Michael Mina - I never thought Aqua was in the same league as La Folie and Gary Danko, but I figured that after a very public separation with the parent company of Aqua and a new eponymous restaurant (true to the size of his ego) Michael Mina couldn't fail. The SF Chronicle hailed it as the most highly anticipated restaurant opening in the past 5 (or was it 10?) years. I couldn't wait. The food was okay - interesting in the triptych presentation of every course, curious in the flavors. But it wasn't anything I loved. One falls in love with the butter poached lobster on pea shoots of La Folie, or crisp sturgeon with Jerusalem artichokes at French Laundry. This was interesting, the way one thinks many modern pieces at an art museum are interesting: they're fun to look at, but you would never really buy even the poster to hang on your wall. Unfortunately, the food - mediocre as it was - was the star of the evening. The atmosphere was bizarre, as the restaurant opens into the lobby of the Westin St. Francis creating a cacophonous cave-like environment. The sound was mind-numbing. What really did it was the service. The guy at the table next to mine said it best: when the waiter came at the end of a long laborious meal (over three hours for three courses!) to ask if there was anything else they needed, the man replied "no! I just want to go home." I myself had better service at Chevy's.
Fifth Floor - Two friends had told me with much enthusiasm that this was their favorite restaurant in the city. I had heard Laurent Gras's name numerous times in the media, all raving about his culinary skill. I stopped by one day to read the menu and two items seduced me enough to get me to just grab a seat at the bar and go for it. Pork Belly with a crispy skin served with truffle jus and Cherry Clafoutis (one of my favorite desserts) - how could you go wrong with those luxurious flavors? How naive I can be. There was so much cracked peppercorn on the pork belly, that the warm fatty flavors of the pork and the luxurious earthiness of the truffle I had eagerly anticipated was replaced by a burning sensation. No flavor, just burning. The cherry clafoutis fell flat on my tongue, pasty and tart (compare with the cherry clafoutis of Gary Danko!). The other courses from the chef's tasting menu weren't memorable. The service was standard. The decor was an eyesore (faux zebra patterns?). I am now with two fewer friends.
Quince - I imagined Quince to be the perfect nice neighborhood restaurant. Entree prices in the $20s, elegant but casual ambience, friendly service - the Volkswagen Passat of restaurants. Accessible and nice. It was impossible to get reservations - one month out to the day of your call. Surely, this is the restaurant I'd been waiting for. Wrong. Although the prices were right, the atmosphere was stuffy, dark - there was strained formality and the wait staff spoke with detachment and aloofness, with hushed velvety tones as if they were used to serving people better than you. Oh brother - I was tempted to walk over to the wall and turn on the lights so the whole act would evaporate under the full light of reality. 'Wake up everyone! You've been brainwashed and living in a dream! Phew, thank God you're snapping out of it. Now get me my goddamn TAP water!' The food, a refined Italian cuisine, was decent. The menu is divided into four courses. The first course was excellent - we tried the thai snapper tartare and an oxtail rotolo - described so beautifully by our waiter, again with a hushed velvety tone, as braised oxtail meat reformed into a cylinder, lightly breaded, then pan fried. The second course: the pasta was a bit too egg-y for me but the flavors were fine. The meat course was where they really stumbled: the sauce on my lamb and the sauce on my friend's rib-eye were suspiciously alike, my lamb was unusually gamey, and my other friend's pork was tough. Now the reason why I like to order pork at a nice restaurant is that it's so hard to cook perfectly at home. If they can't get it right at one of the most popular restaurants in a city like San Francisco, what's the point of going on? I might as well go to the corner of my room and rock back and forth in a fetal position in resignation. Fortunately, there's Jardiniere and Woodward's garden - two restaurants where their pork dishes never disappoint.
Strike Three. But not out.
Michael Mina does not have a website at this time
http://www.fifthfloor.citysearch.com
http://quincerestaurant.com
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