Inn at the Park

Restaurant is closed.

Went here for Restaurant Week and definitely regretted it!
The service was good however…
the food was terrible and the atmosphere is undesirable.
Fishy scallops, awkward taste combinations, and disappointing desserts.
Will not be coming back.

The staff here is wonderful. I had my wedding and reception here and the staff took great care of me. Loren and Amy did a great job and we did not want for anything. The food was amazing, we had a ravioli with Alfredo sauce and a penne meat sauce. They included bread and Caesar salad. It was delicious. The wait staff came into the room and made sure we were all taken care of. Ria and Don L made sure we were entertained and sang beautifully for us. Together with the staff they make Inn at the Park the best place to be. It was a beautiful day and loved the fact that are loved ones were there to share this moment.
Thank you Inn at the Park!!!
Side note: for those of you who think that this place is just a geriatric ward for older gay men, please don’t judge. These folks that frequent the hotels bar are genuine, caring people, gay or straight. So before you say anything, give it a shot, you might just enjoy yourself.

They lured me in on the restaurant week promotion and they said it was on the roof with a view. We walked in to the ground floor restaurant «525» and it was pure seafood stank. We thought about leaving straight away but figured most other places would be booked at 7ish. It was dreadful all around.
The salad first course tasted basically of yard clippings. The best part were the pickled radish bits. The salad included orange slices with seeds in them (a terrible idea).
Main course I had the Wild Game. It was mostly cooked correctly. The fruit sauce that came with it inexplicably contained a large amount of white vinegar. There was no starch or vegetable with the main course.
Dessert promised to be a clustef*$k of fruits and chocolate cake. It came out looking super 80’s with piped out cream on top of three round pieces of what seemed like betty crocker german chocolate cake. There were a couple bananas and a ton of liquor in the bottom slice. It was almost like bad bananas foster inside of a chocolate cake without having been set aflame. The whole thing was in a puddle of hershey sauce.
+The art was absolutely awful. I feel like any small children in the area would start crying having seen the creepy jazz guys.
+There was a lady badly singing random popular songs from the 60s and 70s in a semi fine dining atmosphere.
+The wait staff wore name tags.
+It smelled like a clam’s ass.
+The waitress kept knocking stuff over and I’m positive she was one of the maids from the hotel.
+The bill was 80 $

Stopped in for restaurant week after having checked out the menu online– elk! Buffalo! Seafood taster! Sounds great!
Spoiler: Not great.
Turns out, the kitchen staff was probably comprised of more English majors than chefs. Way to make the menu sound truly decadent, and then turn out overcooked, oversalted, trying-way-too-damn-hard-to-be-fancy-let’s-throw-everything-from-the-fridge-on-this-plate-to-make-the-hipsters-think-it’s-interesting bullshit food.
Salad: I’ve never met a salad I didn’t like. Until tonight. I’m not sure what sort of grapefruit dressing they were going for, but it was way off the mark, and couldn’t make up the the landscaping clippings on my plate. Not even the endive could save this disaster.
Main: I got the fish and prawn. My prawn was heavy on disgusting shrimp eggs and legs, light on meant. Also it was terrifying. That’s probably personal, but, fact is, it watched me eat my dinner. My fish was beyond opaque, far into the well-​done category, and absolutely coated in salt. Tsk tsk, that’s not how you upwell on wine, that’s how you get your customers to fill up on water. Luckily, the risotto was well done, although I wasn’t sure the cheesiness of it quite fit with the rest of the plate.
Dessert: What the… what? Is that a sliced cookie cutout of a box mix? Why is it topped with weird banana compote… and pomegranate arils… and banana sauce… and tangerine sauce… and redi-​whip? I just don’t understand! Putting every fruit in the pantry on a sub-​par cake bit does not make it good. Placing it in an ocean of chocolate sauce might have helped a little, though. I like chocolate.
Service: Why are you all wearing name tags? For f… flying frogs sake, there are tablecloths in use, this isn’t effing Chilis. Service seemed a bit… weird. Like it wasn’t well coordinated or something, I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t busy enough to warrant the weirdness and rushedness from the staff that I perceived.
Deco/​atmospherer: terrifying. Like the 80s and jazz and a clown murderer teamed up and put gray everywhere, tried hard to make it fancy, and ended up with a funeral parlor with clown paintings on the wall. Also, get rid of the piano, or get someone to play it quietly for ambiance rather than trying to put on a sad rock show– ruined it for me. Also: it really does smell like someone rubbed kelp on the walls in here. Breathe through your mouth.

