Local Wine & Merchant

Local Wine and Merchant is a genuine neighborhood restaurant. Since it opened up in SOMA a couple years ago, I have ate here a handful times. I have never been disappointed by the food nor the experience. The only thing I don't like about this place, is the formal name. I feel like the restaurant's tag line, "Eat Local, Drink Global," is more reflective of the experience. I am surprised that the executive chef-partner Ola Fendert, would give it such a blah name after giving my other favorite SOMA restaurant OOLA such oh la la name. It goes to show that you really can't judge a restaurant by it's name. 

San Francisco Radius Restaurant

"Locally sourced French California Cuisine"

At first glance at Radius motto, "Locally sourced French California Cuisine", I thought that this would be a food match made in heaven. First of all they are in SOMA. Anywhere I can walk to to get good food, I get excited about. I love staying in my SOMA  zipcode. On top of that they support local growers. All the ingredients are from 100 mile radius, hence the name Radius (ah huh!). So many reasons to love it... but I recently went for dinner and I didn't love it. The food was very fresh, and the combinations of ingredients were good. The rockfish I had was served with fennel and potatoes. So, why wasn't this a food match? Something was missing from the dishes I spotted and it was the spices. The dishes were bland. Maybe they had an off night because the Yelp reviews are mostly 4 stars. I noticed the good reviews are for lunch so I will give Radius another try because it is local.