Le Bateau Ivre Cafe - 2629 Telegraph Ave

The Drunken Boat is at this point the furthest we've gone on our project, and we were excited to be so close to campus - if a little afraid of a French place that's probably been around for 30 years, with a sign boasting brunch, lunch and dinner - could they really do all three well?

We went in after 9 for dinner and were pleasantly surprised by the atmo. This apparently used to be a house and reminded me of being in Europe somehow, and since Partner in Chow and I both love classical music we enjoyed the soundtrack. We sat in the restaurant side, which is apparently different than the Cafe side.

We were seated right away and had no issues with service, but of course we went in pretty late and there were only a couple other tables. Our waiter was super nice and really attentive, and though the Yelp folks are noting some incredibly bad service (which I myself have zero patience for) we had a great experience here.

What we ordered: crabcakes, lobster bisque, cheese baked in a pastry thing (this is named something en croute or some such), red trout spread with bread, Chimay (bonus points for having Chimay on the menu)
Service: attentive, friendly
Atmo: sparse but Euro-friendly - tablecloths, but it's in an old house and it feels like it.
Crowd: old-School Berkeley - this seems like a place that kids who grow up in Berkeley frequented with their parents or grandparents, and then bring their kids to when they grow up.
Spent: around $50.00
Overall rating: 4 sporks

We really enjoyed Le Bateau Ivre, though we didn't order an entree. I'm a person who enjoys doing Appetizer Explosion rather than meals, and this menu made that possible. Also, this place was really reasonably priced - the crabcake plate had 2 huge cakes on there with big chunks of crab and fennel over salad, and they were like $9. These were the single best plate of crabcakes I've had in California, ever. They may be the best crabcakes I've ever had period, and I've eaten them in D.C. and Maryland and in various other places where crabcakes are supposed to be great.

The reason they were so good was threefold: (1) The crab was extremely fresh, (2) The crab was the star of the show and in big lumps, (3) I love fennel, and it paired well with the crab. These were rustic, homestyle crabcakes that fell apart when you put a fork in them. Fine by me - that just means there's a shit-ton of crab in there.

The smoked red trout spread was really salty and trout-y. It was a little intensely flavored for me (kinda just too fishy), but smoked fish in general is just a little fishy for me, and I knew that going in so I'm hesitant to fault the spread. We lucked out and got super fresh bread straight out of the oven (mmm) so we used that rather than the toasties that came with it.

The lobster bisque tasted like LOBSTER. Big capital letters. This was not your watered-or-creamed-down version that tastes like generic cream base with a hint of lobster; this tasted more like a lobster than lobster meat. Impressive.

So the bisque was freaking delicious, but right on the cusp of being more like a sauce than a soup. PIC has bad memories of the generally well-loved Martini House due to them over-concentrating their flavors and serving soups that tasted like sauces, but this one was just soup-y enough to pass with her.

Brie baked in pastry: hard not to enjoy this calorie explosion, if you're into that sort of thing. PIC is most definitely into that sort of thing and enjoyed this quite a lot.

Overall, the food here has concentrated flavor and good-sized portions for what you're paying, at least on the appetizer menu. The plates were overflowing with salad, etc and could have easily been much larger plates.

I really like eating in restaurants that have been around for a long time, the same way I enjoy living in Victorians and buying mid-century furniture. We didn't know what we were in the mood for that night, so finding an old-school Berkeley institution that happened to serve quality French food for reasonable prices was a nice surprise. We sat in the front window and had a nice cozy late supper, listening to classical music and enjoying a strong Belgian beer. That's just good eats.

We'll be back. I'm interested in trying brunch on the patio, as brunch outside is a hard thing to find in Oakland.