Never have I had an experience where the service and the food quality was (were?) so mismatched. Each bite at Michael Mina was dreamy, yet its journey to me was painful and chaotic. Upon reading this San Francisco Chronicle review , I knew I had to make it there fast. Sadly, I know the problems stemmed from the fact that the meal must be eaten at the bar - which has always been my favorite place to eat. Michael Mina's bar staff simply isn't equipped to handle five-course meals and manage the bar patrons.
Let's get the bad part out of the way. As the name implies, the five-course "counter menu" is only served at the bar. The restaurant doesn't take reservations, but Adrienne and I had no trouble finding two seats upon our 4:30pm arrival (ha!) The bar menu consists of about ten different bar bites; our bartender informed us of the specific five that would be part of the tasting menu tonight, plus two surprises. The patron next to us was also trying the menu, and the bartender told us this would be a free sneak-preview for us. Sometime thereafter, another bartender came and told us the five selections would be slightly different that we were initially told. Fine. He also asked if we'd like to make any substitutions. Between Adrienne's lack of interest in foie gras and my determination to taste the tuna tartar, we asked if we could swap foie gras for tuna tartar. He had no problem with this request. I was particularly excited for the kobe beef sliders and the crab pop tart.
Our first dish out was not the same dish our neighbor initially received but the shrimp and pork spring rolls were so delicious I wasn't phased at this point. There were so many courses and confusion that the rest is kind of hazy at this point. The unwanted foie gras came out in all its glory; the kobe beef sliders never appeared; only one pop tart came out instead of two (the biggest bummer of them all); hamachi and tortellini arrived despite it not being on the menu nor ever mentioned; the drool-inducing tuna popper came to our neighbor but never us. The food deliverers appeared bewildered and their lack of English caused even more confusion. Our primary bartender was becoming increasingly agitated by the course. I felt bad for her.
On the plus side, because of all the mayhem, I figure Adrienne and I actually had closer to 7 different plates. Without a doubt, my favorite was the crab pop tart, which is basically warm, buttery crab salad encrusted by warm, butter filo dough; or as I like to say, warm'n'buttery wrapped in some warm'n'buttery. Michael Mina's signature dish, tuna tartar, absolutely met my expectations. It's tossed bar-side with sesame oil, diced pears, and pine nuts. According to our server, the tuna was Grade A fresh from somewhere exotic (Hawaii I think) and it tasted it. Naturally, our two favorite dishes were the two that we had to split!
I typically spot check my memory of the meal with the menu on the restaurant's website. Blogging becomes more difficult when half the dishes aren't even on the menu and I have to rely on poor quality iPhone pictures. Among the "very good but not great dishes:" a lobster tortellini, beef (can't get more descriptive than that), and a fried piece of fish. They fall victim to normalcy; while very good, I've had very similar dishes elsewhere. There was no special touch to separate them from the crowd.
If I were to go back - which I would - I wouldn't even look at the menu and just let the plates fall were they may. I got so caught up in tracking what we'd had versus what was coming and stressing about all the various discrepancies that I forgot to stop and just savor the moment - and there were many.
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