You know a place is trendy when it doesn't have a name and decides to go by its address. That's what 2223 is. I do love the decor of this place, which is done in dark woods and has a rustic, but classy, look. The dark, warm tones of the overall decor make the restaurant seem very cozy. I made a reservation, but when we showed up, the guy had a hard time finding my name. I don't know if he actually found it or huffily gave up (he seemed a little huffy for some reason), but he did offer us a window table, which was perfect.
I was stuck between a cinnamon bun with a biscuit/gravy on the side and the lemon buttermilk pancakes with organic seasonal fruit, fruit syrup (raspberry, I think), and chantilly cream. The website's menu has it slightly differently. It was certainly a work of art, but I can't say I was overwhelmed by it. Not necessarily underwhelmed, either... just whelmed. The pancakes were really dense and, quite literally, cakey. G. likes her pancakes that way, but I prefer mine fluffier. I can become easily bogged down by the richness of too many pancakes, so the lighter, the better. I also didn't taste too much lemon... they were just buttermilk pancakes. The fruit was beautiful and went with the chantilly cream well.
It's a shame I didn't get a picture of the cinnamon bun, which K. ordered, because it was arguably the best cinnamon bun I have ever had. The outside was crusty, but it was super-soft and fluffy on the inside. The filling was incredible and it was topped with gooey pecans. It was gigantic (about 8 inches across) and couldn't be finished by one person. My mocha was fine, but the milk was steamed so hot that I had to let it cool for a long time before drinking it. Here's K.'s South Beach Eggs Benedict. It's poached eggs, hollandaise sauce, and seasonal veggies. K. wanted bacon on top. The veggies were incredible. I stole a few spoonfuls of corn and the kernels were fresh and sweet.
Service was fine at 2223. I thought our waiter was Home was a lot more fun. For some reason, they couldn't dice up bacon to put into G.'s omelette. Our waiter insisted that they had to serve the bacon in strips on top. Weird.
For dinner, we walked from G.'s apartment to Hayes Valley for Patxi's Chicago Pizza.
K. ordered the Californian, which was brilliant. It's a whole wheat crust, low-fat mozzarella, spinach, red onions, and fresh marinara pooled over the top. The crust held up beautifully under all of the moist and heavy ingredients. I was expecting it to be soggy, but even the bottom crunched when you bit into it. Very nice. I didn't get a picture until I'd taken a couple of bites, so here it is:
It's filling, so 4 of us split a 14-inch pizza (which is 8 slices). Two slices was very filling, so it was more than enough for me.
Unfortunately, the management has a few things to work out. The first is the surly guy who we were forced to deal with most of the time. The entire staff was generally friendly and helpful except for this guy. He was one of those people who acted like you were bothering him every time you spoke to him. Hey, that's fine, but why work in food service? The second is their turnaround time. They do warn you that 30-40 minutes is needed for deep-dish pizzas, but geez, it took the full 40 minutes and they waited to serve everything at once, so the smaller pizza G. ordered came out after 40 minutes as well. I understand that quality suffers if you pre-make stuff, but they do need to mitigate the wait time. One way is to keep the drinks flowing and serve something like bread. For that to work, a friendly and helpful staff is needed. Yeah...
0 bites: