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Stinking Rose, Food & Service

Alright menu is pretty basic. My brother has gone to the Stinking Rose in Los Angeles and told me it was not very good. I love garlic and a couple friends wanted to give this place a try. Why not? My better half and I are always up for trying new restaurants. First thing that needs to be mentioned is the service. Yeah they gave us a couple minutes to figure out what we want. Horrible wait staff, just carry around their little PDA-like devices and just ask what we want, "Okay" and leave. Nothing about suggestions, just nothing over all. I definitely regret giving 15% tip. For me, if you give decent service I don't mind 15% or more. If you ignore me I'll give you 5% or less. Anyway, I'll get down to what was ordered and what we thought of everything. Things ordered from the menu:
Roasted Garlic Potato Onion Soup
Here's a picture of it after poking into the little pastry top. The pastry was a bit fun. Didn't taste like anything ... not even salted butter. The soup itself was equivalent to a can of Campbell's Cream of Potato except less sodium and a little bit more potato. I'd much rather go buy the preservative filled cream of potato, get some terrible Pillsbury pastry and bake 'em together in the oven. I didn't taste any onion, nor find any chunks or bits of onion either. Very misleading. Looked nice when it came out, everything went downhill for this soup after taking my first taste.
Bagna Calda. Ordered this because that's what the place is known for right? I enjoyed it because I like garlic. Grilled, raw, however you want to make it. So this was fine, but the little cheese/garlic rolls they offer with it are not good. Little salty, and looks like there might be a cheesy or garlicy taste to it but the rolls are not good. Doesn't even seem freshly baked, maybe even a little old. I had two rolls and just avoided it for the rest of the night.
Mussels & Shrimp. Not bad. I do like the garlic shoved into the mussels and the garlic butter dipping sauce. My better half and friends seemed to enjoy this dish. I did not try the shrimp but the size looked fine and they seemed well-seasoned. The mussels were not over cooked but they were a bit small so for $19.95 ... pass.
Garlic Roasted Prime Rib. Crap. Medium Rare is apparently medium tough and unflavorful. Cheap slice of meat, not tender, not flavored well, au jus and horseradish hardly made this dish edible. Mashed potatoes were dense and bland. The creamed swiss chard tasted like warm green tea ice cream except it has this mud like texture in your mouth (because who hasn't accidentally gotten mud in their mouths as a child right ... lol). See that little container with the green contents. It's basically raw garlic and green onions with some salt in olive oil. I think I put that on everything for the extra flavor and spice.

Our friends ordered the Portobello Mushroom Baked on a Bed of Roasted Vegetables and Silence of the Lamb Shank with Chianti Glaze & Fava Beans. Tried a piece of the portobello, tasted like it could have been grilled by anyone who knows how to operate a stove, oil, pan, salt and pepper. Lamb shank, I'm not a big fan of lamb but it was salty. All I know from this dish is salt. All our friend kept emphasizing was how salty it was and the ten cups of water he drank accompanying each bite could not convey the high sodium levels enough. The stupid thing was our friend asked for the Clams with Fresh Black Linguine & Garlic Parsley Shallot Sauce. Awesome staff gave us lamb. What I love more than service equivalent to the productivity of a goat in the wild is when this service can hardly understand the English language. I'm such a moron for giving 15% tip.

Overall, don't ever try this place, don't ever think about trying this place, don't ever just don't. Expensive, crappy everything, waste of money. Only good part of the night was hanging out with friends.

The Stinking Rose
325 Columbus Ave
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-781-7673

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