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Foodies: Shakewell in Oakland

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Hoke

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Foodies: Shakewell in Oakland

by Hoke » Mon Aug 25, 2014 2:13 pm

On a lightning trip to the Bay, we were treated to a great new restaurant in Oakland. It's called Shakewell, it's on Lakeshore Drive, and you should go there.

With a selection of audaciously seasoned, spiced, and sauced tapas (deviled quail egg, pimento and serrano ham; bacalao croquetas with garlic) and an inspired salad of grilled romaine hearts with boquerones (white anchovies), manchego, pickled onions, avocado and lemon, I ordered an Alpha Amor cocktail, a mix of chamomile-infused tequila, mescal for a touch of smoke, agave, grapefruit and celery bitters, served up in a capacious glass with one single hard ice cube keeping it cold and only slowly diluting the drink. Delicious.

A companion ordered a Lakeshore Cooler, apparently a popular call here since many dotted the tables, looking (and tasting) cool and refreshing in a tall glass filled with cucumber, mint, organic vodka---we are in California, after all---Cocchi Americano, fresh lime and house-made dill syrup. Also delicious.

Delving even deeper into the menu, with a staggeringly good ‘bomba’ rice dish---a paella made correctly with the bomba rice taste and texture and the pan more shallow, making for some succulent ‘crispy bits’ to scrape off the copper pan and crunch on---abundantly studded with chicken and prawns, braised fennel, piperade, tomato and fino sherry; along with a braised pork shoulder (curiously the least exciting but nonetheless tasty item we enjoyed); outrageously tasty grilled shrimp with a Moroccan-spiced dried lime rub and yogurt; and grilled calamari with charred leeks, artichokes, romescu sauce and basil; all accompanied by a huge double helping of grilled broccolini spiced up with bagna cauda and dried chile.

Finally, by way of a showstopper, we ordered the fish dish of the day, a whole wood-oven-roasted snapper-like fish crusted with herbs and spices and aromatically dominating the table. Haven't had a fish prepared quite this well since I was in the Rioja Alavesa (and there's those darned Basque again, eh?). We picked the bones.

...

To accompany this abbondanza and deal with the wondrous spicing and saucing, a veritable barrage of aromas and flavors, we selected two wines from the choice little wine list.

First up was the sturdy, dependable, lean and fizzy and Basque-cider-tart Ulacia Getariako Txakolina. For a pleasant touch (and extra points!) it was served Basque-style as well, which it always should be but seldom is, with the server raising the bottle and lowering the glass simultaneously to elongate the pour and aerate the wine slightly, giving it more effervescent bubbleicity (I made that up just now) and pulling out the aromas and flavors. Not surprising at all that this lean yet fizzy Basque wine handled the food with aplomb, supporting it rather than trying to match it.

Then, wanting something just a bit richer with the large plates, we spied the Rocco del Principe Fiano di Avellino from the volcanic soil of Campania, an outstanding bargain for the savvy winelover, and a perfect wine for this table. Audacious in its clean, stony minerality, with pure laser-focused fruit seeping out around it, the Fiano positively blossoms with lemon and lime and grapefruit and melon and stands up to the spices, playing just as well with the smolder of chile as with the sweet lemon, easily dealing with the usually-wine defying artichoke. An amazing companion to spicy and full-flavored foods, the Fiano doesn’t fight with the flavors, it boosts them, enhances their effect while somehow keeping the palate fresh and clear for the next bright bite.

The desserts at Shakewell show an impressive sensibility, apparently simple, but only apparently, because the desserts adhere to Shakewell’s food philosophy of taking fairly simple flavors and focusing on them with intensity, which is more of a craft or art than fussy, elaborate and multi-level architectural fantasies. We chose a shared plate of the bittersweet chocolate torte---really a line of sumptuously rich bittersweet chocolate offset with the tang of fresh, cool raspberries, and what could be better than that?---supported by richly flavored decaf coffee and one shared glass of Lustau Almacenista sherry.


The whole thing at http://violentfermentation.blogspot.com/2014/08/shakewell-in-oakland-with-three.html

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