We were no more than two bites into our first dish, an appetizer of fat and frisky salmon cakes, when we made up our minds that someone in the kitchen of Fair Play Bistro in southwestern El Dorado County knows what they're doing.
Unfortunately, the chef's sure hand was being sabotaged by service personnel who seemed disengaged, uninformed and flippant. At one point, two were on cell phones.
The first clue that service would be a struggle came just as we were seated, when a server blithely informed us we were 10 minutes too late to take advantage of the bistro's happy hour, when wine prices were half off.
This was no big deal. We'd been tasting wine much of the afternoon, and what sounded best to our withered palate was a strawberry-and-cream soda pop.
But then I noticed a sign on the wall across the way. It said happy hour starts when the restaurant opens and ends at 5 p.m. What we have here, therefore, is a restaurant with a 5 1/2-hour happy hour that not only cuts off guests who unwittingly arrive 10 minutes late but taunts them about it.
The salmon cakes, spicy with jalapeño chili peppers, zesty with lime juice and crusted finely with panko ($7.95), helped turn this tragicomedy into triumph. Two other dishes also lifted our mood - duck confit tingling with the bite of black peppercorns and juniper berries ($19.95), and chicken and tri-tip rich with a glossy sauce that was smoky with Guinness and sweet with molasses ($14.95).
Nevertheless, I pretty much had decided not to return to Fair Play Bistro. But then the culinary gods seemed to intervene.
As we strolled to the car, in the lot of the neighboring Winery by the Creek, we saw a path leading into dark woods along the stream between the two places. (Charles Mitchell, whose eponymous winery is just up the road, also owns both Fair Play Bistro and Winery by the Creek.)
At the end of the trail, a wildfire looked to be building in the brush, but as we neared we recognized tiki torches blazing about a table being set for a wine-tasting.
The chipper woman pulling bottles of sparkling wine from a case and plunging them into a tub of ice was Faye Levine. Ordinarily, she explained, she's a server in the bistro but was assigned to the winemaker dinner at the adjoining winery that night. She was candid, smart and wry, with a melodious Aussie/Kiwi accent that delighted the ear. We sensed that had she been our server our experience would have been totally different.
We decided to return, but only if we could reserve a table in her section of the restaurant, which wasn't difficult, given that she answered the phone and said she'd be working the entire place that night.
Service-wise, our second visit was much more pleasant. The bistro's entire A Team must have been assigned to the winemaker dinner during our first stop, and now was back in the restaurant, running the joint smoothly and with an upbeat glee.
We ate on the patio out front, with a full moon rising over the pine and oak. The evening was balmy, the rural quiet broken only by the occasional squeal and roar of a vehicle driven by a juvenile of indeterminate age, a foothill custom.
Faye vowed at the outset not to open often the door next to our table, and was good to her word. When we squawked about the truly terrible opera on the sound system, she switched it to more appropriate 1940s-era jazz. Though it was around 8 p.m., we were tempted to see if she'd still honor the happy hour, but didn't want to push our good fortune or her good nature.
As before, the food was more impressive than not. Jen Bement is the chef. Trained at both LederWolff Culinary Academy in Sacramento and California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, she's put in stints at 33rd Street Bistro and City Treasure in Sacramento and Cafe Luna in Placerville. Just before returning to her native El Dorado County nine months ago, she had been the chef for five years at Moxie Jr. in Sacramento.
Her culinary style is fitting for any place calling itself a bistro - unpretentious and forthright. Some of it is classically French, some of it contemporary Californian. Barbecue may not readily be found in the bistros of Paris, but it's one of her specialties and because of its similar earthiness and unaffected joy is comfortably at home with more familiar bistro food.
While Bement's cookery favors the heavy and robust, even in late summer, she also appreciates some lighter dishes inspired by fresh seasonal ingredients. Her tomato bisque, scented with dill and additionally sweetened with roasted peppers, was intense and complex, yet buoyant ($4 per cup, $5.95 per bowl).
She also celebrates the harvest by garnishing several dishes with bright pattypan squash, baby carrots and the like, but the plates would have been more colorful and impressive had a few more pieces of each been included.
By and large, dishes tend to the dark and rich, starting with an appetizer of "Burgundian-style" sautéed mushrooms ($6.95). The meaty and garlicky mushrooms were delicious and invigorating, their red-wine demi-glace muscular and filling, if a touch too salty.
From among the entrees, coq au vin was convincing in its mix of bacony power tempered by the sweetness of onion and the fruitiness of red wine, even if breast of chicken were used instead of the usual leg and thigh ($15.95).
Despite my fondness for coq au vin, my favorite entree was tender, thin slices of juicy pork roasted with a refreshingly fruity and spicy orange glaze, even if I was taken aback by how small the portion was ($14.95). Maybe I've been spoiled by the substantial pork chops I've been running into lately at several restaurants.
A close second was the grilled rib-eye steak, sliced into thin, succulent lengths, well-salted to emphasize the beefy flavor, and topped with a compound butter of blue cheese and chipotle chili pepper to add just enough spice to not distract from the sweetness of the meat ($21.95).
Fried leeks brought a similarly sweet note to the hefty half-rack of grilled New Zealand lamb ($19.95).
The most impressive dessert was a wedge from a rustic chocolate truffle cake not far removed from a brownie in its fresh moisture and concentration, additionally sweetened with raspberry and chocolate sauces ($5.95).
Small fruit tarts were memorable for the quality of their strawberries and blueberries, but their bland pastry crust was dry and powdery ($6.50).
The New York-style cheesecake was adequate but not compelling ($5.95), while the tiramisu lacked punch but for a sweetness that overwhelmed the potential elegance of its coffee and cream ($5.95).
Each page of the wine list has a recent quote from the Wine Spectator, boasting that the list is "one of the most outstanding wine lists in the world." It left me wondering what standards the magazine uses to reach such a conclusion.
It's a fine list, fitting for the cuisine and well representative of the local wine-growing community, especially, understandably, Charles Mitchell's own labels. It also offers several eccentricities - relatively young wines of Bordeaux for $250 a bottle.
But for a foothill restaurant, the list could use many more regional brands, especially in the zinfandel, barbera and syrah sections. Wines by the glass also are dominated by Mitchell's cellars.
Nonetheless, the finest wine we sampled off the list was Mitchell's leanly exquisite Winery by the Creek 2004 Fair Play Cedar Creek Vineyards Viognier, a bargain more by the bottle ($27) than the glass ($9).
Fair Play Bistro is a leisurely 55 miles east of Sacramento through Rancho Murrieta, Plymouth and the Shenandoah Valley. This is the time of year to go, with the weather cooling and wine grapes being harvested.
After the fire season, however, Faye Levine and her husband, a firefighter, will return to Berkeley so he can resume his forestry studies. But perhaps by then the rest of the staff will have developed similar confidence and empathy.
7915 Fairplay Road, Fair Play, El Dorado County; (530) 620-2492
2.5 stars/$$$
FOOD: Chef Jen Bement pulls off a compatible marriage of traditional French bistro fare (steamed mussels, coq au vin, duck confit) and modern California cooking (deep-fried calamari, grilled rib-eye, salmon cakes).
AMBIENCE: French commercial art posters and French bistro music brighten and enliven a large, utilitarian room, but on a balmy evening the best seats are on the patio, despite nearby traffic.
HITS: Substantial stemware. Wine selection fitting for the robust style of cooking, and prices and labels are considerate and inviting.
MISSES: Irritating frequent slamming of the heavy door of the walk-in refrigerator, across the dining room from the kitchen.
HOURS: Lunch and dinner, 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.
– By Mike Dunne, Sacramento Bee