Situated across from the KFC and just inside the San Ramon border, Incontro Ristorante is a relative newcomer to the San Ramon restaurant scene and located as it is, in premises that has seen a multitude of restaurants fail, it seemed that opening yet another Italian restaurant was a brave move.
But owners Gianni Bartoletti and Luigi Troccoli obviously knew what they were doing. Incontro was an immediate hit with San Ramon foodies and if you want to eat here at the weekend, you better call a couple of days ahead for a reservation. This place is popular.

Incontro has an ambience that equals the best in the area, very reminiscent of a quality restaurant in Europe. This, combined with authentic, well prepared Italian food and attentive but unobtrusive service is the secret of its success.

Sylvia and I recently visited Incontro on a Tuesday evening in June. On entering, we immediately got a feeling that this was a cut above the average San Ramon restaurant. The combination of attractive surrounding with wood paneling and subtle pale yellow walls and a quiet buzz, even though only a few tables were occupied, was very encouraging.

For an appetizer, we shared the house salad - baby spinach with bell pepper, goats cheese, toasted almonds and a balsamic vinaigrette. This was the perfect appetizer and one portion was just about right to share.

Moving on to our main courses, Sylvia had a flatiron steak with a port wine sauce which came with sweet and sour onions. The texture was firm, rather than chewy and the flavor of everything was superb. I went for the pan seared duck breast which was served with an Italian grape must reduction. Possibly served a little too pink for some people, this is exactly how duck breast should be in my opinion and this is one of the best I have ever tasted. It was absolutely outstanding. We accompanied this with an excellent bottle of Verdicchio from their predominately Italian wine list,

Now as regular readers know, we don’t often do dessert but we made an exception in this case having spotted a Panna Cotta on the dessert menu. Italians seem to understand desserts better than most. For those who don’t know, Panna Cotta is an eggless Italian vanilla custard and in this instance it was served with a wild cherry preserve. This is not an overly sweet dessert but the flavors are just phenomenal. The perfect end to an excellent meal. Try it and you’ll like it! We will be back. Find out more at their web site at www.IncontroSanRamon.com.

Proposed legislation that could save you money.

Over the last few days, CNBC as well as many other financial news sources have published articles suggesting that the White House and Congress are no longer questioning whether or not to increase the conforming loan limits, but rather for how long. As of right now, it is almost certain that conforming loan limits in high-cost areas will increase between 150-175% (from the current $417,000 to as much as $729,750). As I write this, the bill has passed through the House of Representatives and is on it's way to the Senate, for the final stamp of approval.

How would this benefit you?

As an example, based on today's mortgage rates, you could save up to 1.00%, in comparison to today's Jumbo loan rates! The current debate is whether this increase will be temporary for one year, two years, or be permanent. The final decision may not come until March; however, I wanted to share this important news with you now because it could provide you an incredible opportunity, especially with the recent drop in rates.

Recent rate cuts from the Fed

Interest Rates are at the lowest they have been in years. Last week, the Federal Reserve made an historic 0.75% point cut, followed by an additional .50% this past week. That's 1.25% in 8 days!
The people who will benefit the most when this legislation passes are those who owe more than $417,000 on their current mortgage and those looking to purchase a new home or investment property in California. Once the new conforming limits go into effect, I anticipate the housing market heat up, the stock market to improve, and there will be a huge refinance boom. Be prepared and plan ahead. Banks are going to be overwhelmed. The turn time's from application to close could become anywhere from 30 to 45 days.

Plan ahead

If you are planning to take advantage of the pending higher conforming loan limits and the historically low interest rates, I highly suggest you start getting your paperwork ready now. I will be happy to arrange for a complimentary mortgage evaluation from one of my trusted loan specialists to see how much money you will save as a result of this legislation.

Please start getting together the following items if you plan on refinancing or purchasing soon:

- Pay Stubs (most recent, 1 full month)
- W2's (most recent, 2 years)
- Bank Statements (most recent, 2 months, all account)
- Retirement and Portfolio Statements (most recent, 2 months, all accounts)
- If you are self-employed: Federal Tax Returns (most recent, 2 years)

Tucked away in a strip mall across from the San Ramon Safeway shopping center, Café Esin is not particularly impressive from the outside, seeming very much like a run of the mill eating place, typical of the San Ramon Valley. As soon as you walk through the door though, you are in for a big surprise.
First of all, the small front entrance conceals a spacious interior with multiple eating areas, all extremely tastefully decorated in pleasing earth tones and with attractive art work adorning the walls.
Whenever you go, it will most likely have many of the tables occupied, for this is a restaurant that is well known to San Ramon residents and one that has one countless awards. Reservations here really are a must!

