Daffodil

We were staying in the hotel so we had breakfast here — staff was slow, food was expensive and nothing special. the interior is pretty and clean but overall it’s best if you are in a rush and staying at the hotel and can expense the food.

I was a little disappointed to say the least. I made reservations at Daffodil for these reasons: 1. They are located in Union Sq 2. my friends from Australia were staying nearby 3. It had deceptively good reviews on Open Table 4. It was a 1,000 pt reservation on Open Table. My biggest compaint is the whole time we were there, not one other table was sat (there may have been one woman eating at the bar, and a few people who looked like guests from the hotel stopped by for drinks). Also, the décor is nice and upscale looking, but the lights were so bright, there was no ambiance at all. The food was a little on the pricey side, but t was good. American choices with a fancy twist. Anyways, I was embarrassed to have taken my Austrailian tourist friends here, because they expected me to know some cool places in SF and trust me, this did not look cool. I have learned my lesson: check Unilocal reviews before Open Table. I guess the only good thing that comes of this is my 1000 pt reservation.

Charming, well lit interior… not sure what kind of food to expect just going off the menu.
For appetizer, I ordered the spinach salad with roasted beets, smoked mozzarella, and roasted tomato vinaigrette. Big mistake. A big massive pile of baby spinach leaves straight out of the supermarket pack. The beets were not roasted (they tasted like the ones you get in the cafeteria). The smoked mozzarella tasted like small cubes of cheddar cheese. And the roasted tomato vinaigrette tasted like dressing from a bottle.
The entrée was a big bump up. I ordered the salmon with roasted fennel, brussel sprouts, bacon, and smoked tomato sauce. The salmon was just the way I like it. And the bacon with fennel and brussel sprouts was a perfect pairing. The sauce was also a good element, and together… we had a good turnaround.
Cue the dessert. A supposedly delicious granny smith apple cobbler. CLOYINGLY sweet. And it didn’t seem right… almost like baked apples with some cookie crumble sprinkled on top. I couldn’t finish. It was that sweet.

Forgot to write a review on this place. This place was just a few buildings over from my friends apartment. We went here a few times and the menu changes, the times we were there we had shared a meatloaf and a starter. Its very odd, but most times this place is empty but thats okay. Its nice and quiet so you don’t have to yell when talking. We basically had 1 to 1 service.
Go if you like quiet place and food good.

Food was ok. Ambiance was super quiet and stuffy. I don’t think I’d go back, but only because there are too many other restaurants to explore in the City.

Update: The hotel had announced in June, that they’d close the restaurant on 6÷30÷11, to renovate the place. But apparently they simply replaced the management and staff. Don’t know about any renovation plans.
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While it’s true that this expensive hotel restaurant cannot compare to newcomer Sons & Daughters restaurant, just a block away. The real reason for its demise was poor and unreliable service. I had avoided writing this review for a long time.
The kitchen is very slow but food was usually decent and well presented. For example, the mache and beet salad
was simple and delicious. The short rib over buttercream mashed potatoes and veggies (half order entrée)
was very popular. Although I think the menu had more variety and was a better value long ago, before executive chef J. Wheeless took over.
Menu prices match local pricey high-​end restaurants, but service left a lot to be desired. I never understood why they always hired inexperienced waiters that get overwhelmed and disappeared for long periods of time. Often not familiar with the menu, can’t remember a drink order, made multiple mistakes on my bill, and once I was overcharged after I had already signed the receipt.

I came here for Dine About Town. The ambiance was so bad that the food could not save it, even though the food and service were both equally solid. Daffodil is in the lobby of the Orchard Hotel, and since there was no music, we listened to the conversations of the four other occupied tables and someone taking room service orders. Really, the lighting is awful, and it feels exactly like a crappy hotel restaurant that you would only end up in if you had food poisoning and just wanted some soup.
But, there is no way I would ever recommend someone dropping $ 100 on dinner at this restaurant.

