Dining with Chef Mark Peel at Campanile

Tonight we went to Campanile to celebrate my cousin Jen's birthday. It felt like we were dining with Chef Mark Peel as he basically greeted us at the door and walked around during out meal to see how we were doing. At the end, my cousin was looking at the menu at the front of the restaurant and he came out again to talk about his Family night dinners for the next month. He said something so poetic...and dangit....I can't remember. He was explaining his choices for the family night meals. January is a great month for seafood and since it is cold, he wanted to combine that with wintery, warm, meals. I think one week was Coq Au Vin with oysters as an appetizer and a chocolate souffle for dessert. Tonight's meal was excellent and since I had the $22 soup kitchen meal, I thought I got my dinner for a steal. We started off with a yummy basket full of La Brea Bakery Bread, probably super fresh from the bakery next door. We shared mussels and a roasted beet salad. My soup kitchen meal came with a soup du jour which was Asparagus. It was pureed to a creamy soup with a very mild asparagus flavor. My entree was the Coq Au Vin....perfectly cooked with the meal just falling off the bone oh-so-tenderly. It was accompanied with pearl onions and chantarelle mushrooms. Everyone else's dishes were tasty as we got a small sampling of each other's menus (Baby Lamb for Angie, Scallops for Jen, and Braised Kurobuta Pork for Masaki). For dessert my meal included a Biscott and some homemade vanilla ice cream. Our server even gave me some extra caramel sauce to drizzle (or douse as Masaki did) onto my ice cream. I think this is my new favorite reliable restaurant. I liked the homey feel (even though the restaurant is kind of fancy inside), the attentive service, the open kitchen where you can watch the chef cooking, and the fact that the chef-owner is so friendly and accessible to questions. I definitely want to go back on a thursday night for grilled cheese night