Gastronomique: You Can Ride Our Tail Any Time
Last week’s roundup covered quite a few places in the Mission: Pizzeria Delfina, the resurrected Window, the Thai-French fusion at Baku, dim-sum at Big Lantern, and Crazy Sushi. We thought it was a lot, but we were very far from being exhaustive: we snubbed -- for now -- the new Provence, on Guerrero, or the Annex, a budget French restaurant on Valencia. We ignored the new menu and new ownership at the Last Supper Club, or the new roof garden at Medjool. And looking ahead, the defunct Alma will re-open as a French bistro, and Tartine will open another outlet, we think it is in the short-lived Urban Forage locale on Valencia. This is way out of control, we can hardly keep track. But it is oh so convenient for us, as we can visit these places without leaving our neck of the woods.
We promised last week to focus more thoroughly on some of the new offerings in the Mission. We start with Maverick, an "American eatery & wine bar" which took over the old Limon space on 17th Street. We imagine the real-estate agent’s pitch for the space involved "ideal starter restaurant," and "a first step to get into this hot hospitality market," as Maverick is the first restaurant owned by its two partners, chef Scott Youkilis and General Manager Mike Pierce, and they seem ambitious enough to soon outgrow the tiny space. They were last working at Sociale, the affable Mike told us when we scouted the place. Maverick is American, as its name indicates: it is Tom Cruise’s character in Top Gun, who struggles to repress his obvious gayness, and ends up confused, frustrated and blowing shit up. But sexual repressiveness diverted into violence, as American as it is, is not the topic, so back to the restaurant. Its Web site provides another explanation for the name, but it’s kind of lame compared to ours.
You won’t be able to tell it’s a first restaurant, as the décor has none of the improvisations of a place built on the quick, or by inexperienced hands. The overall theme is a modernized revamping of American traditions. The shiny copper salt-and-pepper shakers echoed for us the brass railings in the saloons of movies lore. The lamp fixtures on the walls are made of a backlit translucent wood panel-like material, encased in a recycled wooden speaker box: the wood panel, typically a heavy and kitschy material, here becomes light. The speaker boxes are used again in a spectacular lighting display-slash-work of art, in which a map of each state is framed in a deconstructed wooden box, and the boxes then packed together into the coolest map of America since Jasper Johns’. We even took a picture. While pretty, the lights don’t light too much, and the room can be quite dark, especially for an early summer dinner.
The same reinvention applies to the food. The subtlety shows in the portions, which were decidedly un-American to the eyes of our dining companion: she finished her oxtail and lamb stew ($19) and hungered for more. The kitschen chose to display the bright flavors of the ingredients, pearl onions, organic tiny carrots, red chard greens, such that the stew was more of a soup. We would have liked it a bit more stewed, and with a bit more oxtail, which disappeared behind the stronger lamb meat. Some nights, as the menu evolves daily, the chef prepares this dish with oxtail and sweetbread, which seems a more even fight.
The pair of quail ($18) provoked a discussion with the charming waiter: we said two quails, with an s for plural: he said a flock of quail, like a school of fish. Webster later arbitrated like Solomon, telling us both were correct. What it told us is that these guys are purists. The quail were filled with a crimini mushroom stuffing, and placed on a bed of frisee and bread salad, a toy version of the famous Zuni chicken. Except that the salada was overdressed with a sweet vinaigrette (we believed it had raspberry vinegar in it), which, with the drips of the quail, ended up being too oily.
The quail on the other hand was delicious, once cooked. When we first cut into one of them, the meat was hardly cooked inside. We sent it back once, and it came exactly the same, and a second time, so we could eventually eat it. We are not fussy eaters, we eat uncooked, heck, we eat live, but we draw the line at raw poultry. This little incident was handled expertly by the wait staff, who did not make us feel like our request was unreasonable, and eventually refilled and comped us our $9 late harvest viogner dessert wine as an apology. Overall, the attentive service impressed us.
Desserts draw from the best American tradition, with a rich milkshake ($5) with fresh banana and brownies mixed with vanilla ice cream, and a luscious white organic peach crisp ($6). We were quite happy with our appetizers too: a pork belly ($9), slowly braised, had so many layers of texture--crisp at the top, meaty at the bottom, melting and disappearing on the tongue in the middle--we’d call it a pork napoleon. The bed of lentils it sat on was still crunchy, just enough to offset the tenderness of the pork. The Baltimore crab fluffs ($10) were three cute round little balls filled almost exclusively with blue crab. We would put more celery root shavings and less mayo-like sauce in the little slaw underneath, as the fluffs were so good on their own that we ended up eating the sauce as a side. In the crab cake challenge, this Baltimore version beats many a San Francisco one.
Maverick also offers a simpler lunch menu. One can still have the excellent crab fluffs, and a few of the dinner dishes, but also an ever-changing list of sandwiches. We had to try the most American dish ever: a simple burger ($9) on a bun. The third-pounder was grilled to our order, the thick patty on the toasted bun which absorbed perfectly the fatty drips of the patty. It was topped with some onions which had been grilled before being sautéed, bringing a BBQ flavor to the burger. A sharp Dijon mustard added a little kick, for an almost perfect burger.
It was served with skinny shoestring French fries. The Cincy BBQ sandwich ($9), saw the same bun filled with pulled pork, not moist enough to our taste, in a sweet sauce. On the other hand, we were positively surprised that it was not served with the same shoestring potatoes, but that the kitchen (i.e. Scott Youkilis mostly by himself during lunch) had gone through the trouble of making a fresh batch of potato chips.
As a wine bar, Maverick offers a nice selection at reasonable price. We had a 2003 meritage from Waterbrook, Columbia Valley ($8) which paired nicely with our quail, and when we hesitated between the two late harvest, the Rasmussen gewürztraminer and the Rosenblum viogner, our waiter let us generously taste each of them before we chose the slightly dryer viognier.
First-rate service, and food that has the potential to be excellent after some minor tweaks: we wish Maverick the same success as Limon.