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Wildflower
Revisited
 We
made yet another return trip to Wildflower the other night to
celebrate a staff birthday and check up on things. Since Wildflower
is a place we've reviewed positively in the
past and continue to recommend highly when anybody asks for a
good place to dine, we figured it might be a good idea to check back
and make sure
we weren't looking like idiots in case any significant deterioration
of staff or fare had occurred. What we found was that, while
everything is still pretty top notch, they appear to be slipping just a
bit with all the success. It's the little things, after all, that
make the difference and, with so many dining options in this town,
these little things could prevent us from automatically parroting
the word Wildflower whenever anyone asks us for dining suggestions. Or
we could just have visited on an off night. It was really nothing
major so we'll be brief.
After making reservations on their
website we arrived and were promptly seated. It wasn't crowded
and the service staff arrived immediately to clear away extra place
settings, fill our water glasses, explain the specials and take our
order. It being a special occasion, or what passes for one around
the Goliard these days, we were in the mood to relax and enjoy
ourselves in a leisurely way since we had procured baby sitting for
the entire evening. Before we knew it however, all of the above
tasks had been
expedited and we had plates of food in front of us. We looked at our watch to
find that we'd only been in the place about seven minutes. Too bad
we weren't in a hurry to make a show or something. Our main waitress
seemed pleasant enough but was somewhat distracted and let an empty
beer glass sit through two table visits without asking if we wanted
another. The bussers kept the water full however and, since we
weren't really in a swilling mood, this didn't have the negative
effect it may have on a more boisterous evening. We had just buttered
our first hunk of bread when the appetizers showed up.
The food, for the most part, remained excellent even if we could
barely get our breath between courses. We sampled the spinach salad
with apples, gorgonzola and glazed pecans (which were proclaimed to
be exquisite) and the warm brie plate which is accompanied by
roasted garlic and sautéed red peppers. The brie, garlic and
peppers were delicious but the toasted baguette on which to place
them was hard and crisp to the point of nearly causing a dental
incident. Such is the way it is supposed to be probably but is not to
our liking and we ended up using more of the yummy bread for the
purpose instead. We were still chewing a piece and thinking about
asking for more when a food runner appeared to slap down our
entrees.
One of us had decided to forgo the lemongrass scallops this time
which are usually delicious and instead sampled the braised country
pork ribs. The dish is actually ribless thankfully and the meat was soft and
tender although a bit on the bland side. The other of us is more a creature of
habit and went with her old standby, the bowtie pasta with chicken,
spinach and toasted pine nuts. It was good, she said, except that
there were no pine nuts in it at all which are normally one of her favorite
parts. We couldn't figure out why this would be except that maybe
they ran out although given the fact that Wild Oats is about a
hundred yards away you would have thought someone would have run
down to grab some. Perhaps just an oversight by a new or distracted
chef.
In any event we had a delicious dessert
and espresso and the bill came and we paid it. Having worked in food
service for most of our adult lives and having made most of our
money off gratuity we are normally very good tippers and can't bring
ourselves to leave less than fifteen percent no matter how bad the
service is. Typically, we leave between twenty and thirty percent
depending on which of us pays. Since our
waitress had been distracted at best and absent and inattentive at
worst, we left sixteen percent or so in this
case and, no sooner had we placed the signed slip on the table when
she swooped in like a seagull and carried it off. It used to be
traditional at places professing to have any class whatsoever to
leave the bill on the table until the customer has left unless it is
late in the evening and a table is camped out chatting and drinking
and the staff is trying to cash out. This wasn't the case here
obviously and maybe things have changed with servers these days and
the new tactic is to take the bill and look at it in front of the
customer so they'll feel embarrassed about not leaving enough. We weren't embarrassed in the slightest and would have been happy to discuss the sixteen percent
with our girl but she didn't return to the table once the deal was
done although she did pass by looking down her nose at us a couple of
times. All of these things were only mildly annoying cumulatively and we left
feeling full and satisfied despite having to kill an hour or so
before returning to the babysitter. We spent it strolling around
Casas Adobes and enjoying the holiday lights and the clement evening.
We even stopped into Wild Oats and picked up some pine nuts.
Link to
original review
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