Slanted Door

Did not hold our reservation even thoough we were present 12 minutes before our time. Seated others and seated others before us...we waited 35 minutes after our reservation for our table. Yikes...loud, crowded tables, small portions, good eating, but think other restaurants offer meals just as good for less and bigger protions. Sorry! But if being seen were other are being seen...this is the place for you.

overall an 7.5 to 8 out of 10 for food quality but a little noisey due to the layout.

On a business trip to San Francisco where we had lived for 10 years, I was absolutely delighted to find Slanted Door. The dishes were disti...

good food but overpriced even for san fran

Loved it. Not only the food, but the service was wonderful. Staff were at your table to clear plates after clean after every serving. The hot Vietnamese Coffee was wonderful. I've never had it brew at the table. The place is beautifully decorated and I felt very relaxed and comfortable. Every seat, except those facing the bar, have a view of the bay. The walls in the seating area are walls of windows. I can't wait for my next trip to SF. I love the city.

Having lived in San Francisco and then moved away, I had always wanted to eat at the Slanted Door at the Embarcadero. I finally got to this ...

We visited the Slanted Door at the Ferry Building on our last trip to San Fran. I loved the food, as did my husband. It was a little loud,...

Being Vietnamese I will say this, the food is a little over rated for the price. You can get the same or better elsewhere. What makes up for it is the fresh seafood and the nice ambiance! It makes it so much worth it. Don't forget to make reservations! It is always booked and is the number one overbooked restaurant on opentable dot c o m. It's also nice it's on the pier.

The Spring roles are delicious, the shrimp noodles are cooked perfectly, the view, of course, exquisite. I went on a Sunday afternoon and the service was great. I loved everything about The Slanted Door and I'm very excited to find my new favorite place to have lunch, dinner and drinks.

WORST SERVICE I'VE EVER HAD from the minute I made the reservation to the minute I walked out the door. Staff is slow, arrogrant and inefficient!!!!! The food was adequate but nothing special. Not only do I NOT recommend it, I wouldn't go back if you paid me to eat there! When I go out for a "nice" lunch or dinner I expect to be treated as a guest, not as if they are doing me a favor by letting me eat there!!!!

It was the BEST meal we had during our trip in SFO. I made an earliest reservation but the restaurant was already packed! Ribs/ Ribs/ Ribs... every table I can see. we ordered 2 appetizers, ribs and dungeness crab. portions were almost like a meal for 2. ribs was so tender and juicy but the sauce a bit on salty side, crab was cook perfect, still a bit translucent. drink was fantastic too... Real friendly services, food comes quick. This is a keeper, I would love to come back and try everything!!!!

After hearing rave reviews about Slanted Door, I finally tried it. What a mistake! I have never been in such a pretentious restaurant in my ...

We have heard so much great reviews about Slanted Door and we were very excited to try this restaurant, however this restaurant did not live up to the hype. To preface this review, our home base is in Honolulu and Boston- 2 cities with excellent Asian cuisine. Slanted door is supposedly "fine Vietnamese food", however at best, the food tasted like your average Chinese fare. Nothing spectacular, no wow factor, just mediocre. I have eaten Chinese food from stands off the side of the road that were tastier than the food served here. On a positive note, however, the interior is beautiful- sleek and modern. Plus, there is a great view of the waterfront as well. The service was slow, but our waitress was very friendly and helpful.The bill was overpriced in my opinion for lunch- 2 people for 3 dishes at $70. I am glad that we got to try this place since we have heard so many great things about it, but we will not be returning here again or recommending it to friends.

everything was fine as far as the food and service goes. the drinks were good. the patrons were rude, as we left the bar a women was practically sitting on my lap to get my seat not to mention the 2 people behind us breathing down our necks. very noisy. if you have had vietnamese that is authentic, this place lacks the flavor but if you haven't you won't know the difference and will probably be impressed.

Their day is over, once a great product and service now is an assembly line of attitude, get um in and out food and waits for a reservation longer that calling the airline. Your not a guest, your a number with a pager waiting for your table at 9pm that you had a reservation for at 8..so over it...great food and service is Bong Su!

