Fries + fizzy? Nice idea that falls a bit flat
When a restaurant dedicated to Champagne and french fries opened in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood, there was only one thing for The Chronicle to do: Dispatch our Eat Up columnist Anna Roth and our Drink Up columnist Esther Mobley for a tag-team review. Their experience at the Fine Mousse left much to be desired, however. Here’s their morning-after recap.
Anna Roth: Have you ever been to a Champagne bar before, Esther?
Esther Mobley: Yes, in fact. In New York, it’s totally a genre — though a very expensive one.
AR: So classy. And Fine Mousse bills itself as a “Champagne and french fries bar,” which is brilliant.
EM: No better concept has ever been conceived, or so we thought. Fried things cry out for something to cut their grease, after all. And the name is clever — in Champagne, “mousse” refers to the frothy layer that forms at the top of the glass.
AR: When I first read about Fine Mousse I imagined an all-you-care-to-eat paradise of fries and dippings. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as dreamed. But let’s start with the bubbles, as we did last night. What did you think of the list?
EM: My first thought when I saw it was: Where are the vintages? That’s like Wine List 101. And even if many of these wines are multivintage, as sparkling wines often are, the list has to mention that.
AR: Those don’t mean much to me but seem important if you are purporting to be a bar for Champagne enthusiasts.
EM: To its credit, it’s a pretty reasonably priced list, considering the fact that we’re dealing with the caviar of wine categories here. The most expensive bottle on the list is $85 — that’s actually quite inexpensive.
AR: I liked that you could order a flight of any three by-the-glass bubbles for $17. The pours were generous enough for it to feel like a bargain.
EM: Agreed. And I thought all of them fit the right profile for pairing with fries: crisp, high-acid and dry. Even the Prosecco was surprisingly bracing. AR: Even though there was only one domestic producer on the by-theglass list, it was nice to see the geographic breadth. I didn’t know anything about bubbles from South Africa and New Zealand. EM: South Africa has its own style of sparkling wine, called Cap Classique. I was glad that the list nodded to those countries with lesserknown sparkling wine traditions. AR: See, I didn’t know any of that. I wish they’d provided a little more education on the menu. Not everyone is lucky enough to be dining with a Champagne expert. EM: And not everyone is lucky enough to dine out with a french fry expert. So what did you think of the fries ($8/$12) — if we can even call them fries? AR: They didn’t really register as fries to me. I was surprised that they were round, flat and crinkled, almost like pickle chips. Definitely not the long, elegant, crisp-on-the-outside, creamy-on-the-inside beauties I’d been fantasizing about all day. EM: Not at all. I thought they more resembled the “baked potato chips” my mom used to make when she was trying to wean us off of Lay’s. AR: They were also pretty greasy, in a way that suggested that they had been fried at the wrong temperature. EM: Even the vegan ones fried in rice bran oil? AR: I thought they had a slightly nutty flavor, but it was pretty subtle — not a huge difference from the ones fried in duck fat. EM: I didn’t know it was possible for duck fat to taste like ... nothing. AR: I know! I was especially excited for those. And I hoped as a restaurant with an absurdly narrow focus, they’d have more options. What if you could compare rice bran with duck fat, beef tallow, grapeseed oil and so on? That could be a messy kitchen, but a real service to humanity. EM: There was no contrast of textures in either, right? AR: No, they were equally thin and dry. I didn’t want to eat them on their own at all. In theory, they should have improved when dipped in the mayo. EM: So the nine fancy mayonnaise dips — the only dipping options — definitely seemed, ahem, intriguing ... AR: I thought someone was trolling us with these flavors. Grapefruit and curry? Artichoke and nutmeg? Earl Grey and peaches? None of these combinations sound appealing in the least. EM: As if someone pulled random ingredients out of a hat. AR: But we are professionals, so we bravely ventured into the flavor wilderness. And I actually found the Earl Grey and peaches one the best! I thought the subtle bergamot and fruit played the best off the nutty rice bran oil. EM: I liked the habañero and dill, I think. Relatively speaking. Maybe it appealed to me just because the flavors actually tasted recognizable. As opposed to mustard and apple, which was so bland. AR: Mustard-flavored mayo confused me categorically. Also, where was the regular mayo? Or, you know, ketchup? Come on. EM: If San Francisco can ban Styrofoam, can it also please ban truffle oil? Who keeps spreading the myth that it’s acceptable? AR: I would second that. The truffle and parmesan was all truffle oil flavor. And the grapefruit-curry mayo was just an overwhelming hit of curry powder. EM: Let’s never speak of it again. AR: We can speak about the bitterballen ($8) that accompanied it. EM: What are bitterballen, exactly? AR: They’re a Dutch drinking snack, basically deep-fried balls of beef gravy. I had them the week before at the new gin bar Whitechapel and they were delicious there. They were a bit undercooked here, though. EM: Only in this city would bitterballen be “having a moment.” AR: We need one more to officially call it a trend. San Francisco restaurants, you have another six weeks. EM: Within six weeks people will be reinventing the bitterballen. AR: Deconstructed bitterballen. EM: Mission Chinese Bitterballen Burrito. AR: But despite all the food shortcomings, people seemed happy at Fine Mousse!
EM: That they did. AR: Champagne makes people happy, I guess. What did you think of the crowd? EM: It was overwhelmingly female. AR: Like, 10:1. I did see an awkward date situation on that one random couch near the door. The couch is a cozy idea in theory, but there wasn’t anywhere to balance food or Champagne flutes. EM: There was a bar, but it was just, literally, a bar: There were no bottles behind it. AR: I was surprised that it was so packed. Sadly, it didn’t live up to its promise. EM: I wondered if maybe some people wandered in thinking they could find a wash-and fold, and then were like, “Eh, what the heck, I’ll have some Champagne.” AR: That blue awning out front decorated with bubbles definitely did scream “laundromat.” EM: All idea, zero execution. AR: The weird part is that the owner, Jake Hajer (Woodhouse Fish Co.), seemed to have such a clear vision. What a missed opportunity. EM: Talking about this has given me a french fry craving. Where would you go for actually good fries in this city? AR: Well I’m a little obsessed with the fries at Souvla — they’re twicefried and then topped with olive oil, lemon juice and Mizithra cheese for a really nice balance of acid and fat. I always love Zuni’s famous tangle of shoestring fries. For Belgian-style, Frjtz is pretty solid, and the duck fat fries at Bourbon Steak are the stuff of legend. EM: I’ll be interested to see how Fine Mousse does. For now, maybe the novelty of it is enough to drive business. But I’d bet that soon enough the residents of San Francisco will develop an extremely low tolerance for subpar bitterballen.
“Mustard-flavored mayo confused me categorically. Also, where was the regular mayo? Or, you know, ketchup? Come on.” Anna Roth, Eat Up columnist