bacar
Continuing our adventures with Dine About Town, Melissa and I went to dinner the other night at bacar, the hip wine bar/ gourmet restaurant located in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood. We enjoyed Acme Chophouse, but we absolutely loved bacar.
Part of this has to do with bacar's wine list. Not only is it extensive, but Debbie Zachareas is a huge promoter of German and Austrian wines. Indeed, she bears a large portion of the credit for my own addiction to these wines.
One of these, a 2001 Donnhof, was the suggested accompaniment to the shrimp cake we started with (after an utterly delicious crab salad amuse-bouche). Now, those who have been reading this for a while may have realized that Donnhof is one of my absolute favorite German wine makers. And the 2001 German vintage is getting huge amounts of press for its amazing quality. So, yes, thank you very much, we'll take the shrimp cake and the suggested wine. (bacar, unlike Acme, had a handful of choices for each course on the prix fixe)
I'll praise the shrimp cake in a moment. Bear with me as I swoon over the memory of the wine. I'm surprised I managed to converse with Melissa at all while we ate the opener. I mostly just wanted to go crawl into a closet and take as long as possible with that glass. Donnhof was the wine maker who taught me about balance. My wine teacher had explained it, and I thought I got it. Donnhof's 2000s were an epiphany. Donnhof's 2001s are ambrosia. My version of heaven would have lots of bottles of this to drink. I have a handful of 2001 Donnhofs sitting in my "cellar" waiting to be drunk. Many people advise holding this vintage for five years, but I doubt I can hold out after tasting one of them.
Right. The shrimp cake. It was great, and beautifully plated. A nice sauce to accompany it, as well as some radicchio. The cake was perfectly round and fried to perfection, with a crisp but yielding golden crust. Mmmmm.
For the entrée, Melissa opted for the Mahi mahi, and I opted, as I almost always do wherever I go these days, for the duck confit. And while the menu suggested other wines, Debbie was kind enough to pick out some more German and Austrian wines for us. Melissa got a 2001 Nigl Grüner Veltliner, and I got a 2001 Muller-Catoir. While all the press has been gaga over the 2001 German wines, Debbie points out that 2001 wasn't too shabby in Austria either. And Muller-Catoir is another one of the premier German wine makers. I liked the Donnhof better, finding it more balanced overall, but I certainly would not turn away another glass of the Muller-Catoir. Again, we were ecstatic over the wine, and they paired wonderfully with our food. Are you sensing a theme here?
My duck confit was served on the bone, and was meltingly tender and delicious. My favorite duck confit so far is still the one at Jojo in Oakland, but bacar's could give it a good run. Again, it was plated in such a beautiful fashion that it almost made me weep (though perhaps that was the stunning wine). I want to serve dishes like that!
Finally, we had dessert. Both of us opted for a bread pudding with an amaretto ice cream, and while Melissa went for coffee, I had a glass of the 2000 Schloss Gobelsburg Grüner Veltliner eiswein. I've had plenty of Grüner, and a fair amount (though never enough) of eiswein. I had, however, only had Riesling eisweine. The Grüner version had an aroma that smelled to me like pineapple, and it was just fantastic. Not the same as a German Riesling eiswein, but not better or worse, just different. And yet similar enough to temporarily sate my constant eiswein cravings.
bacar's atmosphere is very nice. Melissa got there before me and spent some time enjoying their wine bar, a lounge-like room with comfie chairs and small intimate tables, perfect for two or three people to chat and enjoy glasses from their huge selection. We sat in the main, ground-floor dining room, which is open to all the other customers as well as the kitchen. But somehow, even though there's a constant level of noise, it isn't intrusive. There is a small upstairs as well, and by the time we left, the nightly jazz music had started up. A great atmosphere, and I could happily spend a lot of time there, drinking glass after glass of amazing wine.
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