Seison in Oakland, CA  -  update, dinner
Review date: August 2013
(previous reviews appended below)

Last week we reviewed Montclair Bistro, a restaurant we used to enjoy that no longer makes the grade with us. Seison is a small, modest restaurant in downtown Oakland that we also liked, getting meals that were usually good and sometimes excellent, especially for the price.

Unfortunately, that was then and this is now, as the saying goes. We met our friends Micheline and Magali for dinner here, only to encounter a disaster of major proportions, namely:

•	Once again, the sample menu on the web has become superfluous. It was a shock, since we were here this past April enjoying a good dinner. 

•	The new menu is drastically simplified with even fewer dishes; worse, those dishes are more basic preparations than before.

We didn't ask the very sweet young waitress, but if this isn't a new cook along with a new menu, we'll eat our Mastercards. This was a very boring pasta and grilled fish/meat menu. It barely rises above simple bar food level. The magnificent scallops in citrus-saffron sauce with coconut potato puree and that praise-worthy paella have vanished, replaced by uninteresting dishes that are poorly executed.

We don't mind diner or even bar food, but Seison has never been four-star quality. If you can't execute well, great ingredients are wasted, and average ingredients are...well, even less than they could be. 

To add insult to the injury, prices went up. Portions look good-sized, but what's the point if the food is barely worth eating?

The bar menu food has disappeared and been folded into a small section of Starters. It has spring rolls, chicken wings, and fried calamari. We asked the waitress about the fish nuggets, and it turned out they were still available, so we ordered them along with the wings and calamari. 

Alas, the portions have grown larger once again, but not better. Only the chicken wings were almost as good as they had been. The batter is heavier now, and although tolerable with the chicken wings, this doesn't work well for the calamari. The latter could have been fried dough for all one could taste. The catfish, once delightfully crisp and clean-flavored, was muddy-tasting, watery, and not very fresh, even though the batter was lighter. 

The wings came with a boring ranch dip, the calamari with cheap plain mayo, and the fish with a very strange tart, Tabasco-based sauce. None of the three dishes were remarkable enough that we would want to order them again. In fact, the fish was so awful none of us wanted to finish more than a single piece each.

Carlos asked for bread, which are puffy cheap Parker House-type rolls. Micheline decided to get a glass of White Zin, which fortunately they had – your choices in wine are limited to color: red, white, or pink. 

Which winery was it? Who knows? Who cares? Seison doesn't. 

This was tolerable when the food was good, but when it isn't, it's yet one more negative. I got a Caesar salad, which bore no resemblance to the classic save for the idea of romaine and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Seison's version is related only in the very loosest sense, as their romaine was dark, old and in big shreds; the Parmigiano-Reggiano used was the cheapest commercial grated version. The dressing was a vinaigrette(!), doing nothing to imitate a Caesar. Note to kitchens everywhere – it's the dressing that makes it a Caesar, in case you've forgotten.

Carlos tried the tomato-basil bisque, which came in a large fancy bowl...but was handed a small teaspoon to eat it with! Where all Seison's soup spoons went, we have no idea – especially since the menu lists four soups, although only the tomato was available. We dunno...maybe they belonged personally to the previous chef who took them with him when he left. It's as good an explanation as anything else to explain this precipitous descent into mediocrity.

Magali and Micheline split the regular green salad, which they didn't even finish. Not a terrible salad, but nothing remarkable, and they didn't care for the red wine vinaigrette which fortunately came on the side.

Micheline got the halibut. I picked the pork chop. Magali and Carlos tried the rib-eye. All of them were consistently executed…by being grossly overcooked on the grill. The fish had rice, the meats had salty overcooked potatoes. Three skinny spears of asparagus on top were by far the best item on all four plates. Only my pork chop had a sauce – mustard cream, which wasn't too bad except that there wasn't enough of it to moisten up all the good-sized chop.

Carlos and I were so disheartened we didn't even bother asking to see the dessert menu to find out if that lovely little bread pudding was still on it.

Bleh.

