bacar and Dine About Town
Melissa and I like bacar quite a bit, and we've eaten a number of memorable meals there. So we were very happy to see that they were once again participating in SF's Dine About Town program. We thoroughly enjoyed our Dine About Town experience last year, so we decided to use one of our three budgeted Dine About Town evenings back at bacar.
Our table was on the restaurant's second floor, really more of a mezzanine I guess. This was great, because my biggest complaint about bacar is the noise level. We still got plenty of noise, but it was better than being down on the floor proper.
The menu choices for the prix fixe were enticing. For the appetizer, we could choose between a salad of endive, watercress, "market heirloom apples", and blue cheese or a duck and foie gras sausage. Melissa went for the salad; I went for the sausage. It was served with a red onion-port reduction, and was presented simply. The sausage arced across the plate and a waterfall of the compote was placed on top so that it flowed down to the plate. The texture of the sausage was a pleasant mix of smooth and coarse (presumably the foie gras and the duck meat, respectively). The flavor was mild, a nice blend of the two types of meat. The red onion-port reduction was very flavorful, and complemented the sausage nicely.
Melissa enjoyed her salad, though there were no real surprises here. This type of salad is pretty popular in Bay Area restaurants, and for a good reason. It combines a nice combination of flavors and textures and allows for seasonal variations.
We both went for the grilled duck breast with a tangerine-cranberry sauce. And we both ordered it rare. The meat arrived, cooked perfectly with a stripe of purple-pink framed by a deep brown crust. The breast had been fanned and leaned against a pile of greens, the whole assembly in a pool of sauce. Really good duck, cooked exquisitely. It's a hard dish to argue with.
To accompany the Dine About Town menus, bacar's wine director Debbie Zachareas had assembled three optional wine flights which one could choose. For $20 each, you got 5 2-oz. samples of different wines. I went for the mixed white and red, but in retrospect I should have chosen the all-red flight. The whites were overshadowed by the duck and foie gras sausage, and I found myself rushing through the second one in order to get to the reds. Melissa chose a couple wines by the glass, having some Roederer sparkling wine (from California, not Champagne) with her salad and the Rock River Zinfandel with her duck breast.
I was disappointed they didn't have mousse on the menu; it would have been worth it just so I could order "duck,duck,mousse". But the taste of the desserts made up for the lost opportunity. Melissa and I shared the two cold desserts on the menu: a peaches and cream gelato and a strawberry-amaretto sorbet. I found the sorbet's flavors interesting. There was a burst of strawberry flavor, and then the amaretto came in and made up the bulk of the finish after I had swallowed. It was almost as if I had two separate bites, so distinct were the impressions, though there was some blending in the middle of the taste. The peaches and cream gelato, on the other hand, had flavors that were dancing hand-in-hand, twirling about and blending together in a seamless rush.
As always, bacar delivered great food. A co-worker who loves bacar (though he was disappointed when he went the week after) thought he might do three nights at bacar for Dine About Town. I don't blame him. But we decided to do some others, so check back soon for our review of Bizou.
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