384958 Mon Mar 26 00:02:25 -0700 2007 1 1 San Francisco Bay Area 0 2420656 Salt House has been waiting patiently on my Need to Try list since I read of its opening a few months ago. This past Tuesday afternoon, I finally got the chance to check it out. Upon first entering the restaurant and surveying the exposed brick walls and large portions, I was reminded of Salt House’s older sibling, Town Hall. However, Salt House definitely has a more youthful atmosphere; the rustic décor and Acme baguettes served on brown paper contrast with a cluster of contemporary light fixtures hanging above the bar and unusual touches such as water carafes marked with a heart and skull symbol. It seems to be aiming for what I can only describe as modern rustic. Unless you are absolutely starving, for lunch I would highly recommend splitting a starter. My table decided to share the tuna and hamachi tartar salad. I was impressed with the presentation and simple (but obviously very fresh) ingredients. The dish tasted light and clean and was substantially brightened by the sliced apple artfully displayed on top. In fact, although the tartar salad was tossed in a zesty vinaigrette, it might have been slightly bland without the apple. For our main courses we ordered the gruyere and fontina grilled cheese with sunchoke soup, the duck confit, and the Dungeness crab appetizer. All of the mains looked wonderful (and were almost entirely eaten despite the large portions). I had the Dungeness crab which was served on top of a pile of shredded lettuce and accented with fried artichoke hearts and an olive tapanade. Although the lettuce was soggy from being drenched in far too much dressing, I was very pleased with my entree. The ample mound of crab was delicious and juicy, the artichoke hearts were lightly fried and perfectly crispy, and the olives complimented the dish well provided a nice bite. We ended our meal with an unusual rhubarb dessert that was nothing like I had expected. Although the flavors were great separately, the cubes of rhubarb mixed in custard and topped with bits of granola combined to produce a strange textural experience. The pastry chef may want to think about simplifying his desserts a bit. Overall, it was really enjoyable lunch. There are still a number of other restaurants on my Need to Try list, but when I get a chance I would definitely be interested in returning to Salt House. While I have heard complaints that during prime hours it can get quite noisy and crowded, that is a price I am willing to pay for a fun scene and good food! ***For Pictures feel free to check out my blog at - Savorymorsels.blogspot.com*** Mon Mar 26 00:02:25 -0700 2007 11754 Hungryfina 1 2424495 We tried Salt House this week, too, to assuage a strong craving for Poutine. I think we agree with most of the recent posters to this board: Salt House is not a good restaurant, but it is not a bad one either. In particular, the ingredients are well chosen. The preparation doesn't match them. We had poutine, a slightly non-traditional take on the national fuel of Quebec winters. Salt House's is a mound of thick-cut fries ('steak fries' they would be labelled in the frozen food section, even though steak frites seems always to come with pencil-thin fries; go figure). Atop the fries are partly melted pieces of perfectly nice local cheddar, where in Montreal you get something called 'cheese curds', which is not that different but usually thinner in consistency and saltier. And a waiter -- perhaps a poutine gravy specialist -- held a warmed creamer containing very dense, moderately salty beef short-rib gravy. He started spooning out little splatters of gravy and bits of boned rib. My dining companion looked quizzically at him and suggested he might save the spooning effort and just leave the whole thing, all of which we ate. Fine gravy. Also among the starters we chose crispy shrimp: about half a dozen carefully fried, tender and sweet shrimp (about 16s, I think, or medium large). They were in a beer-style batter, although I'm not sure it was actually beer, but it certainly was a batter and it was dark but not greasy. All around the shrimp were copious small green beans, little more than blanched, still pretty crunchy. These were set on a bed of lettuce -- maybe mizuna, although it doesn't matter since you couldn't taste it (more about that in a bit) -- and surrounded by a few plump, dry almonds. Amidst the dish lay a couple thin strips of jamon de serrano for reasons not easily understood. So far, a reasonable dish. Frying shrimp is hard, and undercooking beans properly takes skill. The sauce, though, proved to be a sort of heavy-handed, moderately spicy Russian dressing, applied evidently with a firehose. It wasn't unusually tasty, but it did manage to obscure most of the flavors in the dish. Mid-table sat a small pot of "house made pickled" vegetables. Specifically, baby carrots, small beets (halved), small pickling cucumbers, some alliums, and a couple more of the green beans. The pickling medium I found sweet, sour, and not too much else. Well, good for Salt House; pickling is a fine thing to do, and the pot of pickles lasted long enough that it stood as my dessert. For our main courses -- which we actually didn't need, given the pickles and poutine -- we tried a piece of striper, which came nicely crisped on one side and sitting in a pattern of two more undistinguished sauces, one of them intensely green. There were also tiny brussels sprouts overcooked yet underbrowned in such an unfortunately unflattering way that I'll write about them no further. Striped bass is easy to overcook, and this wasn't overcooked. But, more wisely, we ordered the cassoulet: a remarkably simple version, just beans, a piece of duck confit, and a few slices of very garlicky white sausage. Now I know that gigandes beans are better left to their usual Greek recipes, and cassoulet likes small white beans more. The confit, however, we both thought outstanding: lots of the duck-fat flavor, crispy bits on the outside but moist inside, and without the usual a-little-too-much-lipid feeling of most restaurant confits. The sausage is sound, although I thought it had a slight metallic flavor. I've tasted that in sausages before, remarked on it, and no one every concurred -- including this time. Maybe there's something in some sausages that tastes metallic only to some. Breadcrumbs strewn about the cassoulet. For dessert, a rectangle of chocolate ganache labelled 'fudge cake' on the menu, frosted with glossy chocolate and surrounded by candied peanuts. Intense and dense. No drip coffee is made in the house, but espresso is. This strikes me as an odd choice, since barista skills are so specialized and rare hereabouts, yet anyone can brew a reasonable cup of drip, given good material. The best thing about the meal by far was the butter in the butter dish, served alongside edible bread. Something about the butter seemed utterly fresh, unoxidized, and like the essence of very good cream. I neglected to ask who supplies Salt House's butter. The service struck us as friendly but a little like the preparation in its mixed quality. At one point a sous-lackey slammed down a couple of salads before us, one with ricotta, and escaped before either of us could say 'nope, not ours'. The salads belonged to our neigbors, and the poor aim was rectified within a minute or so. It took aggressive attention to keep our bread, our butter, our pickles on the table through a couple of courses. I get the impression that Turnover is Job #1. It is so easy, if expensive and time-consuming, to get some of the best ingredients in the world around here, that I'm not surprised at the high quality of Salt House's raw materials. If only they handled them better and more simply. Total tab with one cocktail, just over $103. We had a far, far better jerk chicken and catfish meal today for exactly 1/10 the price. (Note: perhaps Salt House's wayward, bullying, brutish older sib Town Hall puts you off for being packed and cacophonous, with overlarge tables, overpriced wines, ill considered melanges on your plate, and the most forgettable batter one could concoct for a competently fried yet utterly flavorless chicken. If all that is true, don't hold it against Salt House. I wouldn't go back at the pointy end of a stick to Town Hall, but I would go back to Salt House for poutine, especially if someone else was paying. Salt House, 545 Mission, San Francisco, salthousesf.com Tue Mar 27 06:13:15 -0700 2007 2420656 23530 David Sloo