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Let’s try it again!

I decided to give this place a second chance, the first visit perturbed me, and maybe i was just being hard.  Second time around ordered appropriately, shared dinner and we tried:

• spinach salad (with chunk bacon…errr lardons)
• spicy cured sausage potato salad
• beef bourginon
• mashed potatoes

Spinach salad was nothing unexpected, a little small but nice dressing.  The potato salad was more interesting for the potatoes then the sausage which was a little bland.  Beef bourginon was what you would expect, nothing surprising, traditional french bistro.  And maybe that’s why i feel so conflicted about this place, the food makes me feel french bistro country kitchen but then they throw things at you that make you think french modern.  I thought you could put these things together, but it’s just not succesful for me here. 

I’d still go back, the dinner was satisfying, just not amazing or too memorable.

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CVILLE-6702, originally uploaded by minhi.

wow, it’s been a long time since i made my own espresso drink. and it almost looks like something, ok it was totally by accident, but at least i steamed the milk well enough to get something at all! this is a quad-cappucino made with very fresh Old World Espresso from Shenandoah Joes. A lot of crema and tasty.

I’ve had a hard time writing something about this restaurant, I wanted to really like it, and i like many parts of it but the overall experience was just plain odd.  But let me start from the beginning, after passing this place many times I finally stopped in for dinner on a Monday nite.  I had read notihng about it, so my initial expectations were from the building and the trendy bar at the entrance.  The building looks to be a converted service station/garage with the service doors still in-tact and exposed rafters, ducting etc.  My initial expectation was modern trendy food, think simple arrangements and fresh ingredients (Alice Waters-esque) instead the food is in the spirit of a French bistro.

So that’s the first surprise, but that’s fine, they wanted to preserve the original charm of the building instead of tearing it down or over decorating it.  The menu is decidedly French bistro, you can find it on their website.  We ordered the terrine, rabbit in mustard sauce and the onglet (strip steak? wasn’t sure of the cut) with fries and a separate side of brussel sprouts.  There is no free bread, it’s $3 for a bread basket and salted butter, i don’t have a problem with this per se, but it can introduce wierd issues (more in a bit). 

When we ordered, i looked at the prices and having eaten in C’ville a few times now i expected a normal amount of food, which is to mean an appetizer is for 2 and an entree is suited for one.  Since the sides were priced separately i assumed the portions were small enough to warrant getting a side at all.  This was the second surprise, while the atmosphere and aspirations are French bistro the portion sizes are definately Americanized, the terrine was quite a lot for 2 people and it did not come with enough bread.  We realized this the moment it arrived and resigned ourselves to ordering a bread basket to finish it off.  Our server noticed this and offered to bring us bread.  I think she brought us more free bread then came with our terrine. 

As a funny aside the table behind us ordered some mussels and asked for bread, in this case the server gave her the spiel about having to pay for bread, the table eventually relented and the bread basket is barely enough for two and if you’re eating mussels i think the portion would be too small.  This is my first pet peeve, the whole buying bread thing just rubs me the wrong way.  If you can’t afford to give free bread then at least work the price into entree items that normally are served with bread!  One of the biggest draws of mussels is the broth, which time has shown is bested soaked up with some crusty bread.  If you’re doing this for business reasons, there’s something to be said for maintaining the restaurant experience, the prices are reasonable enough to add $1-2 to cover included bread. 

The whole pricing thing throws me for a loop when the entrees arrive, the portions are huge.  When you look at the pricing (rabbit $15 + $3 for sprouts, steak and fries for $19) they are not so high that i expected huge portions.  The portions in C’ville tend to be on the big size, but i think that’s partly due to the large number of places focusing on southern themed food.  In a french bistro i’d expected french bistro sized portions.  If the portions were 1/2 the size, i would’ve felt they were a little expensive, if they were also 20% cheaper i would not have had a problem with portion size or pricing at all.  The large portions just made me feel like they are grasping at straws by shoving out more food to justify the price tag instead of relying on the food—which is actually pretty good.  Notice how i spent all this time talking about the experience instead of the food!  The rabbit was a bit too heavy with the mustard sauce, it came served in a large bowl of noodles also covered in the sauce.  I would have prefered a lighter hand with the sauce.  The brussel sprouts were actually quite good but the two was just too much, i would’ve liked the option of two sides with my entree and just smaller amounts of them.  The steak was cooked well, though undercooked to what was requested, the fries were nice and salty but again the portion was too large.  Either entree could easily be split for two people. 

