Blackbird — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

Date night with the GF (on Feb 18 - a belated Valentines date), walking along looking for nice place and saw Blackbird. Never been before, had no idea about it, but it looked nice. Very happy that we could be seated outside on a pleasant evening. But, the 2-top table is four feet across. Holding hands was limited to a stretching exercise, and conversation required a bit more effort.

Jeremy took drink orders (glass of wine and a signature rum drink), and occasionally stopped by to inform that drinks will be right out, which turned into apologies for the amount of time the bar was taking. Eventually, drinks arrived. Wine was great, rum drink was unique and pretty good (I had inquired if the drink would have fruit garnish, and was assured it would - it did not).

Halibut and Rib Eye orders placed, and delivered timely. Unique preparations, not bad on execution... but not extraordinary. Another wine for her (the same, as it was really good), and I switched to a red wine. Jeremy was doing a fine job.

When the meal was about over, she still had her wine, so I ordered a "fruity rum drink". I mentioned Rum Runner, Mai Tai, Hurricane, Seabreeze... anything with rum and fruit. Jeremy proceeded to the bar to make the request. A few minutes later, some other person stopped by with a drink, and asked if anyone had ordered "it". I asked if it was a rum drink (again, no fruit to be seen), and he laughed and told me it was the bartenders idea of special drink. He placed it on the table and left.

I took a sip... OMG... bitter and nasty. My GF took a sip, and her faced winced in disgust. Jeremy stopped by, and I mentioned to him that the drink was not what I ordered. He assured me he had explained a fruity rum drink. Rolling his eyes, he took it away. He returned quickly with a taller glass, but the new drink was identical in color and had the exact same bitter, astringent taste... and spawned the same facial rejections as the prior version.

Bartender trickery... send the rejected drink back out in a different glass!!! I flagged Jeremy down and requested the check. We were done. I mentioned the bartender trick, and he said he would take it off the bill. Then, the manager came over and tried defending the bartender. Maybe, somehow, I had been at fault for the errant drink!?!? Whatever.

She removed the two rum drinks from the bill (still $211 for two entrées and 3 glasses of wine). We tipped Jeremy generously, but wrote on the check that the bartender was not acceptable. The GF and I walked back towards the car, and stopped in another place and slowly danced while enjoying the rest of...

We drove an hour and a half to come here for Valentine’s Day because my husband wanted to take me somewhere with a Michelin star that we hadn’t eaten at before.

The “appetizer” was a single potato chip with caviar and a tiny blop of something else in the middle. We had thought to share the appetizer and laughed out loud when a single potato chip was served to us. For $10 mind you.

We ordered our next course, he got the spaghetti and I got the asparagus with the egg on it. The asparagus tasted waterlogged with a bitter after taste and the egg was more raw then I would have liked to eat. The spaghetti tasted like someone put a jar of ragou on it and hated it up.

Although we were hungry we did not bother to finish these dishes cause the flavor was missing and we were so disappointed.

We split the steak that came next (which tasted good) and then left to grab a bite elsewhere cause At this point we were still hungry and just wanted to leave and get food that tasted better and wasn’t so overpriced. Our drinks were good we should have just gotten drinks here...

Really? We had dinner at 6 with our 2 kids, 3 and 5. There is no kids menu, thats ok. So we asked for plain noodles with butter or oil. We got a spicy noodle dsih for 24$ without any feedback. The excuse was that it is not possible to make a dish that is not on the menu. Really? Noodles without anything is unpossible? (a noodle dish is on the menu) My Wagyu steak was very good. The portions are super small, incredible. We ordered a bottel Cabernet 2018 for 87$. It was from 2019 and 95$ on the bill without any word. However, price and value is not in a shape you could expect. Waiters are trainees without a teacher. For us it was the last evening in Santa Barbara, celebrating this we decided to go here. This was a mistake. I would not send a friend...