We apologized to Micheline and Magali for the inadequacies of the food, picked up the check and left, never to return. Bistro 1491/Albany wasn't perfect last week, but at least it's been consistent over the last three years. Seison – well, all we can say is that the seats were reasonably comfortable and it was quiet enough to have a good conversation with our friends, which was necessary because we were discussing detailed legal issues. 

Beyond that, it was a sad waste of money. Unlike our previous five dinners at Seison, this one wasn't even close to being worth it. A tragedy, indeed.

Four people, dinner: five starters, four entrées, one glass of wine, one beverage, with tip was $141. 

Seison in Oakland, CA – update, dinner
http://www.seison.com/menu.html  
Review date: April 2013
(previous reviews appended below)

Seison is our 'secret' restaurant, where we go knowing that for a modest price, we will get a decent meal and possibly a very good one. Located in the old Hotel Washington in downtown Oakland, across from the Marriott Hotel/Oakland Convention Center, it is usually empty, and at 6:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night it was almost so, although we were happy to see two other tables occupied, a rarity here.

This place has its flaws. But the occasional four-star dish – and there is never any less than one in every meal we've had, and sometimes two or three of them – makes it worth our time.

We were surprised at the difference in the availability of street parking, coming an hour later than we usually do. Fifteen years ago you could have hit a golf ball down the middle of Clay Street without hitting either cars or pedestrians. Tonight, we circled around three times before settling for a space almost three blocks away. Some of the restaurants, like Miss Ollie's, District, and Borgo Italia were doing a decent business for midweek. 

Seison must be doing somewhat better than before, despite not being on most people's radar. There was a real bartender working, so the nice young waitress, who is sweet but inexperienced, doesn't have to double cover both lounge and restaurant which are in separate rooms. A pianist was playing for Happy Hour, although we were very happy to see him leave at 7:15. We are not live music fans.

Although we had gone out for lunch, Carlos surprised me by ordering the fried fish off the bar menu, as a starter. We didn't actually ask to see the bar menu, and that was a mistake – what we got was the small plate of fish 'n' chips. It's still batter-fried catfish, but comes in two modest strips instead of nice little cubes, along with a small side of thin French fries. Since Carlos isn't a fan of fries, he said next time he'll be sure to ask for the bar menu so there's no mistake. The catfish was very good, as always.

The menu has changed, with a separate Small Plates section between the Starters and Larger Plates categories. The link above is to a new sample menu which is more representative of what they now serve. It thankfully replaces the long-gone pseudo-TGIF menu which was left on the website for years after it had been nixed.

I ordered the roasted beet salad, and asked that the kitchen go light on the dressing, since Seison tends to overdress their salad, as too many restaurants do nowadays. A long slender rectangular plate was filled generously with half slices of yellow and red beets, adolescent (not baby) greens, very thin radish slices, and bland crumbled feta that was probably not feta at all but queso fresco. The raspberry vinaigrette was very lightly dressed on the greens, in the perfect balance. I find raspberry vinegar overpowering when used in excess, and this was just right. I shared it with Inez and Carlos, both of whom liked it as much as I did. The beets were fresh and not pickled, but not especially sweet, so the sweet dressing added the right touch.

From the Small Plates category, Inez ordered the Alaska cod with mashed potatoes, assorted baby vegetables, and piccata sauce. The waitress said this was a garlic sauce, which was odd. As it turned out, this was not a classic piccata sauce, although it did have capers. But as far as I could tell, instead of lemons the sauce tasted a little harsh and more like sour orange. The cod was a good-sized single slice, about an inch thick; perfect for a small plate order without being stingy. The size was ideal for Inez.

The size of her plate was in sharp contrast to Carlos' two choices from the same Small Plates section. He chose Cioppino and Seafood Paella. He's had the paella twice before: the first time it was very good but mild; the second time it was unusually spicy (which he loved), so he thought getting a small plate size would be a good way to see if was as good as he remembered.

With his paella, Seison did something we would consider impossible. The size is virtually the same as before (when it was a main dish). It may be an ounce less, but no more than that was lost. The seafood was the freshest it's been so far, and very generous. The andouille sausage was an excellent quality.

