Cafe Romanat has a rather charming little dining room that they use for dinner on weekends, when the # of people warrants it. Across the street and halfway up the little hill from the Grand Lake Theatre off Grand Ave. & Hwy 580.

We went for lunch and the food was quite good. We like Cafe Eritrea better, but there is little atmosphere there.

Café Romanat
462 Santa Clara Ave., Oakland, CA
http://www.caferomanat.com/menu.html

Girl & Fig/Sonoma got famous on Chris Jones' cooking. He moved to Brix on the Napa/Yountville border (next to Mustards) and is doing a terrific job since summer 2011. We returned to Brix last month (April) and the second visit was just as successful as the first.

If one is going to trek to the city of Sonoma (the crowds on the hwy can be hideous at times) La Salette would be a good choice, or Barndiva just off the Square.

For Napa, some relatively inexpensive eats at Oxbow Marketplace can offset the high prices elsewhere. It's all relative, of course: if you're from NY or Hawaii or Tokyo, Napa/Yountville/St. Helena etc. won't be a shocker. If you're from someplace not as outrageously expensive, your credit card will suffer a heavy beating after five days, LOL.

Here's the thing: are you winetasting? Because if you are, you should plan your meals to be not too far from your last pre-lunch and last pre-dinner stops. Driving back and forth on Hwy 29 gets very old, very fast.........!

Oh, that version of couscous sounds great! When our family did the tasting menu last Thanksgiving, the one vegetarian had to guard his plate against marauding forks! Everybody got one little taste of his and instantly wanted MORE.

Nobody makes couscous like Lahlou. I'm hoping that even though his new FiDi restaurant won't be Moroccan, he might slip a couscous dish in there once in a while [smile].

Brix is NOT Cal-Italian, by any stretch. Our dinner on 4/16 was:

- white and green asparagus salad (grown on the estate), hard-boiled quail egg halves with a fabulous gribiche sauce

- truffled chevre mac'n'cheese (side order)

- Glazed salmon with a mustard sauce, fingerling potatoes, and a combination of snap peas, fresh peas, and pea sprouts.

- Spiced duck breast with mascarpone polenta, rutabaga mostarda, and Swiss chard braised in bacon.

- Strawberry-rhubarb buttermilk panna cotta with a shortbread cookie; actually a parfait.

- Meyer lemon cheesecake with mint sauce.

Everything was beautifully composed and executed. Service is excellent, dining room is handsome with a nice outdoor patio. Brix is much better under Chef Chris Jones (formerly of Girl & Fig/Sonoma) than either Mustards or Don Giovanni, which are their closest geographic competition.

Sadly, Chef Banks White is leaving May 31, 2013. He will be the chef at a newly restored 1930's jazz club in Harlem, NY, to be called Minton's.

We went yesterday 5/9/2013 (our 8th visit since late 2009) and were blown away by the brined pork chop and fried chicken. Looks like he's trying out dishes he might showcase in NY.

If you can get there soon, GO NOW!

Mgr. told us all sous-chefs will stay; they're still looking for a replacement ExecChef. We sent our compliments to the kitchen and Chef White came out, so we wished him well and told him we hope he returns to the Bay Area someday.

&&&&&&&&&&&

Just checked and Grubstreet NY as well as the NY Times had an article on the reopening/remodeling on Minton's Playhouse in Harlem. Looks like they'll be opening up a casual cafe as well as the Minton's restaurant; both will share a kitchen.

Grubstake NY article (has a link at the end to the NY Times article; both were back in Jan 2013): http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2013/01...

I think Jeanty makes a couple of good dishes, but the ones I like are very heavy - specifically the roasted marrow. He never seems to lighten his menu up, and the heat can be really fierce in late summer. I prefer going there in cool weather.

We are in the group who found Bouchon inconsistent. And we disliked Don Giovanni even more than we did Mustards.

I will be opposite the majority of CHounders. We were in Napa in mid-April and ate at: Oenotri, Lucy, Redd, Brix, and Etoile/Domaine Chandon. We don't drink, we just eat. I should note we did not care for Commis, because Brix and Etoile (like La Folie and Fifth Floor) are more our style - and that is STRICTLY our personal preference.

In descending order we liked:
Etoile: For those who loved the old La Bourgogne in SF and miss it, Hoffman is the closest you can get to that soigne elegance of perfectly balanced cooking. Stunning, and expensive.

Brix: Half the price of Etoile, but more casual, locavore and CA-style. Chris Jones is brilliant, and the food has that same fine seasoning balance and great execution, with tremendous creativity. Portions are not large like Mustards, but are so much better balanced in flavor and composition.

