Today's review roundup includes: Bendean, Hog Island Oyster Bar, Bocadillos, Cuvae.
Bendean is a relaxed, casual eatery on Berkeley's Solano Avenue, and the latest venture of Lance Dean Velasquez. SF Chronicle Michael Bauer gives Bendean two stars (1647 Solano Avenue, Berkeley; 510-526-3700):
Velasquez is a versatile chef, and he excels at the rustic cooking style he perfected at Home. He changes the menu regularly at Bendean, but features nine starters and eight main courses, which always include a vegetarian option.
One of the best deals is Ben's Supper, where diners who come between 5 and 6 p.m. are offered a three-course dinner for $12. On a recent night, that was a Caesar salad; a really good version of pork rojo with hominy, guacamole and a Medusa-like tangle of crisp tortilla strips; and cherry bread pudding. After 6 p.m., the main course alone is $17 and it's well worth that price.
The warm fuzziness evoked by Ben's Supper fights with the harsh message printed at the bottom of the menu: "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, at anytime, for any reason." It's something you expect to see on the wall of a cheesy Midwestern diner, not in a neighborhood restaurant in Berkeley. It's not compatible, either, with comforting selections like tomato basil soup with garlic croutons ($6) and a stew of French lentils with gypsy peppers, butternut squash and curried apples ($15).
Overall, Bendean has the type of menu that makes you feel as if you're snuggling around a fireplace on a cool autumn night. Some combinations fulfill that expectation; with others, Velasquez seems to be coasting.
Pluses: Some dishes are well priced and exceptional, including the pasta carbonara, pork rojo and roast quail.
Minuses: Other combinations seem to lose focus and are only OK. Service, while accommodating, can be a bit scattered.
As the weather gets colder, the oysters get sweeter. Hog Island Oyster Company at the Ferry Terminal Building serves up Hog Island Sweetwater oysters, harvested daily from beds in Tomales Bay. In this week's SF Examiner, Patricia Unterman declares Hog Island's oysters the very best in town (1 Ferry Building Plaza; 415-391-7117):
Founded by the three oyster farmers themselves, the oyster bar serves a product that is harvested daily from beds in Tomales Bay. While freshness of harvest and season play a major role in the quality of an oyster, so does location. Hog Island oyster beds are planted in a section of long and narrow Tomales Bay, which is laced with freshwater currents. The mix of fresh and sea waters give Hog Island Sweet Water oysters (six for $12) their characteristic flavor -- less salty, a tad sweeter and not metallic. They are great for half-shell eating.
If you don't like raw oysters, you can have them cooked. Hog Island oysters on the half shell gently warmed under the salamander and napped in caper beurre blanc (four for $7) are just about the best thing I've ever eaten, though I must say that I usually order shucked-to-order oyster stew ($12). Oyster lovers adore this dish: just oysters, their liquor and cream, gently warmed together and topped with chives -- so classic, so simple, so delectable. Those who want bigger flavors on their oysters can opt for spinachy oysters Rockefeller (four for $8) or bacony oysters Casino (four for $9). I feel that neither of these preparations improve upon the natural beauty of a truly fresh oyster.
