Trip to Chez TJ

NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 22:43:05 GMT
Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu ba.food:78904

Wrote this up Saturday night after dinner at Chez TJ:

Just came back from a nice meal at Chez TJ. Had long been wondering about this place, more or less from the day I moved to the bay area. Finally got the chance to try it. Company holiday party.

For those who don't know Chez TJ, it occupies a converted Victorian house in downtown Mountain View and serves upscale food, I guess Calfrench cuisine but there were no chartreuse wax beans or yellow eggplants. Comfortable and relaxed place to eat, good food.

It was a prix fixe affair, with an amuse bouche, appetizer course, seafood course, meat course, salad, and then dessert and coffee. Several choices for each course, a wine pairing with the appetizer, one with the seafood course, and one with the meat.

I went with the custard of foie gras with white truffle essence, quince and habanero relish; the grilled dayboat scallops with root vegetables and chive oil; crispy braised sweetbreads with porcini mushroom emulsion; petite organic lettuces with banyuls vinaigrette; and cream beignets: light beignets of pate au choux filled with vanilla mascarpone cream.

I also got to try pretty much everything on the menu from one friend or another enjoying in particular the roasted butternut squash soup with glazed chestnuts and pumpkin seed oil and the fried strawberry fritters for dessert.

Everything was competently prepared using good ingredients, nothing made me sit up and take notice. I expect that from one dish or another at a place of this style so was somewhat disappointed. Portion sizes were not huge, but were enough to get a good sense of each dish and all told ended up being enough food.

Was also disappointed that they did not have their usual option of a cheese course instead of the salad. Apparently they were out of cheese.

But the foie gras custard was very good, albeit not very foie gras flavored --- tasted more of the white truffles and, well, I'm a sucker for that. The earthy truffle flavoring was much deeper and stronger than I had expected. Sweetbreads were nice and crispy on the outside and smooth on the inside, the rich mushroom sauce worked well with them.

Desserts seemed to be the strong point, the pastry chef obviously enjoys his work. Quite a variety, most fairly elaborate. Tasted real good too.

I enjoyed the red wine (a 1999 Armand Roux, Verdilliac Bordeaux), didn't much enjoy the whites, but I never really enjoy whites.

Service was subpar and a little dour. Maybe that's to be expected when serving a large group like that in a private party situation. Didn't really put a damper on my evening but it would have if the service were the same at an intimate dinner for two.

This would have been $89 per person plus tax and tip if I were paying for it. Sounds around right for what we got. The prix fixe menu is $65 without the wine pairings and they have two less expensive prix fixe menus as well.

This is Chez TJ, 938 Villa St., Mountain View. 650.964.7466. Good web presence with complete menus and some recipes at <http://www.cheztj.com>.

And added the following addendum after work Monday:

Just want to add a little to this. Spoke to the fellow here who settled the check with them and he was pretty pissed about the whole thing. They charged us for one more setting than ate there, they charged tax on the tip, did another thing or two I can't recall. A few minutes of arguing about the bill took $800 off it.

You'd think they'd know better than to piss off corporate customers who might return some day.

He also told me that the wine was supposed to be unlimited. That had never occurred to me --- I had thought it was what they poured you and that was it. The waitstaff certainly never offered me a second glass of any of the wines.