Uma Casa

When we went there, we settled on three courses:

- Shared cod fritters - which were perfectly cooked & excellent.

- I had a second course of polenta cake, mushrooms, and Maderia. This is very similar to what Pomelo offered across the street (before it closed), and we ordered it about 30% of the times we went to Pomelo. At Uma Case, the polenta was very thin, the mushrooms were no better than canned mushrooms, and I detected no Madiera flavor in the sauce. I did not eat all of this dish.

- My wife had a second course that was a "special" that night & we both though was quite bland.

- The "main" courses did not seem interesting to me, so I ordered the "small plate" of quail - always one of my favorites. Their preparation seemed to be "up my alley". I purposely decided on 3 courses that night, and a small plate as my "main" course instead of the normal appetizer & main because 2 courses followed by a large main would be "too much food".

- My wife had the marinated sardines as her third course - one of our favorites.

It was a long wait between our second course and our last course. Then the waiter arrived with my wife's sardines, and announced to me that they did not have any quails that day - and would I like to order something else? I was pissed. Why didn't they tell me this when we initially ordered the courses? We dine out almost every weekend while we are in the Bay Area (and a couple of times on week nights), plus 30-40 times each year in France - for the past 18 years. Nobody has EVER announced at the last minute that a main course was not available - except at Uma Casa. Two waiters apologized. I voiced my displeasure and the chef/owner finally came to our table and apologized - giving me the "sad story" of how they didn't get the delivery of quail that day. Very un-professional. I glanced at the table next to ours, and one person was "picking through" a very un-appealing looking main course of sea bass, boiled potatoes, and garbanzo beans in some kind of watery broth.

We won't return!!

Stu Dudley