Café Bastille: Down Home French Fare
Written: Jan 14 '03 (Updated Jan 14 '03)
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Pros: Reasonably priced, simple food.
Cons: There's nothing particularly spectacular about the place.
The Bottom Line: I don't know why people always say French people are unclean. I mean, they have bidets. I don't know any Americans with bidets. Bad teeth? Sure. Unclean? No way.
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| Mr.Eyore's Full Review: Cafe Bastille |
Café Bastille serves French food, and it’s not the best French food in the city. In fact, it’s not even the best French food on the block. Plouf, two doors down, is far superior. But you know what? Bastille is still a darn fine restaurant, worth eating at when you want something a little homier than the offerings at the more upscale eateries along Downtown San Francisco’s Beldon Place.
ambiance
And it’s not just the food that’s a little homier. The decor at Café Bastille is less conspicuous than that at its French cousin down the street. Two levels are lined with dark wood, forgettable framed street scenes, and small tables, neatly set with crisp white tablecloths and simple silverware. The restaurant is as loud as any of the bustling lunch spots along this stretch, especially near the bar upstairs, but there’s less general business hub-bub.
The food
I’m the sort of person who typically finds a favorite dish at any given restaurant and sticks with it over years. That’s particularly so of places I eat at frequently for lunch. But I find myself drawn all over the menu at Bastille, because so much of what it offers seems like the French equivalent of roadside diner food. Each dish offers unique comforts.
Lately, I’ve been eating the Crocque Madame (a cooked ham and cheese sandwich with fried egg on top) which is absolutely perfect. It is buttery and salty, the bread nice and soft and browned just a little bit, and the stretchy white cheese inside is delicious. Of course, they also offer the Croque Monsieur, which is the same sandwich without the fried egg.
A few weeks ago, I tried their Shepard’s Pie, a nice, light version of the Irish classic, with buttery mashed potatoes and ground beef topped off with a thin layer of melted white cheese. Ordinarily, this is the sort of thing you order in a pub to soak up one too many beers, and I wouldn’t dream of ordering a pub version for lunch, for fear of falling into a food coma. But Bastille’s version is light and small enough that it is merely satisfying without turning into a gut-bomb.
The friend that I usually eat there with frequently orders the onion soup, which looks like your typical dark-brothed, salty concoction, but is topped with what looks like a better class of cheese than you’ll find in most places. But I might just be saying that ‘cause it’s French.
I’ve had their crepes a number of times. They usually offer two or three varieties, with standard fillings – cheese, mushrooms, spinach – layered inside a crisp, savory, pancake (rather than the greasy, soft pancakes most of the city’s brunch spots specialize in)
Almost everything at Bastille is served with a small bed of fresh dressed salad greens. Nothing spectacular, but the lettuces and tomato are always fresh and delicate, and frequently serve as a perfect counterbalance to the heavy main courses. It certainly leaves you feeling less with child than would the side of fries you might get with your sandwich or burger at some other place.
But then, you may want to get Bastille’s fries anyway, because they’re about as good as french fries get. Medium cut, they are always cooked to a perfect crispiness on the outside and are always fluffy, not greasy, inside.
Nearly everything on the menu is between $8.00 and $14.00, including the specials, which are frequently Italian influenced dishes like risotto, broiled hot sausage, or ravioli.
The service at Bastille is always friendly, professional and unobtrusive. I have never had a bad service experience there, though the French waiters’ attempts to up-sell are frequently amusingly graceless. That’s easily forgivable, so long as I never have to wait for a drink of bread, and I don’t have to go looking for my waiter if I need something. The restaurants on Beldon almost uniformly suffer from bad service. Café Bastille is an exception.
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: No
Best Suited For: Business
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Mr.Eyore
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