And the price had dropped to....$9!

The cioppino wasn't as good, suffering from an over-reduction of the sauce. Instead of soup-like brothiness, it had a rich, clinging sauce based on good pimentón and more andouille sausage. This made the dish somewhat oversalty. Oddly, it had croutons of dark rye bread (thankfully no caraway seeds). What sealed the "B" rating was the only-adequate-quality of a frozen snow-crab leg with no claw meat.

OTOH, this dish was almost as big as the paella, the shrimps and sausage were good, and it only cost....$8(!). If they hadn't reduced/oversalted the sauce, it would have been close to its companion, albeit not a very traditional version of this SF classic.

I ordered the lamb chops, under the Larger Plates category. It was certainly a large plate, a little heartier than their previous main dishes had been. But it wasn't that much larger than Carlos' paella or cioppino, so how they managed to do two seafood dishes for less than $10 each, we couldn't figure.

The lamb chops were Australian porterhouse cuts, extra thick. They were tender, which was impressive because often this cut in imported lamb is not. They were more medium than the medium-rare I had asked for, but were still fine. The mashed potatoes were real, neither instant nor watery. The asparagus spears had been well-trimmed on the bottom ends and formed a decorative freestyle criss-cross on top, with the chops arranged at three points on the side of the potatoes.

What spoiled the dish, unfortunately, was a severe oversalting of the sauce. And since there was a large pool of it on the plate, it was hard to avoid. As the chops were decently salted, there was just too much sauce pushing the sodium level over the top. It was a real shame, as like the seafood, the dish otherwise was a remarkable bargain.

I often order lamb chops or rack of lamb, as I love lamb and goat. A good price these days at most restaurants is about $20 to 24 for three thick or four thinner chops. 

Seison was charging a mere $13! 

I can't think of another restaurant we've gone to that is charging so little for three hefty, tender lamb porterhouses, and has dropped their prices on seafood.

Carlos was eager to try their bread pudding again. It came with the same yummy bourbon caramel sauce, over a custardy delight in a small ramekin. I stole a couple of spoonfuls, which he manfully put up with, grumbling under his breath, "Next time we order two bread puddings...." 

Yes, this is a very fine bread pudding, a triumph of quality over quantity. The sauce is sweet but that's somewhat offset by the alcohol in the bourbon. The pudding itself is soft and light as air in texture, instead of chewy or dry. It ranks as one of the better bread puddings we've received, at any price level – no small achievement anywhere, let alone in the Bay Area.

Carlos had coffee, which also showed the half-level upgrading since our last visit: it was much stronger and slightly better quality than before. Freshly brewed, it's decent, whereas previously it was barely dishwater.

The waitress forgot my iced tea, for which she was very apologetic, and comped us Carlos' coffee. Being inexperienced she doesn't always cover the floor well, but she does her best and responds quickly to requests.

The kitchen, however, is still painfully slow. It took at least half an hour to get our starters, and another forty minutes after that to receive the rest of our dishes. You should try not to be too hungry when you walk in, or else be prepared to order a goodly number of bar items or starters.

Because even a simple dinner here takes at least two hours. If you can afford the time, want to catch up on things with a couple of friends or need a quiet space to work without feeling an impatient waiter breathing down your neck, this is the place to come. Seison is where you won't have to worry about getting a table without a reservation, or having to scream at one another because it's too noisy.  

I should note that for the first time ever, I did make a comment to the waitress to please change the music after listening to the absolutely worst Bessie Smith song in existence. Either that, or the CD was damaged and repeating itself in an endless loop. After twenty minutes of the same four chords and their repetitive lyrics, I was this close to going postal and stabbing someone with my fork – and I happen to like (although not love) the lady with the gardenia in her hair! Fortunately, when I got back from the restroom the song had finally changed, so no innocent blood was spilled.

We're not sure if the chef or the saucier (assuming they have one) might be new here – I meant to ask the waitress, but forgot. The food seemed seasoned a little differently, and the plating was very different than before (this time the paella came on a plate instead of the bowls used on the previous two visits). 

