Today’s blog will be a restaurant/food review
Sunday marked the beginning of the week I look forward to twice per year…San Diego Restaurant Week! OMG OMG OMG!
Now, for those of you who may not be familiar with Restaurant Week (it happens in other cities around the country as well), it is an amazing chance to check out various restaurants in the city with a prix fix lunch and/or dinner menu. Most times lunch is between $15-$30 and dinner $30-$50.
For this wonderful week, I have 4 meals planned at various establishments around the city. My first was Sunday lunch at “The French Gourmet” in Pacific Beach. It is advertised as a Restaurant, Bakery and Wine Boutique.
Overall Rating: 6
This rating is on a scale of 1-10 and here are my thoughts:
1. Parking was not available. The location does not have a dedicated lot (that I could see), which for me, is a bonus, especially in PB, where it’s already a shi* show most the time.
2. We (party of 2 we were) had made a 12pm reservation prior to this. We arrived on time and then waited. AND waited. 22 minutes past our reservation time, we finally got to squeeze past some very rude older women who would not budge, even though we mentioned that we had a reservation. When we got to the front of the line, we were told we would have to wait for a table to leave anyway. Final seating time: 12:35pm. 35 minutes waiting WITH a reservation. Not ok.
3. The restaurant itself is connected to a deli of sorts, for pastries and food items. This causes a severe congestion at the entry way and the restaurant is tiny. I mean probably max seating of 50 patrons. Tables were quite close to one another, conversations were loud since we were all on top of each other and obviously it was causing a problem with their backlog of people waiting to be seated. Additionally, there was a wine rack placed (poorly) at the entrance, which was almost knocked over by a woman’s handbag. I thought this was bad judgment on the restaurants part, as there was probably (just guessing based on the prices I saw posted) at a minimum of $2000.00 USD worth of wine/champagne on that rack.
Also, the restrooms are behind a door, but that door led to a hallway that led to an outside alley. I didn’t feel like that was safe, and especially being that the door was just hanging wide open.
4. Service was just alright. Although friendly enough, the host/hostess station didn’t seem to have a dedicated individual and servers seemed frantic. It’s the first day of restaurant week, come on, let’s get real and prepare accordingly. Servers were attentive AFTER you were seated, though not so much so that I was impressed. Water was refilled and food delivered quickly but when we specifically said “split the check half and half” at the end of the meal, that was disregarded and my cash portion of the payment was instead completely put toward the cost of the overall bill, thus causing my guest and I to have to do the “how much do I owe you, how can I get this back to you later?” conversation.
5. Food was good. I would say that the food was good for the price. Portions were larger than I anticipated they would be and the overall food and beverages seemed well prepared. However, mot restaurants participating in Restaurant Week have a 3 course meal. This restaurant did not. They charged $15.00 so it is a good deal, but they said that patrons must choose between EITHER an appetizer or an entrée. I would have preferred they bumped the price up to $20 and gave us both, especially since they specialize in desserts and pastries.
That is my review. Would I go back? Probably not. It’s a long way from my “neighborhood” and the prices don’t seem like something I would pay full price for. I thought it was good, but not that good. Perhaps on a date night for dinner it would seem different, but overall, I’m not sold.
There it is. That is my review of my first of 4 Restaurant Week stops. Bon Appetit!
The French Gourmet
960 Turquoise Street
Pacific Beach, CA 92109
DreamerSD 