American country bistro

Eastside Road, January 29, 2011—

A TYPICAL FRENCH BISTRO in San Francisco yesterday; a typical California bistro in a tiny Sonoma county village today. In fact, it's a bar with an attached dining room whose ambience is, well, plain. Saturday night: lots of locals at the bar, drinking mostly beers. We ate early, so I don't really know how full the dining room got.

The bar's been in town for close to a century, maybe more. Big room, bar on one side, a couple of pool tables; dining room off to the right. The whole place reminded me of my two-room country grammar school, with more interesting bottles. Not much of a kitchen: four burners and a breadboard, oven out of sight. Menu's on a blackboard — an ardoise, as last night's bistro had it — on the wall. You order from the cook, grab a Martini at the bar, and go into the side road to sit at a plain table. The cook brings your dinner.

And what a nice dinner! We went because we've followed this chef, Mark Malicki, for years, from one restaurant to another, usually his own. I'm not sure why he's surfaced out in this remote village, but I'm glad to eat his cooking again. I opened with a variation on "steak tartare with all the fixings," a molded tartare with the capers and onion already integrated — and, oddly but not unpleasantly, pomegranate seeds, lending a healthful touch. The meat, I learned after dinner, was a locally raised veal — actually probably a yearling, what we always called "baby beef" when I was a boy. It sat next to a pool of tasty horseradish cream, and there were plenty of house-made potato chips on the side.

Next came duck again, because I'm in a duck mood these cold days. This was duck breast, beautifully rare, on a bed of big white shell beans and potatoes and kale, with currants. I could happily have had a double order.

Bodega's Casino is a roadhouse, and we decided, the four of us — we ate with a couple of old friends — that we should visit a local roadhouse every three weeks or so. I think it's a nice New Year's project. There are plenty of them around. But I imagine we'll be back here before too many months are out.

Zinfandel, Ravenswood "Vintners Blend", 2008

• Casino Bar & Grill, 17000 Bodega Hwy, Bodega, California; tel. 707-876-3185