An A for Plan B
Cafe expands dining options in Pocket area
By Mike Dunne - Bee Restaurant Critic
Sunday, August 19, 2007
If you're going to name your restaurant Plan B Cafe, you've got to expect at least one guest at each table to ask, "What happened to Plan A?"
By now, Lionel Lucas, his wife, Irina, and their chef, Tyrone Hunt, can give an answer so concise and pointed that they barely pause as they dart about the compact cafe.
Here's the longer version: Two years ago, Lionel Lucas was managing the downtown Sacramento restaurant Sofia. He'd talked his buddy Hunt, then cooking in Germany, into moving to Sacramento to join him at Sofia. That was Plan A: the two longtime friends running Sofia.
When Hunt arrived in town, however, he learned that Lucas had lost his job at Sofia. Both men were out of work and pondering their options. Time for ...
Plan B Cafe, which opened April 12 in a deep and narrow space at River Lake Village, a Pocket-area shopping plaza perpetually busy for its 24 Hour Fitness center.
Hunt oversees the kitchen, Lucas and Irina tend the front. On each of our visits, the place was slammed. To judge by overheard conversations -- not easy when the restaurant is jammed -- the clientele consists largely of neighborhood residents. Most of them were remarkably happy, perhaps because Plan B Cafe saves them the trip to midtown or downtown Sacramento for creative food with personality.
Hunt is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City. While French technique shapes his cookery, dishes at Plan B Cafe are more light, bright and natural than complex and rich, more Provence than Paris. Which isn't to say they can't be refined. Hunt's interpretation of ratatouille, that homey French staple, arrives as a molded timbale of finely diced eggplant, peppers and corn, appointed liberally with pine nuts ($3.95).
For the most part, the compact and casual Plan B menu is meant to encourage grazing. While concise, it's wide-ranging and quirky. Only four traditional main dishes are listed, though on any given night a blackboard special or two also will be available. The specials are more adventurous than the entrees on the menu, which lately have included roasted chicken and grilled salmon, rosemary au jus with the former, Provençal butter with the latter.
One special was a meaty and delicately sweet sand dab that had been dusted lightly with polenta and flour, seared quickly, then finished in the oven with just a dash of salt and pepper ($17.95). That, and a squeeze of lemon and a splash of olive oil were all the flatfish needed. Well, it also required patience, given that the sand dab is one bony member of the sole family, and the bones were tiny and nettlesome, elusive until you started chewing. Still, the fish is a rarely encountered treat, and as prepared at Plan B illustrates the restaurant's goal to present "simple food done well," as Hunt puts it.
On another night, that intent was met marvelously with a special of seared and splayed rainbow trout ($17.95). While the fish was seasoned amply with black pepper, brown butter, sliced almonds and diced tomatoes, each accompaniment was in such precise proportion they amplified rather than distracted from the sweetness of the trout's firm white flesh and crispy skin.
Aside from the few main dishes, the distinguishing feature of the Plan B menu is its division into sections called "stix," "tartelettes" and "mussels."
The "stix" are appetizer-size skewers, two to an order. One featured chunks of juicy and smoky rib-eye steak with a sweet and spicy marmalade of chili peppers and onion ($5.25). Another was slices of hot and moist grilled salmon with a zesty and spicy salsa verde ($4.95). The "tartelettes" are thin, round and crisp pastry shells topped with assorted ingredients, such as sautéed mushrooms and bacon for one, caramelized onions and white anchovies for another. The one we tried consisted of warm and creamy goat cheese finished with sweet roasted tomatoes, the sort of hors d'oeuvres you'd expect to be handed at a fancy summer wedding party ($5.95). "Mussels" are prepared five ways, from the traditional French combo of white wine, parsley and garlic to the customary Southeast Asian blend of coconut milk, chili peppers, cilantro and garlic. We ordered the "nantaise," in which the fresh, light and silken mussels swam in a luxuriant broth of crème fraîche, shallots and butter ($11.95). As picnic fare, mussels just don't get any more elegant than that.
Plan B Cafe also offers several salads, including an attractive layering of butter lettuce with sun-dried cherries, Roquefort and walnuts, finished with a vinaigrette based on wholegrain Dijon mustard ($7.25). It was risky, because too much of any one of the strong ingredients could have upset the balance of the whole composition, but it didn't happen, and the salad maintained its refreshing equilibrium from first bite to last.
Any bistro masquerading as a cafe has to have a respectable hamburger, and Plan B's signature interpretation is substantial (more beef than bun), complex (Swiss cheese, mushrooms, ham) and daring (the not-so-secret sauce is béarnaise). From the homey and sturdy bun to the handling of the sweet meat precisely as requested (medium well), this was one rich and filling burger ($10.95).
Desserts included homey tarts made with raspberries and blackberries that couldn't have held one more atom of fresh seasonal flavor without exploding ($6 each), a smoky and silken creme caramel ($6), and a fresh and distinctive though somewhat sugary cappuccino mousse torte ($6).
The manageable wine list is an inviting mix of California and French releases, and while they are attractively priced, the best buy lately has been a beer, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale at $2 the pint. (Lucas was eager to move out the keg so he could replace it with a French beer.)
Plan B Cafe occupies a long and narrow storefront with a minimalist design aesthetic that involves a lot of light color and very few accessories. Those appointments, however, are clever, including individual vases of fresh irises staggered across the walls, drop-down lights that look like automobile oil filters, and small mirrors high on shelves, placed and tilted to provide unexpected glimpses of guests at other tables.
The restaurant seats about 50, but a dozen or so of those are at the long, narrow counter and another dozen are on the sidewalk out front.
Servers, principally Lucas (he prefers to go by the one name) and Irina, are friendly, but they never linger so long even with regular customers that other guests feel slighted. They swoop down to replenish bowls of bread that are just half-empty, pausing in flight to answer questions precisely and quickly before moving to the next table, even when the question isn't about Plan A.
3 1/2 stars/$$$
FOOD: Inspired by the unaffected bistros in the south of France, Plan B Cafe's concise menu runs to simple and fun preparations bright in color and vivid in flavor.
AMBIENCE: The prevailing mood is akin to a block party, as residents of the nearby neighborhoods crowd into the tiny and sunny quarters.
HITS: While brief, the wine list is adequate in its range of Californian and French selections. Baguettes by Acme Bread Co. of Berkeley.
MISSES: Because of the popularity of several businesses in the shopping plaza, parking is highly competitive.
