Cox: Great flavors, fun atmosphere at Underwood

Someday there will be a statue of Matthew Greenbaum erected in the hamlet of Graton. Over the past 20 years, he has turned this quiet corner of the west county into a continual party, fueled by great food and fun drinks.

He’s provided two venues. The Willow Wood Market Café is a moderately priced restaurant with entrées typically in the $12 to $17 range, and a long list of hot sandwiches at $12. But the fun goes up a notch or three at Underwood, his smart bistro across the street.

Underwood is where folks from Sebastopol to Forestville and from Occidental to Santa Rosa meet up, which means that on Fridays and Saturdays, the place can be noisy and jammed with happy people. The full dinner service ends at 10 p.m., but there’s a fairly extensive late menu that keeps going until 11 on Fridays and Saturdays, and if you want to party on, closing isn’t until 2 a.m. those nights. (Night owls take note.) It’s closed Mondays.

There’s always a specialty cocktail on the chalkboard, and bartender Frank Dice will mix up any one of the 24 cocktails on the regular menu. If I had to choose one, the elderflower gin rickey at $11 sounds intriguing.

This being Graton and smack in the middle of some of the finest wine-growing acreage on earth, you’d expect the wine list to be super heavy on local wines, especially pinot noirs. But the wine list is chockablock with wines from Germany, France and Italy. There’s a lovely, lively little 2013 Fiano from Campania, Italy, for $25. David Ramey’s 2011 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is $54, Kokomo’s 2011 Dry Creek Valley Bordeaux Blend is $47, and among a lot of very expensive local pinot noirs, the 2012 La Follette North Coast is moderately priced at $48. Corkage is $15.

While Greenbaum is the executive chef, Mark Miller is the longtime chef de cuisine and responsible for executing Underwood’s sophisticated dishes. In a spicy variation on garlic fries, we have Harissa Fries ($8.75 ???). Harissa is a North African blend of chilies, garlic, salt, cumin, caraway and olive oil. Fries are lightly brushed with this mixture and served with chipotle ketchup to reference the chilies, aioli to reference the garlic, and cilantro as a garnish.

Nine large, meaty Prince Edward Island Mussels ($13.50 ???), drenched in a lemon and white wine broth, fill a bowl. All this soft moistness is contrasted with a small handful of crunchy matchstick fried potatoes.

A bowl of French Onion Soup ($8.25 ??½) showed authentic flavor with its big crouton, gruyere cheese, and tangle of sliced, cooked onions under the soup’s surface, but I missed the traditional chewy goodness of the cheese bubbled brown under the broiler and flowing down the sides of the bowl, where it can be peeled off and popped into the mouth.

One special entrée on a recent night was House-Made Sausage and Ravioli ($26.50 ???½), and it proved supremely delicious. Seedy, very spicy sausage filled the tender ravioli. The pasta was dressed in a red sugo and accompanied by baby arugula leaves. If you like Macaroni and Cheese ($7 ????), Underwood is your destination. With pancetta (add $3), it truly is about as good as this mainstay can get.

Chef Miller pumped up the BTUs to make the Pan Roasted Chicken ($24 ???½). It’s a half chicken separated into two pieces: the so-called “airline” cut of breast and first wing joint, and the whole leg and thigh. The skin was cooked crispy and flavorful while the meat underneath was juicy. Roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts came with the chicken.

The tender beef of the Flatiron Steak Frites ($26.50 ???½) glistened from its brushing with mushroom-shallot butter. The French fries were perfect. A small pot of steak sauce was brightened with chipotle and given depth with a splash of Worcestershire sauce.

For dessert, it’s hard to beat the Meyer Lemon Panna Cotta ($7.75 ???), soft and mildly lemony, enhanced with raspberry syrup and blueberries.

To sum up: Too bad we can’t bottle the fun to be had at Underwood.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review for the Sonoma Living section. He can be reached at jeffcox@sonic.net.