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Eating a meal composed of cheese is sort of like pigging out at the movie theater: The concept is tantalizing, but inherently less rewarding than a real dinner. Handfuls of popcorn or dairy products always seem to stifle the appetite, leaving you paradoxically hungry and unmotivated to consume any more.
This is usually frustrating more than anything, but at elle: a wine country restaurant, it might not be so bad after all.
The deal: I was never that impressed with elle’s food, but a tempting happy hour deal led us back. From 4:30 to 6:30 nightly, elle serves half-priced bar food and cheese in the bar area. While their bar menu does include a healthy list of appetizers (rock shrimp ceviche, antipasta) and even sandwiches (house-roasted turkey breast sandwich, Angus burger) and salads (chef, Caesar) under the $7 mark during happy hour, it’s important to note that there’s no discount on alcohol. (Shame!)
The food: Since elle is by trade a wine bistro, we decided to stick with the dish these places do best. Not to mention that elle’s cheese plates are abnormally expensive for this town—the cheapest clocking in at $20—so half-price is a welcome offer.
What we learned, though, was that the plates are expensive for a reason: They’re enormous! The wide octagonal plate we ordered came with not only an excessive amount of cheese, but with sesame seed crackers, ciabatta toast, salami, green apples, olives, pickles and a slathering of whole-grain mustard. Admittedly, we might have gone a bit overboard, because we also added the house-made country pate ($2 during happy hour), which came with deliciously slithery pickled red onions on the side.
While there are three cheese plates that ascend in price, our waitress told us we could mix and match and they would price accordingly. She recommended two cheeses off the most expensive menu ($12 during happy hour) and we added a blue Stilton off the middle-grade menu ($2 to add during happy hour).
In all honesty, to really enjoy the cheeses here, you might have to shovel out some dough. The selections on the cheap plate all seemed extremely ordinary: a cheddar from Minnesota, a fresh mozzarella, Asiago, a smoked Gouda, etc. And the blue Stilton we ordered from the middle list was good, but not any better than what you can get at Trader Joe’s.
But the expensive cheeses were extremely delicious. The “red dragon” cheddar with mustard seeds and ale was white and almost mild, but completely infused with the tangy taste of mustard. And the fromager d’affinos from France looked like a standard Brie cheese, but was infinitely softer and sharper at the same time. These two cheeses looked and tasted like they came from a specialty cheese shop.
By the time we finished the hard peppery salamis and cheeses off the plate, we were too stuffed to order anything else. But contrary to our other visits, we were more than satisfied.
Bottom line: While the cheese plate was delicious, I’d be hard pressed to recommend it any other time than happy hour. But that’s all the more reason to take advantage of the discount. Plus, if that doesn’t satisfy you, Century 20 El Con is right down the street….
