Author: GCS

Park Chalet
1000 Great Highway, San Francisco
http://www.beachchalet.com/
Review date:  January 2009

The Beach Chalet and Park Chalet, which share the same (small) kitchen, are located at the end of Golden Gate Park. We took some visitors to the Park Chalet for lunch. Carlos was excited about trying the food, since the Trupellis, who own the Chalets, will be opening the Lake Chalet Restaurant Bar and Grill in Oakland sometime in 2009. It'll take over the top floor of the renovated Lake Merritt Boat House.

Because we had six people, we took the opportunity to try a number of small plates. Carlos had the black-eyed pea soup du jour, which was tomato-based and good. They don’t bring bread to the table, but offer a beer quick bread, five slices of soft warm bread, on the menu, which we ordered.

We ordered a wide sampling:
-	Fried Calamari. Crispy batter fried rounds with a Thai-like sweet-hot chile sauce. Excellent and greaseless. 
-	Thai Noodle Salad. Standard vegetarian version with a nice zing of lime juice.
-	Petrale Sole. Braised in a tomato-based sauce, with perhaps a touch too much dried oregano. The sole was very fresh, and barely cooked – nicely executed dish.
-	Grilled salmon on a bed of black lentils. Lentils were a bit salty, but the salmon was, like the sole, fresh and perfectly cooked.
-	Crab Roll sandwich was just the way Inez likes it, alongside homemade potato chips.
-	Cauliflower-Broccoli Gratin was the least successful. A strong sour cream taste mixed with cheddar. Not that it was bad, but it was dwarfed by the mac and cheese.
-	Macaroni and Cheese, with Truffle Oil and Chicken. This is always on the menu in one guise or another, sometimes vegetarian and sometimes with meat. In any iteration, order it. It is rich, thick with cheese, creamy and utterly decadent!
-	Onion Strings. Nice greaseless heap of finely mandolined, batter-fried onion.
-	Sticky Ribs. They’re famous for these – ribs with a sweet-hot hoisin glaze. There’s five individual baby back ribs to an order, so it’s enough for one person, or a small group to share.
-	Hanger Steak kebabs. Served with Tomato-Bread Salad, Red & Yellow Pepper Sauce, Tsatziki Sauce. The salad had a lot of chopped cucumber and was delicious. I thought it was better than the kebabs, which were good but chewy.

We had a slice of Yule log cake and the Cupcakes Duet for dessert. Cupcakes were so-so, but the Yule log cake (a special for the holiday season) was extremely good: very moist and flavorful.

Cost: 1 soup, 1 sandwich, 15 small plates, 3 desserts, two coffees – with tip, $255