Since the first time I went to this restaurant, it has been my favorite restaurant in the city. Some dishes are a a little too strong flavor for me, like the chicken claypot, but my personal top pick is "Cellophane noodles with fresh dungeness crab meat." It probably isn't the most well known, but to me it is the gem in this menu. THe delicate flavor of the dungeness crab works very well with the cellophane noodles, and the broth they use is amazing. It is a MUST dish for me. We like starting with the "grapefruit and jicama salad." The food is great, but what makes it better is the staff. Every staff is friendly and approaches you like they knew you for a long time. If you want to people watch, I would recommend sitting at the bar. You get to chat with the bartender but also see the people in their casual but dress-to-impress outfits.

Went here while on vacation in San Francisco. We heard that it was supposed to be really authentic Vietnamese, so we wanted to try it out. Authentic? Not so much. It tasted like a corner pan-asian restaurant. Spring rolls and cod dumplings for apps - they were alright, but surprisingly bland. We stuck with the beef for the main courses, which were ok, but nothing to write home about. Speaking of beef, we had a couple of them. Our server was horrible. Horrible. We asked for recommendations, to which he responded, "It depends on what you feel like eating." We gave him some guidelines (no seafood for the gentleman, no mushrooms for the lady), and sure enough he recommended a dish with mushrooms for the lady. So we asked for a bit more time, and picked the beef entrees with glass noodles to share. They were bringing plates out as they were ready so my husband got his food about 5 minutes before I got mine (one of my biggest pet peeves next to taking plates off the table before... Read more

First off you cant get through on the phone lines in the morning hours. I hardly see how the place can be so swamped with reservations but apparently they are. Took our chances and walked in for lunch. Just like I'd seen on tv there were plenty of seats at the bar area but to our surprise we were able to be seated at a table. Food was lacking the WOW factor that I'd anticipated! Ordered the green papaya salad (no flavor) Slanted Door spring rolls (ehh) (You can have tastier peanut sauce out of a jar) and the Vietnamese Crepe which was my favorite (I think because of the oil the crepe was fried in) The dipping sauce for the creep was ok but still not packing that Zing I was looking for. Dessert time came and of course we each had to have one. Reasonably priced I thought (at 7.00 each) the Dark chocolate Marquise was darn good! I was a little scared about the fennel cream that accompanied it (cause I'm not a fan of fennel) but heck, you couldn't taste anything but cream. The Warm Fig-... Read more

My god, where do I start. This was probably the most pretentious restaurant I have visited in 10 years. A friend and i were seated by an unexpressive waiter wearing black eyeliner under his eyes who slapped a menu in front of us as if he were doing us a favor. He zoomed through the specials, mispronouncing "bechamel" and "vinaigrette" as "bekamel" and "vinegar-ette." Snooty is a mild word as he made no eye contact through the whole pisselegant endeavor. Then came the clincher, microportions of mediocre food. Crab cakes that were burnt on the outside and raw in the middle, and a creme brulee that tasted like yogurt or sour milk. All this in the food capital of the USA. Four thumbs down, don't do it, don't do it.

We were very excited to try out this hot spot. I liked the decor & our server was wonderful but believe the reviews when it says it is not romantic. The atmosphere is nice don't get me wrong but it is a hectic, bustling place with the ferry & awesome market being there. The spring rolls as well as the squash rice cakes we had were fabulous. The crab corn soup was light & fresh but nothing special but it is only $5 so I would say worth it to try. We ordered the chicken stir fry & the lamb stir fry. Both were nice but we liked the lamb better. The side of green beans I thought would just be grean beans but they were so crisp & flavorful & given to us for free for our chicken entree taking extra time which neither one of us noticed b/c we were having a nice time & had plenty of other food to savor. We ended with the creme brulee. Delicious but noting special except that it was served with mini pistachio muffins which I would have ordered 2 dozen to take home if they would have le... Read more

I've been to the one in the Mission years ago and thought it was so so. I am Vietnamese and brought my family there and we all thought it was not authentic and just average. My friends asked me to go again recently and I thought I would give it another shot since they moved to the Ferry Building. Mistake! I will never go to this restaurant again. The food was OVERPRICED, HYPED UP and just BORING and very AVERAGE at best. I know it's a place to be see and be seen but it's certainly not a place for foodies who really know what Vietnamese food is all about. The Vietnamese part of this restaurant is just a big GIMMICK! Believe me, you can get a fantastic Vietnamese meal for a fraction of what it would cost you at this restaurant so save your $ and just go to a genuine Vietnamese restaurant - unless of course you don't care about how good the food is and just want to be part of the trendy scene! This restaurant pretends to be gourmet but they must be competing in the projects of Vietnam wan... Read more

Ate there last year, still a horrible memory. Their move to the high-rent tourist-trap location right next to booming Financial District for...

