ExecChef is now John Jackson, alumni of Oritalia in SF and Village Pub in Woodside. He was just hired by chef-owner Rick Hackett to start early March 2013, so perhaps our sloppy brunch was because Jackson was still new on the job.

Bocanova in Oakland, CA – update, brunch
http://bocanova.com/menus/BrunchMenu_09_14_12.pdf
Review date: March 2013
(previous reviews appended below)

In 2009 Bocanova was the first of the "modern bistros" to open on Jack London Square's waterfront. It capitalized on the Pan-American small plates trend for the East Bay, replacing the tired Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant. Barlata (Oakland's Temescal) and Bar Cesar (Oakland's Piedmont Avenue) both opened earlier than Bocanova, but have faltered recently. 

It was time to revisit and see how things were faring here, now that gentrification seems to have finally established itself at JLSquare and the surrounding area. We needed a place for Sunday brunch with Carlos' stepsister Voni, and chose Bocanova after checking out their brunch menu. 

Parking is more difficult than it was when there were warehouses here instead of condos, but we arrived a bit early and were up for a nice stroll in the sunshine after parking a few blocks away.

Bocanova has expanded since our original visit in 2011. There is now a second dining room, which has two sides of windows instead of just the one in the original dining room/bar area, making it the more cheerful daytime space. It was almost empty and remained that way, which surprised me a little. It could be that Lungomare and Forge, the newest additions to this two-block wharf area, have stolen people's attention away from here.

Carlos decided to try one of their three ceviches. He chose the Pacific rockfish ceviche: tomatoes, zucchini, cilantro, aji amarillo chiles. What we received was very good, but it wasn't at all as described on the menu. It was fish cooked in lime, but after that the dish bore no resemblance to the menu description. 

The plantain chips were good, reasonably fresh. They matched well with the ceviche. The fish was hand-chopped into small rough pieces, which we liked very much. It was mixed into a mildly spicy coconut curry, which carried a bite from both chiles and finely chopped raw red onion. Delicious – but the kitchen should have told the waitress the dish had changed, so the waitress could have asked if we were okay with it. There are many people who don't like curry, and they were fortunate that we did or we would have been within our rights to send it back.

Voni chose a white quinoa salad, with baby spinach, dried cherries, and duck confit, in a sweet balsamic dressing. This was the first time she has tried quinoa, and she liked it very much. It was a large serving, however – all of Bocanova's salads are large, although nothing else is – so she had half of it packed up to take home.

Carlos ordered grilled hanger steak with poached eggs, white beans, toast, roasted poblano. He asked for fried eggs over easy instead of poached, and the waitress wrote it down. When the plate was brought out, it resembled a Benedict, with the eggs – poached, not fried as he had requested – topping the steak. The meat and eggs sat atop the toast, in a pool of green-flecked sauce. That might be where the roasted poblano went, but it tasted mostly of tart green tomatillos. There were no beans in sight. He also had to ask for a steak knife. It didn't seem to occur to anyone that the standard butter knife wasn't appropriate for this entrée.

I chose the brunch special of lamb hash with sweet potatoes and aji amarillo chiles, topped with a fried egg. I asked for two eggs, and received two decently fried sunnyside-up eggs on top. The hash was fairly tasty, but there were no potatoes in it, sweet or otherwise. The lamb was in big shredded pieces, slightly dry on top but not inedibly so. Some sliced onions and peppers gave modest relief from the meat. This was a small portion, served in a cast-iron skillet which had a fair amount of oil slicking the bottom.

The busboy was a little too efficient. He kept coming by and trying to take dishes away before we had quite finished with them.

We decided to try a couple of desserts. They had a fried custard with coconut ice cream and tropical fruits that Carlos thought intriguing. It's two small squares of soft creamy custard, nicely fried with a breadcrumb crust. The fruits were mango slices and passionfruit balls. It's a fun dessert and enjoyable, but not big enough to easily share.

Voni and I shared the chocolate croissant bread pudding with Mexican chocolate gelato. This is definitely for chocoholics. Let the gelato melt over the hot pudding, and you get a decadently rich, creamy bread pudding. It's quite large, big enough for two or three people. We brought most of it home for Inez, who adored it.

Carlos had two pots of coffee – a single serving pot holds a little over two coffee cups, and I had an iced tea. The coffee is good although not great, the iced tea average.

Although the service was good and the food tasty, we were disturbed by the sloppiness exhibited by the kitchen and its lack of coordination with the waitstaff. Not counting desserts, we only had four dishes, of which one was prepared differently than the menu listing but served without explanation, one lacked a major listed ingredient (hash without potatoes isn't much of a hash), and one both lacked an ingredient and ignored a simple substitution request (obviously, if they did fried eggs on my hash, they could have done fried eggs on Carlos' steak).

For Seison/Oakland, we can excuse an error or maybe even two. Seison is running with a barebones service staff; they don't claim to be more than a small, two- or three-star hotel restaurant, with corresponding prices. For Bocanova, with its glitzy décor, waterfront location, two dining rooms, full staff (there were more service staff than diners on a sunny Saturday afternoon), and four-star prices, it's borderline offensive. 

If you're going to draw the line that says "upscale", then the food that comes out of your kitchen needs to stay firmly on the right side of that line. Carlos declared he didn't want to ever return here, and I can't say I blame him.

Three people, brunch: one starter, three entrees, two desserts, three beverages with tip was $112.

