Caffe Sport: More "Institution" than "Fine Dining"
Written: Sep 22 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The decor is original and eyecatching
Cons: The food is a mess
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| Mr.Eyore's Full Review: Caffe Sport |
Somehow I think this is the one that people will be emailing me about, but after polling others and visiting three times myself, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Caffe Sport is the most over-rated restaurant in San Francisco.
"But what about Postrio," you'll say, "or Absinthe, you hated Absinthe."
Well, all of those high-end places that draw the real foodies are out of the running, because (1) some people reasonably disagree with me on those places, and (2) some people aren't as put off as I by snooty waiters and one disappointing lineup of dishes. A lot of the famous restaurants that I disliked, I've mentioned but not reviewed because it is largely unfair to negatively review a restaurant after only one try. But for a variety of reasons, I have been forced to eat at Caffe Sport several times, even though I wasn't wild about it the first time.
Caffe Sport is a San Francisco institution, and it isn't entirely clear to me why that is so. I presume it is because the restaurant combines two genres that are almost always guaranteed to please even the most finicky eater: Italian and seafood. Moreover, the place relies heavily on the fats that we just can't resist: cream, butter and cheese.
As I keep telling that Emeril guy: "Yellin' ‘BANG' don't make you a chef if all your doing is throwing butter and cream on top of something I'd eat plain anyway." But he doesn't listen.
The Food: or "How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Lobster"
Caffe Sport's most famous dish is its Lobster with cream sauce. Didn't really appeal to me even on the menu, but it's such an eponymous dish here that I felt compelled to order it at least once. They use California, not Maine, lobster for this dish, which I have no problem with; small California lobsters can be absolutely delicious. But be aware that it won't come with that succulent stringy claw meat that many people love.
After trying this dish, I'm convinced that Cal. lobster is still best when served with a lime wedge, a simple salad and maybe some beans and rice, the way they do it down in Baja. The cheesy cream sauce completely overwhelms the delicately rich crustacean But what makes this dish appalling it the fact that it is served on top of a bed of watery, overcooked sliced vegetables.
Typically, Caffe Sport uses a mix of zuchini and/or summer or crookneck squash, two of my favorite vegetables when they are julienned and barely cooked in a little lemon-butter or wine. Sport's vegetable bed is an inedibly mushy toss of thick long-cut slices, poorly drained so the water mixes up with the cream sauces creating a dastardly stew.
The shrimp/scampi dishes suffer the same malaise: cream sauce and watery vegetables. Why take perfectly good prawns (and in case I haven't mentioned it, ALL of Caffé Sport's is actually of the best quality) and drown it / serve it on top of a concoction that renders the prime element moot? At more than $20.00 per, none of these dishes is worth it. The Rustica All'Antonio, pasta with shrimp, scallops and four cheeses, was ill advised in its conception and just too nasty too merit discussion.
In Sport's defense, I have had the pasta with clams, which includes a fine mixture of both fresh clams in the shell and baby clams, and has the right notes of garlic and spiciness. At $16.00, it's a little more than you'll pay at most Italian restaurants will charge, but I think it's worth paying a little extra for the better quality seafood.
The Decor: Wear Your Shades
The interior of Caffe Sport looks like someone shoved the Watts Tower, a Mission Mural and Godfather II into a gigantic blender and hit the "whip" button for a few seconds ... and I love it. It truly is unique. There are plenty of straw covered Chianti bottle around, but they are lost in a spectacle of colored glass and Sicilian tchotchkes. The tables and chairs, other than those few two seaters shoved in the front against a wall, tend toward the sturdy and comfortable, and I suspect that part of the tourist appeal of this place derives from so many folks going back home and telling their friends about how they sat comfortably hypnotized in some seafood restaurant for a couple of hours as lobster, shrimp, cram and butter was paraded before them.
Part of the appeal may also come from the fact that there are a lot of other people out there like Pookie's dad, who takes business associates and visiting relatives to Caffe Sport and surreptitiously points to old men while whispering to his guests, "You know who that is, right? That's Gabby Gambino. His father was head of one of the five families."
The Service: Whaddaya ‘Spect
Inexplicably, some people find the bad service here to be part of the appeal. But this isn't the sort of quaint, playful rudeness you'd get from that lady from New York with the beehive hairdo who works at the burger joint you take your friends to. This is more a general lack of consideration for patrons. Try asking a question about one of the dishes, and you're likely to get no more than, "It's good, get it."
Regardless of the occasion you're showing up for, you've got a good chance of being thrown onto a table with another party. Not a big deal if your going to a raucous brunch place on Snuday afternoon, but this is a relatively expensive "destination" restaurant where people frequently make reservations for romantic evenings.
Typically, I would make one of my feeble efforts to address the wine offerings, but I'm unprepared to do so for this restaurant. The last time I went there, the waiter recognized my date (who loves the place and goes frequently) and she merely asked him to bring a bottle of the white she had had the previous week, which was fine. The previous visit, I asked to see a wine list and the waiter said, "Whattaya want, red or white?"
"Red. Do you have an actual wine menu I can look at?" I asked.
"I can tell you what we got. Whattaya want?"
"I'd like to know which chiantis you have."
"We gotta eighteen, a twenny-one anna twenny-four."
The twenny-four we got was very good, so that's all I can say by way of a recommendation.
Parking: Fuggedaboutit
For those of you who live in the city, Caffé Sport is in North Beach. Nuff said. For the rest of you, this is the most nightmarish part of the city in which to try to find parking. During the dinner hour, especially on Friday or Saturday night, there's simply no point. Caffe Sport does have valet parking, but there's no reason not to take a cab here. So many taxis roam down Columbus and Broadway streets that you will easily be able to find one home.
In conclusion, if you insist on going to Caffe Sport, take a cab, order some linguini with clams and a bottle of twenny-four. Otherwise, take your out-of-town guests down the street to the Stinking Rose; take your significant other to L'Osteria. They're both a couple of blocks away, cost much less money, and are bound to satisfy.
Recommended:
No
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Mr.Eyore
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Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 299 members
About Me:
I come for the pervasive sense of elitist self-importance and semi-witty expressions of faux camaraderie
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