1^st visit: Handlebar mustache on our server was to die for! The food was ok but the ambiance was the star! Live music with the old guys up front and the people at the bar seats singing along. I just couldn’t get enough.
For food, I know we had the mac n cheese, short ribs and I believe a chicken dish. Like I said — food-​ok, the characters and action was over the top.
Someone put it this way — it’s where ‘certain older gentlemen’ live out their last days. Go there and you will see it for yourself. Priceless.
2^nd visit: Nothing at all memorable and the ambiance didn’t make up for the lack of everything else this time. I promise, nothing worth mentioning. Don’t think I’ll be going back — unless I have a really good deal and am in the mood for shenanigans with the ‘certain older gentlemen’ crowd.
Truly, that is all.

Rooftop happy hour on the roof, y’all!
Came here on a sunny Friday with friends and had a blast. Great elevator ride up, reasonably priced beverages and best of all, stunning views!
Can’t beat that with a stick.

Service 4.5 stars
Ambiance 3.5 stars
Food 3 stars
Value 3 stars.
A pleasant dining experience let down by the food.

Quality of food: ⁵⁄₅
Restaurant week
The food here was impeccable and elegant. I had the tasting of Tartare for starters with venison and beef. The crackers were so-​so, but the meat was quite tasty. Afterwards, I moved on to my tasting of wild game, which was amazing. It included kangaroo and elk loin, how many people can say they’ve eaten kangaroo? It had a huckleberry jam on the side, which was splendid! To finish, I enjoyed the tasting of bananas, which consisted of some banana nut bread, some banana crème brûlée, and some banana bread pudding, all of which delighted my taste buds!
Customer service: ⁴⁄₅
The waiter was very patient with us, especially when I kept asking which meats were which. They were also very prompt on refilling our water (I drank a lot). I knock off one point because the time between main entrée and dessert took a little longer than normal, even after they boxed up our entrée’s leftovers and gave us the boxes.
Presentation: ⁴⁄₅
I think the food was all arranged very nicely on the plates. It all looked so well put together on the plates :) I only take one point off because my girlfriend’s taste of beef plate looked a little like it was just thrown together and the potatoes had a sort of odd grey color to them from soaking in the natural jus (which I don’t think it was supposed to).
Ambiance: ⁴⁄₅
It was a nice place, quiet and sort of hidden. The lighting was a little off and kind of dark in certain places with a bar that seemed out of place for this formal-​looking establishment (minus one point), but we were set in back dining room, which gave us a more private vibe.
Overall experience: ⁴⁄₅

My husband and I went here for Restaurant Week. I specifically looked for a restaurant that had vegetarian options for my husband. They had 1 vegetarian appetizer and 1 vegetarian entrée on their Restaurant Week menu.
So for our appetizers my husband ordered the Brussel sprouts appetizer and I had the raw seafood appetizer. The Brussel sprouts were awesome. The seafood, which was 2 types of raw fish and raw scallops, was pretty bland.
For our entrees, my husband ordered the veggie medley and I ordered the steak. The veggie medley was… more Brussel sprouts (prepared and plated the exact same way) and a little bit of some mixed veggies. The exact same stuff as the appetizer! My steak, however, was pretty good.
For dessert I had the banana dessert and my husband had the chocolate cake. Banana dessert was banana bread pudding, banana tarte, and banana crème brûlée. The bread pudding and crème brûlée were pretty good (though the crème brûlée was runny and had not set); the tarte was kinda tasteless. The chocolate cake was really disappointing.
I would have given my app 2 stars, my entrée 4 stars, and my dessert 3 stars. But what knocked this review down to 2 stars was the fact that the veggie app was the exact same thing as the veggie entrée. Who does that?! Obviously any vegetarians who come to the restaurant are going to order those 2 things, since they are the only vegetarian options on the menu. To me that’s just embarrassing.
The ambiance was just ok. There was a lounge singer accompanied by a keyboard. They were good and I liked their song selection but it made it really hard to have a conversation and the 4 geriatrics in the corner were talking so loudly (because they were rude, not deaf) everyone could hear them across the room.

