Thursday, May 15, 2008

Feeling Out of Place @ Father's Office (Santa Monica)



For the review of Father's Office in Culver City, please read here.

Sigh! I'm on the fence on this one. I really want to like this place, but there's always something that bothers me to a point of not giving this place higher ratings.

Let's call it what this place is really is....it's a bar. Not a dive bar, or any kind of cocktail or martini bar. it's just an old fashioned bar that serves many different beer on tap. That's what seemed to be their specialty lies on.

They do serve burger, but so does Hinano and Tiny's KO. Yet we called both of them bars and dive bar. The other giveaways in terms of why this should not be classified as a restaurant would be the fact that there's no waiters service as you have to order your drinks and food on the counter which they called it "The Rack". Plus they do card you to make sure you're 21.

The place is very deceptive. I don't think it's small as others have described. They do have about 6 tables along the wall with 4 more on the back end of the room with plenty of bar counter seats. It looked like the place can accommodate more than 60-75 patrons in here. There's only one Television for the bar, so you might have to get best seat in the house for that.



Father's Office Burger with Frites

The $11 gourmet burger that is popular in this place, which tends to be the big attraction. It's moist with a nice toasted bun. For a few dollars more you can order frites (seasoned fries).


Sweet Potato Fries

The cute little attraction they also have is their fries comes in a shopping cart. Nice setup for a cool feature.


Anderson Valley Pleeko with a bottle Coke

The food is not bad and very delicious with some of the orders. They do have nice selections of beer which I enjoy. I ordered the Anderson Valley Poleeko Gold which is one of their newest beer on the list.


Inside of the Father's Office Burger

If all food and the beer isn't that bad, why am I on the fence about this place? Well, for two reasons: the price and the ambiance of the place.

First price is a little bit high for what is being served. Obviously the place along Montana Ave is catered to the affluent crowd. I can sort of understand the gourmet burgers and some of their menu items are attractive and very good in presentations for a bar establishment, but it's a little bit harsh for food in a bar.

Second, the ambiance as in the crowd for this place can be somewhat of a turnoff for me. When our group was standing in line to get in to the place, the crowd behind us looked at us snobbishly as some of them whispering as though they are blaming us for the long wait because of the big group. I only can wish to tell them to chill out because the crowd at Daikokuya is not as impatient as these crowd.

Inside the place, the mood of music was playing mainstream hard rock with the sound of the TV playing in the background. Overall, I do find the service to be very friendly as the staff was as hospitable and polite, more so than the crowd that patronize there. Imagine that!

I probably would highly recommend coming here for the beer or the sweet potato fries. Nicely seasoned and well cooked in that you can't really tell it's a yam.

If you can stomach the crowd or feel the need to be in a "scene" atmosphere, then this is the place to be. Just make sure you don't try to come in with a huge crowd or it can be maddening to listen to the unwanted mutter.

Father's Office
1018 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90403
(310) 393-2337

Grade:


Father's Office on Urbanspoon

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