Deep into the second decade of 34th Street’s stint, the café continues to change things up, serving a menu that doesn’t blaze any new trails so much as it shows its ability to keep an ear to the ground. It’s the Huffington Post of restaurants, borrowing from hotter menus around town to produce standard-issue mussels in Southeast Asian-inspired broth, brined pork chops with seasonal vegetables, and that nouvelle rustique denizen, steak frites. Proteins are cooked skillfully—requests to overcook a pork chop to a mid-century-paranoid white may be met with a gentle, and correct, advisory against it. And the judicious amount of, say, buerre rouge or coconut curry, on a beautifully executed salmon is surprising, given the room’s décor is as mid-’90s as an oversauced fish. Avocado and raspberry tones prevail, along with some pastel artwork, giving the restaurant a decidedly white-bread atmosphere.

The wine list makes a respectable effort to offer some excellent, value-priced Grüners, Rieslings, rosés, and Burgundies—when it isn’t scuttling for the safety of mass-approved Californians. But it’s a rather sizeable bill for such an unmemorable meal, and it reminds us of a fortune cookie we once got: Don’t play for safety; it’s the most dangerous thing in the world.