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Thursday, May 19, 2011

Restaurant Review: Wayfare Tavern

This week at work, work stole my computer.  Technically it is a work computer but since starting at my company 4 odd years ago that machine has been by my side pretty much 24/7.  OK maybe not that much because that makes me sound  like a crazy work freak.  I am on it a lot though, and when I am home I (don't tell) might use it a bit for my blogging purpose.  Well, to make a long story short they needed my model to test something so I had to turn that one in for another one.  I will not go into the hassles of setting up all of your preferences but it is a LOT.  One good outcome of attempting to clean up all my blogger photos, came in the form of some forgotten CA shots.


There is a lot to do in California.  There was absolutely no way Mr. J and I could see everything we wanted, hoped and dreamed about.  One of those things was the Redwoods.  It was just too far of a drive away.  However, enter Muir Woods, about 15 minutes outside of San Francisco.


It was breathtaking.  


Even though the day was bright and sunny, in the woods it was damp and dark.  The sunlight sparking through the leaves was magical.


 And the trunks were so BIG!


We felt like midgets.



One of our other stops was the Wayfare Tavern.  This is Tyler Florence's restaurant in San Francisco.  I really enjoy watching Tyler's Ultimate on the Food Network.  I think his cookbooks are beautliful.  I don't particularly like him though.  I had a not so great experience with him at the NYC Food and Wine Festival last year. 


My opinions of him haven't changed much since dining in his restaurant.  Granted it was not HIM in the restaurant but I do think our service was a direct reflect on him. Mr. J and I stopped in for lunch our last sightseeing day in the city.    Although the menu looked amazing, it was lunch time and we would be moving for the rest of the afternoon.  It was not a time to get a huge entree.  I was debating several options but opted for the special duck confit sandwich when I heard it came with a side salad.



The sandwich was amazing.  There was tons of duck meat, and the slaw had just enough bite to really add something to the sandwich without over powering the unique duck flavor.  I loved it.  However, it clearly came with a very large portion of fries. No salad! The fries were not so much of a problem as the fact that our waiter never came to ask how our meal was.  I couldn't even flag him down.  No salad for me.


Mr. J got the burger.  Local, grass-fed beef is so good.  You can really really really taste the difference.  This one came topped with a fried egg (a Mr. J speciality) and was served on a brioche bun.  Again lots of french fries.  All of the food was amazing. 

The service or more specifically our waiter sucks.  We got the clear impression that because we didn't order alcohol or entrees that we were cheap, even though our bill total was over $50 for the two sandwiches.  He didn't give us the time of day.  We honestly would have consider dessert but the guy was such a jerk I didn't want to stay any longer.  Arg!

Even with the good food, I would never go to this restaurant again.

558 Sacramento Street
San Francisco

415.772.9060

5 comments:

  1. oh man, that sucks! What happened with Tyler? Was that when he signed the cookbook? He was a little "off" when I saw him at the food network cooking demo in the fall too.

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  2. I love visiting California. I was born in SF so I think I feel like I am getting back to my roots. The food looks so tasty. I wish I had that burger and those fries right now!

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  3. It's awful when a restaurant that SHOULD be so good fails to live up to the hype. Service is a huge component of dining out and it hardly matters how good the food is if the service is crap!

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  4. My gosh, those are some big trees!!

    Too bad the restaurant sucked!

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  5. Oh man! that stinks that you had such a bad experience at Tyler Florence's Restaurant. I am glad the woods were beautiful and those trees are huge!

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