Chef-owner run restaurants often impress more than others and this is no exception. The brainchild of husband and wife team Curtis and Esin deCarion, Café Esin consistently delivers the highest quality food at reasonable prices in one of the most inviting restaurant locations in the San Ramon Valley.
On a recent visit in January, my wife, Sylvia and I braved torrential rain to dine here and we anticipated a low attendance due to the weather. This was not the case. During the course of our meal, every table was occupied.

The menu here seems typically Californian style cuisine with a subtle middle-Eastern influence. Appetizers include a selection of salads, a couple of soups, including an obviously popular caramelized onion soup and a meze platter including hummus, dolmas and tabbouleh. We decided to share a portion of crispy fried calamari and fennel that was served with a sherry-orange aioli. This was a generous portion and the calamari was fresh and fried in a light, crisp batter. Very tasty.
Moving on to the main course, our choices ranged from risotto and a couple of fish specials to a variety of different steak dishes, loin of lamb, roasted duck breast and one of the house specialties, a pot roast. It must be noted that all of the ingredients here are of the highest quality. Pork and lamb are Niman Ranch and the steaks are either Certified Angus or Niman Ranch. 

Sylvia chose lamb for her entrée. This is certainly her favorite meat when it is of a high quality and properly cooked but one that she is often critical of in restaurants. In this case, there were two kinds of lamb, loin of lamb and lamb chops and they were served with roasted fingerling potatoes and broccolini. Sylvia judged this to be an excellent, perfectly balanced meal with superb flavors.

For my main course, I went for one of the house specials, a chicken breast stuffed with spinach and a trio of cheeses (parmesan, feta cheese and goat cheese) which is then wrapped in filo pastry and baked in the oven. This was served with a roasted tomato coulis over a lemon couscous.
My judgment was very similar to Sylvia’s. My chicken dish brought back memories of Morocco and yet this is a highly imaginative and very satisfying dish.

By now, we were already well-satisfied with our meal, sufficiently so to write an excellent review and typically, neither of us eat desserts. Knowing however that Café Esin has built an outstanding reputation for its desserts, all created by Esin deCarion herself, there was no way we were going to miss out on the dessert course.

Diablo Magazine voted Café Esin’s desserts Best of The East Bay for every year since 2003. They are not wrong. The choice is overwhelming and they all sound wonderful from the bread pudding of the day (served with a brandy sauce), through classic crème brulee to a black bottom white chocolate banana cream tart, baklava and more.

After much deliberation, we decided to share the cheesecake of the day, a chocolate cheesecake with peanut butter swirl. Not only was this phenomenal but the portion was generous enough for two people to enjoy fully.

Café Esin also has a full bar and a good wine list from which we selected a bottle of Hess Chardonnay to accompany our meal.

Café Esin is one of the few restaurants in the San Ramon Valley that I recommend without reservation. If you have not been there, give it a try, but be sure to make a reservation. You can see more about them at their web site at www.cafeesin.com.

You can read more restaurant reviews in my monthly newsletters, which are available online at my web site at www.BernardGibbons.com.

At last it looks like we have a good chance of seeing more movement in the California real estate market this year.

Earlier this week, Governor Schwarzenegger put his support behind the proposition to increase the conforming loan limits to $625,000 for California home loans in a letter to President Bush. Yesterday, Bush announced his support of increasing the conforming loan amount to $625,000 as part of his $150 billion stimulus package. The expectation is that the Stimulus Bill will be fast-tracked through Congress as early as next week and this will quickly be followed by Senate approval.

This means that the conforming limit for California home loans could be increased to $625,000 as soon as next month.

The effect on many potential home buyers as a result of this increase will be significant. First of all, it should create impetus among first-time home buyers who will now be able to afford to get into the home ownership market. And remember that interest rates are still trending downwards which helps everybody.

This will create a knock-on effect as people who are planning to trade up to larger homes will now have a much improved chance of finding a buyer for their existing home more quickly.

Even without this significant change, I have been predicting that homes in Danville, San Ramon and surrounding areas in the San Ramon Valley and Lamorinda would maintain their existing value through 2008 and I also expected to see days on market remain at their present levels. In other words, a static year for real estate in Central Contra Costa County. Now, I expect to see much increased activity, starting with the mid-priced segment of the market (single family homes under $1 million) then spreading to lower and higher priced segments.

Will we see prices increase? Probably not until the excess inventory has been taken up but that could happen fairly quickly, after all, we are coming into Spring which is traditionally the busiest time of year for home sales. Certainly by the time we get through the Summer, I would expect to see at least a modest increase (say at the rate of 5% per year).

Whatever happens now, this has got to be the best possible news for the real estate market in the San Ramon Valley.