Fantastic French

<p>Midwinter is the time of the best-tasting oysters, especially those from the long inlets that plunge through the land in the southern Puget Sound. It's at this time that salmon run upstream to spawn and die, and their decomposing bodies send nutrients down to the inlets, where they cause an algae bloom that feeds the hungry oysters until they are fat and full of sweet glycogen.</p><p>One of these inlets is called Little Skookum, where Olympias, our native oysters, can still be found growing wild. Olys (pronounced OH-lees) once encrusted the coastline and rocks from San Francisco Bay up to British Columbia. Silt from the placer mines during the Gold Rush buried and killed off San Francisco's olys, while paper mill effluent killed off most of them in Washington during the 20th century. But they never died out in Little Skookum.</p><p>Bistro des Copains in Occidental had them on the menu on a recent night, a sign that owners Cluney Stagg and Michel Augsburger keep their knowledgeable eyes peeled for what's good to eat. These men have been friends — Bistro des Copains means “bistro of the friends” — since college, and Michel's heritage lies with his family's farmstead in Provence, France, a region like Sonoma County in its emphasis on locally produced, high quality ingredients. You can see the place in photos hung on the bistro's walls.</p><p>But a word to the wise is sufficient: One of those oysters was so rank it nearly ruined my companion's dinner. Oysters can go “off,” meaning they've died, and the kitchen should always check by making sure all the oysters smell fresh. Your nose can tell when an oyster has gone bad. There's no excuse for serving one to an unsuspecting customer. Luckily it ended up in her napkin rather than her mouth.</p><p>And that's just about the only negative for the experience of dining at Bistro des Copains, because the food here is wonderful and has been wonderful for the three and a half years it's been open. It makes the trek to Occidental well worth the drive.</p><p>The room itself is an unassuming place, with 14 tables and 10 stools facing the open kitchen on two sides. The music runs to artists like Bob Dylan and Taj Mahal. Besides the regular menu, there's usually a three-course prix fixe dinner. On a recent night it included either sunchoke soup or raclette, braised lamb shank, and either creme brulee or pot de creme for $38.</p><p>Wines are well priced. Typical is the 2006 Dehlinger Chardonnay for $34 (you see it for a lot more at many restaurants); an icy, crisp 2007 Domaine Savary Chablis for $33; a 2007 Dutton-Goldfield “Dutton Ranch” Pinot Noir for $48, and the 2008 Seghesio “Sonoma County” Zinfandel for $27. Corkage is $15, except it's only $10 if the wine is from Sonoma County.</p><p>Service is friendly and efficient. The waitress started things off by bringing out the most beautiful Roasted Beet Salad ($9 ***½) imaginable. Four small, very fresh heads of mache, each with crisp little paddle-shaped leaves, topped the red and yellow beets. Bits of Point Reyes blue cheese and walnuts decorated the salad.</p><p>Bistro des Copains has two wood-fired ovens where chef de cuisine Thomas Halligan turns out excellent pizzas, among other dishes. La Pissaladiere ($14 ***) is a pizza with a perfect crunchy-chewy crust, topped with sweet caramelized onions, soft and hot dabs of goat cheese, and pitted black oil-cured olives. The menu offers anchovies at no charge if you want them. We wanted them, and the effect took us away in spirit to the strand at Nice, France, where pissaladiere is the local specialty.</p><p>While local Tomales Bay and Penn Cove mussels from Coupeville, Wash., have the virtue of being from our part of North America, mussels from Prince Edward Island in the Canadian Maritimes get most of the publicity, although they can often be tired from their trip across the continent. But not the PEI Moules a la Crème ($14 ****) at the Bistro the other night. These babies must have just stepped off the plane. Fresh and plump and delicious, they sat in their steaming bath of white wine, creme fraiche, shallots and herbs, just daring us to wolf them down. They lost that bet.</p><p>Roasted butternut squash is pureed to a light fluff and used to fill Ravioli de Courge ($14 ***) that are then served in a sage-flavored cream with sauteed mushrooms. Here's a dish that's the definition of French culinary elegance, even if ravioli's provenance is Italian. The Italians claim they taught the French how to cook anyway (but then, so do the Poles).</p><p>Braised Lamb Shank ($22 ***½) is susceptible to many sins in the kitchen. It's often not only falling apart, it's dried out and toughened up. Or it's coated in a sauce so black and glistening, it looks like it has been painted with enamel. No such tricks with this perfect lamb shank. It's so tender that nice pieces of meat separate from the bone at the touch of a fork, and they're still juicy. The shank sits in a sauce of natural lamb jus, accompanied by a medley of roasted winter vegetables.</p><p>The French word “fletan” sounds so much more mellifluous than English “halibut,” but they taste the same. And so the Filet de Fletan ($22 ***) is a nice piece of bone-white Alaskan halibut set upon a potato pancake and surrounded by a cheerful-looking ring of halved red and yellow cherry tomatoes and pitted Nicoise olives.</p><p>There are many reasons to like Rosie the organic chicken, not least of which is that the birds aren't stuffed three to a cage and fed antibiotics and growth hormones. But these days the freshly slaughtered birds are quickly cooled by a blast of cold air rather than a bath in cold water where many other birds have been dipped, thus avoiding the spread of bacteria through the bath water. Another reason is because places like Bistro des Copains turn out dishes like Poulet Roti ($21 ***½), a roasted half Rosie paired with roasted carrots, onions, and garlic. If the breast weren't just one click toward the dry side, it would have garnered four stars.</p><p>Remember that warm, fuzzy feeling when you were a very small child and your mom would tuck you into bed at night with a kiss? The culinary equivalent of that is the Pear Quince Bread Pudding ($8 ****) served at the Bistro. It's drizzled with rum sauce and topped with a cumulus of whipped cream. Four words for this dessert: warm, soft, lovely and comforting. Like when you were 3.</p><p>To sum up: A real French bistro in the charming town of Occidental, with real French cooking, no drama, no attitude. Never change, Bistro des Copains.</p><p>Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.</p>