R&G Lounge

Back down to San Francisco for the 8 pm showing of Book of Mormon.

We had a group dinner at R&G Lounge, located at 631 Kearny Street.

They have several banquet menus and we chose Menu B for $498 per table of 10. If you have a smaller group, you can get half portion for $260. We had a group of 15 but some were vegetarian. We ordered some additional vegetarian dishes (although the options were limited) and the menu was perfect for us. If we only had 10 people, we would have had a lot of leftovers and we're big eaters.

Braised Seafood Combination Soup. This was meh--nothing too spectacular. Thin strips of seafood and not much flavor.

Salt & Pepper Crab. This was 2 full crabs and was quite good although there wasn't much salt or pepper taste.

Deep Fried Prawns with Honey Glazed Walnuts. The prawns were huge and it wasn't over-mayonnaised. The walnuts could use more honey glazing.

Scallops and Steak Cubes with Black Pepper Sauce. The scallops were well prepared and the meat was very tender. Not much black pepper taste.

Peking Duck with Steamed Buns. This was very disappointing. The fat hadn't been rendered from the skin and there wasn't much meat on the duck.

Soy Sauce Chicken. This was okay.

Sauteed Snow Pea Leaves with Vegetarian Abalone. I was the most skeptical of this dish. I didn't know what vegetarian abalone was but I ended up liking this dish the most. If I didn't know this was vegetarian, I would have thought it was the real thing. The texture was spot on and it had good abalone flavor.

Baked Black Cod. I was looking forward to this dish the most but ended up being disappointed. I was expecting melt in your mouth but this wasn't and there wasn't much flavor.

Golden Supreme Fried Rice. This was unexpectedly quite tasty. It had a spicy kick to it.

One of the vegetarian dishes we ordered. This was Snow Peas & Water Chestnuts sautéed with Ginger & Garlic. This was quite good and the snow peas were not overcooked. It was pricey at $18.

We also had Mixed Vegetable Deluxe--$18 and Black Mushrooms with Mustard Greens--$20. I didn't try either but the vegetarians liked them.

Dessert was reported as red bean. I was expecting red bean soup but it turned out to be cubes of red bean layered with coconut and some unidentified 3rd layer. I wasn't impressed.

Overall, the dinner was okay. I've had much better banquets at a much lower price point. The restaurant was crowded so I think I'm in the minority.

2018 03 04