- Bottoms Up (RSS)Candybar doesn’t reach it for me
By Jessica Yadegaran
Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 4:25 pm in Uncategorized.
Anyone been to Candybar yet? Joel and I checked it out last night and while we were impressed with some of the eclectic flavors, we don’t think they’ll last. Not at those portions and prices. And not in Western Addition/NOPA. Chef Boris Portnoy should’ve stayed at Campton Place, where the customer gets more than two bites for his buck.
We’d just come from a barbecue in South Park so after some chicken and beans we were ready for dessert. We selected three items off Candybar’s menu, which is broken up into savory and sweet categories and from there, fruit and chocolate: we had the savory mackarel with beets and popcorn, a goat cheese cake with toybox carrots and rosemary marshmallows with white chocolate and coffee ice cream.
Surprisingly, for a dessert bar, the fish was the best thing we had. And we each wouldn’t have minded another few bites. It was probably two by two inches. The place was so New York it was San Francisco.
The marshmallows left much to be desired and the cake was spare and lovely, but again, a few more bites would’ve been alright by us. And I don’t mean to hate on our waiter, but it was so ironic. Here is this small eclectic menu with strange combinations (feta sorbet, anyone?) and he hadn’t tried any of them, so he couldn’t tell us what they tasted like!
The wines were grossly marked up and I was surprised to see only one off-dry sparkling wine by the glass. That’s the perfect wine in my opinion for this kind of savory-sweet food, especially if you can’t afford the $66 bottle of Sauternes for a few bites of food. Er, dessert. Oh whatever.
What gets me are the 96 entries on Yelp singing the praises of this place. It’s mostly groups of girls who must make six times what I do going in and nibbling on goat cheese cake (which, btw, has cow’s milk in it, just in case you’re lactose intolerant and were excited to see something with goat cheese in it on the menu) and being OK with that.
Lately, after a debacle over a sketchy yoga studio, I’m starting to think Yelp plants its people. Thoughts?
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June 9th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I completely agree with everything in this review. I live nearby Candybar and love the concept of having a small place for post-dinner date or girls night out dessert. Unfortunately, our waiter was equally clueless, and even forgot two of our “courses.” Uh, there’s only 4 courses in their “tastings” and 2 of them are set, so really, how could you forget half of our food? (We had to ask for them TWICE). He was also just extremely inattentive, even though the place wasn’t busy. Afterwards we debated whether or not he was an arrogant/aloof waiter or just a little slow.
I was hoping my experience was just a bad night, but after this review, I’m thinking not. Boo
I wanted to like it! I really did!
June 9th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I was there on Thursday night too. It was my birthday so I didn’t pay and therefore can’t comment on that, except to say we (yes - 6 girls) were all up for a special treat. I did notice that the dessert tasting menu was $10 cheaper than Portnoy’s tasting menu at Campton Place which I had also experienced, and the atmosphere at Candy bar was way more fun/casual. Apparently Portnoy’s menu was only finally put into place on Wednesday night which might explain your waiter’s confusion, though not an excuse. We just asked Boris to choose our desserts for us. He told us he didn’t want to stay at Campton place because he wanted to cook for real people, something he couldn’t do in a hotel dining room. Campton Place have also themed their menu as ‘Indian’.
We tried every dessert on the menu, Thursday, I think. Personally, I happen to think the white coffee ice cream is particularly stunning and unusual (I’d tried white coffee in one of his desserts preciously at Campton Place and it blew me away). The feta sorbet was wonderful too. I can only judge the experience without the burden of the pleasure:cost ratio as I wasn’t party to the bill, and from that point of view it suited me just perfectly.
Sorry you didn’t like it as much as I did.
June 9th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
The problem with Candy Bar and Yelp is that both are frequented by people who use NOPA as a neighborhood designation.
Unless they get mugged, of course, then all of a sudden they’re in the Western Addition.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:11 am
We had a good time, but were looking for more of a fun dessert place, not as avant garde. But we’re always up for trying something new, so I hope it does well!
June 11th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I wanted to like it too, and hope it does well. But I think it’s just too avant garde and over priced. We need a fun dessert place, like Citizen Cake!