Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

Cugini Restaurant
1556 Solano Ave., Albany, CA
http://www.cuginirestaurant.com/menus/lunch
Review date: August 2012

Carlos and I were trying for Le Bedaine, the French bakery/lunch place on Solano Ave., only to discover that Bedaine must be truly French, as they've taken the month of August off, in time-honored European custom.

Balked of the intriguing possibilities of wild boar terrine and coq au vin, we walked across the street and settled instead for a soup, salad, and a couple of burgers. Cugini reserves its full Italian menu for dinner. Although they offer a couple of pizzas and several pastas, most of the lunch menu consists of salad and sandwiches.

Things didn't start off well when Carlos got his cup of potato-leek soup and I received my warm spinach salad with pancetta, shaved parmesan and pine nuts. I could smell the salt in his soup all the way across the table. Unlike most versions, this wasn't a bisque (with cream), and the broth was a weak vegetable broth thickened with big chunks of boiled potato. It was barely adequate; Carlos wouldn't order this again.

My "warm salad" was nothing of the sort. The pancetta dice were overbrowned, the parmesan was generously applied but an indifferent quality, and the spinach was barely softened by a lukewarm dressing. Some of the leaves remained refrigerator-cold, in fact. The serving was large but like Carlos' soup, not well executed.

Despite the menu claiming sourdough rolls for the burgers, they came on ordinary buns – reasonably good quality, nothing exceptional. The substantial patties are flavorful even without being salted, so they'd be sensational if anyone would bother to do it before grilling. 

Cugini has a generous idea that doesn't always work in practice. They put double cheese with the burger by melting cheese on both top and bottom bun halves. This worked nicely with my gorgonzola burger because it's a salty cheese. Served with lettuce and tomato, it was a pretty good burger, served with decent steak fries. Not up to the level of Duck Club/Lafayette or La Calacas/Oakland, but above average compared to most places. 

The double-cheese idea didn't work at all with the fontina on the mushroom burger. The fontina was tasteless, and the mushrooms had been nicely sauteed but not salted. Button mushrooms are like eggplant: they're sponges for flavoring, and without any seasoning they're a pallid imitation of what they could be. With the cheese melted on the bread instead of over the mushrooms, all the flavors of the burger, unadorned with lettuce and tomato, remained separate from one another, and unsatisfying.

There's a lot of restaurants along the Solano Avenue corridor. But we've found it similar to the Broadway/Burlingame area in the Peninsula – most of them just aren't that good overall. The vast majority of them seem to have just a couple of good dishes. Order those, and you'll be happy. Miss them, and you'll wonder why you've wasted your money.

Two people, lunch: one soup, one salad (large, the only size offered), two burgers, one beverage, with tip was $50.