Janelle "you just lost one star for that" C.'s Profile

Cafe Fledermaus is located on the lower level of the Neue Galerie. It serves the same menu as the upstairs Cafe Sabarsky but the ambience is obviously more limited. The view... well there is not much of one but in this case, I'll focus on the food and service.

Service: Limited. You seat yourself (and it couldn't hurt to have a sign that indicates that just so you're not hoovering around aimlessly). Constant flagging of the waiter and waitress in a room the size of a large living room got quite a bit annoyinig over time.

Food: The food however made up for the service. While the menu is a bit limited, remember, this is a 'cafeteria' within a gallery. (http://kg-ny.com/cms/d...). I personally found the menu to be a delightful surprise since i'm not very familar with German food. I tried the Salamiaufstrich mit Gurkerl (Salami spread with cornichons) - a open face sandwich with a salami spread of some kind. It was served with a small mixed green salad. My bf tried the Bratwurst mit Sauerkraut & Röstkartoffeln (Roasted Sausage with Riesling Sauerkraut & Roasted Potatoes). The Elderberry syrup with sparkling water was also very refreshing. We split a slice of Marzipan Chocolate cake for dessert.

Despite compromising on the view (since the Cafe Sabarsky line was at least another 20-30 mins at 2pm) and the service, I found the food excellent. Very tasty! If you can't wait for the upstairs cafe, Fledermaus is just as good.

Happy eating!

Ok I'll be honest... I'm torn here - food versus service is fighting whether to give this 4 stars or 3. I'm going with 3. The service wasn't awful but it didn't make the experience that enjoyable either.

The interior is nicely decorated. Typical layout for a sushi joint with a slight attempt at upscale. The lunch specials are priced well and my dragon roll was yummy. The terriyaki chicken was ok. The sauce was nice because it wasn't sickeningly sweet like the crap you get at the mall but the breast itself was dry and overcooked. The shumai on the side was a nice extra touch but the flavour didn't leave me wanting more.

So I'm not dinging the location for the food. But the service was annoying. I know there weren't any other lunch eaters around when we ate there (bad economy) but the hovering by the waitress prevented me from enjoying my meal. She just kept swooping in and out as we were eating to see if we were done yet. And my biggest peeve was that she wasn't willing to substitute crab on my plate that came with the meal because I was allergic to crab. Seriously? I even asked if I could have a vegetable instead.

Price-wise especially for lunch, the location and food is worth it.

Bah... should have done my food research before coming to Sunnyvale. This chosen dinner location was an unfortunate accident. Darnit for letting the tourists take the lead on dinner plans. Something should have cued me in that they could take a reservation for 12 at the last moment.

The menu is just plain too large. They should offer less and make the food better. The service was so-so. The prices are fair and food itself wasn't terrible but I wouldn't bother going back. I had the salad (if by salad you mean some sad ice berg drowned in dressing with one big round slice of tomato on top) and the spinach ravioli. I think the ravioli from costco is a lot better. The garlic bread might be the only saving grace. Not greasy and not too garlicky. Just right (for me).

The decor is super cheesy. It looks like like people cleaned out their garages and passed the unwanted items as decorations. Sorry, that was harsh... but it's true.

A bit generic so they tried to jazz up the menu with some fun names of rolls. My personal favourite was 'Sex with a Shark'. :)

Overall the sushi was Ok. Nothing to call home about but decently priced, could appease one's craving for raw fish, and good service. The poor waitress was the only one on staff and she was still timely and attentive. An additional kudos because the chef got my order wrong and she apologized and promptly replaced it (good thing I didn't eat the roll since I'm allergic to the misplaced ingredient!).

$60 for 3 people (included 2 rolls each and wakame).

I haven't yelped in a quite some time but finally I've been able to make it to a restaurant yelp worthy (yes writing about the plumber down the street is starting to get old).  First off let me say, GET THERE EARLY!  I've been to places that don't take reservations before but did not expect that at 5:45pm (i.e. 15 mins after opening) the place would have a 1 hr and 15 min wait time to get a table.  But we made the trek out there and were committed so we put our names down.  The restaurant does the polite favour of calling you when a table is ready so at least you don't have to wait outside (though they have benches, thank you!).

As we were led to our table, I looked around at the decor.  I loved the random hodge podge of ceramic plates, paintings, and old school posters but at the same time it added to the claustraphobic feeling inside the restaurant. We ate on the second floor, which was just as crammed as the first. Too many people milling around the bar area and the tables are situated crushed along the walls. Interesting... I haven't really been in such a setting before (for a pricey restaurant). The tables are small and you have to sit on a stool... again adding to that cramped feeling. So as you can sum up so far, the decor was not to my liking but these reviews are more about the food.

Finally food time! For starters, we selected the Prosciutto & Ricotta Tart with Marjoram and the Crispy Pig's Ear. I was intrigued by the latter and both were simply delicious. Piglet's ear was like crunch salty bacon. Yum! Oh yet another reason why I can never truly become a vegetarian. For our main courses we had the venison (a special that day) and the Sautéed Quail with Roasted Treviso & Parmesan.  The venison was a little too rare for my liking but paired with the sauce and my wine, it all went down well. The quail was also a little heavy on the sauce. It was however cooked very well and the meat was juicy.  And because I am a french fry-a-holic, I had to have the shoe string fries. Bingo! Grease + salt + rosemary = a winner. For dessert we split a slice of ginger cake which was a my bf predicted, more like a gingerbread cookie. It was super moist and delicious so I had no complaints.

