Avenue G's San Francisco Cuisine Needs a Road Map

Even while fighting a driving rain with an inadequate cheap umbrella, walking up from the Financial District into the heart of North Beach is pretty damn delightful. Along the way, you pass interesting architecture, the venerable and essential City Lights bookstore, and countless eateries ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Daniel Patterson's rigorous and inventive Coi is hidden mere steps away from tourist traps complete with carnival barkers posted outside.

This rainy night I'm headed to a newish place for dinner. Avenue G opened at this location in March, closed in May, and recently reopened after renovations. It's in a choice corner spot on Washington Square that previously housed the old-school La Felce. You walk into a nice barroom. On the right, through an opening, is an urbane dining room, nicely done, if somewhat characterless, with a mirror stripped along one long wall, tall and comfortable leather chairs, and white table linens. You could be almost anywhere, though the menu opens with a lengthy and slightly embarrassing paean to San Francisco and, incidentally, itself. "Avenue G," it says, "captures the essence of San Francisco cuisine. Like the city itself, it takes the rich traditions of Asia, Europe, Latin America, and California, and transfigures them into something unique with respect, authenticity, and love."

This worries me. The dreaded word "fusion" hasn't popped up. Yet I'm sensing confusion, especially when the introduction continues: "San Francisco cuisine is hard to characterize ... the essence of San Francisco food is elusive, floating on a vast culinary landscape between clam chowder in bread bowls and the world's most expensive haute cuisine." Clam chowder in a bread bowl is an embarrassment, and San Francisco doesn't even boast the United States' most expensive haute cuisine, thank goodness — that would be New York — much less the world's most costly, which can be found in, oh, London, Paris, Zurich, and probably Dubai. But definitely not in San Francisco.

And the essence of San Francisco cuisine today, I would say, is — you've heard this before — ingredient-based, fresh, seasonal, and increasingly local. Avenue G's menu is all over the map, literally. The starters alone reference China (spring rolls), the Philippines (pork adobo-filled profiteroles), Peru (seviche), Japan (sashimi), Vietnam (raw beef with lemon), and Italy (a mixed antipasto of eggplant rollatini, prosciutto-stuffed mushrooms, and something called prawn scampi, which is almost like saying shrimp shrimp). And for a place that exalts San Francisco, Avenue G ought to be ashamed of the dull, puffy, fake bread it serves, the kind that compresses down to nothing, unlike sturdy San Francisco sourdough. It's served slightly warmed, with a ramekin of butter that has picked up that unfortunate whiff of the refrigerator.

We choose to begin with the sea bass seviche, the duck spring rolls, and a Dungeness crab pot pie. From the short (about a dozen reds, and an equal number of whites), pricey, and eclectic (Chile, Spain, and Germany, as well as France and Italy) wine list, we choose from the low end: a reasonable M. de la Fruitière Muscadet ($24). The duck spring rolls — five small, tightly wrapped cigars — bear little of the fragrance of their promised five-spice, but they come with a pleasant sweet coleslaw, displaying little of the sesame flavor mentioned on the menu. But it's fun to pile a bit of the slaw on the spring rolls and crunch away; they're easy to eat.

A generous portion of seviche comes in a big white bowl. Its ingredients, including diced sea bass and larger chunks of sweet potato, float in a broth of lime juice, cilantro, and rocoto chile, a new one on me — a Google search tells me it's a South American chile pepper related to the habanero, but Google also says it's Mexican. And mild. Or moderate. Or quite hot. Whatever. The ceviche is pretty mild, anyway, both in heat and in flavor.

Were it not for the unexpectedly dazzling Dungeness pot pie, I'd call our first course dull. But the pie, though it looks humble in its little institutional metal pan, with a homey-looking topping of puff pastry, is actually delicious. An extravagance of lumped crabmeat and mushroom duxelles floats in a rich, creamy sauce, which had about double the amount of red pepper flakes in it for my taste, but what the hell: I can't stop eating it. My friends agree that it's the star of the starters.

We continue on our map quest: Brazilian wild sea bass feijoada, Catalan salmon and crispy prawns, and stuffed pork Valdostana. The last was chosen over Korean glazed beef short ribs, Oaxacan grilled Angus ribeye, and spicy tandoori chicken curry when I asked our server what she recommended among the meat dishes after I was told that the Guinness-braised lamb shank I had my eye on was not available that night.