The Ten Most Overrated Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area (2008)
UPDATED: April 29, 2008
In a previous post, I said that Incanto is perhaps the most overrated restaurant in the Bay Area. After further review, I’ve decided that it’s only the third most overrated.
As with my Ten Things That Make Me Grumpy, I really should confine the list to places I’ve visited in the last year. But I’ve got too much to get off of my chest. Maybe next year…
1. Why all the hoopla about A16? At first, I thought it was just that I hadn’t cracked the code. Now, I’m convinced that the place is overhyped and run-of-the-mill. I went once right after it opened. Not impressed. But it was new and I decided to give it another shot, this time with Mackie in tow. Two of us not impressed. I gave it a rest for quite some time, then went back after a friend raved about the meal she had there. Still, no love. Finally, I read about Meatball Mondays. “Ahhh,” I thought, “I’ve now cracked the code.” But, no! The meatballs weren’t half as good as the ones in COCO500’s spaghettini with meatballs. They weren’t even nearly as good as the ones that the late, lamented Vino E Cucina served with their spaghetti. What’s the attraction??? After four visits, I’ve sampled enough of the menu to safely say it ain’t the food!
2. Sometimes, the emperor truly has no clothes. That’s how I feel about Chez Panisse Café. I have no quibble about the freshness of the ingredients or the quality of the preparation. It’s the naked arrogance that sets me off. You’re going to eat what Empress Alice says you’re going to eat and you’re going to like it! The menu is narrow and suffers from inventiveness, so it was tough for Mackie to find something inside her comfort zone. She finally settled on a pizza while I ordered duet of beef. She wanted soda to drink. No dice. I wanted Sweet’N Lo for my iced tea. Aghast, that I wanted something artificial, the server informed me that no such sweeteners were available. BUT WHAT IF I WAS A DIABETIC??? (Fortunately, I’m not but you get my point. This was, by the way, before I started carrying my own stash of Sweet’N Lo everywhere. Oh, I wish I’d had some then…I’d have ordered refill after refill just to make them clean the little pink pouches off of the table.) When my main course arrived, half of the duet looked a little interesting, shall we say. (In fairness, the other half, a bit of tenderloin, was superb.) After taking a couple of bites, being thoroughly unimpressed with the taste and grossed out by the texture, I asked the server about the cut. Tongue, she informed me. TOUNGE???!!! Excuse me but shouldn’t that little detail have been mentioned BEFORE I ordered??? When I said as much to our server, she replied that several other guests had said the same thing. AND YOU STILL DIDN’T TELL ME??? Mackie’s pizza was OK but would have been better if they had not creatively omitted tomato sauce from the recipe. How clever! The final slap in the face was seeing that a service charge had already been added to the bill. I can understand this for large parties but for a table of two? OTOH, they’re probably afraid that their servers will get stiffed because of the restaurant’s customer-unfriendly policies. I found the whole experience to be offensive. They must think that their customers are too stupid to choose what to eat and drink, to select sweetener for their beverages and to calculate a tip. The arrogance, the arrogance.
3. Apologies to Incanto. I overstated my case in my mini-review in Check Please! Pleases Me. They’re not the most overrated restaurant in the Bay Area, just the third most.
4. This is really going to date me but Mackie and I visited La Folie when the dining room was still decorated by those odd marionettes. They freaked Mackie out a bit so her experience was tainted from the get-go. La Folie is one of those places that just goes overboard with creativity and complexity. It’s just too much. I’ve wanted to try it again in case we just we hit it on a bad night. When we lived on Russian Hill, I regularly stopped by to read the menu posted outside. Alas, it just never was appealing.
5. Our Boulevard experience was a bit unusual. We walked in one evening, without reservations. They were full up in the dining room but were happy to seat us in the lounge. We looked at the menu, we’re thrilled by any of the main courses so decided to go small and split some apps. It was just OK – certainly not of the top experiences we’ve had in the city and pricey to boot. I’m told we should go back for the full experience. Maybe, but with so many other places to try, I’m dubious about a rerun at Boulevard before trying, say, Aqua.
6. Yes, I know all about the dry-aged beef but Harris’ isn’t a top 5 steak in the City. Maybe not even a top 10. I’ll do a list. You’ll see. [List now available at http://grumpyglutton.com/2008/04/28/the-citys-top-ten-steaks.aspx.]
7. No need to rehash The House. Mini-review in Check Please! Pleases Me.
8. Pizzetta 211 might have great pizza. I didn’t get that far with them. Mackie and I rolled up to P211 late one Saturday afternoon. Mackie stayed behind in the car to finish a phone call while I went in to grab a table. The place was deserted – only one other table was occupied. I requested two for lunch, was given menus and sat down. After a few minutes of studying the menu, I had a few questions. I walked up to the counter where you order and got about five words out of my mouth when the condescending, hipper-than-thou schmuck behind the counter interrupted to inform me that I could not place an order until the full party had arrived. Up to this point, I had not uttered a syllable about ordering…I was merely trying to inquire about something on the menu. Of course, the wannabe psychic behind the counter had no way of knowing this because he cut me off mid-way through my first sentence and had obviously flunked his ESP class. But rather than follow this line of attack, I assailed the stupidity of not allowing me to place an order in an empty restaurant. Mr. Personality wouldn’t budge. I tore the menu into a thousand pieces, made snow fall inside the slophouse and left. I will never, ever, ever set foot there again.
