Sens Has 3 Stars For Plum in Oakland; Unterman Digs Haltun

Josh Sens has taken his turn at Daniel Patterson's Plum where dining by the open kitchen is "part cooking show, part horticulture class" and the food is "precise but unpretentious." He says "Patterson’s cooking is not ironic, but there is a sense of play," as proved by an oxtail and beef cheek burger and the oyster and potato stew, a riff on chowder. The main complaint voiced was a tasting menu he tried from new chef de cuisine Charlie Parker: "A killer meal whose pacing nearly killed the joy." But he appears confident it was a one-time flub. The review's praise isn't ridden with emotion, but sedate; yet the final verdict says it all: three stars. [San Francisco]

Patty Unterman is having fun at another ethnic eatery, Haltun a newer Mayan restaurant in a fringier area of the Mission. She seems to like tacos, topped with buche, "tender, if provocatively chewy pig stomach, sexily hinting of the unexposed and the forbidden, but not pungently." She also calls out kots-ditzo, panuchos, and the "luxurious" signature dish, cochinita pibil. Although mains like poc chuc de res and pan de atun sway a little close to Calfornian influences for her liking, they make up for it "in easygoing local appeal and amazingly low prices. It has something for everyone..." [Examiner]

· The fruit of his labors [San Francisco Magazine]
· Haltun brings a taste of the Yucatan to the Mission[Examiner]