BOCANOVA Revisited ~ The Echo of Pan American Rhythms

Cocktails @ Bocanova!

“When marimba rhythms start to play,
Dance with me, make me sway
Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore,
Hold me close, sway me more”

Early in April, the lovely weather and my hearty appetite convinced me it was time to revisit Bocanova, a Pan American Restaurant down on Jack London Square. The restaurant is still lovely, a big, open, slick barn of a place. It is still located just next to the new train station where the Old Spaghetti Factory used to be in the heart of Oakland’s Jack London Waterfront. Tables overlook the water, along one side of the establishment and the bar at its center is glistening and chic.  It fell a little short on our first visit.  I went again to see what might have changed.

Dungeness Crab Deviled Eggs

To begin our meal on this, our second visit, we shared the Dungeness Crab Deviled Eggs. Now I love deviled eggs, but these were extraordinarily well done. It may have been that the whites were just firm enough, and the fresh, creamy centers of whipped egg and crabmeat, were just awash in delicate flavors. The BH and I both found this dish outstanding.

Quinoa Shrimp Salad

When I first visited Bocanova, I liked about half of what I tried. Maybe more. On the whole, the food is good, with some dishes really being standouts. But the salads were a disappointment.  I found them overdressed.  I'm a fan of leafy salads with all manner of fresh ingredients.  I ordered the Quinoa, Wild Shrimp & Roasted Beet Salad.  Everything in the description was something I love:  Beets, Shrimp, mandarine orange vinaigrette.  Sounded lovely, but it was quite a disappointment. It just wasn’t balanced. Firstly, it’s not really a salad, at least not in the leafy sense. It’s more of a dressed quinoa affair, which resulted in a bowl of mush the consistency of say, a mashed potato salad. The mixture arrived in a large bowl, chock full of heavily “creamed’ quinoa with several big, chunky beets clumsily tossed into the mix. While the shrimp were large, plump and moist — and really well prepared —  that fact just didn’t compensate for the soggily dressed quinoa. The orange vinaigrette used to dress the mixture was the consistency of a really heavy mayonnaise rather than a vinaigrette and was much too sweet.   I really felt the flavors didn’t complement each other very well. The “salad” ultimately read on my palate like a bowl of paste. Soggy flavors, soggy texture. Just soggy all around, being much too heavily dressed. This was the second time I tried a salad here and found it to be mucky on the dressing side. Though every ingredient was one I like independently, the flavors were lost in the swampy bowl. This Chef apparently believes firmly in a soggy salad. For my tastes, that’s a problem, particularly since I think I have always enjoyed a little too much dressing on my salad. So if I am finding this too much dressing, I can’t imagine anyone who will find it to their liking. When I go back, I may ask for the dressing on the side to see if that might correct the problem, at least for me. My recommendation is to just skip their salads all together.  (Except the Beef Salad mentioned below.)

Mini Burger Sliders

Fortunately, many of Bocanova’s other offerings are so good as to make it worthwhile. We had several appetizers and small plates we shared, and really enjoyed. One of these such dishes, which might just be the exact opposite of the salad is their Mini Slider Burgers. This dish is absolute perfection. The meat is fatty enough to almost melt on the tongue, just rare enough, just bloody enough to conjure up every perfect bar-b-que of years gone by. The miniature bun is light as air, with just a hint of a warm crunch to the outer shell from brief, hot bath in the toaster. Meat has a nice rich hint of smoke to it from the flame. Condiments are provided, but this burger is so good it can be eaten plain. Nothing else needed. The mixture of meat and bun are the ultimate marriage of perfection.

Enyacados

We also sampled the Enyacados which were a bit like a stuffed latke. That’s a potato pancake, for those of you who’ve never had a bite of your Bubbe’s Chanukah treats. They contain a filling of roasted chicken with a tasty cilantro pesto perched atop the potato puff. The flavors were light, and the texture was crunchy. I found the patties to be just a little too soft for my tastes, since I prefer the grated variety of pancake. I think it may just be that I like my potato pancake less mashed and more like a hash brown. That said, it had a tasty filling and a good balance of seasonings.

We also shared a Bavette Steak Salad which contained big chunks of beautifully cooked red meat atop a lovely bed of lettuce. This is one salad here which I would say was not overdressed. The tomato vinaigrette really enhances the little gem lettuce, and the queso fresco was delicious. This meat was the best cut of steak I’ve ever seen on a salad, definitely no off cuts of meat.

The final of our appis was a Beef Currant & Green Olive Empanada. This dish was like a South American potsticker. Flakier and with a tomato-based rather than soy-based sauce. I really enjoyed the mouthfuls of tiny goodness. Really delicious.

The Yucatan Seafood Stew contained roasted garlic, grapefruit, & tomato. It had a beautifully balanced clear broth, chock full of mussels, shrimp, every imaginable kind of seafood. The BH is a huge fan of Seafood and Seafood Stew. This dish was both pretty and absolutely delicious.

Pear Tartelette

The next dish we sampled was a dessert of Organic Pear Tartlette. It was a splendid tartlette. The luscious, beautiful, slices of sugary fresh baked pear, covered in an airy, flaky crust over of fresh baked pear. The pear itself covered in tricklets of carmelized sugar. Melt in your mouth goodness.

We finished our meal with Bocanova’s Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding. This may be one of the best variations on bread pudding I’ve had, right up there with the Bread Pudding Souffle at Commander’s Palace or the Bananas Foster Bread Pudding at Angeline’s. Bread pudding is a classic dessert, and to see it re-imagined with the flakiness of a croissant, and then baked with delicious eggy pudding. So good. Covered in chocolate sauce. Isn’t everything better with chocolate?

