When I made plans to meet up with @BasilLeaf, I suggested dinner and she responded with an enthusiastic, “I LOVE FOOD!” So I decided to take the opportunity to try out a new restaurant I’d kept forgetting to visit — one that I first spotted in The Perfect Spot back in February. Opened by a married couple, Chris and Veronica Laramie, the restaurant hints of an elegant, modern meal with two (prix fixe) courses at $25 and additional courses (say, dessert) at $11.
BasilLeaf and I found ourselves tucked into the restaurant on a rainy evening. The restaurant was a bit stark and not particularly cozy for that type of evening, but the food was suitably comforting despite its modern turn. The menu is short and sweet, which I like (nicely edited, only good items make it), but which people who prefer something-for-everyone menus may find too limiting. There are essentially 3 dishes in each of three loose categories — starters, entrees, and desserts.
First, an amuse bouche — a spoonful of a couple of beet preparations… refreshing and thankfully only limitedly beet flavored. Then I started with the risotto, a lusciously lovely smooth and flavorful risotto with excellent texture accented with fresh morels and scrumptious cippolini onions providing a surprisingly sweet contrast. BasilLeaf enjoyed the Farm Egg and judging from the sounds of satisfaction and savoring coming from her side of the table, I will be ordering it the next time. It’s like breakfast at dinner, and really, how can you go wrong with maple and bacon? Even if there may have been a touch too much foam. (Our server did nice job of describing the courses to us, which was helpful and interesting, and would have been more so if it didn’t feel so much like an interruption in the conversation).
We both ate the halibut for our mains, a substantial chunk of sous-vide fish. I’m not sure I’ve had sous-vide fish before. It was well cooked and flaky, but in itself did not have much flavor. Considering how many different flavors surrounded it that was probably for the best. It seems that the chef is very enthusiastic about vegetable purees with carrots and fava beans in color smears, green garlic, and a small amount of olive on top.The fish was on a bed including artichokes (yum) and a few more fava beans and other greens. It was good, yes, with both of us cleaning our plates. But the consensus between the two of us was that our appetizers were better.
To drink, there is a wine pairing available, two 3 oz pours for $13, but we passed on that and had the non-alcoholic drink of the evening, fresh mango juice. The juice was, as mango always is, quite delicious, but really did not pair that well with the food. Something lighter, perhaps a bit sparkly, certainly with less sweetness, would have served better to bring out the flavors of the food and dance on the tongue.
After two heavy courses and a couple of pieces of fresh, warm bread (ooh, the butter with sea salt is good), we hadn’t saved any room for dessert. So reviews of dessert will have to wait for next time.
And there will definitely be a next time. eVe is a worthy addition to our food scene, bringing interesting food into a different price range. It does not soar as highly as Commis in either food or service but then neither does its pricing. eVe does have an intimate feel, with essentially just Veronica, Chris and our servers (whose name I didn’t catch) taking care of the place. And it is conveniently located near downtown Berkeley. With Gather, Five and eVe, that neighborhood is becoming more interesting than it has been in a while.
eVe restaurant
Facebook page
1960 University Ave
Berkeley, CA
510.868.0735
A strange side note — when it came time to pay, we gave the server our credit cards, and she asked us to fill out the receipt with our expected tip before taking the credit cards to the back, giving the reason that their system is not set up to accept tips after the fact. That piques my curiosity. Why would a restaurant set up a credit card system that doesn’t take receipts with tips written in?
