These are archived reviews of Mustard Seed from 2005. For more recent comments, please visit the entry.
This restaurant is good. they have great bread with cheese on the inside, chilled and served with rosemary butter. the salad i had was absolutely divine. perhaps the best salad i have ever had in my life. it had toasted pistachios, strawberries, roasted asparagus, and goat cheese, the dressing was light and matched very well. the main dishes were ok, but nothing amazing. the salmon was slightly overcooked. i would say this restaurant is below Seasons in terms of food and service, but with a pleasant, homey, rustic, gardeny, atmosphere, instead of seasons more modern decour. they are both a little on the pricey side, you can expect to pay 15-30 for a main dish and 6-9 for a salad. i might go back when my bank account recovers :). MattHh
They also do catering. I believe the restaurant's menu used to be fairly random, because they would make whatever they were serving over the weekend at various weddings, etc. We had them cater our wedding and the food (and service) was fantastic. We eat here once or twice a year for special occasions.— RussBowlus
Mustard is good, but their service is lowsy. I took my roommate and bunch of people there for a 21st birthday celebration and they completely screwed us on the bill. $500 dollars later I was about to punch the waitress for some of the things she charged us for. For instance, not telling us she was using bottled water and continuing to refill at $3 a bottle. (We had 11 bottles total). And also on top of that I called ahead to ask if I could bring a cake, so the person told me yes, but that it was a 1.50 charge which I thought was more than reasonable. She charged us a $1.50 per slice. Which came out to be $18, and the funny part is we gave them the rest of the cake. After much arguing I got the bill down to 470, but it was ridculous! Good thing for the waitress gratuity was fixed at 18% or I would have stiffed her! —AllisonTakeuchi
- Or at least there was some majorly poor communication on the restaurant's part on this day. I've known the restaurant to be obsessive about service (i.e., frequent refills and drink attention), but as is the case with many fancy restaurants, many things are left to implication. A good indicator you need to ask what you're being charged for is when they tell you the specials without telling you the price—this suggests they're used to dealing with people who don't care. —jr
- This is an upscale restaurant, 18% for parties 6 and over is pretty standard. The water incident is absolutely ridiculous, even the most upscale place is suppose to assume tap water if not specified. Anyways even if they did specify it was bottled, they should have brought the bottles out with the glasses, otherwise how would you know it wasn't tap water. I have never seen or heard of a restaurant serving bottled water without pouring the water in front of you, or at least putting the bottle on the table. Thus i find it highly likely that they were really giving you tap water and defrauding you by charging you bottle water prices. Personally i have ordered water here, and was never charged. hopefully the water and cake was an isolated incedent because that is insane.MattHh
My girl took me here for my recent 24th bday (9/14), and it was easily the worst restaurant experience I ever had. The service was absolutely terrible. There were 3 parties + us (no party bigger than 5, my party was just me and the lady), two of which were seated after us. It took a solid 20 minuntes for the waitress to take our order, another 20 minutes to get the appetizer salads, and another hour to get our main courses.
I ordered penne alfredo, which was absolutely mediocre. The menu failed to mention that half the volume of this dish was asparagus (ick).
Overall, a supremely disappointing experience. Especially sad since my girlfriend is a poor college student but wanted to "make the night special" by dropping $75 for a sucky dinner. I won't be back. —DomenicSantangelo
I have visited the Mustard Seed so many times over the years! I have always had an enjoyable experience and I have even gotten to know the owner/chef: Robyn. The last time I visited I ordered duck and my husband ordered a French rack of lamb. Everything was absolutely delicious. We also ordered a bottle of Boony Doon's Big House Red (a good red wine for the price). One of the things I really like about the restaurant is that the menu changes almost daily and has a lot of seasonal specials. I remember getting a salad with pomogrante seeds during the Fall. Quite delicious. The negatives for this restaurant is that it is quite small and the air conditioning doesn't always work quite as well as I would like. But despite being small, it is charming. If you visit I would recommend the outdoor patio seating (if the weather is nice). It's a great place to sip wine and enjoy the fabulous food. Some other reviewers have said it is expensive, but I don't think it is anymore expensive than other fine dining restaurants. Also, I have been dining there for years and have never been charged for water. —SherryOneal
2005-10-14 15:17:34 I was very disappointed in my experience there. I had been told it was a good place to eat, and when we finally rebelled against eating one more guest lunch at the Silo Pub 8 of us (including our guest from UCLA) went there for lunch. I have a milk allergy, and I don't care for smoke flavor, so there was all of one thing I could eat on the menu. While I was waiting for the rest of my party to arrive I was standing next to the register with a couple other people with my back to the kitchen. I don't have eyes in the back of my head, so I didn't see the waitress. Instead of speaking in a well-mannered tone of voice, she basically shouted at me. Then, she was unpleasant during the ordering process. For salad, soups and sandwiches, I just don't see where the snooty and rude behavior is justified. I won't bother to go back—not much I can eat there anyway, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone either. —EllenPyatt
2005-10-26 16:25:00 I think it's the best restaurant in Davis. Excellent food. I've only been once, but the service was perfect. Of course it cost me $100 for me and my date, but that was after appetizers/entrees/wine/beer/dessert/+ a good tip. —JeffSpeckles
2005-12-17 19:55:39 I had been here before (I grew up in town), but last night was the first time my boyfriend and I had gone since we moved back here. The food and service were fantastic- as good as some of our favorite places in Berkeley (which is high praise). I have a milk allergy (like one of the other comment-ers above), and when I told our waitress she hunted down the restaurant's owner in the middle of the dinner rush, and together they came up with a new mini-menu of options for me to choose from. We will definitely be back soon. — AntoniaOakley
2005-12-22 14:25:08 I do have to give credit to the food because it was delicious. I had the grilled steak and my friend had salmon and they were both great. The place is so small though that we felt like we were sharing a table with the people next to us. Not to mention I couldn't move my chair back without hitting the person behind me. The service was very rude though. Our dessert was so bad we couldn't eat it and our waitress proceeded to argue with us about how it was fine. Finally, after we took turns expressing several strong arguements as to why we could not eat it, she took it back. The waitress stopped being rude when she brought the check. A little late? Shame because it was yummy. —GoshBuster
