Author: GCS

Eclipse Café, Hyatt Regency (Dinner)
San Francisco, Embarcadero
Review date:  April 2008

Eclipse is one of our favorite breakfast/lunch places. Now they’re open for dinner, so we hopped aboard BART after Carlos got off work, and tried it one evening.

About a third of the menu is carried over from lunch. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since they make better-than-average crab cakes and their trio of French-Vidalia onion soups rated a definite thumbs-up from Carlos during one of our rare city lunches a few months ago. This time I was the only one who picked a starter – grilled tiger prawns. They had the slightly flabby texture of frozen shrimp, but the sweet chili glaze was tasty. It was served with an avocado salsa.

The dinner menu keeps it fairly simple, with the usual assortment of fish, chicken, or beef offered in five basic entrees. You pick one of various ‘sauces and relishes’, and a decent selection of sides is offered a la carte. 

Inez selected the halibut, but couldn’t decide between the Apple-Fennel relish and the Grilled pineapple and mango salsa. The waiter said he would bring her both to try (and she did, in fact, enjoy and used up both). 

Carlos had the filet mignon with bearnaise. The sauce had too much apple cider vinegar, which actually it shouldn’t have at all – the traditional ingredient is tarragon vinegar, which is much milder and fresher-flavored. The filet itself was fine. He chose onion rings as a side, which were good – this restaurant has always handled its deep fryer with skill.

I had the salmon, citrus glazed with a soy-ginger beurre blanc, with an a la carte side of asparagus. The salmon must have been farmed, because underneath a wonderful crispy crust it was pure mush, very disappointing. This was especially so because the beurre blanc was spectacular – one of the most perfectly balanced fusion sauces I’ve ever had. This is high praise, since fusion normally never rates very high with me. I’ve disliked it as a style of cooking ever since I had an 11-course meal at La Petit Chaya in Los Angeles that was designed for someone without teeth.

We shared a couple of desserts – a white chocolate cheesecake and a grandly named “San Francisco bombe cake” of chocolate ganache over some forgettable mousse filling with a disk of chocolate cake. Both were pedestrian and ordinary.

Can’t say we’d come back here for dinner. Breakfast and lunch are much better for the $$$. OTOH, although Boulevard it ain’t, Eclipse actually offers a better meal overall than Americano, which is pretty sad for the latter.

Dinner with three entrees, two sides, one appetizer, one drink, two desserts, $130 with tip