Slanted Door Sucks

When I use the word "sucks" to describe something, it is usually delivered with my arms folded over my chest and in a pouty tone of voice. There is no more perfect way to describe my last visit to Slanted Door. I've been there several times before and, while decent, I've never really understood all the hoopla. This visit transformed my confusion to disgust. Slanted Door missed the Big Three: ambiance, service, and food.

I'll start from the beginning. Two coworkers and I walked in around 1pm on Thanksgiving Eve to find the place completely packed. No surprise here. Okay, so it wasn't completely packed: the cheap, cafeteria style tables behind the bar were completely empty. Sitting in a chair that looked less comfortable than my high school gym's offering was not appealing - and apparently I wasn't the only one as there was a long line of patrons holding out for the main dining room. Yes, I reek of snootiness, but at an establishment with the reputation and prices of Slanted Door, I have no shame admitting my expectations are simply set higher. One of my coworkers also mentioned the furniture, completely independent of my observation. To add insult to injury, the carpet looked dirty and frayed. Huh?

Our presence clearly irritated our bartender/server. No eye contact. A smile? Dream on! Maybe it was our collared shirts or "please's" and "thank you's" that turned her off. But I definitely got interrupted by her index finger in the middle of an order so she could help someone else. The last time I was treated that way was at the DMV.

Two strikes, but the Slanted Door team still had one more at bat. You can see where this is going...

We shared four dishes. The first - crispy imperial rolls - was the only dish without a glaring problem. They were... egg rolls. Nothing too spectacular beyond that. I guess one is supposed to roll all the ingredients together but I found the fried crispiness got lost in the mess of the other ingredients. Next.

The clams actually weren't a disaster, either, but there was just something missing. If you ask me, clams are a lot of work for little return. At least in most restaurants you get a toasted piece of bread to soak up the broth. Not the case here. The sparse bits of pork belly were thick and chewy and but not too flavorful. The clams were like any other clam I've had before (but twice as expensive).

The next two dishes is where things went seriously south. The flat iron steak was fine in itself but the sauce was salty to the point where it was completely inedible. I was chugging water the rest of the afternoon because of the few teaspoons I had. Remove the sauce, and you're left with a... plain steak. Remove the sauce and there's nothing differentiating Slanted Door's steak from one I could get anywhere else.

Slanted Door's main attraction, the cellophane noodles with dungeness crab meat, were painfully dry. I wanted my clam juice back so I could dump it on the noodles (but our clams were long gone as the servers were in some inexplicable hurry). The crab meat must have been the equivalent of one crab leg.

I like dining out because it makes me feel happy. I walked away from lunch in a grumpy mood. I felt robbed.