Bistro Clovis, S.F.
Evergene
Street at Franklin, in San Francisco. It's a friendly, unpretentious
little place--just tables, no booths--where the food and wine are
first rate.
My first course: "L'amuse bouche." My bouche was indeed amused, with
two pieces of each of these:
- a little bit of pork sausage in pastry;
- sauteed mushrooms (several kinds) in an open phyllo dough cup;
- smalls pieces of marinated rabbit on a lettuce leaf.
Also on the same plate was a small green salad. All were delicious.
Companion's first course was two slices of a coarse pate, which was
good, but she kind of swooned when she tasted the mushroom thing.
My main course: cassoulet, the best I've had. The meats were good,
but the white beans, with their breadcrumb crust, were superb.
Companion's main course: lamb salad. I didn't try it, but she said it
was good, and she finished all of it, which is unusual.
To drink: Clovis always offers a "tasting palette" of three similar
wines, along with what's available by the bottle and glass. Saturday
night the palette was red bordeaux, which we both tried. I can't
recall the three names, but they were all very good, and it's fun
picking which of the three to get for the next full glass.
No room for dessert, but Companion had a glass of white muscat,
complex and sweet. Muscat must be some kind of serious grape, because
the aroma of this wine was, to my amateur nose, identical to the aroma
of some Rosenblum black muscat I had recently, and the Rosenblum is a
deep, deep purple-red!
I threw caution out onto Market Street and had a Celeste cocktail,
described on the menu as "porto with cherry juice." I figured that
just by virtue of its being served at Clovis, it couldn't be too
awful. It was actually good, in a one-dimensional kind of way. It
looks, by the way, like frothy Pepto-Bismol.
Tab came to about $90 before tip.