Kauffman Calls Bar Tartine "Exciting," Bauer Says La Terrasse is Like An Oklahoma French Restaurant From the 80s, More!

Kauff files opinions on the new "Cal-Hungarian" direction at Bar Tartine in the Mission. He says, "the restaurant has zagged back into more exciting waters" and he likes what Balla is doing here better than the Nombe days. "Balla's food is as dramatic and complex as what Commonwealth and Sons + Daughters are serving, without the modernist trickery they delight in. His Hungarian roots may be what you first notice upon reading the menu, but Balla's imagination is what lingers long after the meal is done." [SF Weekly]

Bauer takes La Terrasse's rating a notch down in Thursday's review, to the dreaded 1 star. The review recounts what sounds like a total train wreck, starting with: "the meal reminded me of one I had at one of the best French restaurants in Tulsa, Okla., circa 1985;" and ending with "a limp margherita ($14) with a crust that had the spongy characteristics of Boboli with a too-sweet tomato sauce." [Chron]

Madame Unterman goes, grumpily, to vegan Cha-Ya in the Mission, and she's pleasantly surprised. She adds Cha-ya’s vegetable sushi to her favorite-dish list, digs into "original and tasty" housemade gyoza, "delicious" broiled eggplant and sansai soup that's "full of umami." After dinner, she walks over to the Bi-Rite Creamery soft-serve window to "inhale" a sundae: "Enough is enough." [Examiner]

Reidinger goes out on a limb and tries Los Yaquis, declaring its home-cooked Salvadoran food "solid:" He discovers the restaurant "offers Corona beer brewed in and imported from Mexico, which is different from the brewed-under-license stuff you typically find around here." He likes fried tacos "in groups of five, like a litter of puppies" and devotes two paragraphs to "one of the most striking dishes on the menu...the fish soup ($12.95)." Even though "they would have been better with butter. What isn't?" [SFBG]