Catal

Catal
In Downtown Disney in Anaheim, upscale Mediterranean food.

Of all the places in Downtown Disney, Catal seemed most eager to seat a party of six on Saturday night, or at least they had the shortest wait time. They have a lovely upstairs balcony overlooking a square in the downtown where their associated Uva Bar serves drinks and appetizers.

We can't resist a selection of olives on the appetizer menu, and theirs were fresh and exotic, not just your standard kalamata. We didn't get all the names, but I remember the five of them as dark and rich; green and mellow; small, dark, and intense; small, maroon, and slightly bitter; and immense olives with a soft eggplant color and a smooth, oily flavor. Accompanying them on our appetizer plate was the "Tapas trio": a gazpacho shot, a crab cake, and two dates stuffed with ham and bleu cheese. I like gazpacho, but Mark doesn't, so I took the whole shot. It was really more like a cold V8 with finely chopped tomatoes and cucumbers in it, but there was an undertone of spice that was quite pleasant.

Dinner certainly lived up to the appetizers. We shared an olive oil and dill-poached salmon over red pepper couscous. The tzatziki sauce on the side had great spice, garlicky and tangy--it wasn't just yogurt with cucumbers in it. Salmon is one of those things that Mark finds variable, but Catal's salmon kept a nice flavor of salmon under the light dill seasoning. The red pepper couscous could've used a little more red pepper, but the couscous was done just right.

We also sampled one friend's paella. It didn't compare to Mark's homemade one, but it was still quite good, rich and savory. The shellfish was tender and fresh too, the veggies crisp, and the rice tender and sticky.

The dinner was light enough that we felt able to get a cheese plate: two mild cheeses and a sharper Italian type that was quite tasty. They included a side of quince confiture, toasted walnuts, and balsamic vinegar drizzle. We polished the plate clean even after the cheese was gone. Then it was time for dessert, a carrot cake with coconut sorbet and carrot creme anglaise. We have a great experience of carrot cake, too, and this one scored pretty high. The cake was good and firm, tending toward a carrot flavor rather than a spice cake flavor, with big chunks of walnut & raisin, and--the part that's always hard to find--perfect cream cheese frosting. It went pretty well with the light coconut sorbet, too.

The service was good, although on occasion we felt slightly neglected, but that might be because we were out on the patio, or because it was a Saturday night and they were busy. It wasn't a bad trade for the view, and our waitress was friendly and very helpful. Maybe all the places on Downtown Disney are this good, but on a night when we couldn't go anywhere else, Catal made us feel like we were special, not like we were settling.

Wolf Creek Restaurant and Brewery

Wolf Creek Restaurant and Brewery
Nice rustic brew pub in a strip mall in Valencia

We got held up on I-5 (it's not "the five" until you pass the Grapevine) at some construction traffic, delaying our arrival in L.A. by almost an hour. Since most eating places close at 11, we had to stop for dinner sooner than we'd planned--distance-wise, if not time-wise. Google Maps helpfully told us that there was a cluster of restaurants in Valencia, around Magic Mountain Parkway and McBean Parkway. And a little further north on McBean was an intriguingly named brew pub called "Wolf Creek."

It has the look of a mountain lodge, all wood and wrought-iron interior, though the owners are native Californians (according to the hostess). They were celebrating their tenth year, impressive for an independent restaurant, though the growth of the suburbs probably has something to do with that.

Right off the bat, they impressed us with the house bread: warm and fresh, with an unusual garlic-olive dip that we couldn't stop eating. As is our usual habit when at a brew pub, we ordered the spinach and artichoke dip as well. This one was a clear winner, very creamy with a sharp cheese, like an asiago. The spinach and artichokes balanced nicely, neither one getting lost or overwhelming the other. The multi-colored tortilla chips were unremarkable, but didn't need to be anything more than a conveyance for the dip.

Balsamic vinaigrettes have as much variation as spinach and artichoke dip, if not more. They can be oily, creamy, sweet, sharp, tangy, spicy, herby, garlicky, and so on. The salad we got was unremarkable--fresh spring greens and I remember little else--but the dressing had a great bite of mustard, which I love. We've just started attempting to make our own dressings, and I keep looking at the Dijon in the fridge and remembering the dressing at Wolf Creek when I do.

Compared to the starters, the main course was a slight letdown, though it was still quite good. We ordered a lightly breaded chicken breast with sun-dried tomato pesto, and we got two flat chicken breast fillets (as opposed to the thick full right-off-the-bone breast cuts), perfect for splitting. The problem with fillets is that they dry out so easily, and that was unfortunately the case here. Not too dry, but not as juicy as they should have been. And the pesto, while tasty, was a little on the bland side.

