LARGE PLATES / Touring the joints that still serve enough food on one plate for two

25 Jul.,2022

 

wholesale restaurant plates

When Bay Area "small plate" restaurants started adding "large plates" to their menu, it proved to us that a noisome trend had gone too far.

Why go to a small-plate restaurant to eat large plates when there have been large plate restaurants all along? At the places we like, the small plates are larger than the large plates at a small-plate restaurant. If you find that hard to follow, here's what we look for.

A large-plate restaurant never has those words on the menu; it's understood when you walk in the door. Signs that say "Cocktails and Dinner" or "Family- style" are good; the words "complete dinner" on the menu, including soup, salad, entree and coffee, are even better.

At large-plate restaurants, prices are always reasonable when reckoned by the bite. If you are a member of the food police and fear large portions, you can always take half home and get two meals for the price of one. Try doing that with small plates.

Bay Area locals tend to have favorite places for large plates in their neighborhoods; here are a few more to add to the list.

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THE RESTAURANTS

Valencia Pizza and Pasta

Peer over the lace curtains in the window of this corner nook and it's clear no one is eating pizza or pasta. They're here for the daily specials, which aren't on the printed menus in the window or at the table and can barely be read on the scribble-heavy wipe-board. Still, the uninitiated can't tell from the two-word descriptions - roast chicken, pork loin, pot roast - that each portion includes a huge helping of meat or poultry, a cumulus cloud of mashed potatoes with gravy, a produce section of crisp vegetables, salad or soup, and garlic bread. All that for $6.95, lunch or dinner.

The soft-sell approach doesn't begin to describe how good the specials are. Tuesday's pork loin means three thick slices with a crisp crust of herbed fat and onion-mushroom gravy. Friday's meaty lamb shanks are so popular with one group of regulars, the restaurant's phone number is simply programmed under "lamb" on their cell phones. Other regulars are so secretive about Valencia Pizza and Pasta that they refer to it in code as either V.P.P. or "The Italian." We simply consider it the best pizzeria-cum-coffee-shop-cum-blue- plate house in town.

Lunch 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. daily; dinner 5-9:30 p.m. Closed Sun. nights. 801 Valencia at 19th Street, San Francisco; (415) 542-1882. .

Basque Cultural Center

Way down on the south side of South City, in a building that looks like a mall, is the home of the two-entree special. On a Sunday night, when Grand Avenue, the main street, is rolled up, Railroad Avenue is full of big American cars rolling in for the lamb stew and prime rib at the Basque Cultural Center.

That's not either/or, but both. The combinations are uniquely Basque and quite possibly unique to this 20-year-old restaurant - Friday salmon Basquaise and leg of lamb, Saturday seafood crepe and roast New York steak. For the full cultural experience, go on a Sunday at 6:30 when the singing of traditional songs at the bar flows over into the dining room.

The first sign that this is a place to get some large eating done is the butter plate with nine individually wrapped pats for a party of four, breaking down to 21Ú4 pats apiece. Then comes a buttery cream of cauliflower soup in a stainless-steel tureen. While the waiter ladles it out, he explains that the Basque Cultural Center was never intended to be a public restaurant until all the Basque places in San Francisco faded away.

The dinners are described as family-style, but only the soup is served that way. Next comes the lamb stew in individual dishes. Now the big basket of bread and the butter pats come into play, because you won't want to let any of that rich sauce escape. The strong stew taste is washed away by a big salad, maybe half a head of lettuce apiece.

Just when you're thinking this would make a full meal in most French restaurants, the prime rib arrives. It's a thick cut of meat, but lacks the intense flavor promised by the lamb stew. To be honest, it needs the horseradish one must request.

Dinner comes with a bowl of vanilla or spumoni ice cream. The entire experience costs $16.95, a dollar less on Tuesday through Thursday for chicken crepe and veal roast, oxtail stew and pork loin, veal cheeks and Poulet Cordon "Bleue." The singing is free.

Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Tues.-Fri.; dinner 5:30- 9:30 p.m. Tues.-Sat.; 5- 9 p.m. Sun. 599 Railroad Ave.; South San Francisco; (650) 583-8091.

