Restaurant Review: Heaven's Dog 1.29.09

I had the unfortunate circumstance on Thursday of arriving over an hour early for my dinner reservation at Heaven’s Dog, the new Charles Phan (of Slanted Door) resto opened two weeks ago on Mission between 7^th and 8^th. Blame it on my having a more “nebulous” schedule than normal and the walk from Hayes Valley being surprisingly brief.

So I did what any normal girl about town would do in my place. I went to the bathroom once. Then I found a little corner around the block to do a few minutes of sun salutations and yoga poses (get the blood flowing before dinner). I tried to stand in the breezy concrete courtyard in front and catch up on phone calls but that was curtailed by a dying battery that raised my blood pressure with every beep (I have a dark past of crying when my cell phone dies). So I left the courtyard with its tall grassy plants and stainless steel furniture and I went to the bathroom again. Then, with no other fun ideas, I planted myself at the bar and got to watching.

The tree trunk slab that is the bar I stood at is the one natural or organic element of the décor at Heaven’s Dog. The industry of the place comes through techno beats like a Nintendo game on the sound system and waiters buzzing around with their eyes down or straight ahead. Is standing at a bar alone drinking lemon water with perfectly cubed ice (sure enough, I read online today that the staff has a self-proclaimed “emphasis on quality ice”) the new undiscovered stress reliever we’ve been searching for? Or was it just Heaven’s Dog?

The methodology of the head bartender hypnotized me, like when she taught her staff how to maneuver a lemon twist for a Sidecar just right; I wanted her to teach me. When I could stand it no more I ordered drink numero uno on the cocktail menu, the Biarritz Monk Buck, named for the Monks who make the enchanting yellow Chartreuse liqueur at a single monastery in France. The BMB combined this pee-yellow herbal nectar with Pellehaut Armagnac, organic ginger and lemon. Dangerously drinkable; I tried to pace myself although I wished I was a big hulking man with a high tolerance so I could go for drink #2 ; I would have ordered a simple Greyhound to take advantage of HD’s organically grown fresh-pressed grapefruit juice. Despite having a supposedly celeb-level bar advisory committee, I appreciated the simple, unpretentious wine list; for example, you could order a glass of “Chardonnay (mostly)” from New Zealand for $6.50.

And then my girlfriends showed up. When you are led away from the bar and into the dining room, the light is kicked up to the brightness of a middle school lunchroom. The ceiling also drops to a white foam core mess a few feet above head level that hints at an airport terminal. Or is it a scene from the Office?

We asked our very agreeable waitress what the most popular menu items were and I chuckled when she listed off about every item on the menu that I wouldn’t have chosen myself. It made me wonder about my general taste in food until I reminded myself that these dishes were winning a two week long test of popularity. We ordered the standard gamut of a couple appetizers, a couple wok dishes, and one noodle dish.

I can’t say the food was remarkable enough to warrant much discussion. Highlight of the meal definitely goes to a waiter accidentally bringing us a second plate of the wok-sizzled spicy green beans with Szechwan pickles and red chilies-- favorite dish of the night till that point and he let us have it for free when we told him we hadn’t ordered it. Other than that, only report back is really enjoying the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc we ordered (another New Zealander: Murdoch James- Martinborough “Blue Rock”).

Man, this is the first restaurant review on my new food blog and most of my notes from the night were about the drinks. What kind of mood was I in?? I think the most euphoric moment of the evening at Heaven’s Dog was when the bartender refilled my glass of ice water with lemon not twice but thrice without my having to lift my gaze from the tree trunk. Showing up with an hour to kill wasn't so unfortunate after all --might be my new favorite approach to de-stressing from a day of work (wink/oops)!