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The finest meal in the South Bay Sheila
Himmel The last time I'd been to Le Papillon, little things had gone wrong. Chef Scott Cooper's French menu with Asian touches was not all that it could have been when served with less-than-fresh bread and a couple of delivery glitches. Flash ahead four years. Glitches gone. While a few Asian touches peek through, mainly the food is contemporary French. And these days, Le Papillon offers as perfect a meal as you're going to get in the South Bay. The stepson of owner Mike Mashayekh, Cooper started at the bottom. At 14, he washed dishes at Le Papillon. Later he started cooking at La Forêt, the Almaden Valley restaurant Mashayekh co-owns with John Davoudi. Ten years ago, Cooper came back to Le Papillon and began to stretch his open mind. Cooper has never been to culinary school yet he comes up with a menu that's delicious just to read. Check out the appetizers on the winter menu. From pan-seared foie gras with roasted pear, lavender reduction and black truffle coulis ($21) to Dungeness crab cocktail with avocado, grapefruit and pepper-vodka tomato water ($11), difficult choices present themselves. Lobster bisque with an asparagus timbale ($11) was so richly reduced, you could taste the shells. An asparagus tip and a piece of lobster topped the timbale, an ethereal molded custard. Lobster and asparagus, with their little encores on top, balanced each other perfectly. From an equally impossible list of entrees, I chose braised breast of duck with gingered orange glaze and wild rice crepe ($28). The server didn't ask if fairly rare was how I wanted it done, with a comma of fat on each deeply flavored piece. But it was. This vast improvement on duck à l'orange came with a crepe purse filled with nutty wild rice, carrots and celery. Tied at the waist with a green onion drawstring, the crepe could be punctured for easy eating. Entrees continued with spice-seared pork tenderloin with a yam timbale and red onion marmalade ($26), grain mustard-crusted rabbit with golden chanterelles and tarragon jus ($27), ginger-glazed salmon on a fresh corn pancake with verjus and kumquat glace ($28). And on up to: roasted veal loin topped with butter-poached lobster in chive jus ($48). Ah, but then you'd miss the pan-roasted rib-eye of buffalo on the five-course tasting menu ($65). Both Le Papillon and La Forêt go out of their way to offer game and specialty meats. The winter tasting menu started with an eye-catching lobster tart. Puff pastry laid the foundation for pieces of sweet lobster, chopped fennel and a little shrimp mousse, all drizzled in pumpkinseed oil and topped by a heap of nutty microherbs. Then came a Dungeness crab souffle that made up in pure crab flavor what it lacked in size. I could have downed another of these souffles, beautifully accented by lemon sauce on one side and saffron sauce on the other. Like the best short stories rather than a long-winded novel, these courses leave you wanting to come back -- not wondering ``when will this all end?'' Next up was about half a grilled quail. Though it sounds like less than nothing, Cooper dresses numerous pieces of juicy breast meat and a leg with applewood-smoked bacon and a tuft of frisée salad in balsamic vinaigrette. The quail rests on a green lentil (the tiny French lentil) pancake. Fabulous. Buffalo got to strut its lean, low-cholesterol stuff in a terrific marrow reduction. A herd of button shiitake mushrooms added earthiness. A refreshing cheese course took us by surprise. (Le Papillon always includes something with cheese as a bonus in its tasting menu, which doesn't count as one of the five courses.) This was a mildly spicy blue castello tart, served with thin slices of poached apple. Finally, desserts did not disappoint. With the tasting menu came a poached pear atop a mascarpone tart with vanilla Sauternes syrup. Back in the land of choosing for yourself, we nabbed a vanilla custard crepe surrounded by lemon butterscotch sauce ($7). In addition to the cheese course, the chef always sends out little treats before and after dinner. On this night, it was an aged Gouda puff topped with smoked duck and a finger sandwich of goat cheese, roasted peppers and olive to start and fresh toffee to finish. Le Papillon, in business since 1977, has long been known for its wine list. Diners tend to study the list and ask questions. Such as, What are the differences between these six vineyards of Chardonnay from Napa Valley's Patz & Hall? More than 525 wines make the list. Also nice for tables of two, there are lots of half-bottles. We had a fine '99 Grgich Hills fumé blanc ($14), served just cold enough to savor its grassy, fruity flavors. Le Papillon is laid out like a house. You walk into a spacious entry and leave your coat. Many people proceed straight ahead to the bar, the rest to romantic, rather hushed dining areas on the left, separated by sliding French doors. The main dining room's centerpiece is a gigantic flower arrangement, recently dominated by calla lilies. On the far side are the restrooms. Fresh flowers will be there, too, and usually there's an orchid on the table. The building started life as a Heidi's Pie Shop, then a division of Sambo's. In keeping with those humble roots, 85-seat Le Papillon is also comfortable. But signs attempt to maintain decorum: ``Please refrain from using cellular phones in the dining room,'' and ``Proper attire is required.'' Still, a traveling businessman dining alone phoned home to describe in detail what he was eating. A teenage boy was seated in shorts, a couple of men in jeans. I would have huffed about violations of the rules, but I was too busy enjoying my meal.
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