Croce’s Brings Pleasing Blend of Food, Music to the Gaslamp

A guest at Croce’s, the informal but rather chic new restaurant in the Gaslamp Quarter, looked up from her plate from time to time the other evening to exclaim: “I just can’t believe this is in downtown San Diego!”

The odd thing about her repeated comment is that this woman happens to live in downtown San Diego, but on the other side of Horton Plaza in a grand new development that in terms of style is miles removed from the sometimes-funky charm of the Gaslamp.

If Croce’s seems misplaced, it is because the restaurant is much livelier in mood and far more ambitious in cuisine than any other recent or current establishment in the old Victorian neighborhood.

The place is named for Jim Croce, the late musician who wrote such 1970s standards as “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” Operated by his widow, Ingrid Croce, the place succeeds her previous, less adventurous establishment, Blinchiki, which specialized in blintzes and other simple fare.

An expansion has brought into play a key ingredient in the Croce’s mix, a brick-walled, Jim Croce memorabilia-trimmed bar in which a variety of musicians play most nights. Three groups of entertainers performed one evening, which was not only astounding in itself for this day and age (grander restaurants had orchestras at lunchtime until the Depression killed off this utterly charming custom), but also made for good listening in the adjacent dining room. And there were dishes, such as the pot-roasted brisket, that made one want to sing along.

International Cuisine

It would be useful to be able to say that Jim Croce helped write “Alice’s Restaurant” (he didn’t), because it seems that you can get almost anything you want at Croce’s. A menu note states that this is an “international” restaurant, and indeed the menu does make some effort to span the globe. Choices range from Greek saganaki to Russian-Jewish beef brisket tzimmes ; Indian shrimp curry; California-Mexican-style Hawaiian tuna(!); French roast duck and several moderately Italian pastas. The same guest who found Croce’s location surprising suggested that its dinner list is “more schizophrenic than most San Diego menus,” but this comment was made before the food arrived. While few restaurants seem able to handle more than one cuisine (many can’t manage even that), Croce’s does seem to do quite well with its multinational mix of dishes.

One evening, Croce’s version of saganaki made a nice, shared appetizer (like most first courses and salads, it also is available on an attractive after-theater menu). This was a little dressier than the Greek original, although it followed the basic style by dipping slices of creamy goat cheese (it seemed like excellent and very fresh California chevre ) in crumbs, and then giving them a quick saute in olive oil before dumping them, quite hot, upon a chilly mix of good greens. Sauteed pine nuts and tangy nicoise olives also figured in this entirely satisfactory jumble.

Delicate Appetizer

Equally likable but from an entirely different gastronomic sphere was an appetizer of smoked salmon, in this case smoked on-premises, and done so carefully that it was much more delicate, moist and succulent than the first-rate but very expensive brands available on the market. Served with capers, tomato slices, red onion rings and slabs of cream cheese, all it lacked was the bagel; what it actually could have used were some thin toasts, preferably pumpernickel.

Among other first-course choices are a salad of “burnt” walnuts, apples, Romaine lettuce, watercress and Roquefort cheese, and a most unusual ceviche made of smoked scallops and fish marinated with minced aromatic vegetables in a bath of lime juice and olive oil.

Dinners include the choice of several soups or the house salad. This course, perhaps because it is a necessary lagniappe, gets less attention than it might and is Croce’s weakest point. The house salad makes the grade, but barely, and contains greens of vastly lesser interest than the a la carte creations. The gazpacho showed some creativity by spiking the Spanish mix of chopped tomato, onion and cucumber with the Mexican accent of sour cream and cilantro, but the French onion soup was only passable.

And in an utterly surprising circumstance for a place with announced affection (and considerable talent) for Jewish cooking, the matzo ball soup was a disaster. The broth was so weak that it seemed the cook had merely waved a chicken in the direction of the soup pot, and the golf ball-size matzo ball probably would have sliced nicely down 5th Avenue had there only been a five-iron at hand. That was one tough dumpling.

Prince of Pot Roasts

But the oven-braised beef brisket, a prince among pot roasts and a seemingly straightforward dish that actually boasts a fair degree of subtlety, makes up for any preceding shortcomings. If one likes beef that has been slowly cooked to fall-apart tenderness, this is the dish to choose, not least because of the delicate tzimmes , or apricot, prune and onion sauce, with which it is basted. A serving of nutty-tasting and altogether agreeable kasha and varnishkas (roasted buckwheat groats tossed with bow-tie pasta) makes the dish into an Old World feast.

If the brisket is old-fashioned, the prawn curry is a study in avant-garde cuisine. Arranged with a kind of Expressionist frieze of banana slices at one end of the dish, the curry also is decorated with a design of currants, chopped scallions and peanuts, and tastes markedly of cinnamon, rather than all-purpose curry powder. There are other undertones of taste that are not readily identifiable and are somewhat different, but overall, it’s an impressive dish.

A filet mignon in a sauce of red wine and chanterelle mushrooms was accepted one night as a last-minute substitute when the kitchen ran out of the evening’s special, grilled lamb loin finished with a similar sauce. It was a quiet dish compared with the others, but elegant, and nice in its way.

The same night’s special pasta seemed cast in the same mold as the kitchen’s standing list of pastas--modern in style, and only tenuously linked to Italian traditions. The plate of basil-flavored fettuccine supported a load of unallied toppings, such as scallions, chanterelles, cherry tomatoes and strips of chicken breast, in a cream sauce heavily scented with garlic. For some reason, the dish worked. Among other pastas are a toss of fettuccine, home-smoked trout, watercress and cream; vegetarian lasagna, and plain old pasta with marinara (meatless tomato) sauce and grated cheese.

The kitchen slacks off when it comes to dessert, preferring to import cheesecakes from a baker. The house does, however, prepare good cappuccinos and espressos, both plain and dressed up with whipped cream and/or liqueurs.

CROCE’S

5th Avenue at F Street, San Diego

233-4355

Lunch and dinner served daily.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a glass of house wine each, tax and tip, $35 to $60.