All these yellow/brown leaves and near-freezing mornings have me craving carbs and overheated dining rooms. Nothing makes a place hotter than Hell (I mean Hades!) better than bread ovens, right? So on a particularly chilly recent day, a friend and I popped in for a bite at Sage Bakehouse. Inside the small café, there were just a couple of people sitting at teeny-tiny tables lined against the walls as workers banged and clanged in the open bakery kitchen. But it was warm inside and the smell of yeast and raisins and sugar was exactly what we had in mind.
There are five sandwiches ($5.95/whole and $3.25/half) and one soup ($3/cup and $5/bowl) served every day; the sandwiches remain constant and the soup rotates. But looking in the glass-fronted case, it is really, really hard for those sandwiches to compete with the pastries arranged next to them.
I think Sage makes what is arguably the best bread in the state. I love to get slices of their crusty sourdough in the bread basket at restaurants and I often buy the paisano and pecan raisin loaves to take home. But their crusty loaves are much, much better when hot, either fresh from their oven or reheated at home. So it's a real bummer that the sandwiches here are pre-made and kept chilled. They're still good, in fact they're still better than most, but oh! how much more delicious they could be if they were made to order on warm bread.
We tried two the other day, both on high-domed mini paisano loaves. The Black Forest ham sandwich came schmeared with Dijon mayo and stuffed with a modest amount of ham and sliced Gruyère cheese. The other, chunks of chicken with field greens and aïoli, was made munchalicious (yes, I made that up) by the addition of sweet and tangy balsamic onions.
We also tried two soups. The soup of the day was a chunky vegetable that had run low on broth, so they also offered a tomato soup bursting with fresh basil flavor. Both were good, even the chunky vegetable soup that wasn't quite a soup because it had so little broth.
And, because I am a Total Pig, we also ordered sweets. My dining companion, who had at first refused to try my currant scone, did eventually admit that it was the best scone she'd ever had. It was rich, buttery and intense, with a golden exterior that shattered to reveal a lighter interior. Fantastic!
Get a scone no matter what else you do. And do yourself a favor, go on a cold day, perhaps when you're in a foul mood. The warmth, the smell, the food…it will melt you like butter.
The same girlfriend was my lunch date a few days later when I decided to see if Cloud Cliff Bakery, Café, Artspace would satisfy the same "I'm cold and hungry!" problem. The short of the story is: It didn't do the job as well.
Part of the problem is that Cloud Cliff is not what one would call intimate or cozy. The high-ceilinged industrial space is rather dark inside and with all that space allowing heat to rise, it's better suited to summer. Even though the day was chilly, the entry door was kept open, occasionally sending a startling breeze through the dining room.
That being said, I am a fan of the breads at Cloud Cliff. I love their whole wheat and Nativo mini loaves (called Pan Solo!), and the restaurant has a much bigger and more varied menu, including eggs and pancake at breakfast, and a bevy of sandwiches, wraps and blue plates at lunch.
The first dish we ordered wasn't available (they were out of lamb), so from the "World Fusion" section of the menu, we tried the grilled polenta with wilted greens ($9). Mild pieces of polenta were spiced up by tomato and basil sauce, caramelized onions and surprisingly flavorful wilted spinach. We asked them to add a side of chicken sausage ($2.50) and we were happy we'd asked for it; the spicy sausage blended well, making for a satisfying dish.
A special fried green tomato sandwich was seasonal, simple and tasty, just what I had hoped, even if the white bread was nothing special. A dessert of cherry cheesecake disappointed with rubbery topping, overcooked interior and a flavorful but too-dense crust. The chocolate-covered macaroon we ordered looked great on the counter, but never arrived at our table.
That brings up another thing that makes Sage and Cloud Cliff different: service. Sage has only counter service, so there's not much to judge. On the day we were there, Cloud Cliff's table service was not so hot. The sluggishness and forgetfulness of our server had my big-city-bred friend bitching up a storm. Honestly, I was more irritated by her kvetching than by having to flag down the hostess after 10 minutes of waiting to see if anyone would come and take our orders, or by the server forgetting our macaroon (for which we weren't charged). But in combination with the lack of lamb, the rubbery cheesecake and the chilly breeze, we left thinking Sage had won the Santa Fe Bakery Deathmatch.
Sage Bakehouse
535 Cerrillos Road, Suite C
820-7243
Open Monday-Friday 7 am-5 pm,
Saturday 7 am-2 pm, closed Sunday
Cloud Cliff Bakery
1805 Second St.
983-6254
Open Monday-Friday 7:30 am-2:30 pm
(baked goods until 4 pm), Saturday 8 am-2:30 pm
Tell me where to eat! I need your input. Send all of your tips, gripes and raves to food@sfreporter.com.
