Cox Review: Silvers gets homey

Pappardelle with beef brisket at Three Squares Cafe in Santa Rosa. (Jeff Kan Lee/ The Press Democrat)

Santa Rosa chef’s latest restaurant incarnation, the Three Squares Cafe offers great comfort food

Josh Silvers looked around his reinvented Three Squares Café that was once Syrah and then Petite Syrah, and declared with satisfaction that it is now “heymish,” a Yiddish word that means homey.

Silvers reinvented himself first. He says he looked in the mirror a while back and didn’t like the weight he’d put on. So a diet of wholesome food in reduced portions and an exercise regimen has reduced his waist size and his stress level.

While Silvers’ new dishes are as delicious as ever, he has stepped away from the frippery of the past and now concentrates on delivering comfort food with great taste. It’s an American and, well, homey style of cooking, but done with a master chef’s sensibility. The effect is as though Silvers took a great big deep breath and relaxed.

Stop in for breakfast and you’ll find all the usual items, plus a hangtown fry omelet with fried oysters, bacon and green onion. Make breakfast simple with coffee and an incredibly good house-made sticky bun. You don’t have to be Jewish to love matzo brei — a softened cracker scrambled with eggs and served with a potato pancake, sour cream and apple sauce. The French toast is deep fried, so it’s crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside. And just imagine the pleasure of hot biscuits fresh from the oven served with house-made sausage and gravy.

Silvers offers healthy lunches, like a TQWAF salad ($6.95 **) of tomato, quinoa, watermelon, arugula and feta cheese. Flavorwise, it gallops off in all directions at once, but it sure makes a wholesome lunch. For sheer comfort fare, it’s hard to beat the New York street-food classic of an Italian sausage sandwich with fried peppers and onions. Besides the mandatory hamburger, served with secret sauce, Kennebec fries, and house-made pickles, there’s a good-looking Oyster Po’ Boy that comes with bacon remoulade and cole slaw.

Decorations at Three Squares include artifacts from Silvers’ parents and a photo of his mom in Venice. Wines are plentiful and well-chosen. A glass of 2007 Cigare Volant from Bonny Doon Vineyards is $12 and a glass of the 2010 A. Rafanelli Zinfandel is $13.

Each table has a tray of condiments: Sriracha, mustard, Tabasco sauce, ketchup and salsa picante.

The dinner menu offers treasures. Finally, here’s a correct Caesar Salad ($5.25 ****), perfect in every detail and so scrumptious you realize why this simple salad has been so highly praised over the decades.

Appetizers include Spiced Roasted Chickpeas ($5.95 **½), an interesting snack with cumin and chili powder coating the garbanzos. Broc-a-mole ($8.95 **½) is like guacamole, but with pureed broccoli to give it a healthier twist.

We’ve all had shrimp cocktails, but you may never have had one like this Prawn Cocktail with Damn Good Cocktail Sauce ($14.95 ****). After he shucks out five fat Gulf prawns, the shells go into boiling water. The prawns are deveined and butterflied, then they go into the hot water, too, which is taken off the fire. Within a few minutes, the prawns are gently cooked until just done, so they are relaxed and not curled into tight circles, which is a sign they’ve been cooked too hard. Then they go into the fridge to cool. The cocktail sauce blows horseradish’s fire up the back of your nose, but a good sting is what you want. It is the best seafood cocktail sauce I’ve ever had.

Pappardelle with Beef Brisket ($9.95 half; $16.95 full ***) is laced with mushrooms and a dollop of sour cream. The brisket is cooked long and slow and the wide, flat noodles absorb the dark meaty juices. Chicken Pot Pie ($14.95 **½) is a bowl of light refreshment with fresh peas, bits of carrot, clear chicken broth and tender chunks of chicken white meat under a top crust.

The special on a recent Thursday was three pieces of Fried Chicken ($22.95 ***) with yogurt mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. Other nightly specials are liver and onions on Tuesdays, spaghetti and meatballs on Wednesdays, cioppino on Fridays, pork chops on Saturdays and prime rib on Sundays.

Desserts are all house made by Pam Wilson, including the ice creams. Blueberry Pie ($7.95 **½) was a thick mass of cooked blueberries and a good, flaky crust.

To sum up: Old-fashioned American cooking done by a chef who obviously loves it, but in moderation.

(See more photos of Three Squares Café)

(Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.)