Displaced

Espetus is at 1686 Market at the intersection with Gough. Definitely make reservations: 415-552-8792

Espetus is all man. And when I say “man”, I mean an overly tan, front heavy man with a mustache who may or may not have been indicted for that thing that happened on the docks that certain night in 1986. The kind of man who, when he shrugs, turns up both hands, flattens his mouth and pulls his neck back as he says, “Whaaat? Fuggedaboudit.” The kind of man who enjoys having heart-attack-inducing quantities of meat cut at his table and dropped directly onto his plate. Yes, we are in the land of Brazil where hotties in bikinis and rampant fraud abound. Welcome to San Francisco’s one and only churrascaria.

Churascaria, for the uninitiated, are dining establishments focused on meats of all kinds. The chefs cook them on 2-foot metal skewers and, when you turn the little dial on your table to green, the servers descend with the entire skewer and a huge knife, slicing off pieces of each specialty for anyone at the table who has not passed out from Atkins overload. The meats are, for the most part, excellent. They range from pork with parmesan (a little dry) to sausages (outstanding) to chicken with garlic (tasty) to an entire rib cage of an unfortunate cow (stringy meat but impressive visual).

The overall experience is surreal and not a little overwhelming. The decor is upscale and subdued and the price (a flat $45 per person) is equally trendy. The essence of the place though is very Denny’s: eat far more than you should, salad bar’s in the back. (Literally. There’s nothing exceptional there, with the possible exception of the corn and cilantro melange.) It had the air of a restaurant you find on the side of the road in the Midwest where your Uncle Milt always loves to go and the desserts are all Jell-O based. The waiters descend one after another and create a kind of bizarre meat race. (They would do well to train with the subtler dim sum cart jockeys at Yank Sing.) Frankly, when I’m paying $45 for dinner, I prefer to order my meal already composed. I gauge my appetite at the outset, order accordingly and negotiate the meal at a reasonable pace. Espetus is not about that. They’re about speed and quantity and, without careful and early resistance, you will end the evening feeling nauseated and distinctly unhealthy, a fate I barely escaped.

Overall rating: Strange. (Good meat. Bad concept.)

Had everything we could get our hands on in the first 10 minutes of passing carts, with a heavy stress on dumpling-like items. The best being the shrimp ones. The satay is also well-sauced instead of the usual tandoori-esque treatment. The sweet rice dumplings get me every time. First, it’s not just rice. Second, while sweet, they are not the most excellent thing I seem to believe them to be. Beware a roving eye: the servers are very, very good at zoning in on you, which makes this a great place for a large party where there are more people to run defense. Or a greater chance of totally over-ordering. Still the best dim sum I’ve had in SF.

In the W Hotel on the corner below SFMOMA. Get it? “WXYZ”? The restaurant, like the hotel, is shooting for a very sleek, minimalist look which it achieves but which does not usually wear well. This translates into hip, high-backed curved booths with uneven pillowed seating. No matter: I’m sure the filling has failed under hipper bottoms than mine. The food was excellent. The special appetizer was a really stunning chicken pate, excellently smooth after the rough Provencal version we have been working our way through at home and which bears a striking resemblance in consistency to cat food. The salads were standard greens but large, well-chopped and well-dressed, a great version of a classic. I had a white fish special served on a bed of surprising pureed sweet potatoes. V. tasty. He had a pulled pork and pasta dish which was original but wrongly seasoned. Interesting but not as good. Dessert was superfluous after all the preceding.

Still overrated. I had a bizarre scallops dish. I love scallops, so it’s hard to hurt them, but they gave it their best, surrounding them with chanterelle mushrooms and what appeared to be sauerkraut. Thank God they change the menu every day: at least this sort of thing doesn’t hang around for long. The chocolate pot de creme was fine but served on a promo business card. Let me hear you say, “Tacky!” Let me hear you say, “Resting on its laurels.” To top it off, the movie was that entertaining and upbeat classic Das Boot. Give me a break.

Eliza’s in Potrero Hill is a solid, local Chinese place that I’m glad we finally found. Good service and presentation. Apparently very popular and very cheap. Local favorite. While bright, the decor is not the usual take-out genre of open spaces, empty tables and extreme lighting. I think I still prefer Eric’s, but the walnut prawns were crisp, the potstickers yummy (if not exceptionally so) and the standard Kung Pao chicken solid. The most original bit was the Mongolian Beef, which was served on a raised dish (inexplicably in an painted Italian pattern) and bedded on crispy, puffed rice twirls.

R had a strange root-vegetable salad and pork loin. I had risotto pancakes and salad. I also had rose petal creme brulee. Citizen Cake has wonderful pastries, in the great tradition of sculpted meringue and perfect paper rings around the tarts. They are not as good as City Bakery’s in New York, but they are stellar. Their scones are excellent. Their chocolates look excellent. (I have never had them.) That said, I cannot see paying their prices again for dinner. The food was a tad strange and left the impression of disorganization, but perhaps that was the server who was a little officious and “we” oriented. In sum, I wanted to steal the art and the flowers (short-cut lilies in a square candle vase) from the bathroom but the food was, as my grandmother would say, nothing extra.

One nice thing about California that I have to concede: typing in “C” in a pulldown box for “State” yields “California” whereas typing in “N” for “New York” yields, ahem, Nebraska.