The Dining Scene

By the World’s Most Corrupt Restaurant Critics: Kimberlye Gold (with Gene Mahoney) (Twist our arms, we’ll eat your food!)

This Month: Zebulon Restaurant and Bar
83 Natoma Street (off 2nd St. between Mission and Howard)
S.F. 415-975-5705

What do you get when you combine the best elements of two wonderful San Francisco eateries (and faithful clients of the SF Herald): Mr. Ralph’s Café and Francisco & Molly’s? The fabulous new dining, drinking, and music listening hot spot, ZEBULON! Francois Alvarez (possibly the most congenial, charming and ingratiating Frenchman –or “any man” - I have ever had the pleasure of accepting an invitation for free food and drink from), and his wife, Robin, the former owners of both of these fine establishments, have finally achieved their long awaited vision of perfection by closing both of the old and re-opening their new restaurant where Francisco and Molly’s once stood. Francois, who always has a story to tell, a twinkle in his eye, and that “Zebulicious” accent, describes the décor as: “Bohemian, with a touch of industrial. This was an industrial building constructed right after the 1906 earthquake.

They used to deal with electrical motors and what-have-you for the Alameda Naval base. But it has some warmth, especially when people are inside and the heat is on.” The result is spacious and comfortable, with a high ceiling, upstairs and downstairs seating, a full bar, and lots of appetizing culinary delights to choose from. Mixing the menus from his two former restaurants, the choices include specialty sandwiches, burgers, salads, soups, and a few entrees, like vegetarian lasagna and macaroni & cheese, which can also be ordered as take out and for catering and private parties. The very reasonable lunch prices currently range from $2.15 for a cup of soup, to $6.75 for entrees, with most sandwiches around the$5/6 mark. The selections will vary and increase as they enlist a well-known SF chef (soon to be announced) to create what Francois calls more “International Comfort Food: home cooking like meatloaf and stews”.

When asked how the new name was chosen, of course he had another story to tell. “I woke up one morning having had a dream about when my brother and I were boys in France. In the dream, he ran to me, yelling, ‘Help Mr. Zebulon, help, Mr. Zebulon!!’ I did not know what this meant, but I asked my wife if she thought we should call the new restaurant ‘Zebulon’ and she thought it was as good a name as any other. Later, a French woman came in who has been a customer of ours, and she told me ‘Zebulon’ is a character from a children’s program in France. So I must have had a flashback. But then my mother-in-law told me she looked it up in the bible and it is actually the French pronunciation of the Hebrew word, ‘Zabalu’ which means ‘to carry or to exalt’ and is the name of the 10th son of Jacob, who the tribe of Israel descended from!” (You have to hear Francois tell these stories. It’s all in the delivery…)

We ordered two glasses of the house red wine, Blossom Hill Cabarnet (only $3.00 a glass!) and it was actually very good! Gene and Francois were so heavily engaged in conversation about this, that and the other thing, (these two adore each other) it was everything I could do to tear them apart to get to the real reason we were taking up space: the cuisine, mon cheri amour’! (I am so bi-lingual, yes?) Gene left it up to me to order so he could continue discussing military strategies, so I chose four items for us to split: Two “Specialty Sandwiches”, the “Vegi Sandwich “($4.95), charbroiled zucchini, grilled peppers, marinated red onions, mushrooms, greens and vinaigrette, on Pugilesse, an Italian country bread and the “Salmon BLT (minus the bacon, we don’t eat red meat)” ($6.50), broiled salmon, lettuce and tomato served with tartar sauce on the same type bread, and a “Half & Half “ of two “Specialty Salads”, served on the same plate (great idea! $6.50), the “Asian Noodle Salad” with linguini noodles, grilled chicken, shredded cabbage and bell peppers, tossed in a spicy Thai fresh herb dressing, and “Mango Chicken Salad” with chicken, celery, fresh mangoes, walnuts and apples, tossed in a creamy mango dressing, listed as “always popular!” This must be true. I had to fork-fight Gene for the Mango Chicken Salad, which was similar to a Waldorf salad, with that mango twist.

Gene exclaimed, “This is possibly the most delicious dish I have ever eaten, I’m serious! The best I’ve had since the peppered steak that Chin’s Kitchen used to make when I was a kid in Seaford, Long Island, NY!” Okay. It was very tasty, but the word “salad” on both is a bit misleading. There is only one lettuce leaf under the Mango Chicken and none on the Asian Noodle, which was also very good, although I would have preferred a bit more of that spicy Thai herb dressing on it (and a few extra lettuce leaves, but hey, that’s just me). The sandwiches were both excellent. I ordered the salmon rare and it was cooked to perfection, warm, succulent, and fresh, on that lovely Pugliesse bread, with one of the best tartar sauces I have ever tasted. The Vegi Sandwich was also delicious, every vegetable broiled and marinated perfectly, although I would have preferred it served warm instead of cold. Gene just kept eating everything, so I presume he liked it all, although he kept raving about the Mango Chicken long into the night. After a couple glasses of wine, we felt full and very satisfied with our culinary choices and very pleasant company!

A few important things to note: Francois and Robin are still ironing out the kinks and details so everything already wonderful about Zebulon is only going to improve with age, like fine wine (and your humble corrupt restaurant critics)! The manager, Jose Chagoya, who used to manage Mr. Ralph’s, is always available, anxious to please, and truly loves his job. Francois says he is an absolute joy to have on board. And last but not least, mark your calendars for Friday, March 15, for Zebulon’s Grand Opening, where you will be entertained by the acoustic musical stylings of yours truly, Kimberlye Gold, who obviously wears many hats in this SF Herald family (and hopefully wears them well, like Rod Stewart would say.) And Rod says: “Get your ‘Hot Legs’ immediately down to ZEBULON!!! Bon appetit’ !!!”