06/04/08

Simple is Good

by potatos

If you want the true San Francisco foodie experience without spending your child's college fund this is the place to go. On any given night you wil mingle with Giants fans, post work techies from SOMA, and people who want simple food prepared right. Last night we snuck in for killer potroast and martinis and had our usual paragon epiphany involving the words simple and good. Yum.

09/28/07

quality cocktails- quality food- friendly staff

by eastbayfoodguy

Went with a date on a Friday. I've been to the Berkeley location a few times and really liked it so I thought I'd check it out on my way to a Giants game. It's quite a different vibe from the Berkeley spot, which is more of a contemporary styled-lounge type of feel. Seriously, given the fact that it's a block from the ball park, there was a lot less of a sports bar atmosphere than I expected. The wine list is solid. I'm not a wine geek, but I do know my way around a wine list and like that they don't just load up on the obvious Napa/Sonoma choices. Cocktails were fantastic. If you order a mojito, the bartender actually cracks the ice before pouring a generous amount of rum into a slightly cheezy mason jar. I don't know why, but the mason jar is actually pretty cool. Dinner was great. I had the requisite Calamari which also blew me away. I'm not really a calamari guy, but my guest insisted and the server told us it is a very popular item. I expected rubber but got very tender, crispy calamari as well onion and green beans-another pleasant surprise. My hanger steak was cooked spot-on and my guests halibut looked like something out of a food magazine and was also cooked perfectly. Our server was quietly awesome! We weren't in the mood to socialize and she did not intrude or get all in your face and tricky about it, she just brought us what we needed. I wish there was more parking, hence the 4 stars instead of 5. I found metered parking about a block away, by recommendation of whoever answered the phone when I called (he also mentioned a parking garage just down the street) so make sure you bring your quarters! I guess that's just SF though.

• Pros: Despite crowd of baseball game goers- surprisingly good energy in the place
• Cons: Baseball traffic-plan ahead and make reservations- we got lucky on the same day

04/04/07

WORST SERVICE - TWICE!!

by nillacookie

Just got back from a work lunch - that took nearly 2 hours. We could tell that service was going to be slow when she took orders from 3 tables that sat down behind us. Just because we're a party of 7 doesn't mean we don't want to complete our meal in a timely manner too. We finally flagged the server down to take our order and insisted that we wanted to be done with lunch by about 1:15 (not unreasonable if we sat down at noon). This is the second time that we were seemingly dismissed because we were sitting in a larger table. Just because there's more of us, doesn't mean we want to entertain ourselves for 40 minutes before we get our food - we want to eat! And on top of that, the server's attitude was dismissive - how unprofessional.

I'm sure I will continue to eat here because the food is pretty solid, but I hope the management reads this post and makes some changes to the way the food service is run.

• Pros: consistent food
• Cons: service service service