This would have been an amazing meal if some of it hadn't been oversalted. Everything but the three sauces were executed well; and the servings were very generous, with good if aggressive seasoning. 

Three people, lunch: two starters, three small plates (two of which weren't so small), one entrée, one dessert, one beverage, was so low I had him go over and snag a menu so I could check it for prices: $63.66 before tip! 

With tip: a frugal, and amazing, $79.

Seison in Oakland, CA – update, dinner
Review date: November 2012
(previous reviews appended below)

Located in the Hotel Washington on 10th Street in downtown Oakland, Seison is the most unknown good restaurant in Oakland. Not the best, mind you – we don't claim that. It has definite faults, or maybe "quirks" is a better word. But overall we have gotten some pretty good food from them, and on occasion they get all the way up to excellent when a particular dish succeeds on all points.

Seison isn't the most appealing dining room in the world, although there are some nice touches about it. But it's a little too bare, and almost always so empty it's a little off-putting. If they forget to put the Muzak on, voices literally echo around the small room. But if you're willing to accept those aforementioned quirks, Seison can offer excellent value. 

First, however...those quirks. To start with, they're slow. They've only got one person each night doing everything, although on one memorable occasion when they actually had a wedding party and rehearsal dinner scheduled, they went all-out and had an extra person working that night (gasp!). You simply cannot be in a hurry here, unless you remember to tell the waiter ahead of time that you're on the clock. Our dinner took almost two hours. We've decided the kitchen is probably as understaffed as the front of the house. And don't forget, that kitchen is located in the basement. All the food comes up in an old-fashioned dumbwaiter, with dirty dishes going down on the return journey, which is a trippy thought in itself.

Second, they don't always get orders right. I'm not sure what the problem is, because they do write them down. But Yelpers report the occasional issue, and we've encountered it ourselves at a previous meal, although it didn't happen this time. What did happen was that the brand-new waitress gave us an outdated menu, confusing us a bit when Carlos ordered the cioppino but a few minutes later was told they didn't have on the menu that night.

Third and most important, two of their best dishes aren't on the regular menu any longer. They're on the Bar Food menu, and you won't get it in the restaurant unless you specifically ask for it. They never remember to offer it to restaurant diners.

My niece Suko had emailed me to say she recently went to Seison with some friends. She reported that they were the only group in the dining room, except for a few people that were already finishing their food and leaving when she and her party arrived. And there was a mix-up on one of the orders, although the staff was very apologetic and eager to fix it (although they erred the second time as well, but Suko's friend shrugged it off). Suko had forgotten about the bar food menu, so they missed the chicken wings and catfish nuggets. However, they were pleased with what they ordered, and at first thought the waitress had made a mistake, because the bill was much lower than expected!

Realizing that we had not been back to Seison in a while, Carlos and I decided to go back for dinner. We asked for the bar menu and were pleased to find the wings and catfish nuggets still available. We ordered a plate of each, and found the size and price has been halved. This is a good deal if you're by yourself, because the small plates, in this case, really are true small plates. For the $8 that everyone pretty much charges for one appetizer portion these days, at Seison you can have the variety of two plates: one of the wings and one of the fish nuggets.

These are tiny chicken wings, separated at the joint. One order is six modest pieces. The catfish are also modestly sized, with about five to a plate. The batter on both is a light flour batter, and the deep-frying is perfection. Both are juicy and cooked just right. $4/plate is an amazing price, and Seison's chef has got deep-frying down to an art. If you come here for nothing else, these are the two dishes to try. They are great bar food, sized just right for one person to try both. 

Carlos decided he wanted to try the small plate-size of the seafood pasta. This was actually pretty expensive at $16/bowl, in his opinion. It was wide-cut pasta, and he doesn't care for this type. The red sauce was excellent, though – good quality canned tomatoes, lots of shellfish juices (clams, mussels, shrimp, in addition to scallops and cubed salmon), and a generous hand with garlic. He said it would be been better with linguine or angel hair. The extra-wide pasta ribbons seem to be the "in" thing these days, and he doesn't approve, LOL.