Still, all in all, the food was quite good, and the service was beyond reproach. We're clearly not the only ones who thought so, because several of the people at the bar were regulars. We did ask the waitstaff whether the owners were transplanted from Colorado or Wyoming, but as far as they knew, the owners were just Californians "who really liked the mountain country."

Hey, that's cool. So are we.

H. Butler's Bar-B-Q, Sunnyvale

H. Butler's Bar-B-Q
Southern barbecue and, yes, pizza that's better than its strip mall location would indicate

Into the space vacated by Serious Sam's pizza has come H. Butler's, a little Louisiana barbecue place that brings some serious taste. For the Serious Sam's regulars, they have a sign out front that proclaims: "Yes, we have pizza!" and they do.

We went there looking for pizza, actually, and ended up with a barbecue chicken pizza, the best of both worlds. If the pizza is any indication, the barbecue sauce is terrific, good and tangy. We also tried the red beans and rice just to get some Louisiana flavor, and weren't disappointed in the simple dish.

The place gives you a great feel when you step up to the counter, with the handmade signs and cheery woman behind the counter who is only too willing to recommend items if you can't decide. On a counter to the side, they have the day's desserts laid out, including standards like red velvet cake and southern pecan pie alongside seasonal favorites like peach cobbler.

You order at the counter and the food is brought out to you. The pizza we got had a crisp crust with good, sweet dough, in addition to the sauce I already mentioned. The chicken was tender and moist--barbecue chicken on pizza can be dry, but H. Butler's didn't fall into that trap.

It's no Uncle Frank's, but we're certainly intrigued enough to go back and try their actual BBQ sometime. At the very least, it's not a bad substitute for Serious Sam's.

Poor House Bistro, San Jose

Poor House Bistro
New Orleans cuisine, inexpensive and authentic

A friend took us to the Poor House Bistro several months ago, and we loved the Cajun food and the atmosphere. It's actually in a converted house: you walk up wooden stairs to the porch, and then the front door. All the seating is in the small rooms on the first floor, two rooms of maybe a couple hundred square feet each, with little patio tables crammed together, but nobody cares about the cramped space. They're too busy chowing down. The third room on the first floor is where the kitchen, cash register, and soda machine are. So you walk past the happy diners into the room where you order your food. They have a one-page menu and a daily special, and the kitchen is right behind the serving counter. This room is full of hungry people waiting patiently for their number to be called, watching the food come out to the counter. There are plenty of napkins for drooling into.

It's on August Street just down from the HP Pavilion, so the best time to go is around 7:30 on the night of a Sharks game or other event at the arena. When we got there at about seven, the place was full and just starting to empty out. There's a small pavilion in the side yard where live music plays, and that was also full. As we ordered and then waited for our food, the Sharks fans all left. By the time we were ready to wander over to the game, the place was nearly empty.

Like many Cajun places (at least CreoLa, the subject of a future post), Poor House Bistro offers a sampler of Cajun dishes: red beans and rice, jambalaya, and gumbo. They also offer po-boy sandwiches--I recommend the "cochon au lait," the pork po' boy, but they're probably all just as good. They use a Cajun mustard and mayo, and they import the bread from New Orleans because the owner couldn't find anywhere local that made the bread the right way. But all the food is good: the red beans and rice and gumbo especially. The jambalaya is tasty, but on this last occasion seemed a little mild and tomato-y, almost more like Spanish rice than Cajun. Still, it's hard to go wrong no matter what you order.

But don't fill up, because you need to save room for either the beignets or the bread pudding, or maybe both. The bread pudding is amazing, and the beignets are only slightly less so, drowned in powdered sugar and soft and fried. So unhealthy, so, so good.

They have a great lunch special, but lunch or dinner, this is one of the few Cajun places in the Bay Area that's worth not just one return visit, but many.

Bombay Garden, Santa Clara

Bombay Garden
Indian cuisine in Santa Clara, most famous for its buffet

Recently, we've been quite turned on to the idea of Indian buffets. Passage To India is our nearest local one (not counting the place on Castro Street that I got stomach cramps from once, which has a new name and might be worth another try), but Bombay Garden is the king of Indian buffets in the area so far. Where Passage To India is only a weekend dinner buffet, Bombay Garden has a permanent lunch and dinner buffet. Though you don't have to eat at the buffet, we've never done anything else there.