9. I really wanted to like the Buckeye Roadhouse. Really. I went back several times, hoping something would click. It never did. Steak, no. Barbeque, no. Salads, no. Nada. Why’s the place always crowded? Why's it in Michael Bauer's list of Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants? I don’t get it.
10. It may be unfair for me to include Brothers Korean Restaurant in this list, as it doesn’t aspire to be the same caliber of establishment as the others. But, it seems that everyone in the City thinks that Brother’s is the go-to place for Korean barbeque in SF. Except for me. And Mackie. The problem is the quality of the beef they use in their bulgogi. It’s just not up to snuff. Venture out a bit farther on Geary to Korean Village and you’ll get much better bulgogi, with rib-eye used as the beef.
A16
2355 Chestnut Street
between Scott Street and Divisadero Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-771-2216
Web site
Food inspection score: 84
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
Chez Panisse Café
1517 Shattuck Avenue
between Vine Street and Cedar Street
Berkeley, California 94709
510-548-5049
Web site
Food inspection score: Not located in San Francisco
Symbol of Excellence: N/A
Incanto
1550 Church Street
at Duncan Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-641-4500
Web site
Food inspection score: 100
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
La Folie
2316 Polk Street
between Green Street and Union Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
Web site
Food inspection score: 100
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
Boulevard
One Mission Street
at Steuart Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-543-6084
Web site
Food inspection score: 98
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
Harris'
2100 Van Ness Avenue
at Pacific Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94109
415-673-1888
Web site
Food inspection score: 100
Symbol of Excellence: No
The House
1230 Grant Avenue
between Columbus Avenue and Vallejo Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-986-8612
Web site
Food inspection score: 98
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
211 23rd Ave
near California Street
San Francisco, CA 94121
Food inspection score: 100
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
Buckeye Roadhouse
15 Shoreline Highway
intersection of CA-1 and US-101
Mill Valley, CA 94941
415-331-2600
Web site
Food inspection score: Not located in San Francisco
Symbol of Excellence: N/A
Brothers Korean Restaurant
between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
415-387-7991
Food inspection score: 96
Symbol of Excellence: Yes
Korean Village
near 10th Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
Food inspection score: 99
Symbol of Excellence: No
Totally with you on A16, I make better meatballs than they do (but, of course, I make a mean meatball; the funny thing is it's with their recipe).
I'd rather go to Morton's, a chain restaurant, or even the mediocre Izzy's, than Harris. I can get better meat at Bryans & grill it myself. Totally agree.
You need to revisit La Folie. Sounds like you haven't eaten there in eons. No more scary marionettes on the wall. Interior is now sleek and smooth. The service is a wee bit precious for its Polk Street locale but that entire half of the block has become over the years a French food ghetto (yaaay!!!). The food can be sublime and yes like French Laundry it attempts to be witty when naming its dishes (La Folie means the joke) but don't let that deter you; the portions are generous & the food is yummy. Go as many times as your budget allows before you pass judgement. Try the tasting menu. La Folie isn't really rated high enough in my humble opinion.
In general, I would tend to agree with you about most of your overrated list (Boulevard, Chez Panisse Cafe, Buckeye Roadhouse, add Aqua to your list) but you can't have enough information to pass full judgment on a place unless you've eaten a full meal there at least three times. Sounds like you only went to some of these places once & you do the restaurants and your readers as well as yourself a disservice (Credibility loss), if you opine too soon especially on the most highly rated (by mainstream critics) & popular places on your list.
Nobody really expects House or Brothers to be all that unless they're really into college dorm with a Ph.D. Chinese fusion or cheap Korean food.
Anyway, take care, and happy eating!
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On Visits and Houses...
That I visited most of the places on my overrated list only once is clear from the narrative and I make no bones about it. I’m not a masochist. If it sucks, it’s one and done, especially if I’m paying $50+ per head for the experience.
I’ll address the “three visits” question in more depth in a future post. [I finally got around to doing this on 5/27/08...see http://grumpyglutton.com/2008/05/27/the-dreaded-threevisit-rule.aspx. Sorry it took so long.] A quick thought in the context of this comment…
Of the places on my list that I visited only once, at least four – Chez Panisse Café, La Folie, Harris’ and Boulevard – are expensive enough that they are, to most people, special occasion restaurants. As such, they must be on point, every single night, every single meal. If they aren’t, someone’s occasion wasn’t special (unless you’re like the Restaurant Whore and “bitching…about a sucktastic experience is one of [your] favorite things to do”) and a bunch of money got flushed down the toilet. Writing about a single bad experience is absolutely valid for this type of restaurant. [N.B., the RW's site is rated PG-13 for language.]
I copped to your point about Brothers in my post but disagree with you on The House. A Zagat food score of 26 and 2 ½ Bauer stars (which stretches from the top 10% to top 37% of his galaxy) sets high expectations in folks beyond those “really into college dorm with a Ph.D. Chinese fusion.” I’m not sure what that phrase means but it sure is colorful!
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