Benjamin’s Makes a Good Impression but Is Too Costly

Not so terribly long ago, classifying restaurants required no more effort than shelling peas--the work was automatic and obvious.

Back in the good old easy days, before the spread of what only can be called contemporary cuisine, restaurants used to settle for a single ethnic identity, which they then unabashedly broadcast via name, menu, decor, the waiters’ accents and so forth. For example, a place called Chez Francois that served canard a l’orange , looked like a down-scaled replica of Versailles and employed one or more waiters named Jean Pierre could safely be assumed to be a French restaurant.

Such is not the case today because the more inventive chefs (those with talent, and those without) tend to stock their larders with an international array of ingredients, and to use them more or less without reference to any specific cuisine. The now-ubiquitous pizza, for example, once was regarded as Italian, as it still may be in Italy. But American chefs now use it as a convenient canvas on which to paint the most fantastic impressions. A case in point would be a popular model that combines smoked salmon and dill (very Scandinavian) with French goat cheese atop a classic Italian crust. The result is culinary anarchy, but it is quite good.

Seems French at First Blush

All this brings us to Benjamin’s, an enterprising new restaurant in Solana Beach that recently took over the quarters formerly occupied by the engaging but unsuccessful Dimitri’s. At first glance, the place seems French in tone, not least because the menu is peppered with mentions of such truly French creations as sauce hollandaise, demi-glace , puff pastry and beurre blanc .

But a closer reading of the menu--which from appetizers through entrees offers some 50 complicated dishes--reveals that Benjamin’s has thrown in its lot with other practitioners of multi-ethnic cuisine. This list starts with carpaccio , the Italian specialty of paper thin raw beef with capers, and ends with rabbit, grilled over alder wood and finished with an apricot cream sauce of undetermined nationality.

Between these parenthetical dishes the menu offers a corn croustade (crust) garnished with a very Southwestern-American garnish of black beans, chilies, cilantro and peppered Jack cheese; another crust, this time of French bread, filled with a Gallic mixture of snails and cream sauce; French, Italian and California cuisine-style pastas; scallops with a Mexican flavoring of jalapenos and cilantro; chicken “pignoli,” which rather nervously mates Italian stuffings with a French-inspired sauce, and even pork spareribs basted with a homemade Texas barbecue sauce.

The strangest dish probably reflects the time chef Joseph Miller served in several Detroit-area restaurants, because it sounds like something that might be favored by auto executives at lunch. Called Martini salmon, the dish is exactly what it sounds like, a piece of salmon poached in gin and vermouth, and served with a sprinkling of minced green olives.

Saving Grace

It is not necessarily easy to make sense of a menu like this, but there is a saving grace, namely that whatever the inspiration for the dish, it probably will be executed with French techniques. Thus, by a strange twist, Benjamin’s really can be classified as French, whether or not it likes the distinction. This reliance on classic French technique while creating novel flavor combinations is the hallmark of contemporary cuisine, at least as this writer uses the term.

By and large, the dishes sampled over the course of two recent dinners made a good impression. The kitchen seems strong on soups, especially in terms of a chilled avocado-lime of plush texture that arrived “painted” with a nifty arrangement of avocado slices, small-leafed sprouts, red onion rings and raspberry-sized red and yellow tomatoes of exquisite flavor. And since onion soup is more or less de rigueur on menus, Benjamin’s offers a rather nice version that it calls “Victorian,” a rich, onion-thick broth that hides a vast quantity of molten cheese under a dome of well-browned puff pastry.

The appetizer list goes on and on, but only one was sampled, a rather rich concoction of braised sweetbreads baked in phyllo dough and moistened with a very light hollandaise. The concept was likeable, and so would have been the dish had the meat not been cooked to a rather squishy state.

The kitchen agreed to send out a half-order of cappelini primavera (“Springtime pasta”) as a first course; tossed with cream and cheese, the dish was glazed under the broiler for a French rather than Italian presentation. This dish calls for pasta tossed with as many vegetables as the cook cares to use (and in the days when it was named, many were not available in the fall and winter). Miller settled simply for carrots, onions and mushrooms, which made for a quiet but pleasing dish.

Looked Better on Paper

A salad called “watercress lyonnaise” looked better on paper than it did on the plate. The problem lay in the dressing rather than the greenery, because the unusual dressing of cucumbers and champagne had been slashed, sliced and crushed to an unappetizing slurry in the kitchen’s food processor.

Among the entrees, the relatively brief seafood list seemed to offer the most appealing choices, perhaps because these were relatively restrained. A lovely grilled swordfish steak brushed with a grain mustard-accented hollandaise was nothing short of exquisite, and should possibly be regarded by the kitchen as proof that it need not look to too many nouvelle extremes in order to excel. Tiny bay scallops sauteed in butter with a mild flavoring of jalapeno peppers and minced cilantro maintained a firm French grip while hinting at the possibilities of Mexico. A stew of shrimp, scallops, clams and mussels billed as California cioppino was distinguished primarily by an almost shocking jolt of saffron in the thick tomato sauce. One normally does not expect saffron in a cioppino, but the menu did announce it; in any case, the quantity was too great. The sauce also was rather too thick and rich; this preparation is at is best when it is more like a robust, briny soup.

A fourth entree was chosen from among several daily specials. An extremely imaginative but very successful dish, it combined sauteed veal medallions with shrimp, a vermouth and shallot-flavored cream sauce, and hot, delicate melon balls. The last, with their melting texture and sprightly flavor, brought quite a sophisticated note to the plate.

Desserts are made on premises and vary. A plate of four homemade chocolate truffles should be sufficient for two guests, who should be quite pleased by the experience of eating them. A mixed fruit tart in a fine almond crust also came off well, but a strawberry Bavarian cream had a slightly flat-sour note that indicated the presence of sour cream, or even the lightly cultured fresh cream that the French call creme fraiche. In any case, it was less than it might have been.

Playful Touches

Benjamin’s is not a large restaurant, but clearly it is ambitious. The intended mood is casual-chic with a minimalist decor but such playful touches as the servers’ green cummerbunds, which refer to the green-painted ceiling. (At the same time, Highway 101 rushes past outside the plate-glass window, most pointedly not curtained or draped.) A liqueur trolley, oddly enough not presented at the table on either occasion, holds an extremely impressive and presumably costly array of rare Armagnacs, Cognacs and eaux de vie ; guests also are presented a complimentary glass of a new champagne liqueur at the end of the meal.

In short, then, the place appears to be aiming at a spot in the top echelon of county restaurants, but it has a way to go before it can achieve this distinction. The prices, however, indicate that Benjamin’s thinks it already has arrived; they are too high for a new eatery, and everything considered, a dinner here can be quite expensive.

The majority of the appetizers cost $8 and $9 (soups and salads are about half as much), and most of the entrees are in the $18 to $20 range. Thus, dinner for two, with a modest bottle of wine, tax and tip, can cost $80 to $120.

BENJAMIN’S

145 S. Highway 101, Solana Beach

259-0733

Lunch and dinner daily

Credit cards accepted.