We first went to the Bombay Garden over in Fremont, at the advice of a friend who said it was the best Indian buffet he knew. Soon after, this one opened at Lawrence and El Camino, so we tried it out. The service was better--it didn't take us twenty minutes to get a basket of nan--and the food was just as good.

Unlike Passage To India, they only serve one type of nan, but it's enough. It comes out hot and fresh in the baskets, and you should eat it while it's hot, because it's not as good once it cools. By the time you get back from your first buffet trip, the nan should be waiting.

Bombay Garden has a nice setup where one side of the buffet is vegetarian and the other has meat dishes. Everything is delicious, and it's a little spicy, but not too bad (except where noted). Don't neglect the southern Indian cuisine on the side table near the desserts (or maybe it's northern; I mix those up all the time). We love the malai kofta there, and the lamb sausage (cooked on skewers, so you can still see the small center hole). The sag paneer is always good, and this time around, the veggie masala was terrific as well. Everything has a good, distinct flavor, not too spicy, and it's popular enough that all the dishes remain fresh.

The gulab jamun are good, but nothing special, and in fact that describes all the desserts. But the rest of the food is good enough to make up for it.

The biggest problem with Bombay Garden is that you'll have trouble getting out of your chair at the end of the meal. But that's okay: they keep on a rotating cycle of Indian movies, so there's entertainment until you feel well enough to leave.

Sears Fine Food

Sears Fine Food
Famous breakfast in San Francisco near Union Square

Sears is famous for little pancakes and long lines. It's located on Powell Street just north of Union Square, open for breakfast at 6:30 am. Their signature dish is 18 little Swedish pancakes with maple syrup--real maple syrup, not the fake kind, and you can buy it in little souvenir bottles if you want. Supposedly residents and tourists line up along the sidewalk to get in for breakfast.

We got there at 8:30 and walked right up to get seated. Of course, we had to try the signature pancakes. Our usual breakfast strategy is to split an egg dish and a pancake dish, so we went that route with a Joanie's Special Omelet (chicken apple sausage, green onions, cheddar cheese) to complement the tiny pancakes, along with a side of bacon.

The pancakes are tiny, real silver dollar pancakes. They're pretty good, yeah, and the omelet was also quite good, as were the hash browned potatoes. The only real disappointment was the bacon, which was a little chewy for our tastes. Everything else was great, and the little pancakes were not just yummy, but fun.

The history of the diner is great to experience, too, even though it's been renovated since 1938. The staff are always busy during breakfast but are quite friendly as they dodge between the small tables. It's a great place to people-watch, too, as the tables are all so close together that you almost can't help but do it. We enjoyed the father and young daughter at the adjacent table, the pictures on the walls, and the story of the diner on the menu.

By the time we left, at 9:30, the line was out the door even in the light rain. So the lesson is, show up early, enjoy your meal, and get going with the rest of your day. The flip side is that there are a bunch of places to have breakfast around Union Square, so it's hard to say that Sears is a place we'll go back to. But great food, quick service, picturesque diner, landmark building...it was definitely worth doing once.

McCormick and Kuleto's, San Francisco

McCormick and Kuleto's
Fine seafood at Ghirardelli Square on the shore of the Bay

In Los Angeles, I had the best clam chowder I'd ever had at a McCormick and Schmick restaurant. When I moved up to the Bay, I saw McCormick and Kuleto's at Ghirardelli Square, and my arrow-quick mind grasped immediately, a year or so later, that they were related. Yes, now when you go to the website, you'll see them listed together; they are part of the same restaurant chain. Besides, a year ago, Mark stopped in for clam chowder and raved about it. So we had to go back.

I don't get clam chowder often, but this one was worth it. Creamy but not too thick, full of clams and potatoes. I'm not sure it was quite as good as I remember it, and honestly, the clam chowder we made for the Super Bowl was pretty darn good too, but it's still a chowdah worth going out of your way for.

The main course was no less impressive: large sea scallops topped with greens, over a crab and potato cake. Scallops are easy to ruin, but these were nicely seared, not overwhelmed by the rest of the flavors, and in just the right portion (split) that they left us with room to walk over to Ghirardelli's and get a sundae.

It's not a cheap place, but for the quality of the food and the view, you can't beat it. Service was a bit slow, but overall we had a great dinner experience. It was worth walking from Union Square. And the cable car stops just a block away, so we were able to ride that all the way back.

It's in a beautiful location in Ghirardelli Square, overlooking the San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz.