Bistro 29 in Santa Rosa, CA – update, dinner
http://www.bistro29.com/?page_id=117
Review date: May 2013

We met our friends Gil and Sara for dinner here in downtown Santa Rosa. All of us have enjoyed the food here at Bistro 29 several times, and we were anxious to see if cost-cutting has hit one of our favorite restaurants. No matter what any of us think about "tourist restaurants", in a difficult economy it's the neighborhood independents who often suffer the most from rising food and overhead costs. 

There's an unwritten but definite line of how much a restaurateur can charge for a plate of food before driving away local diners who are needed repeats. That line moves, but it moves a lot more slowly than the official CPI. 

Bistro 29 is just outside Santa Rosa's downtown central square, in an area best described as "colorful" at night. You're fine with companions, and probably fine alone as well, as long as you're reasonably street-smart. The restaurant was less than half-full on a Thursday evening, a good but not great crowd.

Chef Brian Anderson had kept that luscious armoricaine sauce on the menu for over a year, but it has finally rotated off – we hope not permanently, but only time and next winter will tell. There was also no monkfish, just sole and yellow tail jack on the fish entree side. 

Yes, we know monkfish is becoming endangered. It's much more sustainable to eat local sole....but also a lot less tasty. Many species of sole aren't that good, petrale and Dover soles notwithstanding. 

The four of us didn't really share plates, so I'll just report on what Carlos and I ordered. Both of us started with the veal sweetbreads, with pain d’épice perdu (spiced bread toast), wild mushrooms & sherry reduction. Previously there were two whole sweetbreads; now there's one but still good-sized. It's beautifully cooked, still pink and moist in the middle, simply pan-fried. By itself it was a wonderful rebuke to those chefs who keep battering and deep-frying sweetbreads into overcooked nuggets, one of the very worst ways to eat this delicacy. 

The mushroom and sherry sauce was good but not especially remarkable. What threw the dish off was the oversweetening of the pain d’épice. We really loved this bread underneath Chef Anderson's foie gras dish last year, but we don't remember it being so sweet before. This bread tasted like a slice of spiced and sugared French toast. 

This continues the unfortunate trend of treating offal as if nobody will eat it unless it's combined with at least one ingredient that belongs on an ice cream sundae. Sigh.

Even La Folie/SF on our last visit, fell into this trap. It's really quite discouraging to us lovers of obscure tasty animal parts which are so much better in savory-only creations.

For his entree, Carlos ordered the Sole à la Meunière: sautéed sole with lemon parsley butter & artichoke-mushroom barigoule. I was worried that he wouldn't like the barigoule, and indeed he didn't. He felt the fish would have been much better with a simpler side of mashed potatoes, instead of the tartness of an artichoke/white wine braise. He said the sole was fresh but nothing remarkable. 

I ordered the cassoulet, and was surprised to receive a version with tomatoes.  The menu described it as a confit of duck leg with garlic flageolet beans, apple wood smoked slab bacon & Toulouse sausage (Bistro 29 makes their own). It was delicious, but the duck was not rinsed as well as it should have been. As the beans weren't salted, this wasn't a big problem. Still, it was a little disappointing – the beans weren't as creamy as they could be.

Carlos was happy to see that Bistro 29 still offers the dessert crepe with Grand Marnier orange sauce, a la mode. It isn't the classic Crepes Suzette as K&L Bistro/Sebastopol makes, so it needs the ice cream to add a little richness to it. 

I picked the espresso crème brulee, and immediately ran into a problem. The waitress was delightful as always, but all she had brought to the table was forks. There were no spoons, and Carlos should have been brought a knife as well for his crepe. We had to flag another staffperson down to get the right utensils. 

Once I had a spoon, I found the crème brulee a little too sweet for my taste. And that was after I removed the sugar crust and gave it to Carlos! The custard itself was just sweet. Most people would like Bistro 29's custard, but I was left thinking fondly of the magnificent, barely sweet, Turkish coffee custard that Zatis/Oakland used to offer, with the bottom of the ramekin covered by a thin layer of unsweetened, powdered Turkish espresso. This was just average, no better or worse than most restaurants make. 

Coffee is always very good at Bistro 29. Service usually is as well. We were a little surprised at the lapse, although overall for the evening, the waitress, Christina, was excellent. She has been here for several years and knows the menu very well.

This time around, Bistro 29 fell below two newcomers, Hole In The Wall/Sebastopol and Bravas Tapas/Healdsburg, who gave us the best meals so far (we still have more restaurants to go). But one never knows how a return visit will turn out, so all three restaurants will stay on our list of "places to return to" when in Sonoma County. 

Although we were a little disappointed in this dinner, it was a 3 on a scale of 5. No one knows better than we do that it's impossible for a restaurant to produce an entire menu of winners every day, some 300+ times a year. Over the last two years Bistro 29 has given us three excellent dinners and one average one; that's a pretty good batting average right there. We're inclined to give them one more chance.

Gil and Sara picked up the check, so we have no prices.

Bistro 29 in Santa Rosa, CA – update, dinner
Review date: May 2012
(previous review appended below)

On our last trip through Sonoma in March 2012, we missed seeing our friends Laura and Steve. We wanted to take them to Bistro 29 (making a good excuse for us to go back), so we were able to match calendars and add a day in Sonoma on the front of our Napa trip.

Unfortunately, we had to split seeing them – Laura for lunch (Flavor bistro) and Steve for dinner at 29.

Carlos enjoyed what he had on our first visit so much, he duplicated his meal. The only difference was that instead of sharing my foie gras starter, he ordered one for himself. Bistro 29 changes their menu only seasonally, so the wonderful monkfish in armoricaine sauce was still available. 

This time the foie gras had quite a bit more apple compote between the bread and the foie gras, but otherwise everything was the same. It's a great dish, although I could wish for somewhat less of the housemade applesauce. It's good, but too much subtracts from the dish overall.

Steve and I both started with the butter lettuce salad. This is a stack of butter leaves with thin slices of radish, in a mild fromage blanc vinaigrette. It's a simple, but good salad. The butter leaves are small and tender. If you love this lettuce like we do, it's frustrating that so few restaurants offer it. This was garnished with tiny deep-fried chips made from the buckwheat crepes that are part of the menu – a nice touch.

Steve had never had foie gras before. One taste from Carlos' plate, and Steve promptly ordered a plate of foie gras for himself. He loved it, although he was disappointed to learn that CA has banned foie gras starting July 1st. Two of the three U.S. foie gras producers, including the only humane-certified foie gras producer (located in CA), intend to close down.

He ordered the sauteed scallops for his entree. Shredded mixed vegetables and a lime-cilantro butter sauce were a lovely accompaniment. We really like how Chef Brian Anderson handles seafood, an important element in Breton cuisine.

I had a double order of the foie gras starter for my entree. Unless the ban is rescinded, by the time we come up here again, there'll be no more foie gras on the menu so I figured this was my last chance at Anderson's creation.

The portions are modest at Bistro 29 so all three of us were up for dessert. Carlos repeated his Grand Marnier crepe. He gave Steve a taste, and Steve really liked it. But our friend, a true chocoholic, had already asked for the most intense chocolate dessert 29 offered. 

The waiter recommended, and brought him, the chocolate fondant cake with salted caramel ice cream. Served warm, this is a tender, light-textured, but truly intense chocolate cake. The ice cream was a great match for it.

I had the coffee pot du crème, served with espresso cream and two sables (shortbread cookies). It was excellent, although it did keep me wide awake for several hours more!

Carlos had a regular coffee, but Steve and I stuck to our iced teas. The iced tea, BTW, was excellent although pre-made. I told Steve that 29 makes wonderful hot tea, and when the waitress overheard me, she offered to make some loose-leaf tea and pour it over ice cubes. It's the kind of good-service gesture one rarely gets from any waitstaff, let alone a mid-priced bistro.

We stayed so long at 29 talking with Steve that we closed them down that evening. One of the two cooks, on his way out, said, "Oh, you're the people who ordered four of the foie gras, aren't you?" So I guess we're now immortalized in their memories, LOL.

We enjoyed our dinner at Bistro 29 and were very pleased that a return visit confirmed our favorable first impression. We like driving around Sonoma county much more than Napa, and we now have some seriously good alternatives for dining here. We look forward to returning to Willow Wood Cafe/Graton and Depot Hotel/Sonoma to see if they, too, can show us the consistency needed to stay on our "A" list.

Three people, dinner: Six starters, two entrees, three desserts, three beverages, with tip was $205. For memorable French dining, that's a bargain by any standards. We just wish Andre's Bouchee/Monterey and Bistro 29 were not only closer to our house, but closer together. That would be culinary heaven!

Bistro 29 
620 Fifth St., Santa Rosa, CA
http://www.bistro29.com/pdf/DinnerMenu.pdf
Review date: March 2012

Serendipity (ser-uhn-dip-i-tee) noun. Definition: good fortune; luck: [example: the serendipity of a great meal where you only thought to find a good one.] 

We love serendipity. It's one of the great joys of trying new restaurants. Frustrating as it is to not have the time to return to some of our other finds in Sonoma county – we had to skip going back to Depot Hotel/Sonoma and Willow Wood Cafe/Graton – there were several French bistros and cafes we hadn't tried yet. Since we're suckers for French food, restaurants like French Garden and Bistro 29 got the nod this time. 

Bistro 29 gets good reviews from both Yelp and OpenTable patrons. It's not far from our hotel (this time we're trying the Hyatt Vineyard Creek in downtown Santa Rosa instead of our usual Sheraton Sonoma County in Petaluma). The restaurant is a little ways off the city square in downtown Santa Rosa, with easy street parking at night – like most downtowns, traffic clears out drastically after six p.m. although you don't want to be walking too far when it's really late at night.

This is a small but pleasant restaurant with a well-marked sign, a relief after some restaurants which try to be a pretentious secret by obscuring their name from casual passersby. The décor is the standard style, reminding one of a more casual, natural version of Bouchon restaurant in Napa. The waitresses are young, efficient, and know the menu thoroughly, in welcome contrast to most Berkeley waitstaff.

I was feeling cold so I opted for hot tea, requesting any black tea. It was an excellent sign when the waitress came back to fill up the water glasses, and said the Irish Breakfast tea was brewing and would be ready shortly.  It isn't often one can get Irish Breakfast, which is a stronger, more interesting tea than the ubiquitous English Breakfast.

Bistro 29 uses a brand I hadn't encountered before, called Bungalow (I'm surprised Bigelow hasn't sued them yet). It's a great quality loose-leaf tea, made in a generous 4-cup glass tea press of the same type we use at home. It was properly brewed and absolutely marvelous; I drank it all the way through dinner. This makes Bistro 29 one of only four restaurants where I've gotten high quality tea made correctly; the others are Passionfish/Monterey, Slanted Door/SF, and Auberge du Soleil/Rutherford.

There was a very tempting $29 four-course pre fixe, which is offered three times a week. But we found so many interesting dishes on the regular menu we had a hard time choosing! Finally we settled on the following:

•	Basque Crepe. Bistro 29 uses buckwheat crepes for their savory crepes. The Basque has shrimp, smoked scallops, and saffron butter with roasted tomatoes. Carlos enjoyed this, but wasn't in love with it. The small bay scallops had more of a tartness, possibly from sherry or champagne vinegar, than smoked flavor. We loved the filling, but thought it would have been better with a wheat-flour crepe. Buckwheat makes a stiffer and more strongly flavored crepe, which somewhat overwhelmed the seafood. We agreed that some of the other fillings, like the Ham and Gruyere, would have worked better with the buckwheat.

•	Foie gras: pan-seared with housemade pain d'epice French toast and Gravenstein apple compote. What the menu didn't say is that this evening it came in a lobster-cognac sauce, known as Armoricaine. This was a generous lobe of foie gras, an amazingly bargain for $15. There were salt crystals on top, which I scraped off as neither of us felt they were necessary, and merely detracted from that luscious sauce. 

Pain d'epice is the French honey-spice bread (see David Lebovitz's excellent blog on this classic recipe: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2009/04/pain-depices/). Bistro 29 seems to only use a touch of honey, with light rye instead of dark, and their own blend of the cinnamon-ginger-nutmeg-cloves-pepper mixture. It's sliced and griddled, then soaked in the sauce. The flavors in the bread blend with the Armoricaine sauce to make a luscious background for the perfectly handled foie gras. A dollop of applesauce adds a nice final touch, although it would work better if they had warmed this before adding it.

This was a lovely dish, beautifully conceived and executed. The extra sauce got scraped up with the fresh soft-crumbed French bread (Bistro 29 asks if you want bread or not, before bringing it out). We didn't want to waste a single drop of such a lovely creation.

•	Monkfish with the lobster-cognac sauce Armoricaine. A nice filet of monkfish, once known as the "poor man's lobster", was fresh and cooked to just the right stage. The Armoricaine sauce, served here without the pain d'epice used in the foie gras dish, was delicious by itself. Carlos asked the waitress for a spoon, saying this was eating like a really wonderful seafood bisque. The sauce isn't artificially thickened, nor is it oversalted, allowing the flavors of the fish and the sauce ingredients to really showcase themselves. 

This dish was the equal of the foie gras, a masterful and subtle handling. It's a traditional Breton dish, and you can read a charming history and recipe for both the monkfish and that wonderful Armoricaine sauce, at this Francophile's blog: http://frenchforfoodies.com/tag/sauce-armoricaine/. 

•	Cassoulet: The most famous winter casserole of country French cooking, flageolet beans (see: http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/FlageoletBeans.htm) are long-simmered with duck confit, ham, and sausage. Making this at home creates an enormous potful, but Carlos isn't as fond of beans as I am, while Inez doesn't care for them at all, leaving way too much leftovers going to waste. However, although I love cassoulet and find it hard to resist ordering, I don't always love it in restaurants.

