The Buoy — Restaurant in San Francisco

I had a feeling that this cafe was going to be overhyped, but I was hoping to be proven wrong, especially with how kind the staff are!

My friend and I shared the Ssuk latte, einspanner, matcha roll cake, and black cocoa cookie.

I have had Ssuk also known as Mugwort before in pastries, which I enjoyed, but never in latte form so I knew it was a risk to try. Overall I will have to agree with another review that the taste was similar to chinese herbal medicine or even to me specifically, if you were to taste tiger balm. Maybe because its more concentrated vs. in a pastry there is cake or pastry to balance it out?

With this being a korean cafe, I had expected their einspanner to be similar to the ones I had in Korea, but unfortunately it was not. The latte was watery and bitter and the cream did not have the thickness you would expect for an einspanner. The coffee used here is equator coffee which I do like, so maybe I had a one off drink.

The matcha roll cake as all other reviewers mentioned was pretty dry, but I did enjoy the matcha cream and chesnut pieces inside.

I think my favorite item amongst what we shared was the black cocoa cookie. The taste reminded me a bit of oreo pizookie.

In terms of the space - the space is huge and perfect to work from home, they do have free wifi, not sure about outlets(I did not see any). It is a bit dark inside, but I think that is the aesthetic for this cafe. One thing to note that I hope is a one off because it was a slightly warm day- there were a cluster of flies inside the cafe , mainly where you order. I was also swatting flies while I was eating, which surprised me because the space is so big so you would think it is well ventilated enough to avoid this problem. I hope this can be resolved as this is not normally an issue at other cafes that are even smaller and warmer.

Overall I appreciate the uniqueness in flavors but I do think as other reviewers mentioned, they do need work. I feel that people come to this cafe to just try the unique flavors once or to work from home to do the large open space...

I think I know why it’s called “the Buoy” because they are DROWNING!

I had a horrible experience there last night. Had a booking at 8, walked in at 7:45 and wanted to see if they could seat us earlier. They said they couldn’t seat us even though there was 2-3 empty 2 tops.

Okay, fine. They tell us to grab a drink at the bar. They don’t hand us menus, they continue to ignore us. Okay, fine. Maybe they’re slammed.

Finally get seated at the same empty table that’s been open since we walked in.

We look through the menu, get excited and figure out our entire order.

Waiter comes over, takes our order, only does he then proceed to tell us that everything in the appetizers is sold out except for burrata and potatoes 🙃

Okay. Plan B.

Order the sundubu jjamppong and Bossam. Last choices, but there was literally nothing else on the menu.

They then bring out the dish they originally told us was sold out??

Okay, fine. Sundubu Jjamppong comes out, there’s no noodles, description says there are noodles, pictures have noodles… it’s too spicy and rich to have on its own so I order a side of rice.

THEY HAVE NO RICE! How can a Korean restaurant not have rice? And the woman gaslit me like oh no you’re not supposed to eat it with rice.

Floored.

So the waiter brings rice croissant out to help with the spice?!

All the tables next to us were in similar positions where they ordered things that either never came or the table next to us had their food dropped on the floor 2 times by the waiter and they only brought them out one tiny dessert?

It sounds like they have a LOT of kinks to figure out. I would not...

We wanted a quick night out near home, so we chose this place. However, we’re so sad and disappointed that the food and service are just not matching up to the expectation. The servers and waitresses don’t know which dishes go to which tables, and even when the order was right & the kitchen was right, they still somehow managed to give us the wrong dish 🫠 We saw our bibimbap sitting at the kitchen window for a while and the waitress pushed it back to the kitchen, while I had to drink all the water from my cup because the galbijim was SO. SALTY. The waitress apologized and said that the bibimbap would be “taken care of”, but it was still on our bill.

Besides galbijim, the sake clam was also super salty. The salt bread is not structured enough and just looks kinda sad. We finally had our bibimbap, but I think there’s too little fish roe in the bowl. The salmon carpaccio is ironically the best dish of the night. The black sesame brownie was on the house, and it was okay.

Overall, I think the restaurant still needs to train their staff better (even the detail like the chopsticks are not from the same pair? My pet peeve even for chopsticks at home lol) and the execution of the food (actual kitchen food, the front app lady is doing fine) needs to be improved to match up to the vibe. Until then, I don’t think you can charge 18% mandatory...