Aliment — Restaurant in San Francisco

With an empty stomach and high hopes of a good meal a friend of mine and I attended Aliment hoping for a night of good eats.

Though the place is small, it does have a rather nice ambience and the staff were friendly at the start. We waited entirely too long for water, but the waitress who was watching our area was quite busy so that was understandable.

Once we placed our order, the brussel sprout appetizer came out quickly which was really quite good. Unfortunately, this was the last thing that went right with the meal.

While I'm not usually a burger guy in an establishment such as this, my friend told me that he'd had it before and it was a great burger. I generally go off suggestions from those with experience, so we both ordered the same burger for our dinner.

20 minutes after ordering our waitress returned to let us know that they were "Out of burgers." WHO runs out of burgers?? We substituted our second best choice as we'd seen a nearby diner receiving it for her meal, so thought it might be a good substitute.

Once the Korean Style Fried Chicken arrived, I was disappointed to find out that the only thing "Korean" about it was the incredibly spicy BBQ sauce that it was drowning in. Trying a few bits of the bird that weren't doused, I discovered that the sauce was the only thing providing it with flavor as there was no real spice to the batter the bird had been fried in. While my friend decided to settle for what was already in front of him, I decided that I wasn't going to punish myself by trying to finish this poorly executed mess.

I politely went and found the waitress standing with one of her coworkers and explained that the meal was both too spicy and not something I could eat, and asked if she could please remove it from the tab. She suggested I take a look at the menu for a replacement, and I settled for my third choice of salmon cakes.

Sigh... Honestly this just isn't a well thought out dish. While the salmon cakes were ok, there were a lot of things going on with the dish that didn't seem to really have any connection to any other item on the plate. The small mushrooms were fine, but seemed an odd pairing with the fish as they weren't prepared together or in the same fashion. There was an interesting starchy root vegetable that was plated with this, but it was cold compared with the the rest of the ingredients and seem to only serve the function of visual interest, while totally lacking flavor or preparation. There were huge wedges of what smelled like smoked beets but tasted like something dumped straight out of a can, and all of this sat in a lukewarm puddle of sunchoke sauce, which again seemed to be in no way related to anything else on the plate.

Unfortunately the hopeful name of Aliment is a complete misnomer. In this case Ailment is much more apropos. There's a lot of great food in San Francisco. If you're looking for a nice meal, and you pass this place, do yourself a favor and...

Upon a recommendation by a friend, I dined at Aliment in a group of six, which turned out to be the perfect group size. We got one of each of everything except the burger, salads, and the butcher board. We also got extra of fried chicken bits, brussels sprouts, and steak, because they were our favorites of the night.

To go along with the food, we got a bottle of the Samsara pinot noir and (I think) the Alexander Valley cabernet sauvignon. Both were wonderful and went very well with each of the dishes. Service was great and everything was wonderful. Highly recommend Aliment for a tasty dinner. Recap of dishes below:

MUST HAVES: Fried chicken bits: Small pieces of fried chicken. Not dry, lots of flavor, great crust. I also loved the pickles. Riblets: Yum, so delicious! So juicy, tender, and flavorful. Arguably my favorite dish of the evening. The collard greens were great as an accompaniment. Steak: Perfectly medium rare. Loved the chimichurri sauce and carrot puree. Portion size is pretty big too. Pork belly: How can anyone turn down delicious pork belly? The kimchi was a great topping and I loved the crunch rice ovalettes. Foie gras meatballs: Yum yum yum. Texture was soft and there's lots of flavor. The salad on the side was extremely lackluster though. Brussels sprouts:

JUST OKAY Mussels: Compared to the other dishes, I thought this was just okay. It was yummy but not as interesting as some of the other offerings. Pastrami short rib: I think the rest of the group would disagree with me and put it as a must have, but I didn't think this was as great as the other dishes. The concept was new and interesting, but the other meat dishes were better, IMO. The egg was awesome though. Trout cakes: Kinda like crab cakes. It was delicious, but was slightly fishy, so that's why I didn't put it in the must have category.

WOULD SKIP Arctic char roulade: This was perhaps the weakest dish of the evening. The fish was overcooked and there wasn't enough flavor. Gnocchi: There's probably better gnocchi elsewhere. Lamb: It's not bad, but also didn't stand out. I would skip this and save room for the other...

I have never left a review for any establishment, but the experience at Aliment was so catastrophic, I felt it is my duty to share.

I made a reservation for standard indoor seating at 7pm. Upon arrival at 6.55pm, we entered the restaurant, however were rudely told to wait outside, along with a number of other guests, all of whom also had reservations. We proceeded to wait outside, in the cold, until 7.25pm, at which point the waiter came outside to tell us we could sit outside, or wait a further unspecified amount of time for a table to come free indoors. By this point multiple people in the queue had given up, however given we were visiting the city, we didn't know of any alternatives at short notice.

A couple sitting at the bar came outside and told us to take their seat as they were leaving, given the ridiculous delay in clearing away tables and getting new customers seated. Upon sitting down, we were told by the barman we'd have to wait ten minutes before we would be served.

Finally, we were shown to a free table, which hadn't been cleaned, and had no cutlery or menus. After ten minutes, we were handed warm glasses (just out the dishwasher) and lukewarm water.

When the food arrived, we still had no cutlery. We requested this from the waiter and were handed a fork. I had to search for a knife myself, and we both ended up eating with large steak knives. The food was bang average, the chips were cold/soggy and the beef was pink inside, despite requesting it well done.

I'd liken the volume in the room to that of an A380 taking off. If you enjoy feeling like your ear drums are about to burst, then this is the place for you.

If I could give this zero stars, I would. Not one, did anyone apologise for any of these issues, particularly having to standout for half an hour past your booking time. A truly shocking evening and I would advise everyone to take your...