Marcello's

Deep in the outer Sunset, this brightly lit family hangout has both cottage- cheese ceilings and tuxedoed waiters. The all-ages clientele is decidedly more casual, dressed in T-shirts and slacks, ready to tuck into dinners complete with soup or salad, pasta del giorno, entree, and coffee. The minestrone has a thick, beany base, fresh Swiss chard and ditalini pasta; the waiter showers it ceremoniously with Parmesan from a metal bowl. Don't miss Frank's Salad but do split it; there's plenty of crunchy lettuce, carrots, radishes, red cabbage, mushrooms, celery, hearts of palm, bay shrimp and avocado for two.

The glorious eggplant Parmigiana tastes more like a gratin than the typical greasy casserole. The eggplant is roasted and creamy on the inside, the bechamel is light and buttery. The special ravioli in pink sauce (half tomato, half cream) are filled with an assertive veal, ricotta and spinach stuffing. There are a enough fat pillows to completely pave the surface of a dinner plate. In fact, all the pasta here is served on dinner plates; no skimping with little shallow bowls.

After dinner, you can retire to the grotto-themed bar for a digestivo while you digest to the hum of the L Taraval streetcar rumbling by.

Dinner 5-10:30 p.m. Tues.-Sat., 4-10 p.m. Sun.; closed Monday. 2100 Taraval at 31st Avenue, San Francisco; (415) 665-1430. .

Brennan's

Cafeterias are the holy grail of large plates and this is the holy grail of cafeterias. Established in 1959, it sits under the University Avenue overpass off I-80. Inside, the decor can be summed up in one word: dormitory. Long tables pushed together for communal seating line three walls; a long serving counter with hash-slingers lines the fourth. In the middle is the enormous bar,

complete with trophies in every amateur sport and views of six large-screen televisions. Atmosphere isn't on the menu here.

In fact, there aren't even menus here, just plain-speaking boards listing the "old-fashioned hot plates." Those are barbecued beef brisket, corned beef, roast beef, baked ham, pastrami, chicken or turkey with mashed potatoes, vegetables, roll and butter, all for under $8.50. The brisket is tender and juicy; the server slices up four thick pieces, then slices up a few more, douses them with barbecue sauce and tops it with a double scoop of mashed potatoes. A 16-ounce ladle is used to spread turkey a la king, a daily special,

over a mountain of white rice. Add in a cup of sludgy pea soup and a bowl of overflowing field greens (the only evidence that you are in Berkeley) and it's still less than $20 for two with tax.

11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sun.-Wed., until 10:30 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Fourth Street at University Avenue, Berkeley; (510) 841-0960.

Original Joe's

The two-cop minimum makes this the safest restaurant in San Francisco's toughest neighborhood. A Tenderloin veteran at 65 years, this is the granddaddy of large-plate restaurants, and it's probably the only one that's been featured in Saveur magazine. Still, tourists at the door look terrified by the panhandlers; better to focus on the bulldog-faced chef who's out there smoking his cigarette down to the nub. Walk in and it's even smokier from the charcoal grill inside the door.

Late on a Saturday night, a pair of cops dines in silence in an oxblood Naugahyde booth, one scarfing sausage and eggs and the other tackling a platter of penne with meatballs. Nightclub legend Sam Conti sashays by, a large man who's been eating large here for "at least 50 years," according to one waiter.

Meanwhile, we work our way through a full order of Joe's Special, sauteed ground beef, eggs and spinach that's the preferred order for San Franciscans who grew up on it. Thickly sliced veal scaloppine with even thicker sliced mushrooms tends to be chewy, but yields plenty to take home and slap on a sandwich the next day. Spaghetti and meatballs goes heavy on the dried oregano, but the pasta is al dente and the meatballs are tender and as big as baseballs.

11 a.m. to midnight daily. 144 Taylor St., San Francisco; (415) 775-4877.

Liverpool Lil's

Established in 1973, this Cow Hollow pub hasn't changed since then. It's still serving stout brunches, lunches and dinners to a mix of Marina widows, hungry bachelors in rugby shirts, and everyone in between. The interior is an uncanny blend of Victorian bordello and sports bar, with wood paneling, wall sconces, stained glass and 49er photos from the primitive Kezar years. Lil's is always packed to the rafters (it's one of the few places that really has them) and draws a boozy crowd for its bar dining until 1 a.m.