To quote David F «Well, not horrible but not phenomenal either».
Went here on a Tuesday evening. We were the only guests at the restaurant! There was no music, it was really quiet and uneventful.
The food: We went here for Dine About Town. The appetizer was decent: beer battered calimari but it was definitely nothing out of the ordinary and I had to ask for another sauce as the buttery sauce it came with was too rich.
The main wasn’t impressive either. The risotto was very rustic looking and didn’t have much going for it. The steak had no «spark» aside from the blue cheese, and the fish dish was definitely overcooked and the brine was not a good move (I would have gone for a nice creamy sauce)
The dessert was some type of custard with a syrup. It came in a martini glass and I swear it was half filled with strawberry syrup! As I didn’t eat most of the first two dishes, I indulged in this and well lets just say my dentist isn’t going to be very happy now.
Service was minimal.

First, the good: The food was excellent. Both their caprese salad and the mache salad were unbelievably GOOD. I had great risotto as an entrée and the chicken pot pie bite I had was awesome. Once again, THE FOOD IS REALLY GOOD. Probably better than most places in Union.
Alas, Three Stars, gentle reader, because the ambiance of this restaurant is akin to eating in SFO. It, in no way, feels like anything except a low budget hotel lobby with very bright lights. We joked that the service was so slow because our server was also the bell hop and janitor.
Also, review your bill before paying. We were one of three tables filled in an empty 25 table restaurant on a Tuesday. Not busy. The server charged us for drinks he never brought us, brought us orders meant for other tables, brought the soup out last, and told us there was a 20 minute wait for a cheese plate — weird since cheese requires only slicing. In this case it was a $ 12 desert platter with mache from the salad, crumbled blue cheese and feta from the salad, one sliced apple and strawberry. So weird.
The point of this review? To hope the management reads this and gives their chef a raise… Ohhh…and maybe installs dimmer switches on their lights. I don’t really need to see the pores on my server’s face while he is serving me someone else’s food and then charging me for it.

Daffodil was a pretty great experience.
My expectations were low… reading the reviews here… it seemed a gamble taking a business client here for dinner, but I had a groupon in my hand and needed a place that was in Union Square serving local and organic foods.
I was impressed… it fit the bill exactly as I needed. The server we had was pretty nervous to be frank… he didn’t want to interrupt us, seemed like he wasn’t comfortable talking, but he was very knowledgeable when it came local and organic foods… even offered us some gluten free items… really? cool!
Salad starter = YUM!
Built my own burger — loved it…
Onion rings rocked!
no, it wasn’t busy — but was perfect for us to have a serious discussion… worked out very well.

Horrible. Honestly, probably the worst experience I’ve ever had at a restaurant.
I’m not going to waste time going into details, but read the bad reviews below, then roll it into one evening and that basically describes our meal. Menu confusion, SLOW service, entire entrees were forgotten, the waiter claimed he had to lie to the chef to honor the menu they’d promised us when we made reservations… I could go on and on. The best part? We were the ONLY party in the place on a Saturday night!!!
We seriously considered simply leaving when we could not find anyone to give the bill to. We should have — they definitely did not deserve the 18% gratuity they tacked on.
There are so many good places to eat in the city — do yourself a favor and avoid this.
Chef Jeremiah Wheeless — who the hell do you think you are? Our waiter claimed you were responsible for our menu confusion, poor service, and entrees coming out in 15 minute gaps, and late or completely missing desserts. Seriously, consider a new profession if you are unable to accommodate less than 8 customers at a time.
Avoid Daffodil at all costs.

