Bauer Gives Amber Dhara One Lonely Star

[Photo: Amber Dhara]

Michael Bauer heads to the Mission to check out the neighborhood's largest restaurant, Amber Dhara, and the results aren't pretty. He finds it a "disappointing imitation" of the other Amber India-affiliated restaurants in San Francisco and the Peninsula, an amateurish take on a concept he's found more successful elsewhere. The room is uncomfortably noisy and "self-consciously hip" for his taste. The food skews sweet in the savory, a patented Bauer pet peeve, and even the presentation has moments that are just plain "sloppy."

Alas, service fares no better, his visits were met with "well meaning but slipshod." The end result, "not even a shadow of the original," is a solitary star for this new behemoth. At least the food presents well in the pictures.

· All Amber Dhara Coverage [~ ESF ~]