As he was baulked of the cioppino, he opted for the full-size scallop entree. This was listed simply as "scallops, coconut potato puree, citrus-saffron sauce." What he received was a beautifully composed, perfectly executed plate that was worthy of a five-star restaurant. Four large pan-fried scallops, cooked just right, were placed at the compass points around a puddle of very soft, almost liquid mashed potatoes made with coconut milk. A generous swirling of both the golden citrus-saffron sauce and a brilliant green pesto set off both the potatoes and scallops. There were half-a-dozen sautéed asparagus spears topping the plate.

This was an amazing dish. Carlos said it might be the best scallop dish he's ever had in a restaurant. Serendipity like this is why we come back to Seison. When the stars align on a dish, it's really good – far better than you would expect from such a modest place.

I ordered the miso-glazed salmon. This came with gnocchi in a pesto sauce. The plate was lightly drizzled with alternating squiggles of a curry-cream sauce (not a curry-pesto sauce as the menu indicated) and a teriyaki-style salty dark sauce. Spears of asparagus, not quite as well trimmed as they should be but cooked longer to compensate for it, were criss-crossed on the plate under the salmon. A small heap of spicy micro-greens added some brighter color.

I could not discern any deep curry flavor in the cream sauce, and the teriyaki was a little too salty and emphatic to blend well with the pesto oil. It wasn't a bad dish, but it just couldn't compete with that spectacular scallop entree. Although the dark brown sauce added contrasting color, it was unnecessary. The pesto sauce had sufficient flavor for the gnocchi. No extra flavor was needed for the farmed Coho salmon, either. This was skilllfully cooked and flavorful, not quite as underdone as is the style now, but still very acceptable and not dried out. It was also a generously sized slice, the miso glaze kept within bounds and mostly helping to brown the top quickly without overcooking the rest of it.

We debated whether to walk down to Borgo Italia for some ciambelle and beignets, but decided to pick Seison's Louisiana bread pudding with bourbon sauce instead. We're so glad we did, because this was even better than the fruit crisp I liked so much the last time we were here. This bread pudding was what a bread pudding should be but so seldom is – moist, soft, and not oversweetened.

What a wonderful change from the mile-high, 6x6" squares of leaden, pressed-solid, gummy, over-sweetened bready doorstops that so many places serve!  Instead there was a modest ramekin, holding a soft, custardy pudding in just the right proportions of bread to custard. The sauce was poured over it, and wonder of wonders, the stuff actually contained a goodly slug of bourbon! Not just sugar and butter, but honest-to-goodness 80-proof bourbon. Carlos was amazed at what a difference it made, compared to the usual abstemious sauces that do nothing except make your teeth ache from the excessive sweetness.

The plating was lovely, if unnecessary. There was a tiny strawberry-filled filo shell, topped with a bit of whipped cream. Underneath the modest ramekin of pudding, the rectangular plate was drizzled with alternating diagonals of chocolate and cream. Again, much better execution and higher-end presentation than what one would expect from a small hotel restaurant. 

OTOH, the coffee still sucks. Big time, like the very cheapest grade Farmers brand. But hey, you can't have everything.

This was a very good meal, and we were pleased (and rather startled) to see a goodly number of people eating at Seison on a Wednesday evening. They were clearly conventioneers, but for whatever reason, it's nice to see somebody in those seats! 

Seison is the Bistro 1491 of Oakland, only more hidden from sight. Both are under-appreciated and just don't look stylish enough in décor to live up to the food that comes out of these kitchens at dinnertime. Both are semi-shoestring operations, but in both places the servers try hard, which is appreciated. 

We ended our meal thinking that we really should come here more often. The food seems to improve a little every time we come, and the prices are very reasonable. We overordered, and could easily have cut our bill by at least $10 and still had enough food.

