You can order rabbit brains with fried rabbit ears at Alinea in Chicago. Or nip into gnocchi of rose-scented air at E Bulli in Spain. Or empty your pockets for snail porridge at The Fat Duck in England. But none of this surreal fare is what I'd like for dinner when I'm famished. That's why I'm glad we still have restaurants like Meritage in Sonoma.
Adventurous diners might call the Meritage menu boring, but there's nothing boring about a steamed 2-pound Maine lobster split open to reveal gobs of tomalley to be smeared on bread, lengths of tail meat cut into bite-sized pieces, and claws waiting to be cracked and the meat pulled from the shells and dipped in drawn butter before being gobbled down with supreme satisfaction.
The trend among chefs these days is to be innovative, even outlandish (see snail porridge, above). But for a satisfying meal, sometimes no surprise is the best surprise of all.
Chef and owner Carlo Cavallo has expanded the name of the place to "Sonoma-Meritage Martini Oyster Bar and Grille," right down to the Frenchy little "e" on the tail end of "grill." But then he bills his fare as the cuisine of southern France and northern Italy.
And so, he serves up Bouillabaisse, the classic fish stew of Marseilles, for $20, and a sumptuous and similar Venetian Brodetto ($36 ***1/2). Both have prawns, clams, mussels and fish, but the brodetto also contains a Maine lobster claw and half of the lump body meat of a dungeness crab. The bouillabaisse features a spicy tomato-saffron broth, while the brodetto's is a spicy tomato and aromatic herb broth.
On a separate visit, a Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail ($13 ***) with a bitey-spicy cocktail sauce had six fat shrimp arranged around its icy bowl. There's some online grousing among customers who thought the shrimp weren't jumbo, but indeed they are. That's because in the world of shrimp sizing, jumbo is equivalent to medium at 21-25 shrimp per pound. Bigger shrimp are called Extra Jumbo, Colossal, Super Colossal and - at five shrimp per pound - Extra Colossal.
There's a full bar at Meritage, so you can start dinner with a smart cocktail, such as the wicked-sounding Dirty Cougar that's concocted from the angelic St. Germain Liqueur (made from elderflowers), citrus vodka, grapefruit juice and wild honey syrup. Delicious.
The wine list is a trip through the Sonoma Valley, plus a few choice bottles from elsewhere. If I had to choose one bottle from the list to have with that lobster, it would be the 2005 Domaine Carneros Brut for $40. Chef Carlo's Private Cellar features many of the red Italian heavy hitters: Serpico, Solaia, Tignanello and Sassicaia among them. There's also a large format list, from magnums up to 6-liter imperials. Corkage is $15.
Service is exemplary, especially if you are served by Ngima Sherpa, the restaurant manager, who will go out of his way to make sure you are comfortable and well-fed. The interior of banquettes, tables and seats at the bar is air conditioned, and there's a patio out back for al fresco dining.
The menu is chockablock with classic seafood dishes, including some retro appetizers like Clams Casino ($12 **1/2), littleneck clams dressed up with pancetta, breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese and baked. It's a holdover from the fad for baked shellfish that swept New England a hundred years ago. If you travel in coastal New England today, you'll still find this dish on many menus.
The soup of the day, Cream of Asparagus Soup ($7 *), was a failure. It was thick and very salty and not much else. Heirloom Beet Salad ($10 **) was a tasty tower of red and yellow beet rounds, baby greens, fennel and a cake of goat cheese, but the dish wasn't pretty. The cheese was burnt black on the edges and the tower was a shaky assemblage that needed to be disassembled to be cut into bite-sized pieces.
But then Homemade Black Fettuccini ($21 ***1/2) came to the rescue. The black pasta was made with squid ink, something I saw chef Jose Andres use at Jaleo in Washington, D.C., not long ago to dress up a black and white appetizer. The pasta, tiger prawns and chopped baby zucchini were enveloped in a deliciously subtle saffron-cream sauce. It was yummy and visually interesting, too.
Thursday nights, there's a dinner special of a Whole Maine Lobster ($25 ***1/2), which saves you $11 over the $36 whole lobster dinner on other nights. Also on the plate, garlic mashed potatoes and steamed zucchini and carrots. This is a deal. The lobster was just crawling around its tank of bubbling seawater a few minutes ago and is as fresh as lobster can be. Mark your calendars for Thursday nights and partake. And thank the lobster as you enjoy it.
So, OK, what if you're not in the mood for seafood? Yes, there's steak (boring) and surf and turf (been there, done that), but then there's Wild Boar Baby Back Ribs ($24 ***1/2), with the succulent ribs laid on grilled polenta and drowned in a porcini Cabernet Sauvignon shallot sauce. Get your Alley-Oop on with this dish. It's dark, greasy and great.
Desserts are just OK. They need work.
To sum up: A palace of fish, shellfish, crustaceans and long, cooling drinks entices seafood lovers to indulge their favorite fishy fantasies.
Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.
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