an English pea soup is topped with microcilantro.