It's interesting that Borgo Italia is so much less appealing to us food-wise than Seison. The people at Borgo are charming and trying so hard, but the food is very plain and costs a lot for what you get. Seison looks and is modest, clearly not aiming for more than 2-star status and priced accordingly. Yet its food is decent and every time there's been at least one dish, sometimes several, that reach the 3- and 4-star level. You realize with surprise that someone down in that basement kitchen knows what they're doing with the stove. Seison is only a block away from Borgo and always has a seat – heck, a whole roomful of them – at dinnertime. It's one of the best value restaurants we know, especially if you're lucky and get that one entrée that'll knock your socks off. 

At Seison, consistency and service are issues…but the value proposition is so good, it's a risk we're happy to take any time. How good was that scallop entrée? Well, we spent considerably more per person at Passionfish/Pacific Grove, yet Carlos and I think that Seison's dish edged out the Passionfish scallops by a small but definite margin.

Two people, dinner: two starters, three entrees (the small size seafood pasta was priced the same as the other entrees), one dessert, two beverages, with tip was $93.

Seison in Oakland, CA  - update, dinner   
Review date #2: November 2011
(previous reviews appended below)

Carlos and I returned to Seison to catch a quick dinner, as there was nothing in the house to cook after coming back from Napa.

We shared a couple of plates of the catfish nuggets, and added a dish of the portobello mushroom fritters. This was three 1/2" thick slices of portobello, nicely batter-fried and served atop baby spinach leaves that had been tossed with olive oil and a little salt. They had sprinkled some finely grated parmesan over the fritters, which added the touch of salt needed.

I settled for a cup of the cauliflower soup. It was a mix of 50-50 with chicken broth and pureed cauliflower. To my surprise, this time the drizzle of chile oil was really spicy. The soup was a little bland, but that was something of a relief, after a little too much over-salted food during our trip.

Carlos ordered the paella, but what came was noticeably different than the paella Inez received barely a week ago. This paella was looser, the rice more thoroughly cooked, and it was extremely spicy! Carlos adored it, even though it wasn't as authentic a version as the one Inez had received when the three of us ate here previously.

We were quite happy with what we got, but the extra spiciness surprised us. We liked it, but if you have any issues with chiles, you might want to make certain you ask the waiter when you order, to have the kitchen watch the Scoville scale (Wiki explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale)! 

No dessert or coffee for us this time.

Two people: three starters, one soup, one entrée, with tip was $50.

Seison in Oakland, CA  - update, dinner
Review date: November 2011

We last ate at Seison on February 2011. The catfish nuggets wowed us, and the rest of the food was, if not exceptional, certainly a good value for the price. We really enjoy quiet, pleasant dining rooms, which Seison is. The parking is easy at night – well, almost any time, because there's not enough going on around here to use up all the street parking plus open-air lot plus mid-rise garage. The hard times are still evident in the area, with Levende East now closed and Le Cheval moving to a smaller space.

After checking out the menu in the window recently, we decided to come back for a second visit. The menu on their website still hasn't been updated from its pre-boom TGIF-style excessiveness – it's now a much smaller bistro menu, with only a few dishes under each category.

When I mentioned to the waiter we were waiting for them to bring back their catfish nuggets, he replied that they are available every day on the bar menu. We ordered them and the fried calamari as starters, while we decided on our entrees.

The nuggets are still excellent, coming with tartar sauce on the side. They are what fried fish should always be, and almost never is. The calamari, however, hadn't been fried long enough. The batter crust was too soft, so the textural contrast was lost. I liked the spicy aioli that came with it, although Carlos preferred the tartar sauce.

Carlos and Inez both had the soup of the day, which was cream of asparagus. This was not a bisque, which properly is a creamy puree. Instead, it was a simple but tasty soup of asparagus diced and steamed with broth, then combined with milk. Lightly drizzled with a very mild chile oil, they both liked the generous bowlful.

Inez ordered the Paella, which came slightly al dente and filled with chicken, crumbled chorizo, shellfish, and peas. Although listed as a small plate, it was easily the same size as most restaurants offer as a full-sized entree.

