California on my Plate

After a long winter away from home, I'm back in the Bay Area for a couple of days with my better half and dying to dig into some California-style eats. Oh, fresh avocados, how I missed you! You too, Pacific salmon, Napa Cabernet, and alfalfa sprouts. Ed and I don't have a single favorite local restaurant, though we've been looking for "our joint" for some time now. It's a tough job, but we work very hard at it.

What better place to celebrate our homecoming than at Calafia, former Google chef Charlie Ayers' new venture in Palo Alto? Ed had the good luck-- and good connections-- to be invited to Calafia on opening week in January and has been raving about it ever since. He's also been tempting me with mouthwatering tales of Chef Charlie's Southern fried chicken lunches at Google, so the bar was set ridiculously high, and I was hoping to be wowed.

The concept is simple and very, very NorCal: fresh, local, seasonal food served simply but creatively. We had some luscious little steamed duck dumplings while waiting for a place at the counter facing the open kitchen (all the better to watch the cooks work their magic), paired with a huge, chewy California Chardonnay to wash them down. (Yes, I said chewy. Because that's what California Chard is, for better or for worse.) The bottoms of the soft and well-seasoned dumplings were pan-fried, adding texture and a deeper taste that made us impatient for the main course.

For dinner, I had the New Bohemia salad-- pulled pork buried under a hill of crisp baby spinach, jicama, avocado, and pumkin seeds for crunch. I'm not a hug fan of pork, but I've been digging pulled pork ever since I survived a traumatic incident involving the tantalizing smell of slowly cooked whole pork at the Memphis in May barbecue festival and some silly rule prohibiting serving the public the day we wandered the fairgrounds. Calafia's pork was seasoned with a gingerbread spice-- was it allspice?-- that both intensified the taste and helped lighten the meat. A gingersnap effect, if you will. Loved it. I will have this salad over and over again.

We also had Charlie's famous Papas Con Ajo, shoelace French fries seasoned with garlic and smoked paprika. Ed put it best: "This isn't a side dish. It's a dish in itself."

The only let-down at Calafia is the chicken. I stopped by for lunch one day from the "Cafe a Go-Go" take-out section of the restaurant and had a grilled chicken sandwich. I ended up tossing the meat out when I realized the warm chicken breast had no seasoning whatsoever and tasted like a dietetic lump of poached chicken. I would have liked something a little tastier-- just salt and pepper would have helped, but fresh herbs or spices would have made my day. Ed also had the crispy chicken breast for dinner and again, the poultry lacked seasoning, though the crunchy crust gave it bite. I don't get why chicken is a weak link at Calafia, but I hope the kitchen fine-tunes its recipes in the coming months as the restaurant finds its rythm.

Be prepared for a wait. It's packed (for good reason) and well worth the trouble. It's also newly minted as "our joint," and we're planning on becoming regulars.