Oh god… where to start with this place…
Despite having a reservation for RW we were seated in the back portion of the restaurant. Which sort of seemed like an annex/​major thoroughfare to the kitchen. It appeared that there was ample seating in the front area with much better ambiance. The clientele was a mixed bag as well. A few with zero consideration for other dining guests (speaking loudly), T&A all over the place, Clantee types and a wannabe drug overlord with a possible hooker gf.
The food: overall, not bad BUT there were some glaring missteps which colored our whole experience. Veggies in the beef tasting were severely undercooked. The mussel (yes, singular) was overcooked and visually heinous. The kicker was the banana «crème brûlée». The caramelized sugar, done nicely, was hiding the fact that it WAS NOT COOKED! How do you miss that? Gross gross gross.
A positive was the service. Our wawa was always filled, our server pleasant and the F&B manager was delightful.
This would have been a completely different review had we been seated in the front room.

Inn At the Park
SD: Banker’s Hill 5^th Ave
Turkey Day 2012
Four Stars
This was my First Turkey day meal without my family and at a restaurant. Inn at the Park offered a lovely Thanksgiving meal. We had a reservation for the 7pm seating (which meant we dined in the nicer dining section). We arrived 15 minutes early which made the service and dining experience much better. The Manager and the Waiter Josh were both extremely friendly. We started with a $ 26 Bottle of Sterling Sauvignon Blanc. We enjoyed an assortment of warm and delicious bread with chive butter.
First course: Sweet Potato Bisque and Duck Confit & Cannellini Bean Soup. The Sweet Potato Soup was very plain looking — one color and one flavor. It was like sipping on pumpkin pie filling — tasted great for three or four bites. The Duck Soup was like a classic chicken noodle soup with a more sophisticated new-​American twist.
Second Course: Seared Wild Pacific Halibut and Oven Roasted Free Range Turkey. The halibut dish presentation was slightly sloppy. The fish itself had a nice sear, the buttery sauce was balanced but the Beet purée lacked flavor and everything was slightly odd. The Turkey Combo was a great spread. Three thinly sliced pieces of Turkey Breast, a mound of freshly made Stuffing, a hill of creamy Mashed Potatoes, a slightly hard Candied Yam, Crisp French Beans with Exotic Mushroom Gravy, and a Sour Cranberry Relish.
Third Course: «Chocolate Pecan Pie» and «Not your Grandma’s» Apple Pie Tasting. The Twist on «pecan Pie» was Chocolate Filled Ravioli with a Salted Caramel-​Bourbon Glaze topped with Candied Pecans. The dessert was smaller, drier, and could have used something creamy. The Apple Sampler was Awesome. The Green Apple Tart, Bread Pudding, Strudel went really well with the Vanilla Bean Gelato and caramel sauce. The Kitchen forgot the shot of hot apple cider sauce. It was still really good from the first to the last bite.
Thank you for a wonderful meal on this holiday.
A few notes: My salad fork was actually a dessert fork. The White wine ice bucket needed a napkin to catch the water droplets.

We stayed at this hotel last year and had a Horrible experience. So much so that I posted an honest but brutal review. The manager sent me a free nights stay with his apologies. He said they would be doing renovations and he welcomed us back. A yr later and we decided to ck it out. All I have to say is wow! Wow ! Wow! The hotel looks completely different! Bravo to the designers! Before the hotel smelled musty and felt dirty. Now it feels fresh and clean. It’s a wonderful piece of history and now has a great 1930s art deco vibe !!! Check out my photos! I would definitely stay there again!

