Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: GCS

Cafe Tradition (lunch)
123 West 25^th St., San Mateo, CA
Sadly, no website yet: Yelp reviews http://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-tradition-san-mateo
Review date: March 2011

We drove to San Mateo to have lunch with our friend Beth. Cafe Tradition has just opened, a French-Moroccan restaurant. As it's a bit outside downtown, the parking is correspondingly easier, at least midweek – and free, a good policy that encourages people to support their local businesses.

It's a moderate-sized, handsome space, although the two rows of center tables are set up communal style, even though they're the standard 2-seater tables, just all lined up together. There's a bit too many tables for the space, but as it's new it wasn't crowded, so sliding onto the banquette seating wasn't a problem.

The menu is simpler at lunch than at dinner, and quite different from the sound of the Yelp reviews (which were all for dinner). The only Moroccan entree for lunch was merguez with French fries. The plates are modest, more small-plates servings on standard large plates, so we shared everything. Most were very good.

Carlos loves escargot, and this version was possibly the only version I've ever liked too. The escargot were barely cooked, so they were tender instead of rubbery. The sauce was a herbed Bechamel over a square of puff pastry, and utterly yummy all by itself.

Beth and I shared the goat cheese in filo pastry. Small crispy triangles held a soft, creamy goat cheese. They were delicious, although the promised endive was only mixed greens – a very small heap of leaves with a nice walnut oil dressing.

Carlos had the French onion soup, but although crusty with browned cheese, he said it lacked the proper depth of flavor in the stock. It was good, but there's other versions he prefers elsewhere. 

Beth got the chicken kebabs, which were a smaller dice than usual, but the skewers were long and most importantly, properly cooked. The yoghurt marinade had tenderized them nicely and they had a good rich flavor, along with being still juicy.

The merguez unfortunately resembled the more commercial versions that seem to have taken over these days. We're accustomed to the small, thinner link with very coarsely ground, gamy lamb, heavy on the chiles and light on the cinnamon. These days, we've gotten nothing but big fat sausages with the texture and look of a bratwurst, so mild it hardly tastes like lamb, and the reverse of our preferred spicing: light on the chile and heavy on the paprika and cinnamon. 

Instead of bringing bread to the table, Cafe Tradition adds thick-cut French fries as a side to many dishes. It isn't entirely successful as a good pairing, as the fries aren't really memorable, being single-fried instead of double-fried. For both the merguez and chicken, they also brought small dishes of harissa, the tasty and very spicy red chile sauce Moroccans love to use.

I had the onion tart, a pissaladiere, which I've always considered a great alternative to American pizza. I'm as much a fan of melted browned cheese as anybody, but all too often pizza in the US is reduced to just cheese, dough and a salty meat.

This was a classic Provencal onion tart made with a good pate brisee, with generous shreds of onion confit, lots of tiny rinsed anchovies, small whole pitted Nicoise olives, and a restrained hand with the fresh thyme. It was lovely, and although I could wish the serving was more than a quarter wedge of a 10” pissaladiere, it was an excellent light lunch with its accompanying small salad.

Carlos tried the Croque Madame open-face sandwich, but he decided this is one of the dishes where he prefers to depart from tradition. He likes it better without the Bechamel sauce, but the ham here is generous and of good quality. I thought the forkful he gave me was very tasty, and the fried egg wasn't overcooked.

We all had coffee, and CT makes a fine regular and decaf coffee that is fresh and of excellent quality. 

I ordered dessert, which was a very simple dish of sliced fresh apples covered with a thin layer of frangipane (almond cream) browned under the broiler. It's a nice light dessert – really just fruit heated up so it’s barely cooked and lightly glazed – something I would like to see more restaurants offer, instead of the never-ending lineup of crème brulee, cheesecake, and molten chocolate lava cake.

Overall, Beth and I enjoyed Cafe Tradition more than Carlos did. He's not overly fond of Mediterranean restaurants, and the disappointing soup set the tone for him. Still, we always enjoy trying someplace new, and those escargot are worth considering even for those who don't normally like them. 

Do be forewarned, however, their serving sizes are modest on some dishes (the Croque was filling, the onion tart less so), and why they’re so stingy with the greens I’m not sure. I’m not a proponent of the overly large, enough-for-three-people, heaping-plate salads that many restaurants in CA seem to think is required. But when I’m told there’s a side salad I tend to expect more than a scant 1/3 cup of loosely packed greens, which in our house isn’t a salad, it’s a garnish.

Beth also had two glasses of house white, so we totaled up two starters, one soup, four entrees, one dessert, four beverages (three coffees and one iced tea), with tip came to $126.