Post #31021 by Kim on Mon, Apr 21, 2003 5:13 PM

I have a positive story about our dinner at the Tonga Room a couple of weeks ago...

Tikitronic (the new! Husband) and I recently took a trip that included a weekend in San Francisco. It wasn't our honeymoon exactly, but the San Francisco part of the trip was kind of the psuedo-honeymoon-until-we-can-afford-to-go-on-the-real-one. We planned to go to the Tonga Room on Friday night, but we ended up deciding to go right at 6 on Saturday instead. I figured we could get away without reservations since it would be early.

Saturday night we lit out for the Tonga Room, and then spent about 20 minutes circling the area looking for parking (we could have walked from our hotel, but I misjudged where the Fairmont would be, and was under the impression it was much farther away from us than it really was.)

We arrived at 6:15, and the maitre'd was really snotty, since we
a) Did not have reservations
and
b) Were not Fairmont Hotel Guests

The maitre d' was extremely snotty while being simultaneously very polite, but allowed us to sit down and have dinner, with the proviso that we "vacate the table" by seven-thirty. (The maitre'd later confirmed our feeling that he was a toady by dancing sycophantically around some obviously-wealthy old people who looked perpetually-ill-tempered.) However, once we were seated, the two waiters who served us more than made up for the snotty maitre'd! The servers were two very smiley Asain gentlemen, who brought lots of water, gave us wonderful drinks with paper umbrellas, and good food (the vegetarian stuff is not nearly as overpriced as the other stuff). They made silly jokes and were very attentive. One of the waiters even offered to take our picture—for free! (The Tonga Room offers “Keepsake” photos that you must buy, but will not start taking photos until 8pm. The couple next to us asked their waiter to take a photo of them, and was told “no”—so I did it!)

We had a very nice dinner, which we both enjoyed tremendously, and got to experience the Tonga Room and sit through two “rainstorms”! It was great, especially since I was expecting a much more overpriced, unfriendly experience!