Borel’s Gives Mission Valley a Fine New Menu

The most innocuous act--the simple turning of a key in a lock--may have signaled a quiet changing of the guard along Mission Valley’s extended restaurant row in August.

The lock in question secured the door of one of the valley’s prime restaurant locations, the building that formerly housed Donegal’s and its predecessor, Houlihan’s. The key rested in the hand of the manager of Borel’s, the first local outpost of a Northern California restaurant chain that seems to be genuinely serious about food.

Donegal’s and Houlihan’s belonged to the old school of Mission Valley restaurant, the kind that primarily sold atmosphere and fun in an effort to attract the singles and happy hour crowds, and treated cooking somewhat as an afterthought. Borel’s seems more mature if less (to use a word that signifies much in restaurant circles) sexy; compared to its predecessors, it certainly is restrained and subdued.

The fact that Donegal’s and Houlihan’s both failed in this choice location may or may not indicate that the fern bar era has run its course, but fail they did, and it is interesting to see that the building’s newest tenant has carefully avoided a style that once was considered an indisputable path to success.

Borel’s offers a thoughtful menu; quiet, live piano instead of raging canned pop music; and smooth, professional service of the sort formerly unknown in these parts. (This may be part of a trend, if the fact that more restaurants appear to be offering correct service should be termed a trend. However, it has seemed lately that service finally is improving in this town.) There is a fair-sized bar, but the place looks as if the greater part of the decorating budget was spent on the dining rooms, which all in all are rather nice.

The menu exhibits a degree of self-consciousness, as if it were attempting to be all things to all people; it features dishes drawn from such diverse cuisines as those of Louisiana, the American Southwest, France and Japan. But the attempt overall seems credible, since the majority of the dishes sampled proved to be well-made, and those that were less successful at least appeared to have been prepared by a kitchen that was trying to do things right.

Even the appetizer list takes the taste buds on a literal cook’s tour of half a dozen cuisines, starting with Japanese sashimi, and moving along to the simplicity of fresh Florida oysters doused with a peppery French mignonette sauce. In between come Cajun “popcorn,” a pleasant plate of small, fried shrimp that can be dipped in a sherried mustard sauce, and nibbled with drinks; roasted poblano chili peppers in avocado salsa, a bow to the chic style of cooking being popularized in Santa Fe, N.M., and an excellent rendition of the Italian carpaccio, or thinly sliced raw beef dressed with a lemon and shallot-flavored vinaigrette. A wreath of arugula, the agreeably bitter green that has begun to appear in better salads around town, borders the plate and adds a nice note of flavor to the beef.

The surprise winner in this category, however, was the truffled chicken liver mousse, a product easily achieved in this age of the electric food processor but one that, in a situation Aesop might appreciate, too often suffers from over-processing. This pate was marked by sophistication, the flavor elegant, the texture silken, and the garnish of lightly pickled vegetables was a nice variation on the sour gherkins that normally dress this sort of dish.

The gumbo, though offered as a soup course, is so generously ladled that it can easily do double duty as an entree. Named Atchafalaya gumbo, in honor of that mysterious swamp in which gumbo reigns as the dish par excellence, Borel’s version is just a little amateurish, the kitchen relying on Tabasco sauce when it might look instead to a subtler blend of herbs, garlic, onion and thyme. However, it packs a remarkable amount of seafood, including a wealth of shrimp and crab, and oysters so fat that they lap over the edges of the spoon.

The Cajun motif continues in the pasta category, specifically in a dish called Cajun noodles. It is not terribly successful, even though it contains shrimp, chicken, the smoked ham called “tasso” in New Orleans, and tomato and peppers. Cajun cooking demands that flavors meld, and devote their voices to a general chorus; this harmony is not achieved by the dish.

The same desire to be inventive and a little different is expressed in the entree list, which includes swordfish grilled with Campeche-style achiote sauce, grilled Hawaiian ulua with fresh pineapple chutney, baked halibut with tomato and herbs and--Borel’s presumably feels impelled to offer this dish--blackened redfish.

A dish called “panko prawns” is described by the menu as “Gulf prawns deep-fried in Japanese breadcrumbs,” and was sampled, primarily to get a taste of whatever Japanese bread crumbs might prove to be. As near as could be reckoned, they were ordinary crumbs, and the dish, while nice, was nothing more than breaded shrimp.

Crumbs figured more exotically in the sauteed lamb chops, which included Parmesan cheese in the succulent, crisp coating that encased the meat. Breading lamb chops is in any case unusual, but it worked quite well, giving the lamb a special fillip. A good ratatouille, or stew of tomatoes, eggplant and peppers, accompanied the dish. As a second garnish, the plate included a tasty but amateurish gratin dauphinoise, or layered potatoes baked in cream until (ideally) a golden crust forms on the top.

The most adventurous entree sampled was the rabbit braised with garlic, herbs and a fine julienne of aromatic root vegetables. Rabbit appears so rarely on contemporary menus that one always is impressed by its presence, and generally speaking, Borel’s handled this dish well, since the flavors were less robust--which is to say much more delicate--than is usually the case with rabbit preparations. The meat itself fell complacently from the bones. Triangles of polenta, or corn meal mush that had been allowed to harden, and was then sliced and sauteed, made an interesting garnish--given that corn meal mush would not be called mush if it were really wonderful.

The majority of the desserts are catered by outside suppliers, but these pastry cooks seem to be quite knowledgeable. A creamy cheesecake contained surprise chunks of rich chocolate fudge, and a pecan pie offered all the gooey richness that one desires of this dessert.

BOREL’S

5323 Mission Center Road, San Diego

295-6600

Dinner served nightly.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, with a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip, $40 to $70.