I really want to like this place, in many ways they are really trying hard.  The service staff is friendly and really wants to help.  They really want to be part of the community with student discounts (buy 1 entree, get 2nd for half price).  The food is solid, but the wierd pricing quirks just leave me dissappointed. 

I’m going to give them a second chance at some point, maybe going with four people so we can order 2 entrees and get the discount.  Using this strategy i think you can eat for $15 per person!  That sounds too low to me for a restaurant to survive, but if they are going to do such odd things with the pricing and portion size they have to deal with people working the menu to their advantage. 

Before I get started, I created a set of directions to Polyface farms, you can see my directions.  These are different then the ones at the Polyface Farms website but i think mine are a little easier, now about my visit.

Polyface Farms is a small family owned farm near Staunton Virginia, which is in the southwest part of Virginia.  Staunton is about 30 miles west of Charlottesville (via I-64) and 20 miles north of Lexington (via I-81).  If you’ve read the Omnivore’s Dillema by Michael Pollan you will recognize the name.  You can read more about it at the Polyface website, but their basic premise is more accountability in our food choices and their methods involve sustainable farming.  They use no chemical fertilizers and minimize the amount of external feed needed for their animals. 

Everything is related to each other, the cows graze on grass (fertilizing the fields with their manure), the egg hens sanitize the manure of the cows (removing the insects, reducing disease), the roosters fertilize the fields with their droppings (high in nitrogen) while being allowed to roam in large sections of the pasture, the pigs aerate the compost piles (instead of using heavy machinery). 

In a move that goes against the popular trend they are not certified organic, instead of depending on a government agency to certify your food the people at Polyface provide transparency, allowing you on the farm to see exactly how they raise their product.  I have to admit that these animals were some of the "happiest" that i’ve ever seen.  I put happy in quotes because I obviously don’t know if animals understand happy, but to me, they looked like how cows, pigs and chickens should look. 

They’re wasn’t much left in the freezer as we went late in the season and they just filled a large order.  We made a beef stew with a chuck roast, and the meat was a little tougher, but it had a much more pronounced, beefy flavor.  The color was also decidely different from super-market beef, instead of the neon red, it was a deep red/brown (like the color of blood).  If you can get their eggs, they have some of the highest sitting yolks i’ve ever seen. 

A surprise will be their prices, while a number of items are more expensive then the supermaket, the quality is clearly much higher.  In this day and age when we try to pay less and less for everything we buy, maybe we should stop and ask why the thing we are about to put into our bodies is so cheap.  People are quick to put premium gas in their cars (and pay extra for it), doesn’t it make even more sense to put premium food into our bodies?

After this wierd, overly warm fall we’re finally into winter, which means stews and braising.  I’ve always liked braised short ribs but i’m asian and always like the one my mom made for me.  This recipe is from David Chang of the NYC Momofuku Empire.  It’s a lot of asian flavors with a twist on a french braised short rib. 

A great thing about this recipe is that the vegetables are cooked separate from the braising of the meat, so you can control the texture of the veggies.  This is great because sometimes the meat needs a long time to get soft (this time i braised it in the oven for 4 hours) and the vegetables will get mushy.  This also makes it better for reheating for lunch when i pack the rice and fixings in the same container.

Recipe can be found at the New York Times site (second page of article).  Some notes about the ingredient list mirin is also called Sweet Rice Cooking Wine, use a cheap sake because the strong flavors will overpower anything expensive anyway.  The pear juice i find at latino grocery stores (or one serving a lot latino customers), i’ve made it with apple juice as well and i prefer the pear juice.

I braise the meat the day before i plan on serving it, storing the meat in the strained broth (step 4) in the refrigerator overnite.  There is so much gelatin and rendered fat in this dish that it will solidfy fairly solid.  In the recipe he tells you to saute the carrots and potatoes in butter, but i think it has so much fat already that i skim the solidifed fat from the meat/broth and use that as my saute oil.  I then place the potatoes and carrots into a high heat oven and roast them to a golden brown.  When those are at a desired doneness i add the meat and sauce to the vegetables.  If the sauce is a little thin you can add a little butter to thicken it up.  This is not a low fat dish.  Surprisingly, it’s not that salty, or overly sweet.   I want to heat up some right now after writing this post! 🙂

A great thing to do when in a foreign city is to visit the farmer’s market.  The Borough Market in London is great, and the Saturday one at the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco.  I put together two picnics on two consecutive sundays.  This being the beginning of October the produce available was tomatoes, pluots, peaches and apples. 

