Bethesda café Saphire shines brightly

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by M.J. Pleasure

Laurie DeWitt/The Gazette (Clockwise from bottom) Yellow and red tomato and mozzarella salad with basil vinaigrette, Argentine skirt steak, seafood crepes with Gruyere sauce and chicken satay with Thai peanut sauce at Saphire Café in Bethesda.

"Finally open" the sign proclaims and a good thing it is. The space that once was Candy Apple Red is now Saphire (sic) blue.

Creative spelling aside, the 3-month-old café displays a couple of virtues: a recently revamped, more family-friendly menu and the availability of that menu into the wee hours when all else around is dark. Offering late-night dining makes sense, considering the café's proximity to several hotels, partner Dan Lopes explains.

Lopes, who grew up in a restaurant family, tends the front of the house, while partner Charlie Ly handles the kitchen. The pair met at Ly's other county venture, the billiard hall-restaurant-café Legends in Wheaton.

The newly updated dinner menu now features nearly a dozen sandwiches, half a dozen entrée-sized salads and a baker's dozen entrees. The idea is to provide something for everybody, grownups and children alike.

You can graze on appetizers such as chicken satay with Thai peanut sauce or crepes with spinach, wild mushrooms and roasted red pepper coulis or dine on filet mignon with bordelaise sauce. And some nights, there's live music, too.

A bar and booths run the length of one room. Tables accommodate about three dozen in the adjacent non-smoking dining room. The décor is muted with a fountain bubbling away at the rear.

Attention is paid to details. The bread basket is filled with wonderful stuff from the District's Lyon Bakery: sunflower seed-topped light wheat, homestyle white with character and raisin-walnut pumpernickel that is almost dessert-worthy. Our amiable servers kept us supplied generously.

With good bread as a basis, sandwiches such as the vegetarian burger with mushrooms and tomatoes on multigrain should be inviting. Yet a colleague is disappointed with the soft, hamburger style roll on her carryout order, while giving high marks to fillings like smoked turkey and Brie with sweet mustard and chicken with feta.

Saphire's salad entrées feature creative combinations like field greens, apples, walnuts and Stilton in a citrus dressing or field greens, pears, pecans and Brie with honey-Dijon vinaigrette. Best of all, dressings are served on the side so diners can tailor their seasoning.

A couple of salads hit the spot recently. Saphire's chicken salad comes to the table as a study in color and texture. Mandarin oranges, cherry tomatoes, red grapes ring a plate of greens that are topped by moist slices of chicken breast. The sesame-ginger dressing is first-rate (an inspiration I'd like to duplicate in my own kitchen). Only the chow mein noodles hit a discordant note.

Saphire's tuna salad Nicoise with red wine vinaigrette does the dish up right, with a generous grilled tuna steak. Grapefruit and rosemary marinated tuna is a revelation also. It is the rare diner who appreciates that good tuna deserves to be grilled rare. Asked how he preferred his tuna, one discerning diner makes the right choice. The tuna arrives seared on the outside and still pink on the inside: perfect. The pineapple-papaya salsa, with it is refreshing and the potatoes and vegetables accompanying it, are crisp, not overcooked.

Vegetarians rejoice! Among the entrees is a pair of Mediterranean vegetable kebabs served over jeweled rice. The red and green peppers and tomatoes are al dente. The accompanying peanut sauce, described as spicy, a relative term, are in this particular instance fairly mild.

Some of the newer additions to the eclectic menu include beef or chicken teriyaki, chicken or shrimp tortellini Alfredo, California salmon with black pepper wine sauce and country fried chicken.

Saphire's five-nut torte (actually a tart) is a real discovery, studded with Brazil nuts, macadamias, almonds, pecans and peanuts. If their other desserts -- classic American chocolate cake and turtle cheesecake -- are of the same quality, this is dessert heaven.

During happy hour, 4 to 7 p.m. weekdays, save 20 percent off the full menu and drink prices. A band plays on Saturday nights, a DJ on Thursdays.

The café has a pleasant fenced deck out back on which you can relax and forget that you are in busy Bethesda.

Saphire

7940 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda

Hours: Monday-Friday 11:15 a.m.-1 p.m.; Monday-Thursday 4 p.m.-midnight, Friday-Saturday noon-1:30 a.m., Sunday noon-12:30 a.m..

Entrée prices: $7.95-$15.95

Credit cards: AE, D, MC, V

Reservations, carry out: 301-986-9708