Biga on the Banks

Biga on the Banks Restaurant Review:

Bruce Auden, the city’s dean of contemporary cuisine, and his longtime lieutenants keep well-heeled locals and savvy conventioneers coming back for more. If some dishes are immutable, the chicken-fried oysters and the Bibb and radicchio game packets among them, the menu otherwise changes frequently. Grilled ahi may be served with an English pea hummus, a seared duck breast is likely to be presented in a shiitake master sauce, and achiote-roasted pork tenderloin may be elevated by a cinnamon sauce and avocado salsa. The airy dining room with its perch over the River Walk is a fine frame as well for plates such as the Close-to-Bouillabaisse with lobster and a martini rouille. We like the wine list as much for its straightforward eclecticism as for its reasonably gentle pricing. Wines by the glass, poured at the bar with appetizers like pot stickers in a spicy currant sauce, are a pleasant possibility. And we admit to being inordinately fond of the sticky toffee pudding with English custard that betrays the chef’s London upbringing.