Lucy: We went for lunch, and the sandwiches were good, high quality and nicely executed (better than Redd by a long shot, btw). What really makes them worth the extra cost is that stunning outdoor patio (there's a photo on the Bardessono Hotel website of the full inner courtyard patio, a slightly different view than the side the restaurant uses for outdoor dining). Very Japanese influenced, wood and stone and grasses/bamboo - absolutely lovely; away from the noise and crowds on the main street. Also, the hotel offers free valet parking for restaurant guests, and that's no small thing in the middle of tourist season in Yountville!

Oenotri: Has fallen a full level from when it first opened. More like Mustards now: big plates, slightly sloppy execution. Service is still extremely good. Stay away from the fish entrees, they have NO idea how to cook it. Both our fish dishes were cooked until quite dead; very sad. We had been really looking forward to returning and were very disappointed with our meal here.

Redd: Nothing impressed us but the tea and the coffee. The lauded pork belly was in a sauce so salty and sugary, it could have flavored four cups of rice (we're Asian). An overdose of black truffle oil in the risotto left a nasty taste in my mouth long after I finished - a first that no kitchen should be proud of. The steak sandwich was so loaded with oil and juices the brioche bun fell apart before my spouse had finished half of it.

YMMV. Have a great time no matter where you go!

Atypical or not, I think Paul H. and I are agreeing about Cotogna.

Why should anyone care about guest chefs when the OP was asking to compare Cotogna vs Perbacco - I assume s/he meant the regular menus, not a guest chef appearance at either place?

If somebody's Piemontese mother made butternut squash ravioli garnished chopped hazelnuts in browned butter and pomegranate seeds, that must be SOME house!

I went to Cotogna for one of their Sunday dinners. We had been to Perbacco just a month previous. Cotogna's dinner was, as Paul H said, very much more home cooking, with generous amounts of fruit purees in the starter (expensive tropical fruit, too, not cheapo stuff) and a whole lot of tasty but intense gravy with the meat. The pasta course swam in a very rich, salty cheese sauce.

It was good food, we enjoyed the meal overall, but none of the four of us felt Cotogna was a "destination" restaurant. It's a great restaurant if you're in the area and in the mood for a high quality, well executed hearty meal.

Perbacco aims a little higher. They don't always hit the mark, but Terje always tries to do some dishes that push the "comfort zone" edges of their diners. I give him a lot of credit for that, because I think too many restaurateurs/chefs stick with the same "safe" dishes over and over.

I think you'll get a good meal at both. But they will be very different meals; it is like comparing apples to oranges.

Cotogna's cooking is very different than Perbacco. It's richer, heavier in feel, with lots of gravy. It's very good, we liked our meal, but it isn't aimed at the same dining experience as Perbacco.

Also, Perbacco's service is outstanding, some of the best around. They beat Cotogna by a mile when it comes to well-trained waitstaff who understand how to work with the kitchen in timing dishes properly. Especially these days, when a group might have some people who are doing all small plates, but others are sticking with the traditional 2- or 3-courses, Perbacco has never erred on us.

Perbacco's food is very good - the vitello tonnato is a MUST, they do it better than anyone else in SF - but Chef Jason Stratton of Cascina Spinasse is a true genius. Plus, his smaller venue at Spinasse really gives him a huge advantage over Staffan Terje at Perbacco, which is bigger and has to keep a little more mainstream to pay the rent.

Our last visit to Perbacco Nov 2012 with friends (they have visited Italy many times, and Perbacco is one of the only two restaurants they requested a return visit to), the best were:

- pork rillette. We don't actually like rillette, which we find too heavy and too rich. But Terje's version is light and fluffy, quite delightful. They bake their own bread, and it's excellent.

- octopus. Spouse has had it on three visits, different ways, and each time it's been a winner.

- the aforementioned vitello tonnato. This is a SMALL plate. The veal is sliced paper thin; the tuna sauce is sublime.

- ravioli. They almost always do a good job on this, with some very creative combinations. During the Nov dinner, they were filled with roasted butternut squash, toasted hazelnuts, and pomegranate seeds. Superb!

- duck. Like the ravioli, they usually do a nice job. I really appreciate that Terje has a restrained hand with fruits and meat, keeping the fruit sauces more savory than the dessert-like sweetness too many chefs do.

After four visits we usually skip his salads - except for the beets, which are creative and well-done; the fritto misto (but Perbacco's aioli ROCKS), and desserts can be iffy. Also, on that last dinner, both seafood dishes were oversalted - and that was the opinion of my spouse, who loves salt and had ordered both dishes.

