Thursday, August 13, 2009

Max's


Today we travel back through the mists of time to a magical place that was known as the San Francisco Airport Hyatt Coffee Shop, unusual in that it was frequented by locals as much as travelers. The reason? Outstanding sandwiches and desserts. Back in the day when I could eat a Monte Cristo sandwich and fries at 11:30 PM and then go to bed with no ill effects, we used to go to the Hyatt Coffee Shop for a snack after a movie at the Hyatt Cinema (now sadly defunct) across the street. Turns out the food and beverage manager at the Hyatt was Dennis Berkowitz, who left the hotel to start his own restaurant empire. His first outlet was Max’s Son, a hybrid Chinese restaurant/Jewish deli. Now he has several Max’s of various types, with a Max’s Opera Café just down the street from his old digs at the Hyatt. We’ve been eating there for about 25 years or so. The food is always good, solid American fare with Jewish deli tendencies and large portions.

I inevitably order the same thing every time: Russian cabbage soup and a pastrami sandwich, partly in tribute to my dad (it was his favorite), and partly because it’s one thing on the menu that I can’t get elsewhere, at least here in NorCal. Plenty of places have ribs and chicken and steaks, but cabbage soup – not likely. It’s as good as I would make it. Maybe not as good as my Aunt Henri’s, although I only ate hers once.

Aunt Henri was known far and wide for her cabbage soup – my brother called it “string soup.” I was a very picky eater and wouldn’t even try it, a decision I regret. I finally took the plunge in my late teens and was smacked in the mouth by the soup’s awesomeness. Too late, as it turned out – I decamped for California and Aunt Henri retired from soup making.

Max’s Opera Café started out with a clever concept – the waiters were aspiring opera singers. Once an hour or so one of them would hop up to the grand piano and sing one of the more popular arias or a Broadway tune, applause applause, then back to eating. Now it’s gotten to be more like a lounge act, with a cheesy electronic keyboard and a cheesy singer crooning cheesy songs end-to-end. Don’t need that during dinner, and it really makes Toasty crispy! If you go, ask to sit in the front room, away from the singer. We keep forgetting to do this. I did notice that this particular Max’s is now called Max’s Restaurant and Bar, so I guess they’re emphasizing the bar part. Dennis, you need to get rid of the cheese!

Max’s Restaurant and Bar
1250 Old Bayshore Hwy.
Burlingame, CA 94010-1805
650-342-6297
http://www.maxsworld.com/

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Expensive Dinner/Cheap View

Once a year some of the more expensive restaurants in San Francisco participate in “Dine-Around Week,” when they offer fixed price three-course meals for a lot less than their regular prices. I’ve taken advantage of this on many occasions to try the food at restaurants that I would not normally go to.

Last week I saw that some of the restaurants in Los Gatos were doing a similar program, so I thought it would be fun to take Mom to a place we would not usually try. We went to Crimson which I have looked at before but thought their prices were just too high. It’s located in a strip mall on Los Gatos Blvd., near a Trader Joe’s, a pet food store, and a Carl’s Jr., and this brings up an interesting point: Crimson is pretty inside, with red draperies and little twinkly red lights around the windows, but your view is of people strolling by in shorts and flip-flops. It’s a romantic place, but the sight of Joe & Josephine Six-Pack in their tank tops kind of spoils the ambiance.

Crimson’s special menu had three fixed-price dinners, at $25, $35, and $45. Clever marketing: the starter on the $45 menu was “Fondue for 2,” which forces both people to order the most expensive plan. But we were hooked by the idea of truffled cheese fondue, so we went for the top of the line. It was worth it: I saw the truffles in the lovely, winey fondue, but I’m not sure they added anything. Our fillets mignon were rare as requested, tender and buttery, with fresh veggies and mashed potatoes.

The waiter recommended we order one of each of the two $45 menu desserts – crème brulee and chocolate lava cake with a center that oozed hot fudge. We had to wait quite a while for dessert because, as the waiter explained, the first lava cake had burned – each is made to order. Worth the wait. The crème brulee was made in a wide, shallow dish, which maximizes the brulee in relation to the crème.

Delicious, but I don’t think I’ll go back. Too expensive – on the regular menu the fillet mignon is $44.00 a la carte! (No charge for the view of baggy cargo shorts and AC/DC t-shirts.) And Mom didn’t like the white butcher paper over the tablecloths. I tried to explain that it was bistro style and that it kept the tablecloths from getting dirty, but she thought it was “impolite.”

Crimson
15466 Los Gatos Blvd.
Los Gatos, CA 95032
408-358-0175
www.crimsonrestaurant.com

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Italian Food




Last week Toasticles was craving Italian food from a typical San Francisco Italian restaurant like the ones his family went to when he was a kid. So we went to a typical San Francisco Italian restaurant – except it was in SOUTH San Francisco.

In my 40-plus years in this area I had never been to Bertolucci’s, which has been sitting at the corner of Cypress and Lux Streets since 1928. In 2005 it became Sodini’s Bertolucci’s, which is kind of awkward. The place has been renovated but still looks like an old-fashioned dinner house, with big booths and decorations consisting of columns, opera posters, and oversized wine bottles.

I ordered Veal Milanese (politically incorrect, I know) which came with a small salad with creamy Italian dressing, garlicky vegetables, and polenta, for $22.00. Toasty ordered the same thing. He does this a lot, which says one of two things: either he has no will of his own and cannot summon the energy to choose his own entrée, or we are so much alike and in sync that we are really one soul in two bodies. Either way, I’m scared. And it annoys me because sometimes I would like him to try something different so that I can taste his.

The food was good, not great. The veal was fried crispy, and even though it was kind of thin it was not overdone. I wonder if it is supposed to be THAT thin, though. We did the early bird thing as Toasty had to get to work by 8:00PM and we are rapidly turning into senior citizens (please stop me before I start putting plastic slipcovers on my furniture). The place was empty when we arrived but full when we left. We’ll probably go again.

I know Toasty felt comfortable there, and I have to admit I was also reminded of restaurants of my youth in Illinois – Italian restaurants like D’Amico’s and Al’s Steak House, places Tony Soprano would find comfortable. Tony would probably like Bertolucci’s as well.

Sodini’s Bertolucci’s
421 Cypress Avenue
South San Francisco, CA 94080