San Diego Spotlight : For Real French Cuisine, Go South of the Border

At the moment, it requires a diligent search--or a trip the Grant Grill or to Mille Fleurs in Rancho Santa Fe--to turn up much in the way of French food in this county. Changing tastes and the craze for all things Italian have combined to put the Gauls, and Gallic cuisine, on the run.

Rather surprisingly, some of the best French cooking currently available within 30 miles of downtown San Diego is to be found in Tijuana. In other days, there were restaurants South of the border that served French-style fare (Reno’s, now departed from the scene, was prominent in the field), but they generally interpreted the dishes along Mexican lines and added squeezes of lime and dashes of hot sauce without much regard to the authenticity of the result.

There seems a consensus among Tijuanans that the hot restaurant of the moment is Tour de France, easily located in the Colonia America neighborhood near the Zona Rio and expertly operated by a local guy made good, chef Martin San Roman.

San Roman labored in the kitchens of the Westgate and the Le Meridien hotels before taking a working gastronomic tour of France, which gave him both a superior understanding of the cuisine and the name for his restaurant. In theory, Tour de France (the name also refers to the famous bicycle race) attempts to provide a culinary journey through the regional schools of cooking, but, in practice, it concentrates on examples from haute cuisine and from the relatively piquant cooking of Provence. San Roman has in fact planted an herb garden, marked with a sign that identifies the plants as “herbes de Provence,” at a corner of the building.

The style of the place is charming. The lighting, discreet and romantic, provides a mood that used to be more common in eateries on the San Diego side of the border but has largely been replaced with hard-edged, high-tech environments. Helpful waiters hover through the evening, whisking plates away perhaps a bit too energetically (a duck leg disappeared before its time) but offering reassuringly Old World service. One guest was so moved by the performance that she remarked, with feeling, “When you want to dine in style these days, you come to Tijuana.”

The menu lists every dish in French, Spanish and English, a practice that acknowledges the realities of the clientele while bowing to tradition. A few of the hors d’oeuvres are a little bit too much from the old school and not very interesting, such as the smoked salmon and the snails in garlic butter, but San Ramon gets beyond these to offer snails in the style of French super-chef Paul Bocuse (baked in puff pastry and dressed with sauce bearnaise) and an up-to-the-minute carpaccio of local albacore, thinly sliced and marinated in olive oil and lime juice. In France, of course, lemon would supply the acid in the marinade.

San Ramon also bakes several varieties of pate, and shows a real flair for this type of preparation. These can be ordered individually, or on a beautifully decorated plate that also features several French cheeses and is large enough to serve two to four. The chicken liver pate, smooth and suave, has a fine flavor, and the coarse country-style loaf explodes with peppercorns.

The onion soup, named “ gratinee des Halles “ in honor of the old Paris market where it once served as a staple meal, hit the one sour note of the meal, since it obviously had been made from dried soup mix. Given the otherwise high standards, this lapse was more than disconcerting. However, a soup of white beans and assorted vegetables in a mellow broth more than redeemed the kitchen’s soup cook, and the salade gourmande spoke well for San Roman’s cleverness in arranging simple things attractively. Garlic-flavored shrimp joined marinated mushrooms and other garnishes as toppings for fresh, tender greens tossed in a mustard-tinged vinaigrette.

The entree list includes a few pastas (another contemporary touch) but concentrates largely on meat preparations, several of them quite impressive. The beef filet with snails and garlic sauce may require a broadmindedness that some of us may decline to muster, but it is impossible to dispute the high style and delicious flavor of the tournedos Chez LeNotre, or medallions of beef in an exciting, racy sauce of black pepper, shallots and Cognac. The dish of sauteed veal sweetbreads in a sauce of cream and roasted chestnuts is smooth in the manner of an old gentlemen who still knows how to beguile the ladies; there are subtleties and nuances that make the dish most attractive.

Fowl typically is more important on restaurant menus below the border than here, and San Roman offers choices that range from a simple chicken breast in Champagne sauce to duck confit and a quite lovely boned duck in fig sauce. The bird, crisply skinned but moist, marries exceptionally well with the faintly sweet, richly flavored sauce, and a fat fig that appears to have been poached in syrup makes the perfect garnish.

The menu also offers several fish, including Alaskan salmon in black olive sauce and filet of tuna in a sauce of three peppers. Most meats and some of the seafood, by the way, are imported from the United States.

The dessert list takes a strictly traditional point of view and ranges from the simplicity of a well-prepared creme caramel to the luxury of Grand Marnier and chocolate souffles, both of which must be ordered in advance. Otherwise, there are handsome fruit tarts, a very rich hazelnut tart, poached pears in chocolate sauce and--a dish historically quite popular in Tijuana--crepes Suzette.

The restaurant is on the free road to Ensenada and is less than one mile from the statue of Cuahtemoc that rises above one of the traffic circles on the Zona Rio’s main artery, Avenida de los Ninos Heroes. The trick is to remember that, because the Ensenada road is split into parallel one-way streets, it is important to double back after about a mile so as to be heading back toward Zona Rio (you may otherwise wind up in Rosarito). The Plaza Azteca hotel and the La Sierra motel make good landmarks. The restaurant strongly suggests reservations.

JUST A TASTE

HIGHLIGHTS OF OTHER NELSON REVIEWS

KAISERHOF, 2253 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., San Diego, 224-0606. The city’s principal German restaurant has moved from Mission Valley to cozier, better appointed quarters in Ocean Beach, but maintains both a good standard of cooking and a menu that encompasses many of the signature dishes of German cuisine. Most plates have a pleasing meat-and-potatoes quality, including the well-spiced sauerbraten, the rich rouladen of beef stuffed with pickles and other items, and the goulash. Choices extend to several kinds of veal scallop preparations, a massive sausage platter, steak Tartar, Gypsy-style pork cutlets and boiled pork shank. All the traditional German side dishes are present and accounted for, including tart red cabbage, dumpling-like spaetzle noodles and crisp potato pancakes. Entrees priced from $11.75 to $19.50. Moderate to expensive.

SALA THAI, 6161 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego, 229-9050. Like most Thai eateries, this establishment, which occupies a corner space in a large neighborhood shopping center, is quite attractive. The kitchen has ambitions, made evident by daily specials lists that extend to such surprises as one night’s escargot (snails) in chu chee curry. Unlike some Thai houses, Sala Thai shows no reluctance in seasoning dishes in an authentic manner, so that those preparations ordered “hot” will indeed raise your temperature a degree or two. The menu is large, and the cooking generally very good; interesting choices include the beef pad kra prao , the various curries (from mild to hot, as designated by the menu) and the richly flavored yum nua salad of char-broiled beef, onions and seasonings. Entrees priced from $5.50 to $7.95 Inexpensive to moderate.

TOUR DE FRANCE, 252 Gobernador Ibarra, Tijuana, Tijuana telephone number 81-75-42, Lunch and dinner daily, Entrees $8 to $15. Dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $35 to $75.,Credit cards accepted.