We had a party of six for the Dine About Town dinner at Daffodil.
When we arrived, the maitre d’ was no where to be found. After standing around for 10 mins, one of the waiters finally took notice of our group and came over to ask whether we would like to be seated. There were only 4 other parties there so I can’t even give them the excuse that it was a busy night so therefore service was slow.
ORDERING
Waiter #1 handed us the Dine About Town menu. Each entrée had 3 items, on the DAT website it said we can select from a variety of items on their menu. We all happily made our selections and was ready to place the order. Waiter #2 came around and started snatching away all the DAT menus. He didn’t tell us in advance but just started taking the menus. We looked on with confusion as the menus flew out of our hands!
Waiter #2 told us sternly that chef just decided they are no longer serving the DAT menu because they don’t have some of the items.
One of us asked, are all the items on your regular menu still available? Yes. Ok, all the DAT items ARE OFF THE REGULAR MENU, so if all regular menu items were available, why isn’t the DAT menu available? This definitely put a bad taste in my mouth as I put my head down and went back to square one to decide on what I wanted. STRIKE ONE.
When the food arrived waiter #1 served it to the wrong people. It was like musical chairs with our food. STRIKE TWO.
FOOD
APPETIZER AND MAIN
I had the Beets Salad and Arctic Char. My hubby had the Lentil Stew and Chicken Pot Pie.
Beets Salad — 6 slices of yellow and red beets along with a healthy portion of greens. For the portion it’s way overpriced at $ 11 a plate. It was well made and fresh.
Arctic Char — Tasted like salmon. Generous portion. Nicely flavored. The japanese turnip and couscous sides were very good, generously flavored with butter.
Lentil Stew — Very well seasoned. Mixed with mushroom, veggies, and very tender beef chunks. It was very lumpy and thick with little liquid. Small portion. We both liked this.
Chicken Pot Pie — Sodium overdoes. It was definitely on the salty side. Portion size moderate. The crust was flaky. Nice healthy chunks of chicken breast meat.
DESSERT
By the time dinner was over we were too full for dessert. This was probably a good thing because, yes, they ran out 3 ouf of the 5 items on the menu. Or rather they substituted that it might as well have been another dessert.
ATMOSPHERE/​SERVICE
The restaurant is small and quiet. It was definitely nice to not have to shout over one another to have a conversation. Everything was clean and the décor was your usual hotel restaurant style. Kind of bland.
The staff never came by to check on us and towards the end they left us with 5 bottles of water to pour ourselves. Waiter #2 was unattentive and rude.
Overall we though the food was pretty decent for the price. Service was nothing to write home except on Unilocal. I gave it two stars mainly because of the poor service.

Ugh, we really must have gone here on an off night. Actually had a reservation at Roots, at the neighboring hotel, but a nice guy called us and told us they had to shut down for the evening because of a grease fire, but they would send us over to «their sister hotel» Orchard and the restaurant there, Daffodil.
Maybe they’re used to being very empty judging from the other reviews, so when the place was HALF full because of the combined bookings from Roots and Daffodil, all hell seemed to break loose.
The pizza-​of-​the-​day appetizer, which sounded really fancy — «Salumante and tomato, takes 15 mins to prepare» — looked and tasted like a frozen DiGiorno’s pepperoni single-​serve. Last time I checked, you can microwave one of those puppies in 3 mins or so.
Green bean sides in garlic batter tasted like nothing. How does ANYONE screw up garlic butter? I’d eat my 4 year old well-​worn Havaianas if they were sauteed in garlic butter.
Main course took 1.5 hours to arrive, at which point our server — about the only positive aspect of the whole experience — apologized profusely and gave us 20% off. Ribs were very dry. Give me Chinese pepper-​salt ribs any time. We were so put off we walked out without dessert, and if you know my wife, you’ll know that this never happens.

These are actually sentences spoken by our waiter:
1) «You guys are awesome»
2) «No worries boss»
3) «Sure thing honey»
If only the meal was as good as his inappropriateness. I mean, it’s not like it was bad, you just expect more from a boutique hotel. The menu had so much promise but it just didn’t live up to once it was in front of us.
The décor can be compared to a Holiday Inn in one of those fly over states — nothing to see. A bit drab, sorta matching the meal.
A solid two stars because it wasn’t like it was horrible it just didn’t live up to what it should have been.

Mediocrity, thy name is Daffodil.
We had plenty of things to be thankful for on Thanksgiving eve, but our meal at this place was not one of them.
The pumpkin soup was bland and covered in pepper to mask its dull flavor. The main course of oven-​roasted herbed Cornish hen lacked herbs and was served with a rather strange-​tasting apple stuffing. And the chefs were completely inflexible when it came to dessert — I don’t eat fruit and fruit was the only option. They had nothing else available and refused to be creative and whip something up, so dinner sadly ended without even a cookie to sweeten it.
This place only gets two stars for the rockstar waiter who was the only staffer manning the floor. He was apologetic about dessert and graciously took our wine off the bill. But all in all — $ 55 a head for this «feast» really was a scam. Next year we’re going back to our old faithfuls instead of experimenting. I am truly disappointed and should have heeded the negative reviews on Unilocal,which I did read before coming. But hey, I wanted to give the place a chance. Not the brightest idea.
Oh, and if you’re looking for ambiance, this place lacks sorely in that department too.

