SF: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Antidote, Pearl Oyster Bar, Swan Oyster Depot, Hog Island Oyster Company, Blue Jay Cafe.

SF Chronicle Michael Bauer gives Antidote one and a half stars (201 Bridgeway, Sausalito; 415-331-9463):

. . . A meal at this Sausalito restaurant -- previously Valhalla and, before that, the longtime restaurant of former madam Sally Stanford -- could be prime material for a "Saturday Night Live" skit.

Torralba's deconstructionist sensibilities make for some very weird encounters of the food kind. Shots of truffle soup are served in test tubes. As you throw back your head to down the dark, murky contents, visions of Jonestown creep into memory.

. . . Torralba draws miniature full-color sketches of each dish on his 11-course tasting menu ($80) and colorful confetti-like dots and lines around sections of the a la carte menu.

We spent the first few minutes trying to unravel the riddles. What, for example, is "Like a sardine touched for the very first time!" ($14), the "Peach's problem" ($10), or "Implosion of lobster ... as a tease!'' ($25)? These bons mots pepper the menu, leaving me scratching my head. It must be a French thing, I decided, so I rolled the dice and ordered.

The chef, or "Cuisenaire,'' as he calls himself, deconstructs many dishes. The nicoise salad ($18), for example, had triangles of cool seared tuna fanned next to a tower of potato coins topped with a quail egg, sliced artichoke hearts standing stem-up, a lattice of haricot verts and other vegetables and a whole anchovy fillet draped jauntily over the top, all on a mat of anchovy basil cream. It was a pretty plate, but with so much arranging, the flavors seemed a little shopworn. The sardine dish ($14) turned out to be a half-dozen fillets layered over tomatoes and peppers, as if someone had laid out the ingredients for a terrine and forgot to mold them together. Yet even after eating the dish, I'm not sure what "touched for the very first time'' meant.

Descriptions are printed on the menu like the notes of a deranged scientist: "Veg from the moment ... splash of virgin oil" ($16) is eight different riffs on the same seasonal vegetable; "John Dory, black olive cream and artichokes upside up!'' ($29) refers to the placement of the artichokes.

SF Weekly Meredith Brody visits Pearl Oyster Bar (5634 College, Oakland, 510-654-5426):

There was lots of stuff on the menu besides the raw bar options (which included clams, crayfish, shrimp, and crab, in addition to half a dozen different oysters). We agreed that we were more tempted by the various starter options than the main courses; fresh off the plane from the East Coast, the boys wanted to eat light. Our first decision was easy: Pearl offers one of each oyster for $12.50, and two of each for $25, giving us just what we needed -- one of each for three. All the oysters (Duck Island, Hama Hama, Hog Island, Kumamoto, Malpeque, and St. Simon) were opened when we ordered them, and came prettily plated on ice with strands of seaweed, with a tiny cup of sharp mignonette sauce and lemon wedges. (I take my oysters straight and sprinkle a few drops of citrus or sauce on the buttered bread alongside, a trick I learned from M.F.K. Fisher.) The bivalves were breathtaking: sweet, briny, salty (especially the Malpeque), creamy (especially my favorite, the plump little Kumamoto).

This is what oysters make me want to eat: more oysters. (Not quite as many as the woman Fisher saw dining in Dijon, who followed seven dozen oysters with seven dozen snails. "She turned a purplish red," she mused. "I have often wondered about her." But I could easily dispatch a dozen more, especially when they're as perfect as these were.) But we'd ordered spicy raw tuna poke -- red cubes the size of miniature dice seasoned with peppers, piled in a martini glass and drenched with sesame oil; a trio of Pacific fish tartare -- three small rounds, halibut garnished with a line of sel gris, albacore with crunchy crystals of fleur de sel, and ahi tuna with red Hawaiian salt, the different salts being a slightly fussy but ultimately educational and interesting touch; and a delightful julienned green papaya and green apple salad topped with strips of fried tofu and roasted peanuts in a spicy lemongrass dressing. And then came an exemplary plate of two tiny, fat Maine peekytoe crab cakes -- mostly crab, barely crisped on the outside, barely holding together, nothing like your average crab cake at all.

And then she's hits Swan Oyster Depot (1517 Polk ; 415-673-1101):

The "menu" is an assortment of signs posted on the wall, from which we quickly ordered two each of the four oysters on offer (Bluepoint, Kumamoto, Miyagi, and Olympia), making an even two dozen; three cups of clam chowder; and a crab Louis salad to share. The chowder came out quickly, a thin, satisfying brew of cream, clams, potatoes, and not much else. (No flour, thank God.) The restaurant offers oyster crackers on the counter (as well as house-ground horseradish, lemons, and house-made cocktail sauce), which we pretty much ignored. The four oyster choices turned out to be five, because the place had both local and northern Miyagis (the server thoughtfully gave us one of each). The little beasts were warmer than the ones we had at Pearl, almost room temperature, but they were still crisp, briny, and exciting -- well, I found the Bluepoint a little flat. But the crab Louis was luscious, quantities of silky crab mixed with the creamy, tomato-y, mildly chilied dressing and piled on top of crunchy chopped iceberg lettuce ("The best use of iceberg I can think of," Jeff said). I couldn't stop eating it. I might, I think, ask for a little less dressing the next time I order it. Or I might not.

And last but not least, Hog Island Oyster Co. (1 Ferry Building, No. 11A; 415-391-7117):

. . . After 20 minutes we score a nice table for two by the window, overlooking the bay, and order discreetly: the Hog Island mix, a dozen oysters (three each of the four on offer), and a large bowl of clam chowder. Once again we watch as our oysters are opened and placed before us on a special stand. We get two kinds from Hog Island in Tomales Bay, Sweetwater and Atlantic; Effingham Bay from British Columbia; and Kumamoto from Washington. My oyster perceptions are monotonous: They are fabulous. I love each and every one of them. This is the best concentrated spell of eating that I can remember, three days of selfish shellfish bliss. More oysters! More!

SF Examiner Patricia Unterman visits Blue Jay Cafe (919 Divisadero Street; 415-447-6066):

The Divisadero corridor is gentrifying in the best possible way -- organically. Independent neighborhood cafes, bars and eateries are springing up to serve the needs of the immediate community. They're affordable and welcoming to everyone, and the low-key Blue Jay Cafe is my favorite of the lot. Really just a turn on a diner, Blue Jay ennobles the genre by cooking everything from scratch.

. . . Have the super-crisp fried chicken ($10.95) -- boneless breast, leg and thigh. It looks so brown that I thought it might be overcooked -- but not true. The meat is juicy inside and the crust is peppery and salty and delicious. It really is ideal fried chicken. It comes with a pile of cleanly braised greens, daringly undercooked, that do need salt; and a fantastic, flat, buttery, tender-grained biscuit. (I could have eaten two, but they're obviously precious, hot and practically baked to order.) If I weren't in the mood for fried chicken -- now, when would that possibly be? -- I'd order Blue Jay's gently updated red beans and rice ($7.25), resonantly seasoned with lots of tasty, freshly sauteed vegetables on top along with a split, griddled hot and spicy andouille sausage. The individual flavors all sing in harmony, and you get one of those remarkable biscuits, too.

. . . We drank fresh limeade ($1.50), delicately sweetened with house-made ginger syrup with a cup of spicy Savannah-style seafood gumbo ($4.25) thickened with pale brown roux so it looked almost creamy. A pulled pork sandwich ($6.75), smoky, rich, perfectly balanced between sweet and sour, on a soft sesame roll dressed with cole slaw, defines the genre. I've gobbled up none better.