A wee little rant here. I noticed a couple of mediocre yelps of Cafe Bernardo (the 28th and Cap one) and I thought the criticisms were valid and I feel a little dumb I just gave it a glowing paragraph in my June article. I had a TERRIBLE experience there on monday. It confirmed my perception that it's pretty stupid to go out to breakfast on any weekend, especially a holiday, unless you're going to Dragonfly which is invariably almost empty. Bernardo could have minimized the horror somewhat by a) not blasting rage rock in the monkey bar, where our party was forced to sit-as smiller pointed out, absolutely no one was enjoying the rage rock, there were even some elderly people sitting in the bar who had to suffer through it. and b) the wait for breakfast food was over 30 minutes minimum (there was a sign on the door informing you of that-obviously we should have walked away when we saw it), but apparently the wait for lunch food was minimal, so I felt like they could have told you that. I got a sandwich and was served within 5 minutes and my party proceeded to wait between 30 and 40 minutes for their breakfast food.
Boring, I know. However, I am a super regular customer of Bernardo and continue to champion their sandwiches and most of their salads. Here are a couple of tips they could do well to heed:
1) watch out with those prices! it's not like I expect you to lower them, but I paid over 8 dollars for a turkey sandwich with a side of nothing. that's a little crazy for sac.
2) please please add a tomato or a carrot or something to your side green salad. it is just an insult to charge for something that is a pile of bagged mesclun with a little vinaigrette on it. and no, i don't count charging me extra for nuts and cheese. how about some VEGETABLES in the salad? in general, you need some better sides because some of your sandwiches are not a full meal. if you are going to have mashed potatoes as a side, could you please not put so much butter in it it's oozing off the plate, like your lackluster side salad, this just shows laziness. your fries are delicious, however, but i go to bernardo for healthy food, not fries.
are you asleep yet, if not read mike dunne's review of mcormick and schmick.
or laugh at these yelp assertions:
1) Once upon a time, before the Washington Square yuppie homes went up, your Carnitas tacos were pretty decent. Now they are a flour tortilla soggy mess.
that's called a spurious correlation
2)This morning, my daughter and husband were munching on the leftovers, but I just couldn't touch it. The Carnitas were not crispy,
Since when do leftovers EVER stay crispy?
The McCormick & Schmick's late-night happy hour menu is a secret godsend to cheapskates like me. They have regular afternoon happy hour (4-6) but on weeknights (mon-thu) they also do the happy hou menu from 10:30 PM until close.)
ReplyDelete$1.99 for a fairly kickass burger with fries, or a plate o' wings, or spinach/artichoke dip and stuff to dip in it, etcetera--me, I'm a burger man so I got the burger.
Technically you're supposed to order drinks (a two-drink minimum) but the waitress didn't even blink when we got a club soda and a diet Coke before ordering our $1.99 cheeseburgers, and didn't skimp on the refills. The bill itself was less than $10, although the tip I left made up for the two drinks we didn't order. The burger was pretty damn good, too, as were the fries. Maybe they just didn't mind us because we were yuppie-looking enough to pass muster, I dunno.
which persona of yours likes mcormick and schmick?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoy it there and that the servers were cool. The uneven service was pretty much MDs only complaint. I'm just bored with the restaurants that he picks to review, and I think that there are plenty of other interesting places he could cover before he gives a big write-up to a high end chain.
Strictly the cheapskate persona that wants a $1.99 burger and fries, I assure you--their actual menu makes my teeth grit. Although they have some awesome old Sacramento photos in there--I'm sure they raided SAMCC's photo bin.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think I got into all this "civic involvement" stuff because there's free food--it kind of reminds me of doing Second Saturday with the P-House punx Back In The Day, where we'd find the gallery with the swankiest chow and do a surgical dinner strike on the appetizer table. Except now I put on my $2 thrift-score blazer, jabber a bit about upscale mixed-use transit-oriented urbane loft living, and help myself to the deli sandwiches and giant cookies.
I guess I just don't expect much from Bee reviews, since I'm still going to go to the place where I can get my greasy diner food for minimal cash, or go find some event where I can join in the free chow line. Informing the public about actual interesting places to eat is your department, becko.