Sweet Baby Woodruff, SF

Sweet Woodruff in the Tenderloin at 798 Sutter. Open for about a year now, and part of the Sons & Daughters family.

Popped in there based on Saran's rec, just before Stoppard's Arcadia at the A.C.T. (Because I am a fucking grown-up who goes to see three-hour plays on a Thursday evening. And not someone who passes out after work, then wakes up at 9 pm to wash a couple of dishes and peruse trashy pop culture blogs before falling back asleep.)

Incredibly friendly staff. 

I take a certain masochistic pleasure (courtesy my abusive, borderline personality disordered, Chinese mother) in getting surly responses from the wait staff at Kingdom of Dumpling, or being forced to wait for my entire goddamn party at Eiji. So I think I have a pretty thick skin when it comes to rarefied dining environments and wait staff who think being bitchy conveys either 1) their own superiority (see anything in the Marina) or 2) the superiority of their establishment.

Sweet Woodruff is the opposite of that. Their food is goo...nay, great enough to be bitchy about, but...they're not. The folks there are upbeat and chatty and serious about the food. 

There isn't really a front or back of the house, and I'd recommend sitting at the front counter so you can gawk at the food prep. If you're into that sort of thing. We watched the chef putz with a new dish (chicken schnitzel and brussel sprouts), all the while wondering what the hell he was prepping since it didn't look like anything listed on the menu. Because it wasn't. 

Drink: the wine comes in little jars. Which is kind of twee, but I guess part of the non-pretentious ethos of the place, but which, in an unfortunate twist of pinter-hipsterism becomes pretention. My Arnold Palmer had the perfect balance of citrus acid and tea tannins. Let's be real, I'll drink a too sweet Palmer, or even that Arizona chemical bomb, but ain't it nice to have low expectations and then be pleasantly surprised?

And the food:

All three of us ordered the gnocchi (peas, bacon, wild mushrooms, +$2 for ham). Because I mean, come on...gnocchi. My greedy self thought the $2 addition was getting me ham and bacon, but alas.

Light and rich gnocchi, sweet peas, melt in yo' mouth ham, and the chewy earthy umami of 'shrooms. Eat this.

Baby-faced chef (French Laundry, Michael Mina) making quenelles (of the chocolate pot de creme?) for our free dessert that never was--we had to run to the play.

If I didn't live in Oakland, I'd come here once a week because sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. 

TL; DR: Get thee to Sweet Woodruff.