Living in another country, you begin to yearn for things that your home country does better. In my case, I learned that the second thing that America does better than the UK is brunch. (The first thing, if you must know, is Mexican food. My six years in London led me on the hunt for decent Mexican food, and I’m pretty sure my friends were ready for me to move just so they could stop listening to me complain about it.) There was something about brunch in London that just didn’t compare to the delicious, eggy goodness you could get here. Clearly, some of the things I looked forward to knowing I was moving back were some great brunches in my future.
After moving back, there was a small downside to my enormous brunch plans: The lack of reservations. Basically, if a restaurant makes me wait for food because they don’t take reservations, the food better make up for that hour (or so) in my life that they have stolen. And the truth is that it usually isn’t worth it. Sadly though, it seems that the only good places that take bookings are booked up for several weeks. And sometimes it’s hard to plan that far in advance. How am I supposed to know three weeks in advance that I’m going to wake up, be extremely hung over and not want to cook anything on a Saturday or Sunday morning? That plan usually only comes to fruition a few days beforehand. Or you can get a booking quickly, but you can’t expect the restaurant to be that good (I’m looking at you, Marlowe). So when six of us decided earlier in the week to go get brunch on Sunday, one suggestion was 15 Romolo as apparently it’s not quite as busy, but still incredibly tasty. Just in case, we showed up about fifteen minutes before they opened to wait in line (and luckily for us, we were first in what turned out to be an extremely short line).
The inside of 15 Romolo is pretty rustic. The first thing I noticed is that the floor was very slanted near the window. I suppose it’s just giving the feel of being in an “old” building. (I use the word old loosely as buildings in the UK are much older and in much better condition.) But we were seated by the window and given menus. The menu looked fantastic with some interesting cocktails on the menu as well. We were given some sort of House Waffle Shot to start the meal. It was sickly sweet and hard to drink with a small but weirdly large piece of waffle in it, but it was an interesting way to start the meal.
For my first drink, I opted for the Sister Christian which was a coffee-based breakfast drink. I also ordered the chicken and waffles as a certain friend in the UK got me very hooked on all types of fried chicken before I left (especially Korean Fried Chicken). My cocktail was actually quite good, as it was basically a bunch of booze with a tiny amount of coffee. Definitely my kind of cocktail. The rest of the crew had mixed feelings about their cocktails, so it seemed that they could be a bit hit or miss. While we were waiting for our main courses to arrive, we decided to have a jug of Sangria to share as well. It was actually a bit disappointing, and it took a VERY long time to arrive. The server just seemed to blow it off with the excuse that there was only one bartender, but it seems like a place serving brunch cocktails should be a bit more prepared. Or maybe they just expect more people to drink the daily punch. I don’t know, but we didn’t really see much of the server the whole meal as the place filled up, so that made it a bit difficult to get more drinks or get much at all.
Foodwise, everything looked fantastic when it arrived. My chicken and waffles was incredibly tasty, but for the price, I guess I was expecting a bit more (maybe like a full waffle instead of half of one?). The chicken had a great spicy, Asian-style sauce. There was plenty of syrup and the chicken was boneless, so it was really easy to eat. The omelette looked and tasted quite good, but they had forgotten the lobster in one of the orders (thank goodness they didn’t charge us for it though). So while the food was incredibly tasty, it just felt like they could have done a little bit more to make it amazing including getting our order correct. Even the one member of our group who had been before said he remembered the portions (and cocktails) being slightly larger.
It did take us quite a while to get our check so we could pay and leave; the service level was very disappointing. While the food was good and there were decent enough cocktails, I don’t know if I would come back. To be fair, I’m sure I could get in last minute, which I suppose is good incentive as well. I’m sure there will be other places I’m going to try to head to before coming back though.
Food: ★★★★☆
Service: ★★☆☆☆
Atmosphere: ★★★☆☆
Value: ★★★☆☆
Overall: ★★★☆☆
15 Romolo
15 Romolo Place
San Francisco, CA 94133
