Best Soufflés

Café Jacqueline

1454 Grant (at Green), 981-5565

The two major ingredients of soufflés -- eggs and air -- are inexpensive and in great supply, but the skill involved in combining them is apparently not, so soufflés have largely disappeared from the dining scene. Luckily we have an eccentric and cozy spot on upper Grant that not only specializes in soufflés, but also does so to the exclusion of all else: The eatery offers a couple of starter salads and one or two appetizers, such as snails, but those dishes are just there to toy with while the oven does its work, puffing up the main event. Café Jacqueline is an ovo-lacto vegetarian's dream. Besides a couple of shellfish soufflés (crab and lobster), its menu is devoted to seasonal vegetable varieties: broccoli, spinach, mushroom. Our favorites, however, are the dessert soufflés, either the ones made from seasonal fruit or the perennial winner, the orange-scented Grand Marnier.