Grant About Town

September 6, 2008

Amelie - San Francisco, CA

As some of you might be aware the home base for G's Spot has migrated west to the bay area in California. I am currently living in Portola Valley, about 30 miles south of San Francisco. So now I have a whole new city to explore, and just the forum to share what I find with "Grant About Town." This weekend I made my first trip into the city to meet a friend, Veronica, for drinks at a wine bar called Amelie. The bar is located in the Nob Hill neighborhood, not far from Russian Hill area she was coming from. It took me a couple of hours to come up with the place through extensive research on yelp.com . Cool site by the way, with plenty of information and reviews of bars and restaurants and a very easy to use sorting feature where you can search by neighborhood then modify further by walking distance (1 mile), biking distance (2 miles), driving distance (5 miles) etc. to find stuff around that area.

Let me first say that if you are coming to this place from outside the city, plan on allowing A LOT of time to find parking and most likely shelling out for a parking garage. Cab it or walk if you live in the city. San Francisco is not that big a downtown relative to my previous home, Chicago, and I would not have drove were I living in the city. For Veronica it was not a problem since she could walk to the bar. For me, it was about a 45 minute drive followed by another 15-20 minutes trolling for parking on and around Polk Street. Fortunately for me in this case I had the option of parking in her grandmother's garage, which I did so as to free myself from my car once and for all. A short walk and nice chat later, we were at the wine bar.

My first impression was that it is a rather long, narrow room, but decorated in a modern kitschy style that I liked. It being 8:30p on a Saturday night the place was crowded...I'd wonder about the place if it wasn't. We made our way to the bar and, after perusing the wine list, ordered a couple of sparkling white wines, a relative bargain at $7.50/glass. It was very tasty, kind of a sweeter version of champagne. There being no seats at the bar, we made our way towards the front and approached the three seats you see in the picture (above, right). There was a guy sitting on the aisle seat talking on his cellphone, and for some reason he said the two seats next to him were taken when it was clear that: 1) He was not there with anyone; and 2) Even if he was, they were nowhere to be seen.

Having been shot down for the seats, we made our way to a couple of wooden folding chairs just outside the front door on the sidewalk by the window to the bar. We were able to place our drinks on a ledge and sip them but the glasses could not be outside, or so we were told. After being harrassed every 5 minutes when we held the glass for a sip, and finally being told by another waiter that we could not drink out there at all, I finally said enough is enough, handed the guy my half-consumed drink and walked out. Between snooty cell phone guy and the endless parade of cloying waitstaff, I must say I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. However, I liked the ambiance of the place and the wine list enough to give Amelie another shot in the future.