Almond and Oak — Restaurant in Oakland

The service here was really the best part. I called ahead to make a reservation for 10 to celebrate my father's birthday. Everyone was so kind from the person who took the reservation to the woman who greeted us at the door, to our server, the runner... everyone. The decor was fantastic as well. The exposed brick and wood beams gave the best casual but classy ambiance. What I really didn't care for was the food! Everything was really bland. We all ordered different things but came to the same conclusion: the food's not that great. I had the shrimp and grits and added a while lot of salt and pepper to "season" it. I love this dish and have had it all over the world, but this one was lackluster and a little too soupy. Our table also ordered corn bread, fruit, some chicken sandwiches, a quiche, the frech toast, and the pozole. Most of us left food behind or took it home with the intention of seasoning it later. My brother who had the French toast said that it was more like bread pudding or cake and just too sweet. My dad had the Benedict, and it looked pretty solid with a layer of pork belly and a bed of greens. Out of all the dishes, that one might've been the best. We also really enjoyed the mimosas...

One last thing, we sat inside, and it was a bit too warm because of the large stone oven and open kitchen. We wished that we had sat outside since the weather was cooler outside and there...

I dined here last night for Oakland restaurant week. The ambience was incredible. The service was good, it could’ve benefited from a tad better attentiveness. We got our first course and waited a while for someone to come by to offer our second course. My date didn’t get his second drink for a long time. All the servers who came to our table were incredibly warm and friendly. The steak tartar felt like a bag of potato chips with ground beef that had been sprinkled with lemon juice. The brussels sprouts were my absolute favorite thing of the whole evening aside from my tequila drink. The pork meal was plated so nicely, but the pork itself was incredibly salty so I had to drown it in the broccolini and potatoes and we didn’t even finish half of it. Same goes for our seafood plate, we didn’t finish half of it. The bread that came with it was very buttery and soggy and the seafood itself was bland. We were so unimpressed and ready to go that we just turned down having our dessert altogether and didn’t even bother taking it home either. Perhaps I’ll come back in the distant future to try food again or maybe just for the ambience...

For a pricey resto, they're not subtle with their flavors at all.

Our pork shoulders were sweet throughout (think BBQ levels), and my fish & shellfish stew was very intensely parsley'd. That said, the stew did come with a good amount of shellfish, and I was very happy with the perfectly cooked shrimp and scallops.

We had a table of 4 and one of our appetizers (the burrata) was served with 3 slices of bread. We were all pickin' at it like real scavengers until there was no more bread and just a smidgen of cheese left. At this point, the server offered to get us more bread, and we were delivered another 3. It's nice of them to have offered, but it really would've been nice if they'd just served us even 1 more slice earlier. The taste of this one was fine though- the anchovies were an intriguing flavor addition to the tomato and cheese.

Additionally, it's just a little dark in the restaurant. We had my dad here visiting, and he had to put on glasses and use his cellphone as a flashlight for the menu....