So overall the restaurant is a good one with significant dishes that are not to be missed. It also has a few dishes that fall incredibly short. If you go, just don’t order a salad. Or maybe you will order the beef! Check it out, and as always ~ Bon Appetit!

Bocanova

Jack London Square

55 Webster Street, Oakland, CA 94607

(510) 444-1233

www.bocanova.com

Noise level: lunch is fine, I imagine that all that open space is loud at night. 1-3 BELLS

Dining time: in an out in a little over an hour

Service: excellent

BOCANOVA - Pan American on the Square

"Is that where the Old Spaghtetti Factory used to be?" the answer is yes. After the new Bocanova was recommended to us by friends who had recently dined there, we decided fairly promptly to check it out. We were told by some it was the Old Spaghetti Factory. Others said well, no, it's not. Different building. I can definitely say it takes up at least a large portion of the building that formerly housed the Old Spaghetti Factory at Oakland's Jack London Square.

Our little traveling lunch party of three dropped by last Tuesday. We try to bring a third for any place whose specialty is small plates, it helps with the ordering.

When we first entered, I was impressed by the beauty of the place. It is a thoughtfully furnished room, well appointed and welcoming. Kudos to the interior decorator.

We began with cocktails. Once a week or so we indulge ourselves at lunch, provided we have no thoughtful writing to do after the noon hour. It's the only way to accurately gauge a bartender's skill --- to actually have a drink. Not a big challenge, as we all have trouble passing on a well "mixologied" cocktail these days. I ordered a Red Passion Margarita which I found to be a welcoming blend of fresh & clean flavors, all swimming my my tequila. Fresh ingredients rarely carry the overly sweet or cloying attributes of say a traditional drink mix. The old-school mai-tais or rum punches made with a mix were just too too too. This drink was not. It was tasty and delish. My companions had a 1944 Mai Tai (a spicy crisp drink with a slight herbal aftertaste. I thought it was as good as mine) and a Cucumber Gimlet which was a simple concoction of vodka and cucumber with just a hint of citrus. Not as interesting to me as the others, more of a refreshing summer drink, but good nonetheless.

We followed our drink order with both ceviches on the menu, the Wild Shrimp Ceviche and the Halibut Ceviche. We all agree that the ceviche at Tamarindo is our favorite, but we are always searching for another variety that will make us feel it. That will challenge familiar perfection with a new brand of perfection -- a different spin on the dish -- giving us that special something. Bocanova's shrimp ceviche is a spicy one. It is made with jicama, red pepper and cilantro, and comes with fried won tons to dip it out. We all thought it was okay, but not a challenge to our favorite and certainly not impressive. We also sampled the halibut, which was not quite as good as the shrimp. This dish is seasoned with tomato, zucchini, cilantro and aji amarillo (a blend of fairly spicy Peruvian chiles). We found the halibut ceviche to be a little fishy-tasting. We were not sure if it was the ceviche's preparation or the fact that we ordered two different kinds together. It may just be that they don't compliment each other. Either way, they were just okay. Not bad, but not amazing.

Next up on the menu was the Prather Ranch Mini Burgers with Guasaca Sauce. We all agreed that these were perfection. Really really good. Rarely is meat done that perfectly in a burger. This was moist and tasty and the sauce (which is a mix of an avocado guacamole base and horseradish, I believe) was perfect. It didn't get in the way of the meat flavor, but complimented. Lighter than straight guacamole. They brought our Turkey Gumbo and it was not hot enough. It was good, but in my mind not as successful, being a bit oily for our taste, although with a nice rich flavor of sausage and turkey.

The salad I chose was a blend of Frisee, Grapefruit and Radish with a Mango Vinaigrette. The salad was light and tasty. I really enjoy a well dressed salad, and while this one had a lovely texture and good flavor, it was overdressed and there was no radish that I could distinguish.

We also ordered the "Huarache" which is a flatbread preparation of bufala mozzarella, peppers and an aji panca tomato sauce. I thought it was delicious. I think it also contained slices of meat, though none was listed on the menu. It was thin-crusted hot melty goodness. It was one of my favorite things they made here. The Peruvian olives were also delicious. We finished off the meal with the Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding. This dish was a lovely flaky buttery croissant melded with pudding-y goodness and topped off with a large serving of chocolate ice cream. Excellent and unusual. Everything anyone might want in a dessert.

Overall we really enjoyed our meal. It was not perfect but there were some really outstanding efforts in the mix. I would say that this is an establishment still finding its identity, with enormous potential. Among the best features, the mixology (superb) the huarache (or other flatbreads), the mini burgers and desserts. The other items needed work, but not so much as to say stay away. Another diner might find them just to his or her liking.

Head to the wharf and check it out!

Bon Appetit!

Bocanova
55 Webster Street
Oakland, CA 94607
510-444-1233

Dining time: Tapas takes a bit, but if you told them to bring it all at once, you might be able to get out in an hour.

Noise: not a problem when we were there

Cost: Moderately expensive

PS: The restrooms while lovely, are not laid out well. I'm told the soap dispenser is really really low. I found the women's rooms lack of towels really annoying, especially after getting some of the red tomatoey sauce on my best dress (ceviche). I don't think a nice restaurant should ever expect its' patrons to make do with nothing but an air dryer. That's just too low rent for me.