We LOVED Spinasse - and also Olivar, another outstanding restaurant on Capitol Hill in Seattle that has no corresponding peer in the Bay Area.

Just caught this flying ad on the SF Chron website:
http://dailydeals.sfgate.com/deal/nor...

Yes, they BOTH did, when we went:
Kincaid's Aug 2011
Skates Feb 2012

We dine out 3-4x/wkly. We would not go back to either one. All the food at both places was sloppy, salty, and second-rate.

Both restaurants have prices similar to Oliveto's. Neither is anywhere near as good.

I love some of the food at La Salette but have two reservations about it.

1) What we like there is fairly heavy for hot weather - the bacalhau and the feijoda - and we have not had much luck with the lighter fare.

2) Depends on where you are starting from, and day of the week, as to whether you want to be near Hwy 101, or near Sonoma Square. At peak commute times, for example, you would not really want to be driving too far on either hwy.

I'd try French Garden in Sebastopol. Lovely huge DR, excellent Ca/French food that is very accessible, outstanding service (some of the best we've encountered from many Sonoma Cty restaurants).

If it's a "special" evening, FG is one of my first choices. I'm developing hearing issues so I HATE noisy restaurants. I find both Willi's quite noisy; better for weekday lunches.

That's a pretty low budget if it includes drinks?

I'd contact the Sofitel Hotel's Bay 223 Restaurant to see what they could offer. But room rental may put them over your budget.

La Folie, if they have the lobster risotto. A small portion of absolute shellfish and rice decadence. I could have died happy after I finished that bowl, LOL.

Skates and Kincaid are owned by the same carefully anonymous corporate holding company. They both have the same absolutely disgusting deconstructed Beef Wellington on their menu.

Nothing like being asked by a waiter, "Would you like me to pour your Wellington sauce, sir?"

A lot of people do, my SIL adores that souffle (as she also got the foie gras torchon in spiced peach consomme that was the highlight of that dinner, she clearly won for Best Meal that night!). But the other desserts, altho good, just don't rock my world the way the desserts at Aziza and Etoile do.

Wow, I will keep your suggestion in mind - we only go down to Monterey/Carmel once or twice a year, but altho we love Teske's German food, no denying that traffic down there can snarl the best of plans! I'm always up for a good carne asada, LOL.

We just came back from Napa and the meal that was head and shoulders above them all (Brix, Lucy, Redd, Oenotri) was: Etoile at Domaine Chandon Winery.

Chef Perry Hoffman and his crew blew us away, from start to finish!

DO NOT MISS his poached egg with caviar if it's on the menu. One of the only two dishes I liked at Commis/Oakland was Syhabout's Creamy Egg dish, and if you love caviar like me, Hoffman's egg is even finer. My spouse is peeved I didn't request more of those perfect blini, because he wanted them for himself. (Like he gave me more than a tiny bite of his duck pate salad, the jerk - LOL)

He had the tenderloin, I had the rabbit....and I don't even like rabbit. But it was stunning, with everything on the plate having beautiful, clean, flavors. No strong herbs or spices, just an understated, sophisticated elegance that was perfection.

Both desserts were swoon-worthy. I topped mine off with a snifter of Chandon's 24-yr old brandy. I'm normally one for cognac, port or Madeira, but this brandy is absolutely luscious. The vanilla and caramel in it are so fragrant, I could have spent an hour just sniffing the glass. Definitely order it if you go; it's a bargain in a glass.

This is the closest to the old La Bourgogne I have found in the four decades since LaB closed. Updated for CA tastes today, but with that wonderful French classic tradition. We love La Folie, but we honestly think Etoile is better.

I would agree with pauliface. The kitchen can be a little sloppy when Passot is not there, but Fleur de Lys is far worse in that regard. When they are "on" La Folie can be amazing. It's just a shame he can't serve foie gras any longer; I think Passot did it better (and more generously) than anyone else.

We find the heaviest dishes are the meat entrees and the oxtail or sweetbread terrine (he changes the terrine ingredients regularly). Altho the terrine is under starters we have ordered it twice and each time it has been very rich and substantial.

His lobster risotto is a small portion and literally, to die for. Amazing, luscious dish.

We usually get the four course and skip dessert. The desserts are okay, but not stunning like at Aziza/SF or Etoile/Yountville.

Thanks for the report! I just convinced my DH to give them a retry. My BD is coming up so it will be a great time to test them out.

I checked the website but looks like Nancy Oakes is still listed as chef/owner. Curious that they didn't replace Ravi Kapur - you'd think after the publicity of winning the James Beard award that she and Pam Mazzola would have had their pick of resumes for the ExecChef position.

