Recent Trip Report - SF / Cyrus

[Sadistick]

A brief report on our recent time spent in SF & Healdsburg:

After arriving at Canteen to find out they changed the menu to a 3 course set tasting menu, 2 of which my wife had no interest of eating, we unfortunately had to depart, and ended up at Fleur de Lys.

The room itself is quite nice, the food quite good (not amazing), and the service – horrible. After having to ask for bread, then 5 minutes later having to ask for butter, our mouths began to sour. Next came the Amuse, which was nice, some fava puree with mint. Enjoyable until our servers hovered over us with our appetizers, asking if we were done – yet with half the amuse still to go – does it look like I am done? Better yet, how about having the wait staff pour tap water into our mineral water? The food was good, we both had sweetbreads with a very nice wild mushroom sauce, followed by Duck for the misses and venison for myself (albeit a tad dry). For a 1 star restaurant, the food should have been better, and the service…well, lets suffice to say I could have received better service at the Cheesecake factory.

Our next standout meal was at Ame. I began with some hamachi sashimi with an urchin sauce, minus the hair that I found (which they promptly removed the plate, replaced it with a new one and took it from the bill) it was fantastic. Great flavours, and the crisp radishes were an interesting contrast. The misses had their tuna tar tar with shaved Foie – so good that I had to order one myself. Then onto a grilled octopus salad, followed by their corn bisque with lobster hush puppies (although I failed to see much lobster) – all in all, a really enjoyable meal.

On our return trip from Kauai, we spent one night in Sonoma and dined at Cyrus.

Without doubt one of the top 5 meals I have ever had. I will have to find our menu and post some additional details, but the service was perfection, the food flawless, and the little added touches due to our honeymoon were much appreciated.

They without doubt deserve that additional Star.

[rworange]

Thanks for reporting back

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Ame Restaurant
689 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94105

[Robert Lauriston]

I'm kind of surprised that Keller hasn't tightened things up there given that the Chron took back his fourth star almost two years ago. I guess he's too busy with his every-expanding restaurant empire (second FdL in Las Vegas, two and soon three branches of Burger Bar, steakhouse in St. Louis) and TV career. On Top Chef Masters, he said he has 300 employees.

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Fleur De Lys
777 Sutter St., San Francisco, CA 94109

[grayelf]

I take it your reservation at Canteen was on a Tuesday, which means you did a walkin at FdeL, right?

[Sadistick]

It was actually on a Thursday, which made me even more curious about the menu change.

They offered to do a Cornish Hen instead, but I was not about to squander a meal in SF on a game hen!

[sfbing]

Every once in awhile Canteen offers special prix fixe menus on random weekday evenings. He usually lets people know via their mailing list and they book up pretty fast. There was a lobster one reported on the board recently and I went to the "End of Summer" one last week. (Menu: Cured salmon amuse, Sole with grape salad, Veal, Poached pears and figs with pecorino for $39. Good deal, although I didn't love the veal.)

[grayelf]

Oh, I did hear about that but I didn't understand how it works, so thanks, sfbing. I could see that being a problem if it happened at the last minute for me -- I can't eat lobster :-). Will be sure to check on this when we make our reso for November...

[sfbing]

When you make a reservation, they usually tell you that it is a special menu for that day (there are two seatings instead of three, so things are a lot less hectic). The problem is that they can't tell you what precisely is on the menu, because they're still planning it, unless you're trying to score a short notice reservation.

[Ruth Lafler]

Thanks for the report. So sorry to hear there are still service problems at FdL. Over the years there have probably been more reports of unsatisfactory service at FdL than all the other restaurants in its category put together. To be fair, some people report having wonderful meals there, but for me it's too big a gamble to risk spending that kind of money and having a bad experience. With Keller's heightened celebrity status and increased publicity for his flagship restaurant, he really should be doing more to ensure that people don't have experiences that detract from its lustre.

I look forward to your expanded report on Cyrus!