Best Prix Fixe

Sociale

3665 Sacramento (at Spruce), 921-3200

The tasting menu here, which changes frequently, is four courses (two choices per course) priced at a reasonable $35. (Starters on the regular menu run from $5.50 to $10, pastas from $12 to $18, and main courses from $16 to $24.) We have happy memories of a feast that began with our pick of two salads (fresh asparagus on a bed of mâche or a "Caesar" made with Gorgonzola), followed by oysters or house-made sausage-stuffed pasta, then arctic char on a bed of lentils and shiitakes or grilled New York steak with a goat cheese and potato torta, and finally rhubarb cake or sfingi, a freshly made beignetlike pastry. We had one of everything, and it was all good. The meat and fish portions of the main courses were on the small side, but we still got plenty to eat -- of sophisticated, well-prepared food, at that.