This place can’t close soon enough for me. And anyone who writes a review over three stars has got to be either severely mentally impaired, stoned or paid. Look at 5 star reviews critically – WHY does this restaurant have so many bad reviews? Why? Because they ARE BAD.
Friends from out of town made reservations – otherwise, after seeing the reviews here we never would have gone. I was completely dreading it because SF has so MANY excellent places to eat why waste time on bad places?
Anyhow, like it was mentioned below, he was told the 7pm was full only 645 was available, and lo and behold we got there and there were NO PEOPLE. WTF??? However, we quickly used our bat senses and figured out WHY there were no patrons–
What made this such an awesome experience was that they said they had a limited menu that night because they were short-​staffed. Then, they handed us a LUNCH menu! LOL. I would give it 0 stars if I could because when he made the reservations they should have told him then!!! (However, I was secretly SO glad they had no food – we left).

WOW… this place is completely dead… absolutely no one in the restaurant, granted it was a Tuesday at 6pm… but geeze, it feels weird to be the only people eating at the restaurant. It’s nicely decorated and has a large private room. The only 2 reasons why I chose this restaurant was 1) 1000 points on open table, and 2)
gift certificate.
The prices of the food are actually very affordable given it is a hotel restaurant. Flat Iron steak = $ 20, short ribs: half =$ 15, full = $ 22. I got the short ribs since it is a house favorite and everyone else on Unilocal was raving about it. When I got it though, it was kind of dry and didn’t have much flavor. The meat was tender, and fell off the bone, but DRY. DIsappointing. I was more interested in eating the steak! The steak was cooked PERFECTLY to a medium rare, had a good flavor, and was actually a big fatty steak! As in, it was huge! Steak for $ 20, floats my boat! =P We also got the white peach cobbler with a crème biscuit or something on top with house-​made honey ice cream. The dessert was unique and tasty, but I’m just not a big fan of cobblers.
Our waiter was cool, around our age, so he was pretty ‘lax with us, cracking jokes and what not. Service was good, i mean… how can it not when you’re the only people in the restaurant? =P
Overall, I would come back here again just because I have the
gift certificate. Our meal without the dessert would have been $ 18.66… but the cobbler itself was $ 10 (!)… still, pretty good price for a pretty good meal.
Oh, forgot to mention that the bread sucked. It was cold and not quite the freshest.

First things first, San Francisco Twins [
sighting! I was baffled, to say the least. I had never seen them before nor had I heard of them. So it appears that for most of my life, I’ve been living in a box! The fact that the year they won second place as «Best Local Character» [2000], I was away for school, MIGHT be a reason why I didn’t have any idea who they were. They weren’t dining inside Daffodil, but they were trekking up the hill along Powell St. between Sutter and Bush. Their steps were in sync, and they wore identical outfits — hats and purses too.
While I am quite certain that my experience at Daffodil last night couldn’t possibly be mirrored unless you also have the hook-​ups OR you have $$$$ tattooed on your forehead, I am going ahead and writing my biased review. You’re the reader. You know what you’re getting into.
Daffodil is located in the Orchard Hotel, one of San Francisco’s «greenest» hotels. So essentially, it’s a hotel dining room. The furniture has a flower print that looks like it hasn’t been changed in a very long time. Meh. It is sister restaurants with Roots at the Orchard Garden Hotel several blocks away, which from what I heard, is a little busier. Okay, on to the food. Ingredients are fresh and local. We were served a tasting menu, so a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
Starters [in order of appearance]:
— Pizza of the Day [mushrooms and bacon, crisp, cheeeesy]
— Soup of the Day [corn chowder with potatoes, bacon, corn]
— Mache Salad — Endive — Chive Blossom — Strawberry Vinaigrette [fresh strawberries were a nice touch]
Mains:
— Scallops — Morels — Fava Beans — White Corn — Pluot Sauce
— Arctic Char — Butter Bean — Fennel — Spring Onion — Peas — Mache Vinaigrette
— Red Wine Braised Short Ribs — Potato Purée — Miniature Squash
Dessert Platter
It was a 7-​course meal that left the three of us stuffed and struck with food coma, and it was fantastic. Everyone working was super nice. Daffodil is not very large or busy. It offers the perfect setting for a private party [they cater!], an intimate date, or maybe just a 7-​course [or fewer!] meal to catch up with old friends.
Nestled somewhere between «A-​OK» and «Yay! I’m a fan,» but closer to «Yay! I’m a fan.»

