Doesn't Recommend

altdelete

Joined 6 years ago

Not satisfied. In a city not known for fine dining, this is supposed to be among the "best" in Novato. If so, it is sad this is the best Novato has to offer. The small dark noisy restaurant is popular - on a Thurday night every table was filled from 7pm to 9pm. However, I found nothing to rave about. Service was slow. After giving us menus, it was 15 minutes before anyone came by to take our food order. Two of us started with a roasted beet salad, which was a small plate of lettuce with a few very small crescents of beets, and a pinch of gorgonzola cheese. There were no vegetarian main course options, so I ordered the pumpkin ravioli with smoked ham. Another very small plate, the smoked ham taste was overwhelming. I picked around the ham and the remaining ravioli dish was bland. The seafood paella was oily. The halibut was bland and unexciting. The chicken dish was small and unmemorable. We decided to cut our losses and did not order dessert.

The place has fallen off. It seems to be resting on its laurels as one of the best in Novato. However, that is not a high bar by any stretch of the imagination. It will be a long time before we go back, and I'm betting that other patrons will start feeling the same.

Recommends

Contributor

Joined 10 years ago

Editorial Review. American bistro serves an oft-changing menu of California fare in Novato's Old Town district.

Doesn't Recommend

grub_werm

Joined 6 years ago

What's the fuss?. A date and I came in on a Friday night and the place was bustling. We waited for a while until one of the servers (?) finally came and seated us. We waited another 15 minutes or so and finally came to get our drink orders, which by the way they got wrong...At this point we weren't expecting much from the food, but it had some bright spots. Definitely not worth the price, though...