Yip on Out the Door
Out the Door
865 Market St. Suite 173 (SF Shopping Center, basement floor) * San Francisco, CA 94103 * (415) 512-6776
Cuisine: Modern Vietnamese
Neighborhood: Union Square
When you are tired from a long afternoon (or in mine and my gay boyfriend's cases - a marathon) of power shopping, you are surely in need of some immediate replenishment. And I'm not talking about restocking the shelves after you gave your AMEX that well needed workout. I'm talking about a vitamins, minerals, and perhaps a cocktail to revive you. These havens are hard to come by, because somehow in the midst of retail Heaven, a starved shopper can often find themselves in snacksville Hell.
Enter Out the Door ...
In the first floor (I hesitate to use the words "food court", but that's what it is) of the new SF Westfield shopping center with Bloomies and other fashionable finds, there is a hidden gem that might fool you as a shopping stop, since they have a small retail space with a to-go counter. But sit-down eats are to the rear. Out the Door is a quickie version of it's famous and hard-to-reserve friend: Slanted Door, now located in the remodeled Ferry Building.
The Scene
There is the coooooolest kind of stained glass on the far side wall in brilliant yellows and oranges. Love it! They also had gorgeous oversized floral decor on their long family style table which I adored. They did miss a bit on the scale of their art on the other wall (big wall, long wall, relatively puny art). This long family style table, where patrons that don't know each other share space, is reminiscent of London's Wagamama (a deliciously wonderful, not-to-be-missed British dining treat, but I digress....). They also have an exposed kitchen, which I tend to like. And it makes me feel like they must be doing something pretty clean back there or they wouldn't want me seeing it. I generally squelch any sanitary health preparation concerns I might have when I see a kitchen like that.
The Menu
Similar to Slanted Door. Food is family style portions. Comes out of the kitchen when it is ready - not served in courses. This means, there is no such thing as an "appetizer", just a side dish. You may get it first, you may not. It all depends on how it is prepared. Cold food comes before hot food. Fast prep comes before long prep. It's not rocket-science. Just not done that often in such an obvious way in America. Take note, that is one of the GOOD reasons they advertise it as family style. One person at your table could get all their food several minutes before the other. Plan to share and you'll avoid that hiccup.
The Food
We had a delicious grapefruit and jicama salad with red cabbage and candied peanuts, shared some crispy veggie imperial rolls, and a rice noodle stir fry with chicken, shiitake mushrooms, mung bean sprouts and egg. They probably should have more accurately called it a mushroom garnish, since I saw maybe 3 slices of shitake on the entire plate). All get a "pretty good" -- not a resounding "to-die-for" nor a "just ok." Salad ingredients were very fresh, but I thought a little tasteless. Gay boyfriend didn't agree - he loved, and suggested I mention as such. Done.
The Service
We were seated in a small half booth table at the front of a long line of tables. A half booth is a comfy, boothy seat on one side of the table, and a less comfortable hard chair on the other side. Guess which side I sat on. I don't want to be as spoiled as it sounds because I like to face the action of the restaurant so I can see if anyone important walks in. Also, since the Godfather is my favorite movie of all time, I often don't like a lot of activity going on behind me, since I fear someone may one day be coming out of the men's room guns-a-blazing. I find out later, no real risk of that here (see Bathroom section).
So anyhoo, in this first seat, we are kind of close to the wait staff station and a nice gentleman offers to move us, thinking it may be trafficy, loud and distracting. We opt out, saying we are fine. And we were fine. Until an unfortunate occurrence happened mid-meal when my eyes wandered to the right, where I could see directly into the prep kitchen. I was then faced with one of the most awful, most unappetizing sights I have ever seen. I wish I knew the right word for it. You know how sometimes you see in Italian restaurants they are curing the beef and it's hanging up all over the place. Somehow, that is ok. And it looked just like that here -- except it was a dozen or so chickens. Yes, chickens. Don't try to hard to picture what I am saying. It was grotesque and you'd like to just move onto the next point. *Ugh*
The Bathroom
Well, here's the kicker: There is no bathroom. How, you may ask, can they get away with that?!? Isn't it the law that they need to have a restroom !?! Well, yes. And technically (which they are capitalizing on), no. They are theoretically, in some being-part-of -the-masses way, actually, technically, part of the food court. Even though they are really a stand alone establishment. This would be like Starbucks saying it was ok not to have a bathroom, because you could go next door and use the one at the Gap. Well, not exactly the same thing, but you know how riled up about the bathrooms I get. So, yes, as you may have guessed, that means patrons have to actually exit the sanctuary and head out into the foodie chaos to wash, tinkle, or re-apply tricky lipgloss. Highly annoying. And actually the next level of highly annoying (highly annoying plus), as my dining companion informed me, that the cleanliness state of these exterior restrooms is less that adequate. I didn't brave the swarm of shoppers or the olfactory nightmare. Instead, I decided I could hold it until we'd be heading over to visit the things I can't afford at Dior.
************
In a spoonful, it IS in the mall. Not recommended for a tranquil lunch, as it is still quite loud. But is a decided difference from being out in the chaos of the food court when you are having "food panic." You can sit down, get fed, waited on, and even have a glass of champagne. Which we, of course, did. Just be sure you are not sitting near the chickens. And hopefully you don't need to use the ladies room.
Yip gives it 3.5 spoons.
