Sunday, November 14, 2010
Breakfast at farm:table. This is a charming, super-space-efficent coffee-and-breakfastery. Indoor farm table seating for about 6 at a table and a few more on benches with no table space. Outdoor seating for 4 to 6. I had house cereal with raisins and housemade yogurt, apple juice blend. $10 after a $1 tip. Tasty, a bit overpriced for not-organic. The friendly staff is skilled at making you feel welcome and appreciated. Games of Nonchalance with Matt W and Hao. Lunch at a greasy chopsticks place in Chinatown, I had shrimp chow mein. The games are fun, and I will say no more so as not to spoil it for others. I would definitely do it again. Met with William, dinner at Kingdom of Dumpling (415-566-6143, 1713 Taraval Street, San Francisco, CA 94116 USA). Very delicious food, but we had 2 problems: when trying to get the attention of our server, she saw me attempt to speak to her, scrunched up her face at me, put up her palm, and with her other hand answered her cellphone all in the same step while proceeding quickly into the kitchen. She didn't seem to have any idea that she was being rude, and I was unable to stop myself from laughing at the absurdity of her behavior and ignorance. The other problem was that one of our orders was quite clearly ordered as vegetarian potstickers—our server had checked our order over with us twice. But when the order arrived and I bit into one it was chicken (!). When I asked about this, I was told that I had ordered chicken potstickers and it was left unsaid that she saw it as our mistake. I sidestepped the we-said-you-said part of the problem and asked if we could additionally order vegetarian potstickers. I was then told that they were sold out of vegetarian potstickers. Clearly they did not have vegetarian potstickers available, but instead of telling you that up front it seems they wanted to save face and just give you chicken potstickers thinking you'll be fine as long as you get potstickers. This would be somewhat more acceptable if you're a meateater, but not if you're a strict vegetarian. (I'm currently neither.) My stomach was a little upset later in the evening, but I cannot clearly attribute it to the bite of chicken I unexpectedly consumed. Strict vegetarians should bring along a meateater to taste everything before eating. If you enjoy making a scene, secretly video-record every order and just wait for them to claim you made an error in ordering. This restaurant clearly makes yummy food, but it has some cultural sensitivities to learn. It also probably has some communications issues to resolve both between the front and back of house and between the servers and the customers.