This one is from the Bloomingdale's mall. Anyway, my friend and I decided to go to the restaurant after our workout session. I didn't feel like a big meal. So, I wanted to get a salad but when I was looking at their salad selections, there wasn't anything that I wanted. This is my first time being there by the way. So instead I wanted to get a salad from Amoura because they have better selections for me to choose from. So we went back to the place, we were seated and my friend told the waiter that I didn't like the salad selections here and that I brought my own. My friend ordered a bunch of items from their menu. The waiter brought the bowl for my salad. I thought, they are so nice here. Spoke to soon I guess, as we were eating, here came the manager, Jen in the middle of dinner and told us that we shouldn't be bringing outside food in. I was dumbstruck! Man what the hell. I didn't realized until later how hurtful and rude she was and on top of that, four of her staff members were e... Read more

This restaurant was fantastic! The food was delicious, the view is beautiful and the service is exceptional. Our waiter was a very cheerful and entertaining fellow and made us feel welcome. It is a little hard to get a reservation because it is so popular but go for lunch at about 11:00 and you will most likely get a table. However, don't wait too long because it does fill up rather quickly. Plus, it is located in the ferry building which contains a wonderful gourmet food market. This is a must visit!

I had high expectations for this place. Everyone I know who ate here just raved about it. So, here are my thoughts: First off, make reservations at least a month in advance. I made mine 2 weeks in advance and the best i could get was a 5:30 pm reservation (granted it was a Friday night). Although the time was not ideal, I just had to make the best of it. Second, the location is ideal. It is in the Ferry Building and it would be good to get a seat by the window to get the nice view of the bay. Also, you can walk around the new stores, shops, etc. in the Ferry Building prior to dining in. Third, the food is pretty good. The cuisine is French Vietnamese. The food is served family style. We had the vegetarian spring rolls, which everyone at the table enjoyed. The dipping sauce was pretty good too. A friend had the papaya salad and she finished it all -- good sign. Another friend had the chicken stir fry and he liked that one too -- again, finished it all. And we also had the double cut ... Read more

I love this place. The food is great: grilled whole fish is outstanding, oysters the best in town-don't know how they do that, and a refreshing nonalcoholic drink menu. The scene is classy, you can look good and not feel over dressed like in the rest of SF restaurants. Only down side is it takes way tooo long to get a resie. Great lounge/bar with great apps.

Gotta love being able to eat from the Slanted Door kitchen at a fraction of the price of the full-service restaurant. Its certainly busy during lunch time, but you just order at the counter and within 4-5 minutes you?ve got your meal?expect direct, fast service with out a smile (or a frown for that matter). Its not a sit-down place?but its at the ferry building, so you can find benches outside or stand-up tables inside. Tasty vermicelli noodles are cold noodles with various toppings (five spice chicken, pork, etc?standard vietnamese fare), the pork/ckn buns are AWESOME, and the five spice pork sandwhich is pretty darn tasty?but what do you expect from the folks behind Slanted Door?

I'm sure Slanted Door does not need another great review. It's still the best and most innovative vietnamese in the city.

The only thing great about this place is the location. But besides that the food is overpriced. I had the shaken beef and it was ok but not worth the money. You could get a better shaken beef at Little Saigon in Concord for half the price. They also serve garlic noodles there that is just as good as the one in crustaceans. I realized that the slanted door is very americanized food that is highly overrpriced. The cellophane noodles were whack. Not impressive at all. You can get those ingredients at an asian marketplace and make it for about 5 bucks. There really is nothing that great about this restaurant. The one good thing about it was the service. But for food u can go to a hole in the wall place and eat better and cheaper. If anyone is in concord go to Little Saigon ( I am in no way affiliated with this restaurant just a fan of good cheap food and hate to see people get conned of paying way more then they really should.)

