Café 52: A Taste of the Mediterranean in the French 16th
Written: Jun 26 '03
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Pros: Chicken Caesar
Cons: Undercookery
The Bottom Line: It's fine
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| Mr.Eyore's Full Review: Cafe 52 |
San Francisco, believe it or not, has a French Quarter. Only if we’re gonna be honest, it’s more of a French 8th, or maybe a 16th. It is comprised of maybe 4 square blocks along Bush street where there are at least 8 French restaurants and bistros and about 300 French 20-somethings who hang out on the corner saying things like “this one, she has very nice breasts” in French, assuming nobody with nice breasts will actually be able to understand the French.
Among the most French corridors in the French 16th is Belden Place, an alleyway between Kearney and Montgomery, stretching the one block between Bush and whatever the next street is that I should really know since it’s only a block from work.
And the second best restaurant among these seven or eight choices is Café 52, which isn’t French at all. Rather, it is Mediterranean.
ambiance
Like all of the other restaurants on Belton, Café 52 has outdoor seating. On nice days, there is almost noplace more enjoyable to spend time outdoors than San Francisco. And of the many nice places there are to spend a little time outdoors in San Francisco, I have to admit that one of my favorite is right there in the little Frenchie alleyway. When it’s sunny, there are hundreds of people lined up at comfortable little tables, eating a variety of splendid looking and smelling food from seven of the alley’s eight restaurants. The alleyway lines up with the Bank of America Building a block away, so you can eat in the shadow of one of the tallest buildings in the city, a towering rust-colored granite and glass facade with tight nooks and crannies that reach more than 50 stories into the high afternoon fog. It’s not a bad thing to look at when you’re having a nice meal.
the food
When we are not given it for free (which we usually are) we typically order a plate of Café 52's fantastic humus, a heaping ice-cream scoop full of deliciousness served in a bath of very high quality olive oil, topped with finely chopped red bell pepper, and garnished with very good olives.
Most of the time I eat there, I get the chicken caesar salad, but this is not the chicken caesar salad you get at most restaurants. I mean, the salad part is. It’s fine, crisp, hearts of Romaine lettuce, lightly dressed in oil, egg, anchovy, dijon, garlic, Worcestershire and Parmesan cheese. But the chicken is something else altogether. It’s a big, pounded split breast with the little leg-portions attached, nicely herbed up and pan cooked to a slightly blackened goodness. The only problem I have ever had with the chicken – and I’ve had it frequently – is that it really seems just barely cooked enough. I respect what they’re going for here. I really do. Almost nothing makes me happier than a chef who can get a chicken cooked just barely to doneness, with nothing on there at all dried out. But the chef at Café 52 really ought to just say to himself “Alright, it’s done. Now I will count to 30 before I take it out of the pan.” I’ve eaten at Café 52 maybe 25 times, and I have had to send the chicken back two or three times to be cooked a little more. And at least another five times, I seriously considered it.
I have also ordered the caesar salad with flank steak, which, while incredible, is simply too much food for lunch. It must be a pound of nicely braised, grilled red meat, and unlike the chicken caesar, it comes with fries. Why, I can’t imagine, ‘cause it’s really a boatload of grub even without the fries. But it’s damn good either way.
The Café 52 special is usually a nice plate with a selection of delicious, well executed seafoods: Small, rich, crab-cakes; nice, greasy prawns and a small filet of salmon, served around a small, perfectly round, scoop of mashed potatoes, in a delicate bath of reduced white wine and butter, seafood stock and Mediterranean spices. At around 15 bucks, it’s a nice lunch.
Café 52 also serves a nice glass of iced tea, typically some kind of fruit flavor, such as peach. And they make a damn fine iced coffee. I like that.
service
The down side to Café 52 is that, one waiter aside, the service is uniformly inept. Like many of the restaurants along Beldon Place, the wait staff tends toward the recently arrived, hot-looking, young French woman with little or no experience in restaurants and even less experience speaking any English not on the menu. The one middle aged Mexican waiter, who has been there for years and generally works the empty, upstairs portion of the restaurant, never makes a mistake, remembers his regulars, and is friendly and professional. The remainder of the staff regularly disappears for ages, and can’t get a special request right to save their lives.
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: Yes
Vegetarian Friendly: Yes
Best Suited For: Business
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Mr.Eyore
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