Waterboy was really good last night but the service was crappy. I don't know who this newbie guy was, but he is not good enough. Brought wineglasses but didn't open the wine. Didn't take our order before the apps came so that the big menus were crowding the table. I had to ask for bread. Just lagged on taking our order in general. He could have definitely sold me another drink if he tried at all. I had maybe two glasses of wine, which is low for me at a dinner that's over 2 hours long. I would probably have gotten an after dinner drink if the pace hadn't lagged a little too long.
Food was excellent though!
BAR reviewed Quan Nem Ninh Hoa. This place has been a favorite of mine for years and dare I say I increased its visibility by quite a bit over these years without sounding like an ass? I dare to. Lately it has become more of a favorite, up to top five. They have increased their menu a lot and now offer lots of different meats with the wraps, althought the best is still the nem nuong skewers. But they will split the meats for one order and the chicken is delicious. I still need to try their bun and banh xeo, since they seem to do everything well. It's one of those places where the one dish is so good that it's hard to branch out.
His review was awesome and should bring them a lot of business, although they do pretty well already.
I may have mentioned before that had a past coworker who was interested in food and food writing and knew I wrote for MidMo and the News and Review yet never read my writing and would not follow any of my recommendations. He would mostly just bring up BAR's reviews, and sometimes visit them, even if I had told them I didn't concur and I would go somewhere else. I thought that was really weird. It's not like he thought it sucked, I think he just didn't bother to pick up a copy.
The bun and banh xeo are both good at Quan Nem. I always forget what that place is called and inevitably call it "the place that starts with Q". I was pretty stoked that BAR got out there on Stockton Blvd at all after our whole discussion about meat quality, etc...
ReplyDeleteAlso, did you see that there is a 2 Chainz cookbook? I think I need to get it.
ReplyDeleteI read about the cookbook. pretty funny
ReplyDeleteJust for the record, it was a Vietnamese intern at The Bee who spread the good word here about Quan Nem Ninh Hoa ... on a different note: the bartender at Waterboy won the Midtown Cocktail Week bartender competition. He would've thunk it?
ReplyDeleteCM
er, "who" would've thunk it? ...
ReplyDeleteCM the typo masta
I'm pretty sure that Vietnamese intern found out about it from me. JK.
ReplyDeleteSee my ego can never be fed, I either want to take credit or get bummed no one is listening to my recommendations. I am only being about a quarter serious about this.
I am very surprised about the Waterboy winning. Their cocktail program is uninspired (although seems to be getting creative) and their bar is not that well stocked. But good for him!