I should’ve known better.
I *really* should’ve known better.
After all, I’ve known for years now that Restaurant Week is a giant rip-​off. It’s when restaurants desperate for business proceed to serve mediocre, mass-​produced food at prices that they claim to be competitive but really aren’t.
A perfect example? Inn at the Park.
Four of us met up here for their $ 30 prix fixe meal. We made reservations, but they weren’t necessary because the place was almost entirely empty. (Yeah, empty during Restaurant Week — a bad sign.)
The interior hasn’t really been updated since the 80s, but I’m okay with that. I can handle kitsch/​vintage/​retro stuff. In fact, I welcome and embrace it.
What I didn’t welcome was the food. The 3 courses ranged from mediocre to downright awful:
** Appetizer: butternut squash and apple soup. This soup was loaded with enough sugar to be inedible. There were literally clumps of raw brown sugar floating in the soup when it arrived. It tasted like a melted butterscotch candy bar. Gross.
** Entrée: duo of beef. The beef had a good flavor, with a glaze that provided a nice sweetness. Unfortunately, the beef was also overcooked into oblivion. (I asked for medium, and this was light-​years beyond medium.) Also, the veggies on the side were cooked bizarrely — raw and hard on the inside while overcooked and mushy on the outside. I have no idea how the chef pulled that off.
** Dessert: caramel apple bread pudding. Look — I *love* bread pudding, but this preparation wasn’t good at all. The caramel/​rum sauce wasn’t reduced properly, so all I could taste was alcohol, which overwhelmed the pudding itself. Good if you want to get buzzed, bad if you want a decent meal.
I hoped that the service would make up for the food, but it didn’t. It must’ve been our server’s first day on the job, because the guy was clueless. First of all, he was hardly ever there, and our water glasses remained perpetually empty. Second, we brought our own bottle of wine, and he didn’t know what to do with it! (Yeah, we had to explain what corkage was.) Third, we asked for menu recommendations, but he couldn’t make any, because he had never tasted any of it before! (Seriously, what server can get away with being completely ignorant of the menu?!)
The only redeeming feature of Inn at the Park is the bar. There are good and cheap well cocktails and occasional live piano music to be found there. (It’s also where geriatric gay men go to drink their golden years away.) If I ever come back here in the future — which is unlikely — I’ll sit at the bar and stay out of the dining room entirely.
Other than that, Inn at the Park is amateur hour. The whole thing is poorly executed, expensive, and just plain bad.
Avoid… please avoid…

Went here for restaurant week with a group of our friends and we all left very pleased. The food was amazing. Although they were smaller portions, everything was packed with so much delicious flavor. On top of that the servers were super friendly. Some of the orders were messed up and it took a little while to bring out new ones, but it happens with bigger parties. The only complaint is that it can be hard to hear each other with the live music.
Overall lovely experience.

Bring back the show tunes! Where’s Kenny?
Looks darker now… Miss the old look.
DK

SUMMERY:
TERRIBLE FOOD because it was either overcooked or undercooked
TERRIBLE SERVICE because the restaurant got so busy and we waited for 30 minutes for the check. They also messed up our food but they did not do anything to make it up.
WHY ONE STAR ONLY?
My friend and I ordered the sea bass which was on the regular menu and the rib eye on the special menu. I asked for medium for the rib eye, but it turned out to be well done. The sea bass was also overcooked. I told the waitress that the fish was overcooked and he offered to make me another one, cool, one star for that. I didn’t ask for another rib eye even though it was also overcooked because I was too hungry. So anyways the second sea bass came out quickly, too quickly that it was NOT EVEN COOKED. Please check out the picture I uploaded
When I saw this, I thought I ordered sashimi instead!!! Not acceptable for a $ 25 entrée.
I told the manager that I would just cancel the sea bass and order the short rib instead. The short rib was NOT FORK-​TENDER. If you have tried good short ribs before then you know what I am talking about.
At the end of the meal we were trying to get the check. We wait 30 minutes for it! When we were waiting impatiently, a gay couple came in and sat right next to us. It had been 15 minutes but they got no water and their table wasn’t set up. They asked me if I could find my waitress so we started talking, I told them about my bad experience and they go «maybe another time» then they walked out! HAHAHA they made the right move!