Spanish tapas are the orginal small plate. "Tapas" is derived from the Spanish "Tapar" which means "to cover." Originally, a tapa was a free bar snack to be placed on top of a drink to keep flies out. For example, a slice of ham served on top of a sherry glass. Bocadillos sounds like a great place to get a taste of authentic modern day tapas, without the flies. SF Weekly's Meredith Brody visits and reports (710 Montgomery Street; 415-982-BOCA):
The wine-and-food chat made me feel I had walked right out of Payne's movie into its universe, the way a Fellini movie can temporarily turn the world Fellini-esque. I dragged myself away from their talk of the wine-matching options at the French Laundry and Per Se to address myself to the very distracting food, served in generous portions: the yummy, salty potato and bacalao salad with aioli; the lightly fried, pale, tender tentacles and caps of calamari with a smooth romesco sauce; and the evening's special of tiny sautéed dark green padrones peppers (from the Happy Quail Farm in Palo Alto, we found out), some of which were mild, though others packed quite a bit of heat. We ordered all three of the dishes listed under the punning title Innard Circle: tripe basquaise, the mildly funky flesh softly braised with tomato, onion, garlic, and peppers into a lush stew; pigs' trotters, chopped and formed into a loose, succulent patty with a crisp fried crust, sided by a creamy chopped egg salad that I could have eaten a lot more of; and a tricky foie gras roll, cut into sushilike pieces, the chunks of foie gras and mango wrapped with rice and held together with nori-mimicking chewy serrano ham, dribbled with off-putting aged balsamic vinegar. I thought this elaborate construction was too cute by half, masking the nice combination of suave foie gras and sweet fruit. It was the one dish I wouldn't order again, though it was still a tasty bite. I much preferred the cool charred strips of flatiron steak piled with fresh-chopped garlic-and-flat-leaf-parsley chimichurri, chosen with thoughts of the Hitching Post, and the meaty baby-back ribs glazed with honey and sherry, an homage to the piles of ribs consumed by Giamatti and Church in their last shared dinner, a glum, downscale affair. We were so taken with the soft Beckman grenache ("Usually I don't like this kind of wine, but there's lots of acid balancing the chocolaty fruit," Robert said, risking risibility) that we ended up ordering two more glasses of it.
I'm of the opinion that the best kinds of "fusion" cuisine come out of kitchens that straddle borders, like my Mom's Chinese-American cooking -- "authentic" Chinese to her American friends, "Americanized Chinese" to her Chinese nephews. Or, kitchens where a cuisine is adapted by another, like New York City's Chinese Mirch, serving "Indo-Chinese" cuisine. Oakland's Cuvae fuses American and Asian cuisine in a non-fussy way. "Cuvae serves everyday Asian-American food, the kind that comes to you naturally when you grow up in a Chinese restaurant in America," writes Jonathan Kauffman in this week's East Bay Express (5299 College Avenue, Oakland; 510-655-1733):
Twenty years after Wolfgang Puck's Chinois on Main rocked California with barbecued duck pizzas and catfish in ginger sauce, Cho's culinary mixology feels as familiar as Puck's Chinese chicken salad. Even the focus on small plates -- which make up two-thirds of Cuvae's menu -- comes as close to the cutting edge of fashion as the Gap.
Though its flights of fancy never leave the ground, the restaurant's simple food is fresh and comfortable. The cooks have a solid sense of how to grill a steak and roast a duck breast Western-style, and assemble Asian flavors easily, with no clumsy off notes.
The ahi poki that started my meal one night came in crisp wonton-skin cups that broke apart into chips for scooping up the chopped tuna. The toastiness of the sesame-oil dressing gave the dish its main note. Slices of tender, pink-centered steak sprawled across a mixed green salad, with pine nuts and sliced red onions scattered among the leaves. The mayonnaise-like sesame dressing that was drizzled around the plate worked better as a steak sauce than a dressing for the fragile greens.
... Sometimes Cho and his cooks make no effort to blend cultures. There was no ginger or wasabi in their Caesar salad, thank God, just pale green romaine leaves, crisp and light, tossed with a dressing lit from within by lemon. Deep-fried tofu pieces were coated in a thin rice-flour batter that bubbled up in the oil. The puffy, soft-centered cubes were stacked in a pool of soy and rice wine and topped by a shower of green onions and pink bonito flakes, which fluttered like moths as they melted. And the vegetarian entrée -- skinny, kinky egg noodles stir-fried with red onions and shiitakes -- tasted as if it could have been made by your local Chinese restaurant. Less traditional was the plating -- the tuft of julienned green onions on top and the baby bok choy blanched just until its green ends melted, ringing the plate.
