Restaurant Review: Café Pasqual’s

Saintly succor

By: Susan Meadows
Published online: Friday, December 21, 2012
Appeared in: Pasateimpo

Café Pasqual’s has always emanated a San Francisco hippie-chic vibe. Maybe it’s the eclectic menu, where Asian influences share space with primarily Latin American- and New Mexico-inspired dishes (wisely, the kitchen sticks to one side of the Pacific per plate). Many vegetarian options are available, and the food is generally fresh and organic. Some prices, particularly for drinks, seem high — it’s easy to spend more than $50 on breakfast for two. The wait can be long at breakfast and lunch, when you can’t make reservations (as you can at dinner). Café Pasqual’s is very popular with visitors, who regard it as authentic Santa Fe — which, after 33 years, it certainly is — although chef- owner Katharine Kagel hails from Berkeley, California.

Colorful murals, tiles, posters, and hanging decorations create a fiesta atmosphere, as does the noise level when the place is packed, which it usually is. The lack of a foyer creates quite a draft in winter, when the crowd jostles in and out of the small entryway and is forced uneasily into the table space — it’s a mass-transit- at-rush-hour effect. But this feeling is embraced by Café Pasqual’s faithful, and it jibes well with the large communal table in the center of the room, beamed straight in from the Summer of Love.

At lunch a shot of Amy’s Hippie Dippie Green Drink — apple juice blended with lemon, ginger, parsley, cilantro, and kale — served as a palate-awakening starter. Of the braised beef and lamb tacos served with fresh corn tortillas, black beans, and house salsa, the lamb won on flavor, but the overwhelming brown softness of everything on the plate cried out for some- thing with color and crunch. In contrast, the Yucatán chicken salad came in modern Technicolor, the slices of marinated chicken breast offering a bright, warm spicy flavor akin to cloves — though I was assured none were used, just citrus and achiote (an evergreen seed used for coloring and as a spice). Fresh greens, avocado, jicama, and orange slices added color and flavor, as did a well- balanced citrus and olive oil dressing.

The Mexican hot chocolate was good, but I’d prefer a shorter, denser cup with less sweetness and more chocolate flavor. The fresh-fruit liquado was a disappointing smoothie that tasted mostly of banana with a hint of citrus; organic fruit didn’t justify the price.

The Vietnamese salad of flash-sautéed scallop was a generous, colorful, and tasty dish enlivened by under-tones of fish sauce and citrus. At dinner, it could be a main course or shared as a first course. The cold green- bean salad with hazelnuts was just that. The mature beans were dressed with mustard vinaigrette and scattered with hazelnuts. They came with a cheese crisp bonus, as tasty as the wedges of Turkish flat bread on the table, which happily reminded me of pie dough crisps my mom used to make.

Hosannas for the haddock in saffron-ginger sauce (a special on one visit) and the cochinita pibil, deeply satisfying pork with spices, most notably cinnamon, braised in a banana leaf. These were balanced with a garden of accompaniments — greens in flaky pastry and sautéed bok choy with the fish; cilantro rice, habanero-marinated onions, and calabacitas alongside the pork.

The wine list is skewed to higher prices, but the markup on a Paul Dolan 2010 zinfandel was refreshingly low at only about twice retail. It is also true to Kagel’s organic and sustainability principles. Big fruit on the front fortunately disappeared quickly as sufficient tannins appeared for an almost flinty finish. The wine paired well with everything but the scallops, as expected.

The small dessert sampler surprised, with full portions each of apple butter cake, blackberry cobbler, Italian chocolate budino with olive oil and sea salt, caramel ice cream, and house-made chocolate almond bark, indicating that the large sampler must serve eight. My vote is for the almost-cheesecake-like budino, but I liked the cobbler, too.

The graciously professional service was essential (and a feat), because there is no time or room for mistakes at Café Pasqual’s. Peace. Love. Pass the salsa.