Overall we thought the starters (called 'plates' on the menu) were the clear winners. The portions were generous (compared to the entrees) and we probably should have just ordered 4 plates instead.  The atmosphere was nice but too noisy. We agreed that we've had better food for the price but it's definitely worth trying at least once. Expect to spend between $100-200 for two.

Perhaps after I visit another gastropub I can revise my feelings about the atmosphere. But for now, I'll let the food own this rating :)

So I understand that this town is only "alive" for about 4 months of the year but that doesn't excuse really crappy business.  If you're going to have a business, I suggest having a plan in place.  Indicating on your website that you can accommodate transportation to and from the airport as well as within the park BUT only have one taxi cab available, sounds like a bad business plan to me.  Are you trying to cater to tourists and make money? If so, trying to cater to just one tourist at a time is surely doomed to fail.  We called in advance knowing that we would need a quick ride to the airport and were instructed to call about 20mins before we needed to be at the airport.  Smart thinkers that we were, we actually called 2 hours in advance of needing to be in the airport (note the airport is about less than 2 miles away) so we figured that was plenty of time. Oops. First, the lines were busy for 20 mins. Then when we finally got through, the operator told us they couldn't locate their one cab and we should try calling back again in 10 mins (which is actually more like 30 mins if you do the math and anticipate the additional 20 mins of busy signals again).  

Word of advice, go to a local hotel (Comfort Inn, Best Western etc.) and beg for a ride to the airport. Offer to pay for the ride and look desperate. The nice people in the town understood and were kind enough to help us out.

Yellowstone Taxi, congrats! You are one of the select few businesses ever to get one star from me. Well earned!

When I visited Santa Rosa before I took a job, I spent a week in the area. That week was enough to remind me why I live in San Francisco. I'm not sure Coddingtown is a mall and it probably isn't sure either cuz the sign is blown out. Sure parking is ample but I haven't come across such a run down, uninspired setting for department stores. I don't feel like buying when I'm there. I'm usually thinking how fast can I get what I need and take off. Everything about it feels like the stores that are there are left over from the other santa rosa mall. Which is really unfortunate because I have observed a few stores that do have unique things. But the atmosphere is so drab that I don't bother to stop in for very long.

Makeover? Yes. Needed desperately? Yes.

I probably should not order Indian food on a whim anymore. Seriously, it's just too expensive to crave randomly. Star India is no exception. I did a delivery take out so I'm only going to cover the food itself. Kudos to the delivery guy he was nice. Onto the food -

- the garlic nan was pretty blah. They threw enough saffron on the bread to drive home the idea that it wasn't just plain nan. I should also point out, I couldn't really taste the garlic but the bright yellow bread was a reminder.
- Lamb Rogan Josh was ok. Nothing spectacular but tasty enough. A little too heavy on the tomato? I don't know what they put in it but it did look like lamb in marinara sauce.
- Samosas! Hells yeah. Err hells no. Waaay too salty!  No no no!

I suppose it's not worse than what I've experienced in SF so far (wrt indian food) so I'm ok giving it an A-ok rating.

A pretty new starbucks so it's clean and not overly crowded.  Whoever scouts the locations for Starbucks - good job!  You clearly recognize that this area is expanding with lots of new businesses and not every company's internal coffee cart makes decent coffee.  Yes you're over-priced but sometimes that $3 chai latte is just want I needed.  
The staff has always been very polite and patient when I'm ordering (cuz I don't speak that Starbucks lingo) and I have been known to go on meeting runs that require me to juggle 12 coffees. All hail the stir stick!

I found HK through Yelp while attempting to find a fair locale for everyone to meet up as we were coming from several different directions. It was easy to find and easy to get a reservation at the last moment for Sunday brunch. The prices looked reasonable as did the selection. My friend thoroughly enjoyed his unlimited mimosas for $12.95. Considering 1 was $9, he did pretty well that day. I started off the day with a Mango smoothie. Delicious! Cool and refreshing without being overly sweet. Around the table we got lots of different things (frittata, eggs benedict, turkey and brie, grilled mushroom). Everyone was very satisfied and the portions were very generous. The decor didn't quite reflect their website (perhaps there's a special back room I wasn't privy too) but the decor was something I was looking forward too and it ended up looking cheap and disappointing. The walls look like mattress padding. The tables also are shiny cheap metal without the formalin tops but still remind me of a cheap diner though from their website I think they're supposed to be aiming for upscale. My other peeve was the service. We were seated with many empty tables that started to fill up after we had already ordered, yet all the tables around us seemed to get their food first. It was as if they were waiting for us to finish our smoothies first and if they were, management might want to re-think that strategy. More than 40 mins for food to arrive? Sandwiches? Eggs? Seriously? Only after I asked the waitress to follow-up on our order did the plates arrive. It was tasty but I think there's been other brunch places in the city I would still recommend over this one if given a choice. But if you're in the neighbourhood, give HK a chance.