This is definitely one of my favorite restaurants. We were a party of four and had reservations... Literally everything including our drinks were right on. That is the difference between a retaurant of this caliber and a regular "good most of the time" restaurant. Absolute attention to detail. Samuel was the name of our server, friendly and unobtrusive, made excellent suggestions and did not miss a beat. Oh and try the rose tequila drink. YUM. The place is sleek and speaking for all four of us, we look forward to going back .

As a Vietnamese person, I feel that I have some credibility speaking on this particular topic. Slanted Door has excellent food and has put Vietnamese cuisine on the map. (Thank you Charles Pham!) Although the dishes are not always authentic as there is extensive fusion going on, the food does stay true to traditional flavors. My veggie friend loves the Daikon rice cakes. I think all the dishes are pretty solid. For a less fused but also very good Vietnamese restaurant, try Unicorn on Telegraph in Berkeley. It's a little gem.

I am surprised by the high rating of this restaurant. Yes, the service is great, the views are fantastic, and the cocktails are quite good. However, the food is rather average and overpriced. Most dishes on the menu can easily be made at home. The pho is very bland and has too much noodles. The grapefruit and jicama salad has mostly chopped purple cabbage mixed with julienned jicama and 3 pieces of grapfruit. I thought they could use a bit more lime juice in the sauce. The claypot dishes were good, but not any better than several other vietnamese restaurants in SF. Save your money and spend it on your vacation in Europe, if you're so raved about the views..

I love all cuisines (ranging from Russian to Singaporean) but I especially love Vietnamese. I used to eat Vietnamese at holes in the wall in the Richmond (Clement St), then in the Mission, then in the China Town area. Finally, I tried Slanted Door and was extremely happy with the food. I've eaten there 5-6 times and in Out the Door 15-20 times. The cubed filet mignon is succulent and perfectly spiced, and the peanut sauce used for their shrimp spring rolls is phenomenal. (I never liked peanut sauce before I tried it here, because it's frequently too sugary.) The waiters are good and make genuine recommendations. Even the Ty Nant bottled water is excellent (ask for the blue glass bottle). Of course, getting a table is a pain so be sure to make reservations and still expect to wait approx 15 min. It's worth it and anyway, what is so terrible about looking at the bay and bridge for a little while? Enjoy!

My experiences at Slanted Door have always been positive. Their food is the best I've ever tasted. The wait staff is extremely friendly and polite. My only complaint is the difficulty in getting a reservation or even bar seating. I would dine there more often if I could get a table!

With San Francisco?s current fascination with eastern cuisine, especially when coined as neo, it is no surprise that Slanted Door is doing so well. Yet the eclectic anomalies which are so celebrated by the western tongue are in reality easy-to-make and prosaic. Tofu and mushroom, wow, mind-blowing. This review is not about their food or table service (both are mediocre, thus ultimately benign), but about their management?s growing air of superiority and complete hubris. Our party reserved the back private room, a complicated process full of severe parameters, paradoxes, and caveats. We called to say we?d be 20 minutes late, and were told because of a succeeding reservation, we?d have a time limit. We were resolved with the ultimatum: keep our reservation only if we finished at a certain time. We called again to order a prefix menu so they could begin cooking, to save time. They asserted it would be more sensible to order in person. Either they didn?t want to be bothered, or were not ... Read more

I absolultely love Slanted Door. From their Mission Street location years ago to the Ferry Building now, I just can't say enough good things about this restaurant. The wait staff has always provided great service when I've been there, and I could literally pick anything on the menu and be happy with it. It is loud, and it's not cheap, but it's really worth it. The view of the bay adds even more to this restaurant. I love it!

The food was below average in terms of taste, the presentation was not up to par, the menu has an identity crisis issue. I expected the dishes to tease my tastebud with spices from Vietnam. It tasted more like one of those old chinese rest, blend. The duck was deep fried, the claypot pork was over cooked and watery. The only dish close to what i had expected was the imperial rolls, but then i shouldn't have to pay close to $200 for a blend meal.

I always take my out of town guests here for a Sunday Brunch treat. Its not traditional Sunday Brunch. The presentation is gorgeous, the view is amazing and theres a farmers market to walk around outside. Everytime i come here i try something new and i always love it. I have never tried a dish i dont like and think i am getting close to trying at least everything once. Its not cheap but worth it and the bar is a great place to relax and try some new wine.