my first picnic consisted of a french baguette and sticky bun (like a sweet bread) from a bakery in healdsburg ca, assorted cherry tomatoes (nice and juciy), green zebras (nice lemony, citrus flavor), yellow heirloom tomatoes (yay clare!), amazing pluots and some triple cream cheese (think brie but milder) from cowgirl creamery.  all enjoyed at the gardens of yuerba buena park behind the metreon.

my second picnic was a tomato focaccia pizza fromt he same bakery, another sticky bun, green zebra tomatoes, a white nectarine (a natural sweetness), and the most amazing thing in october–farmer’s market strawberries.  they weren’t quite as good as the ones from april, but they were within 90% of that mark and worlds better then the junk sold at the grocery store.  i had resigned myself in may that i’d have to wait a whole year before strawberries again, i ate the strawberries in one sitting!

the house san francisco

Before i talk about my most recent visits to the house, a short story.  When i came to San Francisco for the first time in 2000, i just started working out of school and my new company was flying me in for two weeks of orientation.  On the flight out i chatted up an attractive woman sitting next to me (in retrospect i didn’t really close the conversation 🙂 ) and we discussed possible dinner suggestions.  I mumbled something about Fisherman’s Wharf (give me a break i was pretty green then…err still) and she graciously suggested a restaurant called ‘the house’ in north beach, but with no address, phone number.  Keep in mind this was 2000, before google sms (and really early google) and i had never been to San Francisco, but when i got off the plane that was the plan. 

I hopped into the rental car and drove into downtown san francisco, i parked the car in a garage north of market and began walking around.  I had lunch in chinatown (yeah, i was that green) and continued walking around, following the signs to north beach.  i found city lights bookstore (which i still go to every trip), vesuvios (which is next door to city lights), etc.  Well as i walked up columbus i turned up what i later realized was grant heading towards Caffe Trieste for a espresso, and as a came upon an alley i turned to look in the window of a non-descript restaurant, i looked up and i had found ‘the house’ through serendipity.  

i still remember that first meal, steamed mussels (which i believe is off the menu now) and the grilled sea bass (which is justly still the most popular on the menu).  A funny follow-up story is that the next day i walked into the office and chatted up a colleague about my evening.  He sat flabbergasted as i described how i found my dinner location, it’s a mildly kept secret for locals in town, and somewhere he eats frequently as well. 

now back to my most recent visit.  if you look at the menu, you get a sense what the food is like.  i believe the two most popular items on the menu are the deep fried salmon roll (with hot chinese mustard dipping sauce) and the sea bass.  I would describe it as pan-asian, which is to say lots of asian flavors, mainly chinese and japanese.  in recent visits i’ve seen some branching out with more classical french overtones.  the approach is more subtle then the only other comparable restaurant i’ve eat at–which is Momofuku in NYC.  There David Chang combines modern french and korean and i think the flavors are more assertive whereas the house tips the line.  There are a few stronger flavors like the chinese mustard, the miso soy but they still try to keep things delicate too.

This visit I ate here twice, once with some work folks and once by myself.  A list of what i sampled with short descriptions:

(with group)

• deep fried salmon roll (a hit with everyone, nice and spicy sauce, a little over-done for me though)
• braised pork with cream sauce ziti (i had this, and it was a definite departure from normal for them, but it was also satisfying which some of the light seafood dishes are not)
• diver boat sea scallops (cooked well, but the more interesting thing was the sauce, which hinted of lemon sherbert)
• one person tried the sea bass for the first time which he loved
• one person tried the ahi tuna, also a big hit (as it usually is)

(alone)

• fried smelt over wax beans with avocado and red onions in a cream (?) wasabi oil dressing (this was extremely interesting, the fried smelt was panko covered, deep fried with no fishiness.  the dressing was a touch heavy, and i shouldn’t have eaten the whole thing
• tuna two ways, a small filet of albacore tuna cooked rare (well seasoned too) and red eye tuna sashimi, with rice.   (this was nice a light compared to the salad, and although they do sushi/sashimi on par with good sushi places)

Overall i left satisfied after both visits, i’m not sure what it is about this place.  When i compare to Momofuku, i always eat there and leave a little confused, as if i’m not sure it was good, it’s always interesting, but when you aim for the fringes, sometimes you miss.  With the house, it’s a better combination of experimental and solid dishes, perhaps it’s a little unfair as i’ve eaten at the house 2-3 times a year over the last 7 and only at Momofuku 3-4 in the last 18 months. 

Clearly i like this restaurant and cannot suggest it enough.  On the weekends you’ll need a reservation, if you eat right at 5 you might be seated, but even then there most likely will be a time limit.  They do serve lunch most days, so that’s an option as well.