Delectable, hearty haute Asian fusion dishes. Clubby, seaside modernity in deep mahogany, mauve and ochre. Ondine, the bayside restaurant where Marilyn Monroe and Alfred Hitchcock used to hobnob over haute French cuisine, has recently traded 20 years of dusty shut-down torpor for lots of sleek, dark wood, deep mauve curtaining, and lusty, delicate Asian cuisine. The result is a warm, sophisticated SOMA supper-club feel. If the restaurant were actually in SOMA, it would be a haven of cozy cush, but seeing as it is poised on a Sausalito jetty with a 180-degree view of San Francisco Bay, it's more of a Northern California fantasy come true.
Nothing is bad.
The service is such that you never have to pour your own Pellegrino. The tables are large enough for even the broadest set of elbows. The wine list is long, heavily Californian and stocked with plenty of odd varietals. Waiters have an intuitive sense of wine pairings. Even the blended hot teas are subtle and delicious.