Last Wednesday, we were not psyched for an hour's wait to eat at Spenger's in Berkeley, a place of which I'd not heard 'til the previous day. When we learned of the long wait, we split. In yesterday's mail arrived notification of tonight's monthly dance at Ashkenaz so I immediately began psyching myself for the hour wait at Spenger's and was quite comfortable with the prospect when we hit The Road at 6:10 allowing twice the normal time it takes to get to the more-distant Ashkenaz. I shoved her out of the car at exactly seven o'clock to get us on the list for a 60-90 minute wait. If it's your first time at Spenger's, there's so much to see in the way of models of ships, photographs, nautical equipment, guns, knives, swords, lanterns, harpoons, stuffed fish (mounted on walls, not for eating), bells, wheels, floats, ropes, traps, and all sorts of goodies. Seeing most of it took almost an hour. We were called after about seventy minutes and, after eighty minutes, the waiter walked off with our order of salad, poached salmon, and a fish-kebab. He left at the table bread, butter and a half-litre of wine. The dance lesson at Ashkenaz was already twenty minutes old. Half an hour later he returned to the table to tell me that they were unable to serve fish-kebab. Would I like some poached salmon or the menu? Well, I didn't want salmon, dammit! I was really salivating for that fish-kebab. So I asked for the menu. The band was scheduled to start in ten minutes but I know the dance teacher has a tendency to run overtime and even though I know where Ashkenaz is, I didn't know how long it would take to get there from Spenger's. He brought the menu and I asked for the check, explaining that it was then too late to eat. He explained that her poached salmon was ready to serve and that the chef didn't tell him about the fish-kebab 'til he went to get it. I said we had no more time to wait. He cleverly sold me by saying "I'd hate to see you leave without eating" as she suggested we split her meal which I agreed to do. We split a small order of poached salmon and fettuccini covered with lemon/cream sauce. We inhaled it and forced the waiter to bring the check by standing. It was $24-something. I gave him $30 and split, a very unhappy camper. We also left about half of the wine as there wasn't enough food with which to drink it. The dance lesson was still in progress when we arrived at Ashkenaz. We were inside, ready to hit the floor, as the first note was played. I was afraid the unpleasantness at Spenger's would affect my dancing but, fortunately, it did not. I danced well and had a good time. It took the usual 25 minutes to get home from Ashkenaz. Am now having some herbal tea anticipating going downstairs to have an English muffin smothered in vegetables fried in peanut oil. The scabby Grand Café provided good service. The organized Spenger's didn't. At least I know the Spenger's personnel were decently paid. The next monthly dance at Ashkenaz is September 16. Will the third try be charmed?
San Francisco, CA
Spenger's
My favorites place(s) for seafood is The Fish Market. There is one in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Palo Alto. (There are others, too, but not in the bay area.) They have a chalkboard that shows the 86d items, plus the menu is printed daily which has a ton daily, not normally on the menu, items. I think the chef at Spenger's should have alerted the servicers that the kebabs were getting low. In fact, it seems odd that of all the items offered, the kebabs would be one of the ones that they'd get low on. Spenger's is (was?) a fun place. A few items are good and I like to go there. But for seafood prepared the way I like, it's The Fish Market, hands down. Karen O' bizbee wrote: > > The closure of Spenger's has been blamed on their unwillingness to > change to a more current food style, but after reading your post about > the wait, I wondered what the hell they were talking about. Then as I > continued reading, it occurs to me that most likely the closure is due > to service....
I was at Spenger's last weekend. It was my first time there. They told us that the reason for closing was financial and personal. The owners didn't want to have the place anymore and they couldn't find a buyer for it. That was the gist of it. As far as the culinary experience... I was disappointed. I had the scallops, shimp, lobster sauteed in sherry wine sauce. It came out as a bowl with seafood in a broth. The broth was like a bisque and quite good (my friend who is a gourmet chef also loved it), but the scallops were overcooked and too rubbery to eat. I think there were 4-5 sea scallops, 2 shrimp, and 1 small lobster piece in the dish. It came with a small scoop of rice. That was it for $16. I would have expected more (at least a salad) from a restaurant like that. And the scallops were too overcooked. My other friend had a shrimp steak (pan fried "steak" of shrimp) which wasn't very good. The dinners of the other 2 people in our party were so-so. Definitely disappointed after all the hype. Oh, I forgot to mention the 1 hour wait too.