Date night last night at Marlowe in San Francisco. I like the environment, like a combo of industrial and old wood, and the music (a sucker for the Dirty Dancing soundtrack). “Snacks” may have been the best part: the famous brussels sprout chips were crispy, tasty, a little oily… The peaches with burrata and “smoke” with arugula were rich sweet and just that little bit peppery… Delicious. I could have eaten more burrata but it is fair to say it was snack sized. The roasted bone marrow was nicely presented and tasty but nothing particularly special…our main dish lamb was well-seasoned and cooked, the side of the squash gratin beautifully flavorful. Tcho chocolate pot de creme disappeared quickly. A good date night. I would go again (but after I explore a number of the other restaurants also on my list to try – not an instant repeat).

Marlowe
330 Townsend Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
415.974.5599

Caught the tasting menu at Commonwealth and shared a wine tasting. Not inexpensive, but interesting, modern and enjoyable. Amuse was a delicate sashimi-like dish… cocktail an odd liquid-nitrogen frozen sake combination which was intriguing but less a drink and more a granita. Tasting menu featured lots of offal (e,g. sweetbreads, my favorite). Would go again, next time probably to order off the regular menu and pick and choose myself.

And it’s not often you find a restaurant donating $10 from each tasting menu to charity and taking votes on potential recipients. Not to mention its own parking lot. In the Mission? Beat that.

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?

I want to love Commis. I really do. And I expected to, based on the rave reviews of the restaurant everywhere (e.g., OpenTable, Yelp, Foodhoe). After two visits, I feel a little bit like a girl whose lover has turned out to be almost everything she wanted, but she can’t quite put her finger on why she can’t fall madly in love. I’m caught in a state of… “I really really like you but…”

We went to dinner last week at Commis for Gus’s birthday. I had in mind to try what I’ve heard is their new tasting menu, but I forgot to ask about it when I made the reservation, so instead we had the regular prix fixe menu: 3 courses at $59 and the wine pairing at $29. If you drink, definitely go for the wine pairing. They do a lovely job of pairing the wines and give fair pours so it’s definitely worth the money.

It’s more than three courses really though — because there are two amuse bouches — a fizzy aperitif, and a lovely slow-cooked egg (it’s been a slow-cooked egg on both of our visits, but with different accoutrements).

I’ll admit, this review is going to be a little lame, because I completely forgot to record all the different courses. Instead I’ll just let you feast your eyes on the pictures and hit the highlights. On all the dishes, the combinations of flavors sing — in particular the slow-cooked egg and the sardines (aren’t the sardines beautiful? and I actually hate sardines). The abalone was tender and beautiful, poached in brown butter and on a bed of farro, rich and lovely (I could have had even more of the brown butter, personally, but I am a butter nut).

My main course was lovely and tender (I want to say duck with chanterelles), but it was the only part of the meal that disappointed me a little bit… actually sort of bland. The texture was beautiful and the presentation creative, but the flavors didn’t excite me.

Dessert was beautiful and felt like little sparkles paired with cream on the tongue — goat cheese panacotta with citrus and raspberry…

I think this is the only thing that my disappointment with my main course (and a vague remembrance of my first visit feeling the same way) holding me back from “love love love” — because it didn’t blow me away. But I’m intrigued enough to keep going back. Already trying to figure out when to go again.

Commis Restaurant
3859 Piedmont Avenue
Oakland, CA 94611
(510) 653-3902