Title: Hudson 2
Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

Hudson        CLOSING OCTOBER 30, 2012
5356 College Ave., Oakland (Rockridge district)
www.hudsonoakland.com
Review date:   February 2011

This popular location has morphed over the years into different concepts, all by the same owners John Hurley and Justin Hafen. First it was Garibaldi's, an East Bay branch of the popular Garibaldi's on Presidio in SF's Pacific Heights. Then they had the hideous idea of splitting the restaurant in the middle with a 3/4 height wall, with Garibaldi squeezed into half the dining room and a new restaurant called Marzano on College taking the other half which held the bar and newly-crammed-in tables. 

However, the two restaurants shared one common kitchen, a schizoid arrangement that made absolutely no sense to me. Not that most habitués cared, as this is one of those always-popular restaurants where everybody drinks first and eats second. 

What bothered me about the wall was that it made an already noisy restaurant even more hideously noisy, to the point where my ears were ringing when we walked out of Marzano on College when we tried it back in November 2009. We were also less than impressed by Marzano's execution of food better done in dozens of other Cal-Italian restaurants.

Now that the wall is gone, the dining room has gone back to a neutral color palette, the noise is deafening but not excruciating – just on the edge, but not quite all the way over – and has been renamed Hudson. 

Realistically, it's Garibaldi's again in a slightly updated format. This is an improvement, as I vastly preferred Garibaldi to Marzano. If it were a little quieter, I'd even rank it as one of our “A” list restaurants despite its flaws. But it isn't, and those flaws get magnified when it's almost physically painful to sit on uncomfortable chairs and be assaulted by the conversational roar here.

Also, because this is what I call a “drinking restaurant”, the food is a little on the salty side. The service is very good, attentive and prompt, but the waitstaff doesn't know as much about food as they think they do. At the table next to us, for example, the waiter tried but couldn't explain how Gruyere cheese differed from Cheddar cheese as a burger option (Gruyere can best be described as a sharper, more full-bodied “Swiss” cheese without the holes; in Europe there is no such thing as “Swiss cheese”). 

We were pleased to see sweetbreads on the starter menu, but I was a little leery of the Meyer lemon-caper sauce. I'm not sure why chefs think that tart sour sauces go well with the extremely mild, subtly flavored sweetbread, or where this idea started to begin with. The sauce was actually quite good, with roasted cauliflower florets. But it overpowered the two big cubes of properly sauteed sweetbreads. Half the amount of lemon and tossing out the capers would have been a big improvement. Also, at $14 for what amounted to one sweetbread, it was an expensive starter.

Carlos ordered the spring onion soup with porcini cream and a sauteed mushroom croustade.  It was extremely sweet, but still very good, lightly drizzled with truffle oil. 

He and I split the “Hudson Steak”, a 24-oz rib-eye. This is a vastly overstated size, as without the bone and if properly trimmed, there's no more than 6-8 oz each on two plates, about the same size as the filet mignon I had at Fleming's four nights past. Still, it's a decent piece of range-fed beef – although don't, for God's sake, let anyone order it well-done or it will be chewy leather – heavily peppered and salted. 

The ballyhooed truffle Yukon potato cake was actually rough-mashed Idahos with a little bit of sour cream and some grated sweet onion, nicely pan-crusted but without any sauce on the steak, it seemed too dry and starchy in texture as an accompaniment. The dish came off as meat and potatoes without the gravy...and there’s a reason why gravy goes well with Idahos.

Hudson likes to promote an olive oil and an aged manidori balsamic reduction drizzled over the steak. Here's where again, the waitstaff doesn't quite know as much as they should. The balsamic is extremely sweet, which certainly counteracts the slight oversalting of the steak (with the porcini dusting, they should be using less salt, not more). However, when Carlos asked for 'a little', he got a very generous drizzling back and forth over his four thick slices. 

If that's 'a little', I'd hate to see how much they normally put on top! Although a little aged balsamic isn't a bad addition to a grilled steak, like most strong flavors it's best used with discretion. Carlos didn't mind it, but I found it way too sweet in the quantity they thought was appropriate.

We ordered a side of rapini, which was small and tender, cooked with preserved lemon and chile flakes. It was very good, but again, a little too much sea salt went into the pan.

Inez got an oxtail pasta, which flummoxed her because when she sees oxtails on the menu, she stops reading and thinks she's getting them whole on the bone (as the Chinese serve them, clay pot style). Of course, no restaurant does that in a pasta dish, but nonetheless it was tasty although the farro ribbon pasta was a bit chewy in texture.

Carlos and I finished with cappuccinos. I don't care for the brand they use in either decaf or regular, but the cappuccinos were properly dry, and the foam was very fine textured although it stopped just short of truly silky. Fortunately, I'd ordered hot tea during the meal, and still had an unused lemon wedge. A few drops of lemon juice cured the excessive bitterness of the decaf roast and made it a much better ending.

We liked Hudson, and will probably give them a second chance as a mushroom pizza coming out of the kitchen on the way out, looked and smelled wonderful. Marzano on Park, their sibling in Oakland, disappointed us with a pizza that was soggy in the middle, so we'll hope that Hudson will show more consistency in execution and less salt than Marzano on College gave us.

Now if they could just do something about the noise level.....!

Next time I’m seriously going to bring earplugs.

Two starters, three entrees, one side, three beverages, with tip was $147.