This large-portion size was confirmed by the two small plates I ordered as my entree – sirloin beef tips in bordelaise and a saffron fettuccine with shrimp and spinach. The fettuccine was marginally smaller than Carlos' seafood pasta main entree, but the beef dish was filled with baby shiitake, a substantial and generous portion that similar to the paella, was about a third larger than most restaurants offer.

The seafood pasta and fettuccine with shrimp both suffered from serious oversalting. The beef's bordelaise sauce was a bit salty, but that paled in comparison to the two seafood dishes.  Yet the paella wasn't oversalted at all, nor was the side vegetable dish I ordered, a nice mix of baby yellow and green zucchini, broccoli florets and cauliflower. Nor were our first two starters oversalted, so this really felt as if there were two wildly different cooks in the kitchen.

If it hadn't been for the oversalting, both dishes would have been very good, with distinctly different flavors and a generous amount of seafood. We mentioned the heavy salting to the waiter, who later confirmed he had given the kitchen our feedback. 

Carlos opted for the Louisiana bread pudding with bourbon sauce, and I tried the tiramisu. The bread pudding was a large, light square, sweetened with raisins. I thought the bourbon sauce a bit too sweet but Carlos liked it with the bread pudding, which was barely sweetened.  

This was a more successful dessert than my tiramisu, which suffered from the twin ills of being ice cold out of the refrigerator, and being too sweet. The cake layers were thin and well soaked with a coffee and Kahlua syrup, so had the pastry chef not added so much sugar it would have been much better. Because there is already sugar in the cake, the mascarpone, and the grated chocolate, adding a sugar syrup to the espresso and liqueur is the proverbial taking coals to Newcastle. The coffee isn't great, but they don't have espresso so we both had a cup with our desserts. 

We hadn't had the best meal ever, but Seison is one of those restaurants whose charms outweigh their undoubted flaws. They don't hit on all cylinders, but when they do a dish well it's such an amazing bargain for the price it's hard to complain when they err. 

There were enough leftovers for one of us to enjoy for lunch the next day. The one waiter who still does everything is cheerful and energetic, and it was nice to see that both the restaurant and the hotel seemed to be enjoying a bit more business than the first time we came. There were two other parties besides us, and the staff was helping to arrange tables for a party of eighteen that was coming in later that evening.

Yes, you do have to pick your way through the menu, and a warning to the waiter about having the kitchen watch the salt level might not be misplaced. But there aren't many restaurants we can think of that don't have the similar flaw of inconsistency, and very few of them are able to hit the price point Seison has pulled off. 

Three people: seven starters (including two soups), two entrees, two desserts, three beverages, with tip was a modest $125.

Seison
495 10th St., Oakland
(Ignore the website – it's outdated and completely inaccurate!)
Review date:   February 2011

This hotel restaurant has been around for a few years but had to make serious cutbacks to survive in this uncertain economy. Although the Uptown and Temescal districts are seeing a recent comeback in business, the Jack London Square and downtown area are still suffering. 

There are a lot of condo developments in this area that opened up just in time to see the economy sour on them. Soizic, once our favorite bistro, shows no signs of reopening, and we haven't been that enthusiastic about any of the other restaurants around here except for our Thai favorite Siam Bay, which makes a mean smoked chili eggplant and tofu that even Carlos likes.  

Until those condo sales pick up again, the many restaurants around here – Levende East (their 'West' branch in SF closed up two years ago), “B”, Le Cheval (which moved to a smaller space on the same block), and Breads of India, among others – are struggling to hang on.

I usually check out the web menu, but in this case the website for Seison is completely out of date. The menu, which resembled a TGIF bar food menu serving breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, has been replaced by a smaller bistro menu where only dinner is served, Monday-Friday, no weekends, no lunch or breakfast. 

Further, it's staffed by a single person who serves as maitre d', reception, busboy, wine steward (what wines they have, which are limited), waiter, bartender, and occasionally, according to Yelpers, the hotel reception clerk! 

What Seison offers now is a selection of starters/small plates, such as breaded fish nuggets, chicken wings, fried cheese ravioli, etc. There's one house salad and three main dish salads with chicken, salmon or ham, and a single soup of the day. The entrees are mostly pasta dishes, with chicken or seafood, a risotto, and a NY steak.

