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| - Park is a solid 3. If I'd drafted this the last time I went instead of this time, I'd have given a 4, but this time I finally made it during happy hour. Don't let it fool you; it's a horrible misnomer. The lower prices on the happy hour menu accompany what are basically half-sized portions, saving you no money at all on food or cocktails. At least the waitress warned us about the small portions before we ordered them & ended up even more disappointed. So basically, you're not getting better pricing for happy hour; you're just ordering tapas.
On previous trips, we've tried the chilaquiles (enormous portion, and really good!!); the San Diego burger (my dining mate scarfed it before I could try a bite, & says it was also really good); the chicken bar bites (if chickens had cojones the size of a great Dane, that's what these are -- no bite-sized bites here!); and the Philly mac & cheese sandwich (decently good, though I was expecting more mac & cheese... the other Yelp pics showed much more than we got on that trip). Based on all of those, and the service, which is normally pretty friendly and mostly timely, I'd give a 4.
This last trip, the waitress started out friendly until we expressed amused disgruntlement at the "happy hour," and thereafter she was nothing but flat-lined personality with us, although I went out of my way to be upbeat & friendly with her. Apart from that, we ordered the fried pickles (which we've had before -- pretty tasty! They're cut into slices and are interspersed with fried pepperoncinis, too, as well as sometimes a whole jalapeño!), and we were excited to try the Cuban sandwich and the garden burger.
The Cuban was the most uninspired version of that meal that either of us had ever tasted -- the bread wasn't grilled & pressed, and somehow they took most of the flavor out of this inherently tasty mix of ingredients. The garden burger was the most bland veggie burger I've ever had (and that's saying something). Looking at the patty, it looks like it should be good, since you can see some black beans & tiny pieces of colorful veggies, but it seems like they used zucchini, maybe (or some other filler/black hole of flavor), for the rest of the patty, so the flavors were stretched too thin. They topped it with tomato, cucumber (which I love in the right context, but in this case it also just added to the blandness), and arugula (which, normally tasty, just got swallowed up by the blander ingredients as well). The super light basting of the chipotle mayo-like topping could barely be noticed. If I had to eat this dish again, I'd order an extra side of the stuff & slather it on to see if it made a difference. To get an idea of what a really awesomely executed veggie burger / bean patty tastes like, go to Rí Rá.
As a general note, the accompaniments for most sandwich & burger items are either fries (the seasoning is really good, and the ketchup is slightly spicy, yum!!), sweet sweet potato tots (that other "sweet" is in there for a reason -- they're topped with cinnamon/sugar, & while they're good, if you like sweet potatoes, we both felt they'd be better served as a dessert rather than a side for a savory dish), and a couple other things we've never bothered to order, I think cole slaw and a side salad. Some day I'll order the side salad to see what their dressing is like, but I'm not a fan of 98% of cole slaws.
We'll definitely keep coming back & trying the other plates Park has to offer, but we'll be avoiding the "happy hour" menu and those last two offerings. It feels claustrophobic sitting inside, but both patios are nice!
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