Week in Reviews: Cafe La Haye Keeps Its Tres

Today's episode of the Bauer Hour takes the show to Sonoma, where a new chef is running the kitchen at Top 100 standby Cafe La Haye. The new chef is Jeffrey Lloyd and with places like Michael Mina and Aqua on his resume, he's kept the Sonoma standout on the tracks.

[Owner Saul] Gropman keeps the service friendly ... [The decor is] pleasant, but the interior takes a back seat to the food, which continues to showcase Sonoma's best.

Cafe La Haye has been both a three-star restaurant and one of the town's most charming restaurant for years now, and this time around, things aren't much different: in the quick update, Biggity-B hands out another three stars for the Sonoma favorite. [Chron]

Meredith Brody treks all the way out to Ocean Beach this week, feels like a hippie there, and lives to tell about it: "The open kitchen at Outerlands turns out delicious food for the traveler ... the hanging plants over the counter, the swirling arrangement of the driftwood on the back wall, and the generally beachy ambience reminded us of hippie cafes in Santa Cruz. Both times we felt like we'd taken a revivifying vacation within the city." [SFW]

Ms. Sara Deseran finds her own escape on the water, but a little closer to civilization, at the new Plant on the Embarcadero: "The menu at The Plant feels more LA than SF to me; it's less concerned with farm-name dropping than noting whether or not a dish is gluten-free or vegan ... It all made me feel like I was somewhere other than San Francisco, yet in some ways, it was just a night of San Francisco at its finest" [7x7]

Paul Reidinger takes in the dual identities of the TL's Red Crawfish: "By day it's a quasi pan-Asian place tending toward Chinese and Vietnamese favorites. But as the sun sets, it dons a Cajun guise ... The Cajun dishes remain Cajun and the Asian dishes Asian, but they do make a nice harmony: a communion of spiciness." [SFBG]

THE ELSEWHERE: Tanya Henry files her take on Corte Madera's brand new Counter, the CoCo Times finds Paradiso in San Leandro, Metroactive takes an early look at Roland Passot's LB Steak on Santana Row, the EBX does a round-up of downtown Berkeley's frozen dessert shops, Bargain Bites is at Mauna Loa, Bar Bites is at RN74, and the Bauer Sunday review had 2.5 stars for Tony's Pizza Napoletana.

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