This year's Dine About Town is going to take place January 15-31, 2012.

http://www.sanfrancisco.travel/dine/dine-about-town/

We have our favorite restaurants, but this program allows us to try restaurants which we normally would not think of entering. It's a wonderful way to expand one's food experiences without breaking the bank.

Enjoy!

We used to love to try new restaurants when we lived in SF,(a good cook/chef decides to go it on his/her own) and the Entertainment tonite book usually lets you try new places for about half price.

Tomsd: thanks for mentioning another good source for expanding one's dining experiences.

Has anyone tried Absinthe or Chapeau recently?

I'd really appreciate some input on either one of these restaurants.

The distance between the tables at Chapeau has been reviewed by one yelper as being as far apart as a "bee's dick".

Every SF French restaurant's negative reviews seem to focus on the wait staff. Why are the wait staffs so poor? I can't get a feeling for the food because the reviewers are so upset over how badly they were treated by the wait staff.

Think I've been to Absinthe years ago - so long ago it's dropped out of my memory banks and can't remember a thing about it. Never been to Chapeau, so any insight you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

TIA.

Baker & Banker. So good. Bread to die for.

Check on yelp.com or chow hound.com for the latest real world reviews.

Well, we tried Chapeau.

Didn't like it.

The appetizers were great, the recommended wine just OK, and the main dishes (three of us ordered DAT, the fourth ordered a la carte) went from good to awful. My DAT main dish was the skate wing and, while the fish itself tasted OK, the sauce seemed like they had dumped a whole bottle of anchovies in it. Dessert was lackluster.

I also remember that I'd eaten at Absinthe, which was so highly recommended, yet had one of the worst dining experiences ever in a French restaurant in San Francisco.

Morale of the story, at least for me, is not to try a French restaurant for DAT. The better French restaurants in SF don't seem to participate in DAT.

I liked l'Ardoise but it was not under the DAT auspices.

Me, too, Michael! I really like l'Ardoise also. Guess they're too successful to have to participate in DAT.

I've generally been disappointed by DAT, feeling that the restaurants really did not know how to create a meal that would attract return customers. The one memorable meal we had was at Aziza when it was fairly new, as was DAT. For a 3 course prix fixe we could order anything on the menu within each category, even the bistilla was included. Since then the restaurant has moved up (it has acquired a Michelin star) and is still worth a visit, but it is not on the DAT list anymore.

I've had several good experiences with DAT. Aziza was one of them, so was One Market, Campton Place, Ruth Chris, and several others.

We're going to try out Roy's because we've always enjoyed their food whether in Hawaii or at their Spanish Bay location here. Have never tried their San Francisco location, so we shall see.

You're probably right, though, that the extent and quality of the offerings have dropped off over the years.

From this year's list, I would recommend:
Spruce
Skool
One Market
Restaurant LuLu
Foreign Cinema
Campton Place

We tried Roy's for dinner and went back to One Market for lunch.

Roy's was quite good. The appetizer was OK (one "lobster" chiaotze, one - yes, just one - pork rib, and one other something-or-the-other which I can't remember). I had the halibut, which was quite good, my companion had the salmon, which was better. Dessert was their chocolate truffle, which is better than usual because they paired it this time with some ice cream - which made it almost like a baked Alaska experience.

One Market was absolutely superb. Can't remember more than this because the conversation was so animated I don't remember what we had, but it was all wonderful.

One Market ranks way up there of all the DAT restaurants we've tried so far.

We tried Choquet's on Washington near Fillmore. Small, bistro-ish, French. Except for having to wait a long time for our table (we turned down a table under the heaters outside), we enjoyed it very much. The service was excellent (and they comped our drinks at the bar while we waited for our table) and the food is very good (not "to die for" but nice enough that I would return). Tables are very close together, and although it's fairly noisy, we didn't feel like we were listening to our neighbors' conversations.

Thanks, sf7307.

Putting Choquet on my list of French restaurants to try.