I mentioned a few weeks ago that Irving and I were able to sneak away for a few days to San Francisco at the end of June. It was literally my first kid free moment in 9 weeks, and the first date we’d had in that same time. It was fun to have a weekend long date with Irving, and he was a total sport about trying out some vegan restaurants I’d heard of and researched—remember, he’s not vegan….yet!
As I got to the airport to fly down to meet Irving I found out that my flight was delayed—by 2 ½ hours! We had reservations for the legendary Millennium that night and I was worried we would miss it so I called from the airport to bump it back. We made it by the skin of our teeth, ready to relax, only to be crammed in to a tiny little table in a dark corner (benefit of the doubt, maybe we had a better table reserved at our earlier time?). The restaurant sits a little below street level, so we had a view of the feet of passersby and not much else. I feel like there should be a box you can check when making a reservation that says “I’m a blogger and will be doing my best to photograph your food. Please seat me at a table with good lighting!” Alas, no such thing exists. Please forgive the super dark, awkward angled pictures.
We started looking over the menu. I find that after over 3 years of ordering the one veggie dish on the menu, having an entirely vegan menu can be kind of overwhelming. “You mean I can order anything?!?” We chose to get a few appetizers to split, and an entrée for each of us as well. It was after 9:30 at this point and we were hungry!
Our appetizers were decent—we loved the corn soup. It had a really strong corn flavor and we found ourselves scraping out every last bite.
We also liked the sopes—a fat little corn based pancake topped with goodies, in this case black beans, plantains and guacamole.
We ordered a flat bread that sounded almost Italian when we ordered it, but ended up to be more of an Indian style of flatbread. It wasn’t the most beautiful to look at, but we thought it was pretty tasty.
The appetizers weren’t the best food I’d had, but were pretty good and we were looking forward to our entrees.
Irving ordered a kimchee fried rice with tempeh that he liked. It had strong spicy flavors, and was pretty tasty.
I ordered a Vietnamese styled crepe. I was excited about it, as I figured if someone could make a good vegan crepe it would be Millennium. I was so wrong. The crepe was crispy and hard to cut through. It promised to be filled with lemongrass tofu but I only found one piece. Instead I found lots of mushrooms which, based on the description, I thought were going to be a garnish (I don’t really love mushrooms). It looked pretty, but it’s taste was a big disappointment.
Not to be defeated, we ordered dessert. This was after all where Chloe Coscarelli got her start, so it had to be amazing, right? Wrong. I ordered the Chocolate Almond Midnight cake which was good but not great. It was a smooth, fudge like torte with a pretty sugar garnish. Seemed on par to the vegan treats I get in the bakery counter at Whole Foods, which is fine when it’s not costing me $11!
Irving ordered the Cherry Tartlette with ice cream. Again, good, but not great, and certainly nothing to write home about—so I’ll just blog about it instead!
I have to wonder if we were just there on an off night? Everyone raves about Millennium, but we were so disappointed. Especially after spending almost $200 for a dinner. A side note about the ambiance—the restaurant is off the lobby of Hotel California, and it shares a bathroom with that lobby. When I went in to the bathroom I was greeted by a woman brushing her teeth and several others with suitcases in tow. It didn’t live up to it’s 5 star reputation. 
Don’t worry—this was just the first stop of an amazing weekend. We spent the whole next day in Napa, and then ended the night with a trip to Gracias Madre that DOES live up to it’s hype! But more on that tomorrow!
[…] I wrote about our visit to the famed Millennium restaurant in San Francisco. It was not the highlight of our trip, and we didn’t feel that it lived up to the hype. […]