Bistro Elan in Palo Alto is nearly impossible to find. No sign marks its existence, you just have to know where it is. A discreet little tangle of vines conceals the dining room from the street, but if you're paying attention you may notice a lot of people going in twos and threes, and others leaving with a slower gait and a blissful expression on their face.
I had there once before for my birthday, and was incredibly impressed. So when I got a new job and a raise, I decided that the only appropriate way to celebrate was to take my husband out for dinner there. As soon as we were seated, the waiter promptly showed up at our elbow with an small amuse bouche of parmesan biscuits (roughly the size of my thumbnail), thinly sliced salami, and olives marinated in rosemary and salt, and darted off with a promise to come back and discuss the menu momentarily, once we'd looked it over. In the mean time, a basket of crusty warm white sourdough and whole wheat olive breads showed up. The sourdough is tasty, but unremarkable, aside from an incredibly thick crust, but the olive bread is richly wheat flavored, with only a very subtle hint of olive, and very delicious.
Our waiter returned to talk with us, and to mention that, while they did not have a prix fixe menu that evening, they did have a lobster salad with avocado, mango, and beurre blanc. One of the selling points of this restaurant is that the waitstaff is not only competent and well versed in the menu, they're also clearly food geeks in their own right. The waiter waxed genuinely rhapsodic about the harmony of flavors and texture in the salad, and how good the lobster was. My husband was promptly sold on the salad, as well as ordering the pork tenderloin with rosemary and tarragon beurre blanc. I elected for the slightly more conservative bistro salad, which was a mixure of baby greens and fresh herbs with a light vinagrette, and the duck confit with truffle and onion risotto.
One of the lovely things about high end restaurants is that they ask you what you would like to drink after you have chosen an entree. Having taken our dinner order, the waiter gave us a few minutes to look over the wine list, and then returned to offer useful advice. Trying to find a wine that would suit both the much more mild and subtle pork and the richer, more gamey duck required some thought, but after some thinking and some advice from the waiter, we settled on a tart fruity Syrah from Oregon (is it legal to sell Oregon wines in California? I thought that was a lynching offense....) which turned out to be perfect with both dishes.
The lobster salad was everything it was promised to be, sweet, creamy, and perfectly textured, as well as gorgeously presented. The bistro salad was not particularly interesting to look at, it's clear this is not the chef's favorite dish, but the mix of dill and parsley gave it an interesting flavor.
Dinner arrived. The duck was gently crispy on the outside, and falling off the bone, swimming in a pool of reduction. The risotto was a little more al dente than I prefer it, but very creamy and savory, and a few thin slices of delicious smoked roast duck were used as a garnish on the side. The pork was surprisingly mild and subtle, and came with a garnish of miniature french fry cubes and rosemary. By the end of the entree, we were both fairly well sated, but then the waiter waved a dessert menu under our nose. Could I make room for a hazelnut lace cookie layered with praline mousseline and a side of roasted pear coulis? Well, perhaps, yes. My husband opted for the coffee sorbet, with miniature demi-beignets and bittersweet chocolate dipping sauce, and we each ordered a cup of coffee.
Coffee is served in a small french press, brought out just as the coffee has finished brewing. The roast was distinctly a french roast, but well rounded and not too bitter, with not a hint of char, which is my normal aversion to french roasts (and StarFucks). The mousseline was superb, melt in the mouth creamy, and the hazelnut lace crumbled if you waved a spoon at it in a faintly menacing fashion. However, the beignets were clearly the star of the show, coming out still warm and spongy, with a hint of orange, and a VERY bitter chocolate sauce. The sorbet, while supposedly the focus of the dessert, was eclipsed by the beignets.
Supremely well fed, and much poorer, we waddled back out into the night two and a half hours after we had gone in. Good food shouldn't be rushed.
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