The Elite Café
Written: May 16 '02 (Updated May 17 '02)
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Pros: The Jambalaya with duck confit
Cons: The wait can be long.
The Bottom Line: It's all in the review. Read it, unless you don't feel like it.
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| Mr.Eyore's Full Review: The Elite Cafe |
I know the Elite Café markets itself as a Cajun-Creole restaurant, and I suppose that’s what it is. But it’s really something more. I guess it never would have occurred to me to classify it as Cajun if I hadn’t so frequently heard it referred to as such, even after having eaten there a half dozen times, because it’s really such a fine, straightforward seafood joint.
Atmosphere
Elite Café is located on the busy section of San Francisco’s Fillmore Street, just west of Japantown, which is just north of the Fillmore Jazz District, which it turns out is really just an Ethiopian restaurant with the occasional band, and the Fillmore Ballroom, which almost never has Jazz. Well, and the Boom-Boom Room, which is fine, for what it is, which is more Blues than Jazz. In fact it’s all blues, no jazz.
The area gets fairly packed on most nights, because there is an abundance of decent eateries for all budgets, and in addition to the clubs, there is the Kabuki Theater, nearby, which hosts about a half-dozen first run movies at a time. Parking is not easy, especially on nights when there is a show at the Fillmore Ballroom, but if you get there early, you can usually park in the Kabuki’s parking lot and walk the four or five blocks to Elite.
the room
The room itself consists of pleasant dark-wood tables lined across a crowded middle, and flanked by cozy, curtained off booths along one side. There is a seafood bar, replete with fresh oysters, prawns, two kinds of crab legs and the like up front and a long reg’lar type bar along the side opposite the booths.
After 7:00 on any night, there is likely to be a wait. Sometimes a long wait, and the front area is not conducive to comfortable mulling about. So once you put your name on the list, if the wait seems long, and there are no spaces at the liquor bar, you may want to hit the fine bar/restaurant across the street for a drink or two. If they call your name and you’re not there, the staff at Elite is pretty good about letting you move to the front of the line once you get back.
appetizers
From what I can remember, The Elite Menu has:
1. Shrimp Louis: Nothing kills a perfectly good shrimp like French dressing. So there you have it.
2. Gumbo: Good, fine, hearty stuff. It’s well made with chunks of meatiness and a little scoop of rice. And it absorbs up good with some of the Pick-a-Peppa hot sauce they keep on every table.
3. Some other shrimp thing. I don’t know. Maybe I’m thinking of the Cajun popcorn, which I know I’ve had, and I know I like it wherever I’ve had it, but nothing about Elite’s version is particularly memorable.
Elite also offers two salads: a mixed green and a pear and Gorgonzola salad. I haven’t tried either one. If you’re going to get an appetizer, I highly recommend going with something fresh from the raw bar. Chances are good that you’ll have to wait up by the front for your table anyway, so why not get the appetizer course out of the way while you’re waiting. The oyster selection is typically respectable, and they will serve you a plate of them at the long bar, so you can enjoy them with a decent chilled vodka or something.
entrees
So every time I’ve been to Elite Café, I’ve been delighted with the food they’ve served. And most frequently, the food they’ve served me is fish. My first time there I had a salmon special, which was, if memory serves correctly, extraordinary.
On a subsequent visit, I tried the special of the evening, Lake Victoria Carp, a velvety white-fish with a flavor far superior to any of the various Patagonian toothfishes I’ve had pawned off on me as “Chilean Sea Bass.” It was cooked to perfection, steaming hot with a light crust on the outside, resting on a creamy bed of herbed potatoes.
Elite also offers one honkin’ slab o’ ribs, cooked up real good in a spicy, honey-based marinade. I’ve never ordered the ribs myself, but the last time I went, T-Bone and I sat staring in amazement as the delicate flower sitting next to us – on a date with some Humbert looking goofball – stared in her very own amazement at the side-o-Brontosaurus hanging over the edge of her ample platter. She looked over at us, to her Humbert’s chagrin, and asked, “You guys wanna split this with me? There’s no way I’ll finish it all.”
It was a beautiful moment. T-Bone and I immediately sized up the situation, and , realizing that Humbert, who had a slab o’ ribs himself, hence couldn’t rightly begrudge her offer to us instead of him, said, “Hells-yeah!”
They were pretty good ribs too. Not fall-off-the-bone tender, or beef-jerkily juicy (like the shorts at Brothers-in-Law), but they held their own, even with the slightly sweet coating, which I usually don’t approve of.
For around $28.00, you can also get their seared filet in green peppercorn sauce. Again, haven’t tried it. Probably never will either. I’m not that down with the steak in the non-steakhouse, unless it’s the steak au poivre at Le Central. And then, maybe. But some people like the Cajun style blackened-type peppercorn steaks when they go to a nominally Cajun restaurant.
By far the best thing on their menu is the Jambalaya ($18.50). Elite’s version would meet with the satisfaction of the most jaded Cajun. It is generously studded with real tasso ham, sausage and juicy chunks of chicken. The onions are perfectly sauteed, and the Okra not in the least slimy. And all that rice is held together in a beautifully balanced broth of tomato and gumbo fille. But what makes the dish sublime is that it is topped off with a heaping pile of unbelievably delicious duck confit that falls apart if you look at it sideways. It’s truly one of my favorite dishes in town for under twenty bucks, and outside of Fringale’s lamb chops and Black Cat’s Ahi and fois gras, maybe my favorite dish in town at any price.
Desserts
There’s nothing simple on this restaurant’s dessert menu; it’s all luxurious decadence. Bananas Foster, bread pudding in whiskey caramel sauce, apple crisp with praline ice cream and creme brulee. Any one of them can be had for under seven bucks. And I’m sure they’re all good, but I’m always too full from the savory stuff to try any of the sweet, so I can’t swear to it.
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: No
Best Suited For: Romantic Evening
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Mr.Eyore
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Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 299 members
About Me:
I come for the pervasive sense of elitist self-importance and semi-witty expressions of faux camaraderie
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