La Costa Reincarnation of Small Encinitas Cafe

Perhaps considering her restaurant a portable feast, Angela Hake in early September moved the tiny, Old World-style Village Cafe Francaise from a nondescript strip center in Encinitas to a new, relatively grand shopping center in La Costa.

The name was discarded along with the old fixtures, and a new one, Le Bon Vivant, chosen as more in keeping with the up-scale location.

The move, at least as yet, has not proven an unmixed blessing, although certain improvements are notable and welcome. Among these would be the addition of a wine list, and a fairly comprehensive if none too moderately priced list at that, where formerly it was necessary to bring your own or do without. The new setting, in a warmly decorated, strikingly angled space, is much more comfortable and attractive, and infinitely more spacious than at the old establishment, which seated about 20 in close quarters. However, there was a certain charm to the old arrangement that naturally did not survive the move. The Edith Piaf recordings did make the transition intact, so that guests are virtually assured of hearing “ La Vie en Rose “ at some point during the meal.

The menu remains much the same, although Hake has added the option of a la carte service to the fixed price, multi-course meal that formerly was standard and remains both available and recommended. Prices, on the other hand, have not remained the same, and seem decidedly high for a la carte service and somewhat high for the prix fixe dinner, announced as seven courses (which stretches the point a bit, since one “course” is the choice of coffee or tea) at $32.50.

A la carte prices are sufficiently high that going whole hog--which is to say, prix fixe --costs relatively little more and naturally offers a more varied and interesting meal. In either case, guests choose from among six starters and four entrees, to which diners at the fixed price tariff add the soup of the day, a salad and dessert. Another “course,” served to all, is a tiny dab of granite (a fruit ice, much the same as sorbet ) brought immediately before the entree. This recently was a raspberry ice, refreshingly tart and the exact same shade of deep pink as the fresh rose that decorated the table.

A meal started very well with the day’s soup but hit occasional potholes as it traveled down the seven-course road. The soup, a thickened, velvet-textured chicken broth enriched with artichoke hearts, surprisingly was laced with cheese, a variety hard to identify in the context that turned out to be Camembert. Adding this particular cheese to soup is a novel idea, but a very good one.

Appetizers belong to the old-fashioned French bistro cuisine and tend to be simple but savory, including the snails in garlic butter (flavored with tarragon to make them a little different) and the meat loaf-like pate, lightened with chicken and seasoned rather nicely. The carpezzio is virtually the same as the dish more commonly known as carpaccio , and consists of thinly sliced beef filet, sauced with what the menu calls “mustard vinaigrette” but which is in fact more a strong, very mustardy spread.

The salad, an utter waste of time, should not be considered by guests ordering a la carte , and fixed price diners may also wish to avoid it. Described as “mixed greens with a creamy garlic dressing,” the pallid plate of bland iceberg lettuce and a few vegetables had a slight undertone of anchovy paste.

The four entrees currently available (the selection will change occasionally) also are in the bistro mood, and include a daily fish that was not sampled. Rack of lamb probably came off best, the meat roasted to a good, tender finish and the herbs applied generously enough to impart a fine flavor. Filet of beef en croute , garnished with a bit of liver pate and baked in puff pastry, was sort of a short-hand version of beef Wellington and, with the dab of brown sauce on the side, quite pleasant. But the “ filet de cannettes ,” or whole, boned duck breast, was a sorry use of this bird. Overcooked, dry and tough--the meat actually tasted reheated, as it well may have been--it was to have been accompanied by a “fresh fruit sauce,” for which simple slices of fresh apple were substituted. No sauce, however, could have saved this dish.

The meal concludes with the final three courses of cheese and fruit (a slender slice of Brie and a few grapes, a delightful combination), coffee and dessert, currently a thin pastry shell filled with whipped cream and fresh raspberries. The dessert seemed a little too effortless and plain, and would have been more appealing had French custard filling stood in for the whipped cream.

Le Bon Vivant

6981 El Camino Real (Plaza Paseo Real), La Costa

Calls: 431-7413

Hours: Lunch weekdays, dinner nightly

Cost: Prix fixe $32.50, a la carte entrees $14.95 to $22.50; dinner for two with a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip, about $65 to $100.