Sweetly Tendered

Dish

JULIA CHILD once expressed her dislike of crab cakes combined with puzzlement at their popularity. She seemed satisfied when told, “If you jam one inside a bun and slap on some tartar sauce, you’ve got a ‘seaburger.’ Toss some French fries alongside, and you’ve got a nobrainer lunch.”

True, crab cakes can be sad affairs, sawdusty with breadcrumbs and tasting mostly of salt. Yet along the “crab cake corridor” between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the savors of fresh, unadulterated lump crabmeat patties delight with every bite. The lavish use of this costly ingredient is crucial, a fact understood by Suite & Tender, a restaurant on the second floor of the new Sè San Diego hotel on Fifth Avenue near Broadway. Gilded to a crisply delicate finish and almost soufflé-like in texture, the feather-light cakes bask in a pond of tarragon remoulade and are near perfection——as they should be, at $17 for two.

Operated by an impressively credentialed partnership that has worked with Alain Ducasse and Joel Robuchon, Suite & Tender presents itself as a novel steakhouse motivated by a “gastro-tourism” concept that enables diners to “create an experience that is completely unique and their own.” Rather than chew on a concept, you might order a few oysters——they’re presented like works of art——to enjoy while reading the glam menu created by New York–based chef Christopher Lee (view our Q&A with Lee at sandiegomagazine.com). Appetizers like maple syrup-glazed bacon and grilled spot prawns with lemon-garlic butter lead to a relatively short entrée list of fine steaks, specialties like grilled lamb rack with ratatouille and such ultradeluxe surf-and-turf pairings as artfully garnished Alaska king crab and buttery veal tenderloin. Prior to the steaks that could be sliced by a mother’s tender gaze, the server presents a tray of assorted, fancy-handled steak knives that resemble small sabers. A 6-ounce filet, reasonable for the times at $30, was nothing short of exceptional.

DON’T SPILL THE CABERNET: Even in hardscrabble places like Rancho Santa Fe, new restaurants continue to open (most recent arrivals entered the development phase before outrageous fortune started emptying its quiver in our direction). In the ranch’s Cielo Hillside Village, ambitious restaurateur Jayson Knack doubles as sommelier and presents what he asserts is the most impressive by-the-glass wine list in the United States. Showoff vintages preen in a 2,000-bottle glass wine “vault” that diners pass en route from lounge to dining room, where chef Geoffrey Yahn backs the boss with a pleasant menu highlighted by “red torpedo” onion soup with Manchego cheese, along with comfort dishes such as butter-roasted chicken and spice-rubbed pot roast . . . When you don’t hang at downtown’s newest convention hotel, you miss stuff like the eye-catching uniforms worn by waitresses at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront’s Odysea lounge. The 1960s-inspired white go-go boots, black short-shorts and slender zip-up vests reminded one guest of Laugh-In and another of Barbarella. Specialty martinis like the blueberry-flavored Muse are worth sampling; the strange “American dim sum” served from carts are not . . . When good cooks try to replicate professional dishes, they’re sometimes done in by a restaurant’s use of proprietary, secret-recipe spice blends. After Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme made a fortune peddling seasonings, plenty of others joined the parade. The Gaslamp Strip Club, the cook-your-own-steak place on lower Fifth Avenue, recently introduced its Strip Club Rub ($14.95 buys a 24-ounce bottle), a potion executive chef James Stephenson says “makes seasoning steaks at home foolproof.”

SHAKE IT UP, BABY, on Wednesday nights between 5 and 7 p.m., when amateurs pour cocktails at the guest-bartender gigs hosted by Sbicca, the very local eatery in the heart of old Del Mar. Tips benefit selected charities . . . Arterra, the innovative restaurant in the San Diego Marriott Del Mar, now brews sodas under the direction of pastry chef Chris Davies, who favors root beer (he’ll make you a float with his own Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream), ginger beer and orange-elderflower soda . . . A tsunami of sushi is washing through town, highlighted by the new, well-received Hane Sushi on Fifth Avenue at Olive Street . . . Tower 23, the hip hostelry on the Pacific Beach boardwalk, has suspended weekday breakfast service in JRDN but expanded the weekend brunch menu to include “adult beverages” like a screwdriver accented with raspberry vodka, and ranchero-style steak and eggs with grilled flatiron steak, assertive salsa and fresh tortillas.

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Side Dish

Revving Up the Chocolate

WHEN THE WOLF is at the door, Frania Mendivil checks that his makeup is properly applied. This particular wolf is made of chocolate, and the “makeup” actually is ivory-colored cocoa butter that Mendivil painstakingly airbrushed over the snout, whiskers and other facial features to make the model, posed against bare chocolate branches and other wintry symbols, look amazingly lifelike.

Mendivil, who is the very busy executive pastry chef at Harrah’s Rincon Casino & Resort in Valley Center, confected a series of chocolate wolves as her part of the United States team entry in the International Patisserie Grande Prix 2009, held in Tokyo in mid-March (at which the team placed third). Born into a well-known baking family in Sonora, Mexico, the young patissiere continues a somewhat new but ongoing tradition of San Diegans competing at national and international culinary events.

“It’s an opportunity like a dream come true,” says Mendivil, who oversees the daily production of 1,000 or more desserts for the patrons of Harrah’s various eateries. “I’m going to do something very exciting that may be recognized worldwide.”

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