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.

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.