Bistro 29 put together an understated version that impressed me. The confit is well-rinsed, the ham is a high-quality thick slice of tenderloin, and the pork sausage is well-seasoned with Quatre Epices, the traditional paté spice blend of white pepper, coriander, ginger, clove, nutmeg, and sometimes cinnamon. 

Flageolets have a tender, buttery flavor and are one of my favorites. Substituting small Great Whites or even cannellini beans, although easier, never quite comes out the same. Bistro 29 allows the meats to provide the salt for the beans, traditional in Brittany because the salty ocean air is considered to permeate everything, so salt is used only in moderation. 

The strong seasoning of the sausage allows its spice blend to gently scent the cassoulet. Compared to most restaurant versions, this cassoulet is like a kiss compared to a slap. Some might find it almost too subtle for their tastes. I loved it, however. It was hot, comforting, and beautifully balanced. And of course, you'll never get a cassoulet with the idiotic 'al dente' beans that are becoming all too common everywhere!

•	Dessert crepe (wheat flour) with orange-Grand Marnier butter. Carlos adores Crepes Suzette but this was as close as Bistro 29 can get, not having the requisite full liquor license to do a real Suzette, according to the waitress. 

Who knew you needed a full liquor license to flambé a pancake?

What the chef does instead is create a luscious melted butter sauce, full of tart fragrant orange zest and only lightly sweetened with Grand Marnier. It was not too sweet, the fresh orange juice and zest taming the sugar. The crepe has a pouf of heavy whipped cream, which works well by adding a bit of richness to offset the lack of caramelization. With a cup of their slightly acidic but good coffee, this was almost equal to K&L Bistro's definitive version on our previous Sonoma visit in May 2011.

Bistro 29 is a great little restaurant, and we adored our dinner here. It's not going to overwhelm you with excess in anything, although the portions are good-sized for the price. Chef Brian Anderson's hand with seasoning is on the subtle side, so if you've got an untrained palate, you may not be impressed (you can read his bio at http://www.artisano.org/chefdemos.html). 

If you like a lot of salt – and many of our friends do, Carlos himself has a higher tolerance for it than me – you might be frustrated that there are no saltshakers on the tables, although they are probably available for asking. Carlos found the food fine as it was and didn't need to add anything. I found it perfect, salted enough to bring out flavors but not so much (well, except for the salt crystals on the foie gras) that salt becomes the most prominent flavor, something I dislike.

We'll easily forgive Chef Anderson for using the same sauce as a base in three different dishes, when it's a superb classic made with skill and great (read: costly) ingredients. You don't often see the Armoricaine sauce, as most chefs won't bother making it due to the time it takes and the hit against the bottom line. Why spend the time making a 20-minute sauce with a precisely calculated proportion of so many ingredients, when you can do a 3-minute lemon/butter/white wine sauce that most diners would be perfectly happy to eat?

As the restaurant's website blurb states, Bistro 29 does traditional (mostly) and non-traditional dishes in the Breton style. Anderson's wife is from Brittany, and his mother-in-law is cited as a strong influence in his cooking. His ingredients are well-sourced and his professional training is well-reflected by the cheerful competence of his young but enthusiastic staff. This is one of those rare restaurants that doesn't need a manager or maitre d' to have the front run smoothly.

Bistro 29 is aimed squarely at locals who appreciate French country cooking and are willing to pay the modest premium it takes to reproduce this cuisine in the U.S. Whether it's French Country or French Contemporary/California, this type of cooking is very much a labor of love. It's always going to cost more than the local pasta-and-meatballs joint.

We'd love to see a bistro like 29 come to Alameda County. But although the demographics look superficially as if they'd support such a restaurant, in reality it never seems to quite work out that way. The bistros in our area are either tired, dumbed down, or (in the case of La Note/Berkeley, which comes closest) so crowded they could easily fill twice the real estate and still see a line out the door on weekends.

For now, Carlos and I have resigned ourselves to having to travel around Northern California for places like Bouchee/Carmel, Bistro Moulin/Monterey, Chapeau!/San Francisco, and now including Bistro 29 in Santa Rosa, when we want a meal that's a little more to the traditional side of French Contemporary cuisine. 

As Carlos commented, 29 is soooo much better than Petit Syrah just down the street from them, even though it doesn't have as much buzz on the food boards. We'll definitely be back, as we loved our meal and found it a great bargain. This was the highlight of our trip, head and shoulders above everyplace else.

Two people: two starters, two entrees, one dessert, two beverages, with tip was $121.