RESTAURANT REVIEW:

One of my first stops when I am in San Francisco is to head to Fisherman’s Wharf and grab a sourdough bread bowl full of steaming clam chowder and go sit by the edge of the dock and watch the boats with Alcatraz in the distance.

The sourdough and the chowder are a perfect mix, and looking out onto the water is the ideal way to begin a trip to one of my favorite cities.

Boudin has been making a majority of those sourdough loaves since 1849 and I can still remember my mother instructing my father to bring home as many as he could carry whenever he would go on business trips.

Those days of searching for the famous bread have passed and fortunately I can easily enjoy it at two locations in Costa Mesa, even if I can’t get the same experience as I get in San Francisco.

The Boudin Bakery and Café at the Metro Pointe at South Coast has always been a convenient place to go for lunch or an early dinner. The menu is fairly limited but does have enough for the second meal of the day.

The most popular item is the clam chowder in a bread bowl. If you want this dish, you should plan on eating early because the restaurant can run out of the bread bowls toward the end of the day.

Also, eating early will ensure the freshest possible bread, since it is delivered from a company in San Diego. That doesn’t make much sense to me since they have a Boudin across the street at South Coast Plaza that makes its own bread, but it probably doesn’t have the capacity to supply the bakery with enough inventory.

The chowder that goes into the bread has a nice mellow flavor that some may not think has enough spice in it. Pepper will fix that.

I did, however think there were too many potatoes in it. There is a decent amount of clams, but the numerous amounts of cut up spuds became cumbersome.

The soup is not the only entrée served in a bread bowl. There’s beef chili and a soup of the day. I like the chili; it’s not too hot and has a nice mix of cheddar cheese and onions.

What has become almost as popular as the bread bowls are the Best of Boudin, which gives diners a choice of two items such as half a sandwich, salads or soup.

That is what my guest got, choosing the spring salad and pesto roast beef sandwich.

The salad is advertised as small, but is generously sized. It has a nice flavor with cranberries and smoky walnuts, apples, a little nutmeg and a balsamic vinaigrette. Inside the sandwich, the pesto mayonnaise had a nice slightly tangy flavor to it, while the roast beef was nice and lean.

My problem was with the bread. The sourdough was so tough I wondered if I was going to break a tooth trying to bite off a piece. My guest gave up and just ate the insides, leaving the nearly stale bread on her plate.

I encountered a similar problem with my Italian classic sandwich. No problem with the inside; the mix of Italian salami, mortadella and provolone was good, as was the combination of Dijon mustard and mayonnaise.

It was the bread that left me stale. Unlike my guest, I fought through it and was able to finish it.

This is a great lunch spot and I want to make it a repeat place, but just don’t want to have to take my chances with the bread.

BOUDIN BAKERY AND CAFÉ

ADDRESS: 901 South Coast Drive, Costa Mesa

PHONE: (714) 557-1849

WEBSITE: www.boudinbakery.com

CUISINE: American

SPECIALTY DISH: clam chowder

ALCOHOL SERVED: none

ENTRÉE PRICE RANGE: $5.59 to $7.79

FAMILY FRIENDLY: yes, separate child’s menu

CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED: American Express, MasterCard and Visa

RATING: ***

JOHN REGER reviews local restaurants and may be contacted at [email protected] or P.O. Box 2984, Seal Beach, CA 90740.