La Fina Estampa — Restaurant in San Francisco

I went to San Francisco for a day and, about lunchtime, decided to eat some peruavian food. I grew up around peruvian food all my life, and we mostly cook it every day at home. However, we like to try and compare how different it could be just because when it comes to peruvian food, it can change according to where the people come from. The last time I was there, we tried la mar from the famous peruvian chef Gaston. It was good, except a bit pricy for small portions, but the guy knows his stuff. For this review, I decided to give it like a 3 star, mostly because the people were nice and respectful, and I do appreciate that. Regarding the food, sadly I was disappointed. I can eat a better menu if I go to Perú or if I cook it myself at home. The soup was a regular chicken noodle soup and did not reassembled peruavian soup. It was like an American chicken noodle soup, a few carrots, celery, noodles, and a small piece of chicken. I asked for a Lomo Saltado. The problem here was that most of the Lomo was onions. The Lomo dish contains potatoes that are supposed to be fried first in a pan, then you cut the beef and cook it in oil on high, and mix it with soy sauce, etcetc...then just add tomatoes. red and green onions, but you don't cook it throughly and then mix it with the fries. The fries were way too cooked, and it was mostly onions. I counted 6 pieces of meat and tasted if it was meat taken from another different dish. The rice was a bit burned. Overall, it's not a very good choice if you know about...

The food was good, but I found the menu to be a little limited. The prices were a bit high for what we received. The decor is traditional (nice, I prefer that), but was in need of a little love and a good dust rag. But what prompted me to give just two stars was the service. The server was slow and forgetful. Completely untrained, just set the bottle of wine down on the table and said "here's your wine". Did not pour it. Then he proceeded to order us around the remainder of the meal. Rudely. Like, "gimme that plate", in an arrogant, blunt tone. Trust me, it was ridiculous to the point it was actually kind of funny, but not in a good way. Someone needs to tell this man it's the other way around. We're the guests. Eventually, he disappeared. A long time passed. We had been out of food/drinks for quite some time and there were still dirty plates on the table. We found him sitting at a table, eating his own dinner having what looked like a great time, with 3 other employees. We handed him our credit card. None of the four looked the least surprised or embarrassed. He took our card without even getting up. We laughed it off, but I would not go back to this restaurant. I wouldn't want to interrupt his dinner with his...

Edit: They are OPEN! Back again and had anticuchos. They’re the only authentic true-to-Peru anticuchos de la corazón I’ve found in the US so far! This place serves up the same flavours that I find in Peru itself. I’m a Peruvian citizen so I’ve gone often!

Someone keeps changing it to “temporarily closed” but that’s not the right label! They are open for takeout and limited dine-in. Please help keep this location’s information accurate so people don’t miss out. The restaurant could be suffering from everyone thinking it’s closed when it’s not.

Original: Delicious lomo saltado and chicha morada! The lunch special is a great deal too :) They even let me get the chicha instead of soup! I am so excited for when they open for dine-in. The...