Gay restaurants-passe?

[TownsendPLocke]

So this past weekend I attended a function in San Francisco which included a dinner at a gay "pan-asian"restaurant on Castro street called Nirvana.

It was quite possibly the worst meal I have ever been served in San Francisco-including a few I ate while voulenteering at a soup kitchen!

The charge per person was $35 for the meal,which consisted of a pupu platter(I think they took that literally-everything was the same shade of brown)a salad(mesclum greens out of a bag-Wishbone dressing) a tiny plate of over cooked pasta with your choice of shrimp,chicken or veggies(this was disgusting-Budget Gourmet looks better)an orange slice with a stale brownie.

Last years dinner was at a place called Catch.While it would not be winning any James Beard awards it was much better.Many of the attendees felt it was over priced at $47 per head.

So I am just wondering-are 'Gay" restaurants passe in your opinion?

We have a few good ones in LA. Numbers can be good(or not)Marks has beeen pretty good the last few times I have been there. Cafe Letiole is pretty reliable-if not the greatest it is usually pretty good.

I am going to suggest to the event planner that it would be perfectly ok to move the event to a FOC(friend of the community)restaurant for next year if the gay places are not up to the task.

While I would like to keep my dollars pink I will not do so while getting robbed.

Also have the same opinion of "Gay"hotels-see this link for further on this.

http://www.maleescortreview.com/forum/inde...?showtopic=2961

[caeron]

If you're having a large group there, wouldn't you want to eat there first and make sure it doesn't suck?

I guess for me, I like my food enough that I don't think pink with my dining dollars. I want a good restaurant first. As a consequence, I have no idea which are the gay restaurants in portland OR, but I can tell you the good ones :-)

[Guest mineallmine]

Caeron I am right there with you there. I can tell you where the good spots are. Wether they are gay owned or not is another matter all together. I do love to try new places though so willing to try something unusual and fun atleast once.

[TotallyOz]

I always prefer to spend my money on gay owned businesses. However, I won't sacrifice quality to do this. If I know a business is owned by gays, I will test it and if good, I'll be a regular. I will not continue to go just because it is gay owned but I will give it a test run.

Gay Hotels are the hardest for me. I have found few that live up to what I want or expect in a hotel and rarely stay at them. The one exception is in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is called PJ's Place. http://pjs-place.com/

I know the owners, love the rooms and the service. I have stayed there for over a month at times and never been disappointed.

I had one hotel in Phuket that was the same but very high end boutique hotel. I was just there in Jan and the hotel changed owners and the gay men were out and a straight team was in. I had stayed there only because I liked the 2 gay owners and the price is higher than other similar hotels. Needless to say, I won't be back there again. The hotel is good but the price was too high for me to continue and the service of the hotel has gone down since new owners arrived.

[Guest EXPAT]

I think you are right. Most people who buy into the gay restaurant business don't really know what they are doing and as a result market the wrong things about the restaurant and forget about good food and good service. What they forget is that most gay men are very unforgiving when it comes to stuff like that. Frankly I see far fewer gay-oriented restaurants anyway.

I still have to give Numbers props though for their efforts. Their food is not too bad, just a bit pricey. But their ambiance is really enticing. I'm going every weekend now.

[Lucky]

I've rarely found gay restaurants to be worth the dough. Numbers in West Hollywood is one of my least favorites, even after the latest attempts to change. Sure, I like looking at cute waiters, but at Numbers they are not very good waiters, and the food is barely edible.

[Guest StuCotts]

In this day and age, any restaurant in the Village or Chelsea is gay de facto, rather than as a matter of policy.

Unless I'm mistaken, NY restaurants that tout themselves as gay are obsolete. No great loss. Very long ago there was Fedora's, on Bleecker off 10th. It called itself Italian, but the cooking was a disfigurement of Italian cuisine. I went there once, twice at the outside. There was no reason to go except to see and be seen, but there were hundreds of other places where you could do the same and not risk nausea.

More recently there was One Potato on Hudson (?). I avoided it completely, even when I was banging one of the waiters, who kept asking me to visit him there.

I understand Julius on 10th still survives. But it isn't, or at least wasn't, really a restaurant. More a bar/burger joint. It's been there so long that nobody living remembers when it wasn't.