Le Critique: Hole in the Wall: Universal Café

2814 19th Street

San Francisco, CA 94110

Tel: 415.821.4608

For an early 1st church wedding anniversary celebration, Chef spent the night in San Francisco courtesy of his sister and brother-in-law, who was also one of our principal sponsors. Sometimes, it seems that Chef and I have been together forever that things like this, anniversaries, I mean, seem to go by as part of a routine: flowers, dinner out, and, well… *wink*. Anyway, fresh from our trip to Italy, we were not planning on anything big and thought, other than spending the night at a hotel (which I always love), we’ll follow the routine. The thing that always changes of course is where we eat.

This time, Chef took me to the Universal Cafe. I honestly think that the place is the quintessential cafe that, first, I like going to, and second, that I would have one day. It’s a simple layout. On one side, there’s one row of chairs and tables, anchored by a bench that stretches to the back of the room. On the other side, you have the bar and the kitchen, plus that must-have chalkboard in a cafe with specials presented in a way that’s not cheap. You are definitely sitting quite close to your neighbors, and I’m fine with that. Unfortunately, Chef isn’t fond of it that much, and the effect is usually I’m the one talking most of the evening, and he gets distracted by the conversations of other diners.

The food is impressive, and given that there was a date written on the menu that the waiter handed out, I take it that it changes everyday. The place prides itself for having a richly organic menu with products coming from environmentally sustainable farms and ranches, and it was truly such. For our appetizer, Chef fancied the house fruitwood-smoked beef tongue with hot buttered sourdough, leeks and caper mustard. I was skeptical about this, as beef tongue just sounded so freaky. But Chef reminded me that I have tasted ox tongue before in a taco, so I gave it a shot, and wow, it was to die for. Texture was weird, but the meat was softer than your usual muscle but still had the resistance of meat.

I played it safe with roasted hoffman farms chicken over a parsnip-potato purée, savoy cabbage braised with house-smoked bacon. I love the parsnip-potato purée. I feel that the chicken was a tad bit salty for me that because it was sitting on the purée, the whole dish became salty. Also, I’m not quite a fan of soggy bacon, and the pieces are not bacon bits size, so I pretty much shoved that to the side of my plate, which is a first for bacon. I did eat my left overs the following day, and the chicken was just fabulous with white rice. Chef’s charcoal-grilled local grass-fed flat iron steak with shoestring potatoes, watercress and mustard hollandaise was delightful. The steak was nicely done at medium-rare. The dish was balanced in taste. And the shoestring potatoes were french fries done right without the guilt of grabbing a handful at a time. My trusted Pellegrino is of course on hand, but the pomegranate bellini was quite fun.

Usually, when we order dessert, Chef will have a few bites and I devour the rest. There must be something special with the apple crisp with vanilla gelato because Chef wanted his full share of it. The vanilla gelato was a perfect companion to the thick layer of brûléed brown sugar and balanced by the baked apples on the bottom layer. With my cup of cappuccino and Chef’s espresso, we were all set. The price is reasonable too, I believe. All that for about $90 not including the tip. Not bad, right?