Petit Valentien — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

A quaint little restaurant in a cute alley with a turtle water fountain and dolphin ‘benches’ that are instagram worthy. The restaurant itself probably has only 10-12 tables so it earns its name petit. We were seated at one of the high back booths you can see from the door. Cozy and cute settings except the cushions could have used some re-upholstery. We came in for dinner and arrived at 5PM due to a change in our plans. Our reservation was actually for 6PM but they worked to accommodate us quickly. Apparently it worked in their favor.

We ordered the quail and crab cake appetizers. My wife enjoyed the quail immensely. It was expertly cooked and not dry. It was served on top a wine poached fig which I thought was boozy and yummy. My crab cake was good but not as outstanding as the quail.

We had the duck breast and their daily special steak as entrees. Both were delicious. Duck was accompanied by a hibiscus sauce which was silky and mildly tangy which helped tame the richness of the duck. The steak was served with a creamy peppercorn sauce which matched well wit the steak.

Service was prompt and friendly. We also enjoyed our craft root beer and ginger ale. Overall a lovely date...

Food was mostly very nice although the chocolate cake was a little bland and overly sweet, as was the whipped cream that came with it (from a can, possibly?) However, we will not return as we could barely hear ourselves speak to one another due to the very loud high pitched vocal rock music blaring out of the kitchen. We were at the other end of the restaurant and such was the volume that it actually interfered with having a conversation at a reasonable level. We asked our waiter to turn it down a little and he initially agreed but did nothing. We asked again after about ten minutes and he said that he couldn't because someone else had asked for it to be kept loud. Such was the defensive nature of his response and his obvious offence at our requesting a quieter atmosphere (a bit like our tween when she is trying to persuade us that she has to watch vines as part of her homework), we decided it was probably his or the other staff's own selection and they just weren't prepared to accommodate us so that we could enjoy our dinner at a tolerable decibel level. Unfortunately solely because of this incident we...

Literally the WORST service I've ever experienced. Absolutely astonishing honestly. Came in with a party of 4 for their Ethiopian brunch. Despite seeing us standing at the entrance didn't even bother to greet us, let alone offer us a table (there were plenty open). I ended up having to ask if we could sit down. Once we did she didn't even bother bringing us menus -- we sat there for 15 min without any menus even until I finally got up and asked for them. 20 minutes later she still hadn't stopped by to even take a drink order. At that point we finally asked what the wait time would be to order at which point she said she didn't know and wasn't even sure there was any food left. What?!? If you see people sitting there waiting to order, why wouldn't you immediately tell them that?!? We wasted over 30 minutes just sitting there being completely ignored. So rude. Since I am a very big fan of Ethiopian food, this place just lost a potential regular. Never...