First off, let me compliment this restaurant on its stellar choice of name. As someone who's gone by "Risa" or "Isa" for years and has two very good friends names Marisa and Melissa, I'm a big believer in the fact that nothing ending in -isa can be bad. This French restaurant on Steiner St, close to the heart of the Marina district, looks super small from the front. Once you walk in, there's a smaller and dim dining area and bar. However, the restaurant is very long and once you walk past the kitchen, you get to the back, which is a outdoor deck/patio with lots of tables. In the summer, you can eat there and soak up some sun. In the winter, don't fear, it's covered and has plenty of heat lamps spread about. It's a small plates French restaurant, which was fun. I feel like small plates are always either Spanish, Mexican or American. They use a mix of California ingredients and flavors to create French dishes.
I was able to try bites of a bunch of dishes, so here's my rundown on everything I remember trying. I'm currently loving arugula salads and Isa's arugula salad had fiji apples, mandarin oranges and fennel mixed with a lemon vinaigrette. The apples and oranges added some needed sweetness, the fennel added some crunch and the lemon helped cut the bitterness of the arugula. The baked goat cheese dish used local cheeses and was topped with delicious basil pesto and pinenuts. It is my firm belief that anything with pinenuts cannot be bad. There was also the tuna tartare and the grilled prawns. The grilled prawns were giant and covered with butter and spices, which is the best way to serve them so the actual prawn taste is still distinguishable. Most places in California make a pretty good tartate and they always throw in some avocado. I liked this one because they also added seaweed salad, which was a nice touch. We also tried the Hudson Valley grade A foie gras because I couldn't remember if it was pate or foie gras that I like (turns out it's pate). While this is the best foie gras in all of California, it was still a textural issue for me. Even mixed with crispy pear slices, huckleberries and custard brioche, it just wasn't for me. One of the dishes the waiter recommended was the potato-wrapped seabass, which I didn't try because I don't like cooked fish. However, everyone else at the tabled raved about it and the dish presentation was cool. Another dish that the table raved about even though I didn't try it was the mushroom risotto. If you like mushrooms, this is the dish for you because they pile on baby shiitake, hon shimiji mushroom and reggiano. The roasted chicken was perfectly cooked and good, but there weren't any special flavors that set it apart from any other roasted chicken. My favorite dish was the duck breast topped with huckleberry sauce, with an arugula, beet and goat cheese salad. All of my favorite ingredients on one plate! The flavors were balanced, the duck was tender and the huckleberry sauce gave it an almost rustic feel.
Last but not least, we can't forget about dessert. I tried bites of the vanilla bean creme brulee and the flourless chocolate cake with vanilla bean gelato. I could not get enough of the vanilla bean creme brulee, so I would recommend that one even though both were delicious. Prices are a little higher than your average tapas joint, which was the main downside from my perspective. They do a three course prix fix that may soften the cost a bit. And I think the Spanish do small plates a little better (and a lot more flavor-able) than the French.
