Castro Street in Mountain View, an early adopter of the
restaurants-bring-people school of urban redevelopment, once was known for its
variety and quality of Asian foods. Now the street travels more to Europe. Did
it need another orange-washed outlet of northern Italian cuisine with a wee
bit of French?
Of course not. But after a year and a half, Vaso Azzurro has settled into a
comfort zone that apparently was needed all along. Early on a recent Saturday
night, young families and older Theatreworks-goers dominated the scene. Later,
the more nightlife-oriented crowd came in.
Throughout, from the woman on the phone who takes your reservations or
gives directions to the servers and cooks in the open kitchen, you will feel
personally welcome. Owner Gokmen Ekmekci runs the front, while his partner
Metin Demirci heads up the kitchen.
The 80-seat Vaso Azzurro took the place of China Gourmet, just west of the
Caltrain tracks. Most of the fare is as pleasing as the staff. Even when food
falls short, the wine list does its part to put you in a good mood.
For example, the single-vineyard '97 San Felice ''Il Grigio'' Chianti
Classico Riserva ($39). This is one delicious wine, fruity and smooth,
terrific with seafood and veal.
The rest of the list favors varietals to match northern Italian and Provencal
flavors.
Ingots of simple house-made focaccia are served warm, sized and shaped for
dipping in a bowl of herbed olive oil and sauces.
House salad ($3.95) is a large portion of fresh spring mix, lightly dressed
in well-balanced house vinaigrette. Kalamata olives, rings of red onions,
cherry tomatoes and shredded Parmesan fancy it up.
Calamari salad ($6.95) is full of tender rings, cooked perfectly. You have
to chew but not too much. A snappy lemon-herb dressing is dotted with
capers,and tangy arugula makes a nice bed for everybody else. Only the unripe
tomatoes should be shown the door.
Soup of the day ($3.50) recently was a delicately flavored minestrone.
Appetizers sail in the opposite direction, lugging richness in their wake.
Polenta is baked with Gorgonzola and Parmesan cheeses ($7.95). Mussels are
sauteed in garlic butter and served with brandy sauce ($7.95). Oysters are
topped with Roquefort cheese and garlic bread crumbs ($9.95).
Where appetizers should excite your appetite for the main dish, these are
more like cocktail snacks or tapas, a meal in themselves.
Some entrees, however, grow small at Vaso Azzurro. Particularly, the
vegetarian casserole ($10.95), although it was delicious in a light garlic and
vodka juice. (To avoid italics nausea, I am translating menu items. The
vegetarian dish is actually gratinada di vegetali misti.)
Scaloppine di vitello con olive e funghi -- OK, that's it for italics --
also is excellent, but let's call it veal scaloppine ($14.95). Tender veal
cutlets are sauteed in olive oil and finished in Marsala, mushrooms and thyme,
flecked with green olives and capers. (Capers appear frequently at Vaso
Azzurro.) The plate is filled out with nicely roasted potatoes, sauteed baby
bok choy and carrots.
Salmon stromboli ($15.95) is a fresh fillet, poached with white wine and
shallots.
Our only loser was, oddly, the signature fettuccine Azzurro ($13.95). Black
mussels, tiger shrimp and bay scallops were small and flavorless in white
wine, saffron and garlic.
Desserts are very reasonably priced. At most, you'll spend $4.95 for
tiramisu. Zabaglione ($4.50) is more of a custard draped over berries, but it
is laced with Marsala. A terrific house-made cheesecake ($4.50) also tasted of
Marsala, to better effect. You can have chocolate-marble or vanilla.
Smooth cappuccino ($2.50) is a good way to end.
Decor details are less impressive. Orangey walls reach the usual high
ceilings. Some schmaltzy oil paintings of Paris and the Italian coast mess
them up. A sea of blue tablecloths plays off the restaurant's name, which
means ''blue vase.'' Ekmekci got the name from his sister-in-law, an
archaeologist, who told him about wine being served in Pompeii in blue vases.