Bocanova
55 Webster St. (Jack London Square), Oakland
http://bocanova.com/menus/Dinner070910.pdf
Review date:  January 2011

Bocanova was one of the first of the new upscale bistros to arrive in the newly renovated Jack London Square waterfront. Inhabiting part of the long-time Old Spaghetti Factory space, it has the chic industrial vibe, only slightly marred by the functional but silly-looking fabric waistbands shirred around the middle of concrete pillars. These skirts both soften lightbulbs and absorb a little bit of what is fairly deafening noise from a combination of open kitchen, long busy bar, and diners, all in one high-ceilinged open room.

There are long banquettes, comfortably upholstered in tan leather, and good-sized tables. Service is exceptionally attentive, although the waiter gave us the impression that some of the entrees are good-sized, which wasn't the case unless you order the Peruvian chicken, which is an entire roast chicken. 

Otherwise, no matter what anyone says, it's a small plates menu with everything a la carte. Divided into sections by cooking style (Garden, deep-fried, stove-top, baked, broiled, grilled, rotisserie), there's 4 or 5 dishes under each, which adds up to quite a lot of dishes when you throw in the Bar Menu, which lists another eight different small plates that aren’t on the regular menu.

Bread is only brought by request. We didn't, and started with the crab deviled eggs and snapper ceviche. The deviled eggs were so-so with the crab virtually tasteless despite purportedly being Dungeness.  The ceviche was lovely. I liked it better than Carlos did – he's big on Mexican-style, but I don't care for tomatoes in my ceviche. 

The ceviche had the fruity-hot Peruvian ají amarillo chiles, a judicious amount of fresh lime juice, lots of chopped red onion and surprisingly, finely diced zucchini. The amount of snapper included was fairly modest, but the vegetables made for a good salsa-type relish all by themselves, especially when piled on the housemade sliced fried plaintain chips. 

Carlos is a big fan of quinoa, and most restaurants serve the white variety. Bocanova is no exception, and makes theirs into a cold salad with fresh baby arugula, diced orange beets, grilled baby Brussel sprouts, and a dressing that was listed as an orange vinaigrette. Carlos and I could discern no orange flavor, or any kind of citrus flavor. It tasted like a hazelnut oil (there were toasted hazelnuts in the salad as well) and a very mild, very small amount of good quality sherry or malt vinegar. 
 
Inez ordered the swordfish, which was a beautifully sear-roasted thin steak, served with a chipotle cream sauce with crab and thin slices of apple and jicama. The sauce was extremely rich, overwhelming the crab and fruit. It was also a little too salty, something repeated in the other two entrees. 

We asked the waiter how large the serving was of BBQ pork ribs. She replied it was six ribs, or half a rack. When it came, it was five baby back ribs, not particularly meaty. Again, very much a 'small plates' size. The guava BBQ sauce was extremely sweet and as gunky as marmalade. The ribs were tender and not overcooked, but like the sauce on Inez's entree there was just a touch too much salt.

I ordered the bavette steak, which comes with a chipotle mushroom sauce. Bocanova is extremely fond of cream sauces, because similar to the halibut it was a very rich sauce. Despite the claim that this was an 8-oz steak, it was a dead ringer for a 6-oz size. It was perfectly grilled but again, it had that slight excess of salt. Especially with rich sauces this is unnecessary. To be oversalting food is sadly too common at restaurants where the focus is actually on the bar (where most of the profits are anyway). 

Paul Conte, the Executive Pastry Chef, is very talented. We tried the chocolate croissant bread pudding and the caramel pear galette with pistachio sorbet. Both were excellent and creative, and nicely sized, satisfying without being oversized. They would have been outstanding with just a little less salt (in the caramel and pistachio sorbet) and sugar (in both desserts). We ordered a pot of decaf coffee to go with desserts. It was decent, but weak by our standards. Carlos called it ‘dishwater’.

All three of the entrees were tasty, yet not quite what we expected from a much-ballyhooed “Pan American” restaurant. Chef Rick Hackett has classical French training, and although he's enthusiastic about Pan-American cooking, what's coming out of the kitchen sometimes feels more an uneasy alliance than inspired cultural blending. 

Indeed, this is one of the issues we have with small plates menus. It absolves the kitchen of responsibility for producing a cohesive, finely balanced plate, and puts everything on the level of an upscale potluck. It was as if we were eating food chosen from a delicatessen's offerings, instead of a full service upscale restaurant. All of the food at Bocanova is designed to be very fast to cook and quick to serve.

For example, the quinoa salad was excellent, and would make an outstanding vegetarian entree. But this in itself shows the weakness of the menu. The quinoa salad was very good on its own, but not so good with every entree as a side dish. 

As a result, although the food at Bocanova is tasty, it didn't excite us or impress us the way Perbacco or Gather or Prospect have done recently. This is an especially apt comparison because Perbacco is an excellent restaurant whether you choose to do 'small plates' or the traditional 3-course meal. And Perbacco's food is not only more skillful, creative, and better balanced, it's cheaper.

We did like some of the food at Bocanova. We liked the comfortable chairs and attentive friendly service. We liked the very easy street parking. But the food wasn't quite up to where it should be for these prices. And there was a bit too much of the atmosphere that screams “Bar Food!! - Gimme something to soak up all this liquor I'm drinking!”

If the bill had been $25 cheaper, we would think better of Bocanova. But it is firmly in the Artisan/Lafayette and Prospect/San Francisco class, without being as consistent or offering anything that was especially complex to produce.

Three starters, three entrees, two desserts, three beverages with tip came to $152. Although this sounds like an enormous amount of food, it wasn't. If we hadn't had dessert, we would have left hungry. All these dishes totaled were actually less food than the two starters/two entrees we had at Prospect two nights earlier, and cost almost exactly the same amount.

We adored Prospect and want to go back as often as we can. Bocanova...it was okay, but in this price range, the Bay Area offers better food elsewhere.