I went on record here saying happy hours were not one of my favorite things. I find it to be the time when most restaurants offer cheap(er), largely uninspired food, bartenders short pour, and diners jostle for the open bar stool.
Ostensibly, it's an opportunity to sample a chef's food at a fraction of the price, although oftentimes the trade-off for half-price plates is smaller portions, drink minimums, and/or loud crowds of other food budget-crunching patrons. So what's the big deal?
Fenouil made a case tonight for me to reconsider my curmudgeonly attitude toward happy hour. Theirs runs from 4-6PM daily. According to French slang, "happy hour" translates as "un cinq à sept," or from 5 to 7PM, a much more civilized period of time, I think.
But that's about my only nitpick. On the menu, chef Jake Martin's small plates were superb across the board. To drink, $5 glasses of red, white, and bubbly from GM Ginger Henderson's wine list. I had the Desert Wind Viognier: fruit-sweet on the front end, with a streak of acidity, it paired well with everything.
caramelized onion tart, whipped brie, herb salad,
toasted caraway
toasted caraway
confit chicken wings, candied garlic, scallion,
sriracha aioli
sriracha aioli
ahi tuna crudo, compressed apples with yuzu, shoyu, white miso
shigoku oysters, cucumber, champagne gelée
pork cheek pot au feu, turnip, carrot, potato
heirloom carrot cake: cream cheese bavarian, braised pineapple, carrot-pineapple sorbet
blood orange polenta cake, lemon curd
crèeme fraiche cheecake, candied lime peel
Desserts were also stellar, if not half-price. Nonetheless, they were worth every bite. The lighter-than-air sponge cake filled with Twinkie-like cream and a quenelle of carrot-pineapple sorbet and baby chard leaves left me breathless for spring.