So glad you reported back, and that you enjoyed Bistro 29. I wish you could have experienced what Chef Anderson used to do with foie gras! Bistro 29 was second only to La Folie in our mind, when we wanted an order (or two) of foie gras.

Is this the same owner of the Khana Peena on College Ave in Rockridge? If so, we thought it was pretty ordinary, except for two things: the mango lassi (which took quite a while) was one of the best I've ever had, and the Kama Sutra wallpaper border encircling the skylight is.....priceless!

We went to Timbao Oct 2011 and actually had quite a nice meal. The chicken skewers with a spicy ginger-pineapple-rum glaze (not chile heat, just ginger heat) were quite good.

Even better was the three large Jamaican “Stamp and Go” fritters, minced mahi-mahi with various spices and breadcrumbs, battered and fried golden-brown. The lime-scallion cream was drizzled with a smoky red chile sauce, and the heat of both was considerable (and yes, we LOVE hot chiles!). Marinated pimento-green olives came with this, and were a nice touch.

Soups and tacos were erratic, however. Glad to hear you enjoyed Montero's - we will have to put it back on our list. I wonder if the cook is still the same?

Hmmm....caviar? "An entire section of garlic Dungeness crab"? I'll let someone else get ripped off first, LOL.

- Speisekammer pronounced Spuhtz-kahmmer)
2424 Lincoln Ave., Alameda
http://www.speisekammer.com

Speisekammer makes the best potato pancakes with housemade applesauce, very tart. Ask for some sour cream and they're sublime. Far, far, far better than Saul's, whose latkes I hated.

If you like the taste of bananas, the wheat beer Spaten Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse makes a virtue out of a vice. It's crisp, dry, and quite delightful.

- Zen Asian fusion tapas
2315 Santa Clara Ave. @Park St., Alameda, CA
http://www.zenasiantapas.com/resource...

Terrific food, in fact it's the first restaurant where my Hong-Kong born DH has said he actually approves of the Asian fusion menu. The servings are small but quality is very high.

The kimchi rice was terrific - low on the sugar content so correspondingly more flavorful and spicy. Skip the pastas, just not great with the other foods.

Enoki beef and Tiger Eye (sushi grade squid wrapped around salmon salad with tobiko) were wonderful. Pork Belly Sushi was tasty but messy: it's a two-bite sushi that doesn't quite hold together firmly enough. But that pork belly is yummy!

Skip desserts, very weak - too sweet and poorly conceived. Decent coffee.

Not a four star place, but a very solid three star. Good friendly service (family owned and operated) and excellent value for the money.

Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed it! We tried to go on a previous Sonoma visit but couldn't connect (owner had to close due to a family emergency that day). We are doing a week-long Sonoma/Mendocino trip in mid-May and have already reserved dinner at Cafe Europe.

Don't know if we'll try the sauerbraten, however, as it isn't one of our favorites. We're more sausages and sauerkraut people, LOL.

I'd agree with Ruth, although we haven't been back to Meritage (rates better than Paragon) since the new chef took over.

A couple of things to note:
- Both restaurants are on the lobby floor. Parking is to your left as you enter, which puts you downhill from the back door entrance.

- Unless they've changed the parking, KEEP BOTH YOUR ORIGINAL PARKING TICKET and THE RESTAURANT'S VALIDATION TICKET. The attendant requires both when you leave. We also end up paying an additional $7 above the restaurant's validated time, btw. Meritage's dinners are leisurely and the validation doesn't cover all the time it takes.

- The menu offers half-size portions of 90% of the dishes, from starters through entrees. This is their solution to the small plates craze. It's a lovely way to try a number of dishes, and the half-portion dishes were just right for my elderly MIL's flagging appetite.

- The waiters often forget to tell you if you want the hot souffle dessert, order it AHEAD OF TIME. I've had it come out in 10 minutes but it has taken as long as 17 min. on occasion. The fruit desserts are excellent; their pastry chef is one of the better ones around.

- Once the sun goes down the view is VERY limited. And the decor of the Meritage is not as sophisticated as the food, aging British Empire Tropical, actually. But the chairs are surprisingly comfortable.

- When they are busy, we have had service and food suffer. But when they are on top of things, it is by far the best Bay Area restaurant with a view we've encountered in the last three years. When the weather conditions are just right, they offer a simply stunning vista!

And yes, lock that date and time down right now. Immediately. ASAP. Good luck and have a great time!

Bocanova's food tends to be spicy. My 85-yr old MIL hated it.

Next time you might want to try Bluestem Brasserie, just up the alley from Moscone towards Market. We really enjoyed lunch there, and my fellow foodie brother went for dinner and loved it.