Mmmm…Hof Brau! Honestly, I had never been to a Hof Brau before, but I tell you I can’t wait to go back. It seems like it was years since I visited (in actuality, it was 5/6/2010…a post-Cinco de Mayo meal…and since I’ve been really bad about eating breakfast lately, that’s dead on…it was a post-Cinco meal!). The restaurant itself is warm and inviting, dark and decorated in a deep red and rich dark woods, with photos of the area on the walls. You can get an idea of the restaurant’s look and feel by the first picture in the series (a slight deviation from my norm, but I didn’t get a good “entrance” picture…and I like to mix it up to keep the excitement levels high with my readers!) I had a pastrami sandwich on a kaiser roll—I’d never had thick-sliced pastrami before, but it was goooood. I also had some mashed potatoes and cottage cheese…both were good and fresh. My eating companions had corned beef with mashed potatoes and vegetables and a corned beef sandwich with mashed potatoes…the potatoes were a hit! The restaurant was pretty full, not too shabby for having missed the 12 PM lunch crowd.

So onto the bathroom…to be honest, I expected something as grandiose as the restaurant. I was sorely disappointed! The bathroom was clean, but super-boring. They had an ad in there for Sam’s Hof Brau free Wi-Fi (which is pretty cool). That and the door were it. Bathroom was pretty standard, light colors with white tile; looked like it had seen better times. Sadly the economy isn’t booming right now, because I think a bathroom overhaul, getting it closer to the restaurant itself, would be great. However…Sam’s prides itself on providing good food at a relatively low cost…and the bathroom is very much what you might expect an older restaurant to be, where they don’t put a lot of emphasis on bathroom design. Finally, taking into account that a great deal of the patrons are senior citizens (at least when I went that seemed to be the case), it’s likely they’re far more comfortable in a “normal” bathroom…and at the end of the day, making sure the clientele is happy is what matters most! Three rolls for an average bathroom.

Rating:

I think this was the first time I had ever tried French cuisine, at La Provence Restaurant & Terrace in Roseville on 4/15/2010 (for all you Americans like me…the dreaded TAX DAY!!!…ugh). Anyway, I’m off track (surprise surprise eh?…nope, not Canadian, still American). I had a kobe beef burger (yeah, I know that’s kinda weak for a French restaurant, but I got overwhelmed and couldn’t decide)…the rest of my group ordered swordfish, filet flambeed with cognac, and an open-faced lamb sandwich (tartine for those in the know). The hamburger was still pretty darn good…I don’t think it was imported kobe beef, because it wasn’t hundreds of dollars. But really, who cares…the food was excellent, the service on top of making sure we had bread, water, drinks, etc. We also had their lemon-drop martini (btw, I am single and looking for cute women that are into potty humor and bathroom reviews…ping me if you wanna join us on one of these excursions!). No wine with this meal, mostly because I’m really the only one who enjoys it, and well…I’m not so single I need an entire bottle of wine to myself!

The restaurant itself is pretty cool, with high vaulted ceilings and a warm cozy feel. If you’d never been in a French restaurant before, and your whole idea of the French is based on stereotypes (sorry people, stereotypes are still alive and well), you wouldn’t expect the restaurant to be at all like it is. Should you go, don’t feel that you have to dress to the nines, there were people in there dressed in football jerseys and flip flops (mostly us—but in all seriousness, it’s laid-back enough that no one stresses it much…and  the staff is welcoming either way).

Onto the bathroom…it’s dark and very relaxing. It’s nicely appointed, with dark tiles, dark wood around the mirrors, and a very cool wave sink. I think between Mercedes-Benz of Rocklin and La Provence, I’m gonna have to redo the sinks in my house. When I get the cajonés to do it, I’ll take pictures and put em up. Aw come on, who am I kidding…I couldn’t put in sinks to save my life! So I have to give this one four out of five rolls…it would get three-and-a-half for being an above-average bathroom and being clean, but I have to give half a roll for just that sink.

Rating:

“I once got busy in Burger King bathroom“—ah, the immortal words of Humpty and Digital Underground…

I dropped by on 10/5/09, and while there was no “gettin’ busy” (hey, this is a family site!) I did take photos of the bathroom and even reviewed it (even if I am two weeks late in posting it).

As a nice touch, they kept the red-and-yellow BK color scheme through the bathroom. I especially love the hand-washing instructions posted near the sink and the reminder to employees to wash their hands over the paper towel holder. It seems slightly more thought-out to post them on the door though, as a “last-minute” reminder to wash your hands in case you “forgot.” Three rolls for being a clean well thought-out bathroom and another half because I love handwashing instruction posters (seriously, has it come to this? We need to tell people how to wash their hands???)

Rating:

Those full-height urinals always seem weird to me, like they’re encouraging you to hit your shoes…never really understood ‘em.

For what it’s worth, this review took place Friday, 9/11/09.

Anyway, this bathroom itself is pretty clean; the color scheme is certainly questionable though…green straight out of A Clockwork Orange mated to light “wood” stalls and dark red adobe-ish tiles on the floor. I think maybe this was a final for a design class…I’m guessing the grade was an F. I suppose in another time, this might have been très chic, but I’m glad I wasn’t around (or didn’t understand) then. This bathroom’s design really seems forced (again, maybe in a different era…but the tiles and faux wood don’t look that old, so I don’t think the design is more than 5-10 years at oldest…at least not the light wood). Further, the faux wood on the stall is much lighter and brighter than the door…if the stall and door matched better, it would alleviate some of the issues.

Worsening things, if you look at photo #4, you’ll notice the placement of the urinal in relation to the door. Not good…someone comes in a little too fast and you’re lucky if all that happens is you end up splashing yourself…I could see a faceplant that while hilarious (and potentially illegal) if caught on candid camera would be exceptionally painful, disgusting, and embarassing.

Here’s another bathroom without paper towels. Seriously, people, paper towels are not the bane of all that is good. It won’t kill you to use paper towels, and it won’t destroy forests if you use recycled paper or paper from renewable forests. Two-and-a-half rolls for design (color and door/urinal placement) and lack of paper towels.

Rating: