Wildflower
One of the reviews we read had said that the service was excellent at Wildflower and we were not disappointed on that front even though we seem to often be at odds with the supposed intelligencia as to what exactly excellent service entails. What we will say is that our waiter managed to explain the specials without sounding like a complete ass, which was a pleasant surprise, and carried himself throughout the night as a normal guy doing a good job which is about as big a compliment as we can pay to any server. We ordered a spinach salad and a bowl of lentil soup to start. The salad, which had carmelized pecans and tangy apples was proclaimed to be the best spinach salad in town (and that particular staffer has sampled quite a few) and the lentil soup was good as well although not all that imaginative but, since it hadn't claimed to be anything other than what it was, it's hard to find fault in that. When our main courses came, the scallops were perfectly done and the bow-tie pasta dish with chicken and pine nuts hearty and tasty and exactly what it claimed to be as well. Everything was very good, as we've said. Actually, the dessert which was a chocolate torte covered with coffee ice cream and decorated with fresh raspberries and a banjo shaped wafer was above and beyond very good and the cognac generously poured which made for a nice cap to a fine evening. We never felt rushed and we never had to wait, there was never too much or too little of anything, nothing annoying occurred whether under the restaurant's control or not (no women with big asses banging into your elbows or bloviating buffoons at the next table or coeds showing their pubic bones or cologne drenched lotharios sashaying by). There really isn't all that much more to say except we should probably return to make sure our experience wasn't some sort of fluke. If we find out it was we'll let you know but until then Wildflower gets our resounding recommendation. Wildflower |
Looking to break away on a recent night
from our old standbys of dining, we poked around in the restaurant
sections of the local cyber rags and decided to head up to the
Northwest side of Tucson to stop in at Wildflower on North Oracle.
We hadn't heard any word of mouth on the place but whatever we read
must have sounded good enough to prompt a visit. What we found was a sophisticated eatery with a pleasant atmosphere,
quality food and efficient service. The experience, in fact, seemed
to come off in such a flawless and natural way, that it almost made us forget how often
we've selected a new place in a similar manner and ended up spending
about the same coin for some combination of subpar egregious slop
and atrocious mind numbing service. Sometimes we've paid more for heaping helpings of both.
The only problem with a night like the one we spent at Wildflower,
which we realized as we sat down to pound out this report, is that
it doesn't really leave
all that much to write about. "Everything went smoothly and was
very good" seems to about sum it up and it doesn't necessitate
more explanation other than to remind folks how
rare this actually is. We suppose it is worth noting out of fairness
that the place was not
very crowded which often has a lot to do with any unpleasant
experiences in the out to eat realm. But if that is worth a mention
than we should also point out that, even though we had a fairly late
seating, we never felt like they were
closing up shop and trying to herd us out the door which also shouldn't
be as uncommon as we've found it to be in these parts.