oh, so pretentious. without any of the things you would expect of a fine dining experience.
first, the location. s&s occupies a small strip-mall location with a teriyaki place to one side and a subway sandwich place to the other. by the end of my meal, i was wondering if i shouldn't have gone to subway.
first, on entering the place, there was a confusion as to what was going on at all... should we seat ourselves? should we belly up to the buffet? we didn't know. upon asking (after all, we are new in this place) we were told to shut up and sit down.
finally, we were appraised of the situation. "choose one of the features on the blackboard and then the buffet is yours to try". ok, fair enough. we both ordered our meals and then my companion went to cruise the buffet.
as an aside, i must say that my friend is much more adventurous when it comes to northwest vegan-cum-naturalist fare resplendent with nuts and unidentifiable herbs.
finally, our wine arrived and this helped somewhat. the rose was acceptable and the two varieties we ordered fit our taste well enough. a good thing too, as it would take another half hour before our food arrived.
without windows, art, music or some other kind of distraction, the wait was in fact multiplied. it was a rare beautiful day in seattle, and our only wish was that the high back of the seats did not block the entire view of the outside.
finally, the main course arrived. it could well have been mistaken for an appetizer, or a salad. at $17 a pop, it did seem a bit uninspiring, mediocre, and, well, skimpy. while the eggs and bacon were savory, the wilted bock choi was bitter beyond belief.
why were we here at all? we had received a gift certificate for the place and it had sat on our entry table for months. countless times we had thought about going and this brunch was our chance to try it out.
what did we find? the worst of seattle pretention with the worst of service and food. good riddance.
finally, decompressing with a bloody mary at our favorite bar in the area we asked the bartender if he had been to s&s... yes, he said, i found it a bit snobby, like i was expected to be thankful that i was blessed to eat in this place.
ack... avoid it all costs.