Faces Hits It Out of the Park
See, I'm not so hard to please, give me a good restaurant experience and I'm over the moon!
For my birthday last night we went to Faces (formerly LoTo) on Mears Park. David Fhima has purchased and re-opened his former restaurant, and though it does not *look* much different than LoTo, it really shines.
The menu is simple and locally sourced. We each ordered, of all things, sandwiches, a chicken Monte Cristo for me and a Croque Madame for Patrick. Both were huge, came with excellent sea salt fries, and were delicious. We also had a lovely flourless chocolate cake (on the house since it was my birthday!)
Though the food was delicious, it was the wonderful service that really set it apart. Our server was friendly, knowledgeable, and treated us like royalty. The host checked in on us. Fhima himself was working the room, and though I've only met him a few times before, he was wonderfully gracious and claimed to remember me, "it's nice to see a friendly, familiar face."
One incident is particularly enlightening — the restaurant was busy, and our waitress was handling several tables in our area, all seated at almost the same time. She overlooked our complimentary gourgere cheese puff appetizers, and when she realized this, insisted on sending us home with a box of the lovely delights, which are awaiting our late night snack pleasure. I've so often had something like that handled badly or with indifference, but she was brilliant. When we mentioned that to the host on the way out, he was pleased to hear it, remarking that in this economy, you have to work hard for repeat customers, and he wanted every experience there to be special.
It certainly was. We'll be back as soon as we can get a babysitter!
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After dinner, we headed over to Bin Wine Bar, another of my personal favorites. We were extremely full form dinner, and rather tired, but wanted our evening to last a little longer. I had forgotten that they also serve cheap "tastes" of wine, so for just a few dollars we had lovely, generously poured small glasses and the perfect way to end our evening.
Faces and Bin. Go now.
For my birthday last night we went to Faces (formerly LoTo) on Mears Park. David Fhima has purchased and re-opened his former restaurant, and though it does not *look* much different than LoTo, it really shines.
The menu is simple and locally sourced. We each ordered, of all things, sandwiches, a chicken Monte Cristo for me and a Croque Madame for Patrick. Both were huge, came with excellent sea salt fries, and were delicious. We also had a lovely flourless chocolate cake (on the house since it was my birthday!)
Though the food was delicious, it was the wonderful service that really set it apart. Our server was friendly, knowledgeable, and treated us like royalty. The host checked in on us. Fhima himself was working the room, and though I've only met him a few times before, he was wonderfully gracious and claimed to remember me, "it's nice to see a friendly, familiar face."
One incident is particularly enlightening — the restaurant was busy, and our waitress was handling several tables in our area, all seated at almost the same time. She overlooked our complimentary gourgere cheese puff appetizers, and when she realized this, insisted on sending us home with a box of the lovely delights, which are awaiting our late night snack pleasure. I've so often had something like that handled badly or with indifference, but she was brilliant. When we mentioned that to the host on the way out, he was pleased to hear it, remarking that in this economy, you have to work hard for repeat customers, and he wanted every experience there to be special.
It certainly was. We'll be back as soon as we can get a babysitter!
---
After dinner, we headed over to Bin Wine Bar, another of my personal favorites. We were extremely full form dinner, and rather tired, but wanted our evening to last a little longer. I had forgotten that they also serve cheap "tastes" of wine, so for just a few dollars we had lovely, generously poured small glasses and the perfect way to end our evening.
Faces and Bin. Go now.
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