cafe juanita

good, but not great. my husband and i had a very nice meal at cafe juanita this evening. the only reason that "very nice" isn't asgoodas it sounds is (a) it is an expensive place and (b) given all the rave reviews and getting into national top 100 lists i expected some "wow" which wasn't there.

the service was attentive and prompt and people were very friendly. the location isn't all that great looking from the outside - it looks like a converted 1950s home - but inside it's very sleek and modern.

i had the duck confit appetizer which wasgood- the duck is wrapped in a cabbage leaf and has a "parmigiano reggiano brodo reduction". my husband's beet salad was a little disappointing - the beets were firm but not all that flavorful or sweet, although i liked the gorgonzola bombolino that came with it a lot (more than he did, i should note).

i ordered the lamb which came with a wonderful kale and turnip mixture with some parmesan. my husband ordered the rabbit which he liked a lot - i thought it was nice, but not great. we split an order of a wonderful spicy cauliflower - that was a home run.

we didn't stay for dessert (too full!).

i think given the overall experience, we might try again in a while, but this really should have been better - i wanted to be really wowed by the food and wasn't.

f**king delicious!. "pardon my french" i said to our waitress as i used the title of this review to explain my feelings about the caponet of goose confit with cabbage and sherried goose brodo that began what can only be described as one of the culinary highlights of my life!

in my opinion far too many food writers dissect what they've eaten when, oftentimes, an emotional response would be far better ... and our server seemed to appreciate the earthy language as being appropriate for this fine dining rendition of rustic northern italian fare.

the prologue to our meal had been a negroni with marcona almonds for my wife and a gin with blackberry & huckleberry jam stirred into it, and a fried rabbit's liver for me! would i think of putting gin and jam together , let alone accompanying it with fried rabbit offal? heck no ... but holly smith and her team must have a palate just like mine and i thank them all the more for that!

alongside my caponet of goose confit my wife had the spot prawns with lardo bruschetta. she loved it but was kind enough to share the paper thin lardo with me ... a deliciously sweet 'condiment' when melted atop the caponet.

the appetizers were followed by a salad that we shared, and which was thoughtfully served on two plates. the roasted beets on marcona almond butter with gorgonzola bombolino were sumptuous, every element working perfectly together. two plates were returned to the kitchen scraped clean of every last trace of food ... i think we both considered licking our plates but thought better of it as the entrees were still to come.

we had asked the wine steward ( so much less snobby a title than 'sommelier') to recommend an italian wine that would not taste too "pinot-y" to us,having drunk a lot of oregon's finest recently. after a taste of one wine established our benchmark for the flavors we were looking for, she suggested a wonderful 2004 brunello di montalcino that just improved as the evening wore on and was nicely within the budget we gave her.

then came the entrees. my wife had the goats cheese gnocchi, beautiful pillows of potato with sweet heirloom cherry tomatoes ... she liked it but had a hard time keeping her bread out of the jus that accompanied my braised rabbit!

ah, the braised rabbit ... chef smith's signature dish and oh what a graceful but strong signature it is! as one blogger review put it "i've eaten a fair few rabbit dishes ... we brits do that" ... yes indeed, but never have i eaten such deliciouslygoodrabbit.

the loin the belly and the thighs each received their own treatment, the latter being stuffed with porcini and wrapped in proscuitto. what made the dish was the perfect jus that accompanied it ... thick enough to cling to the food and flavorful without being overpowering. our server's description of the kitchen staff dipping bread into the leftover jus at each night's end was all too believable ... and who could blame them!

desserts were a panna cotta with cardoon honey and vanilla sea salt and a chocolate truffle tortino with mint gelato and sour cherry balsamic reduction. both were beautifully prepared, with the panna cotta edging the tortino in the voting for "best dessert".

a complimentary glass of moscato d'asti was another thoughtful gesture in an evening made even more enjoyable by the friendly attention of reallygoodstaff.

it had been three years since our last visit to cafe juanita ... i don't think we'll wait anything like as long before our next!

it's complicated. this is definitely a very nice high end restaurant. parking is a problem as we had to park a block over and walk which is not what you expect from a fancy place like this although personally it did not bother me much. the ambiance is nice, somewhat dark with candles. the place appears to be an old house that was converted to a restaurant but it works fine. the food was all verygoodalthough nothing stuck out in my mind as spectacular. so why am, i not more enthusiastic about this place? i think it is because the food is too complicated. they just try too hard. that is not to say they don't do agoodjob but the flavor combinations seem false. it's like they just have to add one more ingredient and because there is so much going on it does not work as well. you may really like it but i prefer more simply executed dishes. i may go back and give it another try sometime and will let you know if i do get wowed. it just seemed expensive, a little pretentious, and overly complicated.

2+ sneezes

anniversary dinner! ooooppppss!. the plan was simple enough have a nice, romantic anniversary dinner at a restaurant with agoodreputation for turning out some of the best food on the eastside.
when we arrived the place was packed (naturally i was thinking, ahhhh we made the right chose!) so packed there was no parking. i actually had to call the restaurant to ask where we should park as there were "you will be towed" signs everywhere! after finding a place to park, we walked up to the front doors and there was barely enough room to squeeze the two of in, and i am thinking even though we have reservations there is no way we will be seated for at least 20 minutes. much to my surprise, after notifying the maitre d of our arrival we were seated right away!
so far so good, i'm loving the candle light room and the coziness of the restaurant. so we order our appetizers, i ordered the foie gras and my husband ordered the veal and chanterelle stuffed cipollini onions. the apps arrived they are both delicious and with the accompaniment of the wine and the lovely sampler of bread that was on the table, i am thinking that we are in for a big treat.
now to the main course, my husband ordered the braised rabbit, which has been the house specialty for the last 10 years according to our waiter, and i ordered the ordered the tagliatelle bolognese. i ordered a seemingly ordinary dish thinking that in an upscale allegedly italian restaurant that it would be spectacular, boy was i wrong! i appreciated the homemade pasta even though it was over cooked but the bolongese was over salted and tasted like hamburger helper. if you are trying to "highlight" the flavor of the meat in the dish then you add components to accentuate the tastes, not just fry it up and through it on top of some pasta and call it a sauce! this dish really killed it for me!
and the rabbit was reallygoodat first but then as you worked your way up the leg it got dryer and dryer.
skip the espresso, it was unpalatable. this is a great place for wine and appetizers, but i would not recommend it for dinner, unless you don't care about food and are only going there try and catch a glimpse of chef holly!

fantastic. i will be the first to admit that i think that most of the restaurants in seattle aren't very good. over-priced and not very good. cafe juanita is not one of these places. the food is excellent. the wine is excellent. the service is excellent. the only bad thing is the desserts, but all the other food is so good, i'll give them a pass. besides. i'm so full by the time i get to dessert, i have shouldn't order it anyway. it's always a pleasure to eat here. i come away from the experience relaxed and inspired to cook more gourmet meals. also, to recreate some of the dishs that i just had. that's what agoodmeal should do to you. inspire.
to sum it up, when people ask me of a place to go, one of the few places that i can full heartedly recommend is cafe juanita.