For reasons I can’t quite explain, I like this video…
…it’s a rap version of William Wordsworth’s «I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud», though it’s better known as «The Daffodils». I wouldn’t bet the farm, but I think that’s a dancing squirrel.
So what does that have to do with Daffodil the restaurant? Not a hell of a lot except the single daffodil in the bud vase at each table of this place… this very empty place as Jamie W. and I were the only ones dining in the restaurant portion for most of the hour-​plus we were there. The bar was hopping with what I assume to be some awfully loud patrons of the adjoining Orchard Hotel. Even though we were there for the Dine Around Town deal, it appears others have concluded it’ may not be worth the trek off the beaten track to get to this place at Bush and Powell.
But the quiet, as the other reviewers have alluded, is somewhat unnerving because you actually spend most of the evening wondering if they are going to make it to the next payroll for their staff. It’s a nice albeit generic space, dimly lit and not terribly memorable. The waitress was great, very open and helpful without being intrusive. I imagine she had to have been quite bored, but I credit her for keeping a very positive attitude throughout our meal.
Ah, the meal. Well, for the $ 32 D.A.T. deal, we were given the choice of a hearty-​looking butter bean soup and an arugula salad with pear slices and goat cheese. Neither bowled us over nor were they offensive. I’d identify my salad as hotel banquet quality. Interestingly, the D.A.T. Web site promised a duck prosciutto with frisee and an organic egg as the appetizer, but it was nowhere to be found.
Better was the Braised Short Ribs with pickled parsnips and baby carrots, all on top of a mere dollop of a potato purée. The meat was tasty though the red wine reduction sauce was a bit too dominant for my taste. It was served on the oddest dish I’ve ever seen… it looked like a ceiling lamp fixture — the square, smoked glass kind you see in condominium rentals — and the fork and knife would scrape most gratingly on the rough surface.
My dessert was a mini-​apple cobbler with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream and droplets of caramel sauce. Looks 10, Taste 5. I really wish I could state that I had something mind-​blowingly wonderful here, something that would make bounding up the hill on Powell a pleasure with gleeful culinary anticipation… but I can’t in good conscience. If you want quiet and a decent meal you can get pretty much at any upscale hotel, this is the place to go.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
FOOD — 3 stars… on the generic side for such fancy eats… oh and that weird ceiling fixture as a plate… perhaps they wanted me to change a bulb
AMBIANCE — 3 stars… just a hotel dining room really
SERVICE — 4 stars… a great server in a pensive place
TOTAL — 3 stars… I’m actually hopeful the owners figure out a more distinctive identity for this place (they’ve been open only since September 2007) so the climb up Powell is worth it for this SoMa-​ite

If you walk past the crush of touristy Union square, up Powell to Bush, you will find a very quiet restaurant in the Orchard Hotel in Nob Hill. Definitely a bit off the beaten path, we came to find a completely empty restaurant. I’m always a bit worried when there are no customers at all but this place hasn’t been open that long and we were told by our server that they just had a party of twenty five before we showed up.
With that party of twenty five there were a series of hors d’oeuvres that we got sample while looking over the menu. First was an eggplant, caviar, and baby arugula spread while the second being olives and goat cheese both on mini toasts. Very tasty bites to start and that eased our worries about what to expect. After picking up a glass of the wonderful Rioja we decided on the following:
— Panzanella/​wilted spinach salad
— Butternut squash «hash» with bacon
— Seared dayboat scallops with grilled endive
— Fingerling potatoes with fleur de sel
— Grilled lamb chops
— Short ribs with whipped potatoes and wine reduction
The restaurant focuses on small plates and this was shared across the two of us. We were pleasantly surprised that this seemingly random spread of dishes were all very tasty. The only pick I thought wasn’t extraordinary were the potatoes, which reminded me too much of something I make on my own. The hash won as the most surprisingly tasty, with the contrast of bacon and squash being an excellent combination.
Our server Sean was a super fun and friendly guy and since we were by ourselves there was no other focus except for us and setting the room up for breakfast service the next day. The space is somewhat typical hotel restaurant and with the location right by the lobby we were at one point inundated with a bunch of loud tourists looking for drinks.
It’s a little bit out there and there’s no hard focus on what they serve but if you’re looking for variety, solid execution, and fairly reasonable prices, this place is definitely worth checking out. 4.5 stars.