Visiting this restaurant, connected to the historic Park Manor hotel, was straight up like walking through a TIME WARP into the 1970s. The live piano bar (which is more like an electronic keyboard) and shrieky crooning only added to the campy ambiance. I felt at first as if I were stepping into a dive bar, but then took it all in as a retro elegant restaurant that once represented the very glamour of a classy joint. The booths are high-​backed and ohhhhh so comfortable and the plates have gilded gold edges, that once again, made me feel like I’ve traveled back into time. It is pretty much like Jack’s Bistro in THREE’S COMPANY; I felt like Mister Furley would walk in at any moment.
Customers tend to be of the older generation, and when I visited the guests looked around 50 and up, so I definitely felt out of place and out of time.
With the distraction of this somewhat bizarre setting, I was surprised the food was actually very good. I went during Restaurant Week (in January 2011) and had a pretty unique 3-​course gourmet meal for $ 30. My first course was veal sweetbreads, my first foray into this — even had to look it up in wikipedia (it’s not quite meat, it’s not quite bread; in the end I realized it was more like mashed gizzards formed into a tasty bread-​like cake, set over spinach all in a tasty broth enough just to moisten the dish.
The second course was where Inn at the Park SHINED, and was the reason we had picked this restaurant out of the many places to go during Restaurant Week. The prix fixe main course menu offered three different tastings: beef, seafood, and chicken. Each of these entrees offers the meat served in TWO different ways on your plate with all the accoutrements. Even more stunning was our server said their was a FOURTH option: a duck tasting. My duck-​loving companion took the bait and ordered the dish, which had two different kinds of duck. I ordered the chicken which had free-​range breast and wing over rice and a delicious stew of Andouille sausage and cannellini beans.
With the healthy portions and delicious recipes, it was easy to overlook the how dated the dining room was. Definitely worth a try especially during Restaurant Week or their early-​bird (5 – 7 pm) Prix Fixe menu.

Restaurant Week Win!
I went with two other friends and we basically ordered everything they were offering on the restaurant week menu so we could try all of it. (3 courses, three options each, it all worked out!)
Combo 1: veal cheeks, beef course, cheese plate:
veal cheeks had an amazing wine based sauce. the beef course was short ribs and beef tenderloin, cooked perfectly. cheese plate was three cheeses, one blue plus two soft ripened.
Combo 2: charcuterie, pork course, blood orange upside down cake:
charcuterie was lovely — salumi, and about 4 different types of pâté. one was super rich and buttery. simply amazing. pork tenderloin and pork belly. again, cooked perfectly, with a great sauce. the blood orange upside down cake was a surprise — in a good way. The pomegranate seeds added great texture and a contrast of flavor.
Combo 3: lobster carpaccio, seafood course, molten chocolate bomb
the lobster was surprising — whatever they used for the sauce really brought out the sweetness of the lobster. the seafood was just okay for me, but was on a bed of risotto that I could have eaten for days. The molten chocolate thing was in a puff pastry cup and had a minty tinge to it.
At the beginning of the meal, we were served a heavenly amuse bouche of duck confit. We were also served a sorbet between the 1^st and 2^nd courses.
Last thoughts — service was good, but not stellar. Drinks were strong. Fun crowd in the bar. Our party agreed we need to come here more often.

What a great view! I ain’t talking about the San Diego landscape either…
I guess the nickname of this place is Jurassic At The Park… because it’s the official watering hole of gay dudes collecting social security. I don’t think I’ve had happy hour with an older group of gay grays in… well, ever! This was a definite first.
Oh yeah, the SD Bay, Coronado and Balboa Park in the distance were swell, but the gay geriatric wearing red pumps and a belly shirt definitely trumped Mother Nature.