865 Market St. Suite 173 (SF Shopping Center, basement floor) * San Francisco, CA 94103 * (415) 512-6776
Cuisine: Modern Vietnamese
Neighborhood: Union Square
When you are tired from a long afternoon (or in mine and my gay boyfriend's cases - a marathon) of power shopping, you are surely in need of some immediate replenishment. And I'm not talking about restocking the shelves after you gave your AMEX that well needed workout. I'm talking about a vitamins, minerals, and perhaps a cocktail to revive you. These havens are hard to come by, because somehow in the midst of retail Heaven, a starved shopper can often find themselves in snacksville Hell.
Enter Out the Door ...
In the first floor (I hesitate to use the words "food court", but that's what it is) of the new SF Westfield shopping center with Bloomies and other fashionable finds, there is a hidden gem that might fool you as a shopping stop, since they have a small retail space with a to-go counter. But sit-down eats are to the rear. Out the Door is a quickie version of it's famous and hard-to-reserve friend: Slanted Door, now located in the remodeled Ferry Building.
The Scene
There is the coooooolest kind of stained glass on the far side wall in brilliant yellows and oranges. Love it! They also had gorgeous oversized floral decor on their long family style table which I adored. They did miss a bit on the scale of their art on the other wall (big wall, long wall, relatively puny art). This long family style table, where patrons that don't know each other share space, is reminiscent of London's Wagamama (a deliciously wonderful, not-to-be-missed British dining treat, but I digress....). They also have an exposed kitchen, which I tend to like. And it makes me feel like they must be doing something pretty clean back there or they wouldn't want me seeing it. I generally squelch any sanitary health preparation concerns I might have when I see a kitchen like that.
The Menu
Similar to Slanted Door. Food is family style portions. Comes out of the kitchen when it is ready - not served in courses. This means, there is no such thing as an "appetizer", just a side dish. You may get it first, you may not. It all depends on how it is prepared. Cold food comes before hot food. Fast prep comes before long prep. It's not rocket-science. Just not done that often in such an obvious way in America. Take note, that is one of the GOOD reasons they advertise it as family style. One person at your table could get all their food several minutes before the other. Plan to share and you'll avoid that hiccup.
The Food
We had a delicious grapefruit and jicama salad with red cabbage and candied peanuts, shared some crispy veggie imperial rolls, and a rice noodle stir fry with chicken, shiitake mushrooms, mung bean sprouts and egg. They probably should have more accurately called it a mushroom garnish, since I saw maybe 3 slices of shitake on the entire plate). All get a "pretty good" -- not a resounding "to-die-for" nor a "just ok." Salad ingredients were very fresh, but I thought a little tasteless. Gay boyfriend didn't agree - he loved, and suggested I mention as such. Done.
The Service
We were seated in a small half booth table at the front of a long line of tables. A half booth is a comfy, boothy seat on one side of the table, and a less comfortable hard chair on the other side. Guess which side I sat on. I don't want to be as spoiled as it sounds because I like to face the action of the restaurant so I can see if anyone important walks in. Also, since the Godfather is my favorite movie of all time, I often don't like a lot of activity going on behind me, since I fear someone may one day be coming out of the men's room guns-a-blazing. I find out later, no real risk of that here (see Bathroom section).
So anyhoo, in this first seat, we are kind of close to the wait staff station and a nice gentleman offers to move us, thinking it may be trafficy, loud and distracting. We opt out, saying we are fine. And we were fine. Until an unfortunate occurrence happened mid-meal when my eyes wandered to the right, where I could see directly into the prep kitchen. I was then faced with one of the most awful, most unappetizing sights I have ever seen. I wish I knew the right word for it. You know how sometimes you see in Italian restaurants they are curing the beef and it's hanging up all over the place. Somehow, that is ok. And it looked just like that here -- except it was a dozen or so chickens. Yes, chickens. Don't try to hard to picture what I am saying. It was grotesque and you'd like to just move onto the next point. *Ugh*
The Bathroom
Well, here's the kicker: There is no bathroom. How, you may ask, can they get away with that?!? Isn't it the law that they need to have a restroom !?! Well, yes. And technically (which they are capitalizing on), no. They are theoretically, in some being-part-of -the-masses way, actually, technically, part of the food court. Even though they are really a stand alone establishment. This would be like Starbucks saying it was ok not to have a bathroom, because you could go next door and use the one at the Gap. Well, not exactly the same thing, but you know how riled up about the bathrooms I get. So, yes, as you may have guessed, that means patrons have to actually exit the sanctuary and head out into the foodie chaos to wash, tinkle, or re-apply tricky lipgloss. Highly annoying. And actually the next level of highly annoying (highly annoying plus), as my dining companion informed me, that the cleanliness state of these exterior restrooms is less that adequate. I didn't brave the swarm of shoppers or the olfactory nightmare. Instead, I decided I could hold it until we'd be heading over to visit the things I can't afford at Dior.
************
In a spoonful, it IS in the mall. Not recommended for a tranquil lunch, as it is still quite loud. But is a decided difference from being out in the chaos of the food court when you are having "food panic." You can sit down, get fed, waited on, and even have a glass of champagne. Which we, of course, did. Just be sure you are not sitting near the chickens. And hopefully you don't need to use the ladies room.
Yip gives it 3.5 spoons.
posted by SoCalATA at 8:24 PM
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