The Right Spot for a Typical Sunday Dinner--French Style

PALMIER BISTRO 902 W. Washington St. 297-2993 Lunch and dinner daily. Credit cards accepted. Lunch for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, should run $20 to $40; dinner should average $25 to $50.

The idea of the French Sunday dinner rather suddenly has come into fashion here, if its appearance at just two restaurants can be said to constitute any sort of trend.

The Palmier Bistro in Mission Hills offers a pink card in addition to its regular menu after 2 p.m. every Sunday, and the card outlines the possibilities of a four-course meal at the relatively low fixed price of $15.25. (The other French Sunday dinner is offered by Cindy Black’s in La Jolla, also at a prix fixe tariff and offering such dishes as roast lamb with creamed garlic, Provencale chicken stew and even a fluffy omelet, which is Sunday supper fare par excellence .)

The Palmier card quite acceptably offers choice only in the realm of the entree, which for the last couple of weeks has been a stand-off between filet of petrale sole with almonds and Provencale beef stew. The other courses have been set and immutable; recently, the meal has begun with a salad of Belgian endive and heart of palm, continued with a brochette of shrimp and finished, after the entree, with an ever-so-Gallic apple baked in puff paste. All in all, this menu has made for an admirable day-of-rest repast.

The salad, a pretty arrangement in which the endive leaves were arranged like a flower budding at the side of the plate, owed its appealing French flair to the mayonnaise-like sauce verte , flavored primarily with fresh basil, that was spooned lavishly over the hearts of palm. An arrangement of good greens and a “confetti” of finely chopped red, yellow and green bell peppers brought color to the seafood course, or two quite large shrimp that had been skewered and held over a flame until their tails blackened. Handsome as they were, the shrimp looked dry and tasted dry, a situation lessened only slightly by a squeeze of lemon applied at the table. They would have arrived in better condition had they been basted with olive oil as they cooked.

The sole was rejected in favor of the boeuf Provencale, a classic stew of beef, celery, onions and tomato flavored with a handful of mixed fresh herbs. The French are not shy about adding herbs--no one measures, since “the more the better” is assumed at all times--and this generous approach gave the stew a fine, strong flavor. As with other plates, the kitchen paid attention to presentation and garnished the dish with a little mound of carrot mousse stuck with waffled-potato “wings” and with a pile of slender, glamorous green beans that had been seriously undercooked. The “tender-crisp” green bean now in culinary fashion can be excellent, but raw is raw.

The dessert was really just an apple dumpling, but made, as the French like to do, into something special. In this case, the extras included a little almond paste in the filling and a wrapper of puff pastry, the commercial type to be sure, but baked to a good, crisp finish. Had it only been returned to the oven for a quick warming before it was sent to the table, it would have been perfect.

The introduction of the French Sunday dinner is an encouraging step in the development of Palmier, a restaurant with a past that, as much as the management may regret the fact, must be lived up to.

The restaurant is the direct descendant of the original Piret’s, which grew to a respectably sized chain after opening in this location in 1978 to offer San Diego its first tastes of French delicatessen. Piret’s was acquired by a large restaurant company in 1986, which shortly began divesting itself of most Piret’s locations; Jeanne Driscoll, an executive of that company, bought the Mission Hills location and named it Jeanne Driscoll’s Piret’s. Driscoll changed the name last year to Palmier, which means “palm tree,” partly to differentiate her establishment from the two North County Piret’s that were reacquired by Piret and George Munger. She maintained the style and atmosphere, however, and guests today continue to dine in sight of refrigerator cases filled with pates, cheeses, lovely composed salads and first-rate tarts and pastries.

The tradition of home-baked baguettes, served warm through the meal, also continues, as does the basic menu of small plates, quiches and elaborate salads and sandwiches. This menu repeats more or less intact from lunch to dinner, except that prices are somewhat higher at night and noontime sandwiches are replaced by a list of simple and quite traditional French entrees.

Several soups lead off the menu, as would be expected at the sort of place where soup alone can be ordered as a meal without provoking frowns on the parts of staff or management. There is a gratineed onion soup slathered with Emmenthal cheese, and a tomato bisque rather grandly baked under a cover of puff paste. The soups of the day can show imagination, and a recent cream of potato in a particularly smooth, lightly creamed broth was likable for its garnish of bacon and celery. The peels had not been removed from the potatoes, however, and these floated in the soup quite disagreeably. Other typical first courses include the day’s pate, seafood-stuffed crepes and chilled mussels in a Champagne-based vinaigrette.

The salad choices include the vegetable preparations, like celery root remoulade , on display in the refrigerated case, as well as more elaborate creations of grilled duck breast, marinated grilled chicken breast and a quite lovely, old fashioned chicken salad dressed up with walnuts, chopped green apples and mixed herbs.

Pasta is not particularly French but does turn up everywhere these days, and the selection runs to such things as linguine with vegetables and Roquefort, a nouvelle concoction of scallops, sun dried tomatoes and cilantro pesto over tomato-basil fettuccine, and the classic paglia e fieno . This last, a toss of egg and spinach pasta with prosciutto, green peas, Parmesan and cream, can be wonderful, but here it seemed soggy, heavy and tedious.

Among the entrees offered only at night are sea bass, crisped in a wrapping of thinly sliced potatoes and finished with a Sherry vinegar sauce; a seafood stew dressed with saffron aioli (garlic mayonnaise); grilled veal chop in black olive and red bell pepper sauce, and a very French chicken breast with mushrooms and cream sauce.

The tables remain set more closely together than comfort demands, although the crowding contributes to the atmosphere. Another continuation is the availability of any wine from the large retail stock, as well as a good selection of wines by the glass.