We ordered the fish nuggets and chicken wings – Carlos and I have been on a chicken wing kick lately, LOL. Seison uses catfish, and a touch of cumin in the breading, along with some cornmeal (but not too much, as Revival/Berkeley did with their onion rings), along with a big cup of tartar sauce. It made for a great first impression. The fish was juicy, the batter excellent – sticking to the fish but not too heavy – with an exceptionally generous serving.

The chicken wings had a different batter, all flour with no cornmeal, but were also greaseless and nicely cooked. None of us are fond of ranch dressing but it was served on the side so we just left it. 

Carlos opted for the three-course pre fixe for $25. He chose the soup, which that day was seafood chowder. It was an amazing chowder in regards to the quantity and quality of its seafood, with clam, mussel, shrimp, sea scallops, and fish (probably the catfish, as it was in small flakes). His entree was the NY steak with potatoes au gratin. The steak was thin and not the best quality, but it was adequate and the Bordelaise sauce, although obviously not the classic beef-marrow version, was well done and Carlos happily mopped it up.

What he really enjoyed was the potato au gratin. Carlos doesn't care for potatoes as much as Inez and I do, but he loves them au gratin. Seison puts a layer of seasoned spinach in between two layers of thinly sliced potatoes, bakes it with light cream and good Gruyere, sprinkles it with panko and Parmesan, then browns it well under the broiler. For a small modest bistro, this superior version was a very pleasant surprise.

Inez got the seafood pasta, as it was angel hair which she loves but seldom sees in restaurants. It was with a light diced tomato sauce – probably canned at this time of year, but preferable to using mushy hothouse or canned marinara.

I ordered the salmon fettucine, but the kitchen erred and sent up a salmon-spinach salad. Judging from the recent reviews on Yelp, this kind of mix-up happens a little too often. However, I didn't mind the substitution, and outside of a slight excess of sweet balsamic in the dressing, it was a very good dish. The baby spinach was slightly wilted by the hot salmon, which was a small filet but nicely cooked, firm without being dry and with good flavor. There was also diced bacon and slightly pickled baby onion slices, cutting the tannin in the spinach leaves.

Carlos received the crème brulee for dessert. I ordered the berry crisp, which was blueberries raspberries, and pluots freshly baked with a brown-sugar crumble crust. Instead of a la mode, it had a ring of sweet raspberry sauce chevroned decoratively with a light crème anglaise as a border. Both desserts were good, and again, better than we expected. Coffee, however, was mediocre dishwater, and there's no espresso.

We have passed by Seison literally for years – it's right across the street from Endgame, Carlos' favorite gaming store, but never gone there. It's actually a shame they aren't open for lunch any longer, because they do have some nice salads and a full section of burgers and sandwiches that sounded attractive and would make a good lunch selection.

Service was pleasant, but obviously, a touch slow. That one guy runs around energetically and gets it all done, but sometimes you do have to wait a little longer than usual. Serving is complicated by the fact the kitchen is apparently in the basement. As long as you're not in a hurry, Seison is a pleasant place to eat with some good, well-priced food.

The hotel lobby is small but nicely redone with warm wood and neutrals, being a 1912 building. The restaurant décor is comfortable contemporary. And since it's never crowded, you can bring a couple of friends and know you can talk to one another without screaming to be heard, in a convenient, comfortable environment. 

Carlos really enjoyed this place. You can tell where they cut costs – no free bread, commercial tartar sauce. They pay attention to where it counts, though. Outside of the steak being thin, almost more a top round cut judging by its shape, the ingredients for the dishes were of good quality, especially the seafood in the chowder.  

But if you're in a rush to get somewhere, try one of the other restaurants around. Hopefully Seison can hang on until things get better, and maybe hire a second staffperson. This little bistro is definitely worth a try – if nothing else, for those catfish nuggets. We plan to come back, and will report on the pasta and sandwiches.

Two starters, one 3-course pre fixe, two entrees, one dessert, three beverages, with tip was a modest $102.