The Richmond Restaurant Wine & Bar

615 Balboa St. (between 7th & 8th Ave.)
(415) 379-8988

Californian/American in the Richmond

Went here for my birthday =) The atmosphere is great - total mom & pop place (homey yet elegant) located in a residential neighborhood close to my apartment! It actually looked like it was an apartment converted into a restaurant (it did!) . Since it was a Tuesday night, it wasn't that busy (we were able to make reservations in the late afternoon the day of).

The waiter was friendly and helpful, but at times had a condescending tone. There were 7 us, and none of us really know much, if anything, about wine, so we asked for recommendations... the waiter seemed a bit annoyed with our indecision =P (he wasn't very helpful at all. he didn't seem like he should belong in such a cute restaurant)

The food was good, but not worth the money. The butter for the bread was very cutely plated - a regular yellow butter coated in coarse salt, a green pesto butter, and a purple taro butter (the butter was adorable). First time I've seen that. To our surprise, the appetizers are INDIVIDUAL - i.e. the scallop (not plural on the menu) really is just one scallop! Sure, it was big and tasted good, but $10 for ONE scallop? Silly. (i know! so silly!) The entrees were the steak (nothing special) (yeah, not special at all), ravioli, cheeseburger hehe, sole + braised short ribs (ok).

Overall, this restaurant is good, but the food isn't anything special.

- k - s