The menu is an archive of lost food terms including du jour, tournedos, Wellington, and bearnaise. The "Lighter Fare" isn't - it's a heaping, juicy burger (or quartered "club burger" on toast) with fries or enough fish and chips to soak up several pints of ale. Entrees come with soup or salad; you can substitute French onion soup or baked potatoes with "all the trimmings." Opt for that soup; it's so authentic, you'll find a string of cheese hanging from your chin when the next course is served.

No doctor would allow a patient to eat the Manchester Wellington, a burger wrapped in ham, wrapped in pastry, drenched with bearnaise and nestled on mashed potatoes. The 12-ounce pepper steak is stuccoed with peppercorns and floats in brandy-cream sauce. The dessert menu, presented on a "personal" chalkboard, includes throwbacks such as Turtle Cheesecake and Black Magic Cake.

People leave Lil's so stuffed that they have to be helped from the door to a cab. A cane stand is the only prop missing, not only for the retirees to park their sticks in but also for those who are a little wobbly walking out.

Full menu until midnight daily, bar food until 1 a.m. 2942 Lyon St., San Francisco; (415) 921-6664.

E' Angelo

In the restaurant shuffle of Chestnut Street, the one constant is E'Angelo, which has been more or less the same since it opened in 1978.

Chef/owner Ezio Rastelli has never missed a night working the burners, separated from the dining room by a short divider. Waiter Renzo Angeli has been there 20 years but his accent hasn't softened. It gets stiffer if someone tries to foist a credit card on him. From the start, E'Angelo has only accepted cash.

The restaurant did finally put the stained paper menus in plastic, and the pictures on the long wall have been rotated, but only after another waiter needed exposure for his artwork.

He couldn't ask for better publicity. E'Angelo has outlasted any number of trendy joints in the neighborhood, and the only way to avoid a wait is to get there during family time, before 7 p.m. After that, it backs up from the small waiting area through the door and onto the sidewalk. Parties of two are shoved together with parties of four to make unwitting parties of six.

All the plates are much wider than the actual table space each diner has. The pasta platters run corner to corner, the lasagna is cut to the width of a lasagna pan, and the cannelloni comes in its own gratin dish, crusted at the edges. For starters, split the mozzarella and tomatoes and a cheese pizza. Save some of the pizza for dipping in the red sauce that pools at the base of the lasagna or the white sauce that is still on the plate after the green tortellini has been polished off. The best entree is exceedingly lemony veal piccata, which comes with roasted potatoes and sauteed vegetables.

Joe Montana used to come here with his family. Mark McGwire used to come here alone when the St. Louis Cardinals were in town. He was the biggest slugger of them all and still ordered just a single pasta dish.

5-11 p.m. Tues.-Sat.; 5-10:30 p.m. Sun.; closed Mon. 2234 Chestnut Street, San Francisco; (415) 567-6164.

"THE LARGE CHEF"

To serve New Orleans-size dinners, it helps to be a New Orleans-size chef. The standard was set by chef Paul Prudhomme; the first in girth in the Bay Area used to be Jan Birnbaum of Catahoula in Calistoga. Now there's Glen "Gator" Thompson, the double-wide chef-owner at Alcatraces. He's so big he has to walk out of the kitchen of his Noe Valley restaurant to turn around and go back in the other way. But he's not shy; he's steamrollin' around the dining room, asking "howdya like this" and "howdya like that."

For all his swamp-country charm, it turns out Gator hails from the bayous of Oakland. His portions are generous, especially the sweet potato-smeared catfish in a cream sauce spiked with cayenne and sherry. Braised short rib "stew" (the meat has been cubed off the bones) comes with turned mushroom caps and roasted tomatoes, as well as quartered potatoes, spinach, butternut squash,

and fennel. Start with the crayfish bisque in a deep roux-y stock. Finish with lemon meringue pie, when it's on the menu.

Lunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. weekends; dinner 5:30-10 p. m. weeknights, to 10:30 Fri. and Sat., to 9 Sun. 4042 24th St., San Francisco; (415) 401-7668.

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