Went to Rich Table last night, and it’s still a great place. very family friendly. Ernest is also awesome. For another spectacular duck, the morris. I happen to be going there tonight and can report back.
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The table next to us ordered the duck. It did look great and crossed our mind to order. We should have ordered that then the pork cheeks.
Staff was very friendly and fun to talk to
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This weekend I went to Dingles, the ‘elevated British pub’ restaurant in Hayes Valley. It was my second visit – a couple months ago we went for their Sunday Roast, and wanted to return to try more of the dinner menu.
Overall I think it’s pretty outstanding and one of the more enjoyable spots to open in the last year or two. It’s located inside a tiny hotel, and has a wonderful British vibe – dark green walls, plastered in art, and a good level of noise. Service has been on point both times.
The starters are some of the stars: the Sausage Roll is easily the best I’ve ever had, with a vinegary/ketchup ‘brown sauce’ and perfect pastry, the Rarebit rivals St John’s (it might be even richer), and the Scotch Egg is out of this world.
The Guinness Pie is the hero of the mains, and the Fish and Chips are super impressive – my wife is from New England and has a high bar for fried cod, but even she had to admit they were damn good. Thick fries seem to be doubled fried, almost Belgian style. Excellent crispness. The roasts are good but I think I’d recommend skipping the pork version if you can, it was mostly just fat and thick crispy skin – some of my least favorite styles of pork belly.
Combined with a Toffee Pudding and excellent pints of Guinness, it’s a super fun spot and one I’m looking forward to returning to.
Sausage Roll:
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British Pub inspired restaurants seems to be in fashion. Deans from the King team in NYC is getting a lot of buzz.
Going in August and looking for something along the lines of The Progress but a notch higher on the “fancy/intimate” scale. Anyone familiar with Sorrel or Nightbird? Other places I should look at? Not interested in $250+ tasting menus. (I should add, my folks aren’t so into Asian-inspired places, and Ernest felt a bit too much in that direction).
I’ve only been to Nightbird once and it was disappointing. Sorrel, on the other hand, is terrific.
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The Progress was absolutely on top of their game this past weekend…food, exceptional service, wine, and quite reasonable. Fantastic experience. Wish we could dine there every few months. When they brought the first two plates we were thinking this is just nuts it’s so good, then the next two are even better, and so on. Emmanuel Rouget passetoutgrain at a very reasonable markup, and some cool wines btg.
We had a service issue at State Bird that left us disappointed. They do a shotgun start at opening instead of staggering arrivals, our orders didn’t get taken until 40 minutes after opening, and we had food arriving well before any wine showed up. Then they still want to turn the table 2 hours from the reservation time. Very rushed, partly because of how things work, partly due to the server’s inattentiveness. And on this weekend the food just wasn’t at the same level as next door.
This is OT but I was surprised that we were the only table at State Bird with bottles of wine on it I could see, and one of two at The Progress. Makes me think of the topic about this recently.
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My wife’s daughter hosted a group of us at Foreign Cinema last night. It’s still terrific and IMO, one of the true SF restaurant icons. Excellent food and service, great atmosphere, and a kick-ass wine list that’s well priced. I’m the resident wine geek and was tasked with choosing the wines: '22 Les Horees “Aganippe” Bourgogne Blanc and '16 Francois Bertheau Chambolle-Musigny AOC. $160 and $206, respectively. Both prices just a bit over current retail.
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their wine list always surprises me in a positive way!
Foreign Cinema is such a great place. I had Labet pinot last time I was there at the same sort of reasonable price.
That’s a shame about State Bird. The chaotic nature can occasionally make for a challenging flow. I’ve never had real sevice issues, and love that staff seems so happy working there. Witb food coming fast and furious, it is not always easy to get wine going first unless you bring some.
I expect this was more an issue with the server’s inexperience, and because it was Saturday. We were in line 15 minutes before opening and it still took a long while to be seated, even with a reservation. Everything has to run pretty smoothly at the beginning so that the chaos can run successfully, else they need some flexibility with the time they want you to leave in order to avoid rushing you.
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When you say your orders did not get taken for 40 minutes? Do you mean from the menu outside of the carts? For the first 30-40 minutes they focus on the carts and then they start taking orders from the menu.
Correct, orders for both drinks and the non-carts parts of the menu were not taken until 40 minutes after our reservation time. Food from the carts was not offered until after our orders were taken. The first half of that time was simply waiting to be seated from the line of folks with reservations, which we were in at 5:15. Got to watch a lady in front of us negotiating a table for 3 with a reservation for 2…that took more time. I fully expect that all this is handled more efficiently by other staff on other days.
The initial surge of reservations and people waiting in line (I think they keep about 25% of the seats for those waiting in line) creates a high energy type situation that they like. I have eaten there over 100x and never waited more than 10 minutes or so for the carts to start flying around.
For sure. It was something like 15-20 minutes after our reservation time before we could be seated so I’m not sure what was going on until then. After that point there were one or possibly two items, for sure one while we’re talking with our server, and they were nice enough to come back later and say hey you missed this would you like one of these.
So to me the service issue wasn’t this so much as being rushed with the clock running out on our table as we were hurriedly asked about desserts, which appeared amazingly quickly lol. After not getting going for the better part of an hour and not dragging our feet on anything. (Although I would have been happier if they’d gotten our wine to us in the same time it took to get us our desserts 
.) I did ask before dessert was offered when they expected us to give up the table, and our server was clear.
Also to be clear I did not intend to rake anyone over the coals over this or beat this to death, folks here seemed to need clarification.
It is clearly an unorthodox way of runnning a restaurant which is why it is such a unique experience. I just hope you give it another try. Although as you experienced The Progess is great these days so if that is more your style you can’t go wrong!
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Great time at The Progress last night. Always a pleasure to return to this incredible restaurant. We were a party of six so we got around the menu pretty well. No missteps, everything was outstanding.
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Anyone been to Maria Isabel? My wife and I have a res next month. Given how much we love Dalida, we’re hoping the food is just as good.
Not yet but dying to. Keep us posted!
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