Lunch, dinner, drinks, appetizers - it's all great. I don't think Slanted Door can serve a bad dish. I have never been disappointed and I recommend it to everyone who comes to SF. The presentation is unique. The food is divine. The service is top notch. And now that they are in the Ferry Building, the location is stunning. This is a must go.

This place is awesome. The prawns are amazing! The grill was broken so the steak didn't come out the way it's suppose to but they offered to comp it right away and they were very nice about it. The appetizers were very very fresh and so was the service. This place is crackin' so make sure you reserve a table waaayyy in advance. =)

I had heard about slanted door for years and finally tried it with a friend recently and it was absolutely wonderful. The restaurant was very crowded and we had to wait about 10 minutes even with reservations, but the service was polite and friendly, the view of the water lovely and the food phenomenal. Everything we had was perfectly seasoned, flavorful and fresh - from fried green beans with sweet cherry tomatoes, moist, subtlely flavored cod over sauteed cabbage and the shaken beef - tender to every last bite. I would definitely come back again and again. Random tip - there are lots of interesting vegetarian options so your vegetarian friends and family members won't get stuck eating "sides". This is a must-try in San Francisco.

2nd visit, none of the problems with service others mention. Last night's waiter was friendly, attentive, and helpful -- on a Friday night when the place was wall to wall people. Out of town visitor said the shaking beef was the best beef he had ever tasted - and he has the cooking and eating experience to back up that judgement! Portions are not large, but they are good. Get a variety of things, and experiment. The crab salad is special. Desserts so-so, but then that's not their forte. The atmosphere is vibrant, can be a little noisy, and the view of course is spectacular. It's a fun place for a group that is into just plain having a good time. We'll take other visitors there.

Been there 3 times in the last few months, and the food is consistently great. The servers are consistently slow, unorganized and DO have a lot of attitude. I don't get it because it was not that way at all at the old location on Valencia. The poor service will keep us away from this place.

Went here last month for the first time in a while and it is still really good. Service is a bit slack with a bit of an attitude.....but the real winners are the consistant food and the innovative wine list. Also a great place to go and have snacks and drinks at the bar.

I went to the Slanted Door for the second time recently. I was with 3 other petite women. We ordered 3 appetizers and 3 entrees. The waiter's response to our order? To haughtily declare that we had not ordered enough food. (Unfortunately, I didn't catch his name but he was a tall, white male). Yes, their portions are on the smaller side but 1) I have been there before so am aware of the portion sizes and 2) I have a much better idea than the waiter as to how much food I can / want to eat. Nevertheless, he rudely declared that we were not ordering enough food 2 or 3 additional times. I have never encountered anything like this! Of course, a suggestion or 2 from waitstaff may be appropriate even welcomed but here it was a thinly veiled attempt to strong arm us into ordering more food to increase the bill and increase his tip. Ironically, this behavior had the complete opposite effect. Once we made it clear that we were not interested in ordering additional dishes per his sug... Read more

I used to love the Slanted Door when they were located in the Mission on 16th street. Since moving to their swankier digs, they have adjusted their prices accordingly. While the food is still as wonderful as ever, I believe I would rather eat elsewhere and save my dough.

food is exceptional, particularly the cubed filet. the view of the bridge at night is wonderful and the staff (bar and wait) is very friendly. the service can be painfully slow when they're busy, though. coffee (french press) & dessert (creme brulee) were a mistake.

As I was a fan before they moved to the Ferry Building, I thought I'd give it another try. We sat at the bar and had great service, enjoyed the view. We had the daikon cakes...very good, to start. Then, the himachi...had a strange not so fresh taste, and being raw, that is concerning. Then, a horrible looking display of a deep fried (we were not told how the fish was prepared) arrived almost glarring at us from the plate (yes, w/the face attached). We put our health-ethics behind and decided to give it a try. Well, we picked and probed looking for meat..barely found enough of a morsel. I think this is one of those aquired taste things where you actually eat the bones. Set it aside. Left disappointed with the food, but pleased with the service. I don't know how to put this in any vague term so I'll come right out and say it: We both woke up at 4am.....sick and had to stay home from work the next day as well. You never know with food poisining...the actual culprit, but we do think it was... Read more