Cafe Florian

Review for Sunday brunch.
Pros:
— Since there’s not much of a crowd they let you chill at your table for however long u need to keep chatting and spending quality time
— Oysters on half shell. Need to keep an eye out for when they replenish because they go with the quickness
— Nice and mostly attentive servers
Cons:
— Dirty dishes (every other thing I touched had remnants of a previous meal, lipstick marks, etc). :(
— Food quality is subpar
— Not that nice of an ambience
— Found a hair in my tomato salad

Café Florian in Foster City at the Crown Plaza Hotel offers a very good Champagne Sunday Brunch for about $ 32.95 per person. This price is well worth the money!!! They offer FRESH oysters on the half shell, FRESH dungeons crab, smoked Salmon, FRESH prawns. Prime rib, fresh omelette’s made to order. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, salads, and several different entrees that are flavorful and well made. The staff are constantly filling the crab and oysters so there is always enough for guests as the brunch runs from 10:30 — 2:30. There are also a variety of cheeses, fruit and dessert. The price also includes, Coffee, tea and orange Juice. The atmosphere in the main room is quite nice. The larger room is more like an auditorium or banquet room. However, on a normal Sunday the main room is probably where one would be seated. On holiday’s I imagine it would be a mad house. So I would suggest enjoying this wonderful buffet on a quiet Sunday. You cannot go wrong. Plus the wait staff is wonderful and very professional.

Wonderful for breakfast if you are staying at the hotel.
I ordered the Eggs Benedict and enjoyed a couple cups of coffee. Service was nice and quick.
They offer an $ 18 breakfast buffet that includes continental breakfast, omelette bar and waffle bar and a $ 12 continental breakfast buffet.

I have had brunch here a number of times for family gatherings and I hope this is my last. It is not that the food is bad per se, it’s just boring catering style food that you would typically find in a hotel. My biggest complaint is value for money, our bill came out to about $ 40 per person. For that kind of money, (and for much less) there are far better options for a Sunday brunch. I have no problem paying for good food and good service but we didn’t get either. Not once did anyone offer us more orange juice or champagne.

Had Sunday brunch with my father. One of the better buffets I have had in a long long time. Everything we tried was delicious and well prepared. The service was tentative and polite. We will surely come back again.

Father’s day brunch was good. Enjoyed the dungeness crab sections & the smoked salmon. Little disorganized assigning tables. The hot entrees were not hot. Need to improve there.

It’s getting tougher and tougher to find a really decent Brunch Buffet on the Peninsula. Hell, it’s tough to find ANY buffet that isn’t Sizzler, Fresh Choice or Asian. The Café Florian at Foster City’s Crowne Plaza is pretty good. It’s reasonably priced as well at $ 39. Special event prices can run over $ 60 at other Hotel restaurants. The service here is very good. We had a table of seven, and it seemed like we had at least that many different servers taking care of us. I like that you get champagne, OJ, or both… as soon as you’re seated. Let’s cut to the chase…
BREAKFAST & SEAFOOD SECTION:
Generic pastry display — croissants, danish, muffins, dough nuts
Sliced Fruit
Au gratin Potatoes
Scrambled Eggs
Bacon & Sausages
Sliced Cheeses
Bagels & Cream Cheese
Smoked Salmon
Shrimp with shells on ice
Dungeness Crab on Ice
Oysters & Mussels /​Half Shell on ice
Cocktail Sauces
CARVING STATIONS
OMELET STATION
HOT FOOD WARMERS
DESSERT SECTIONS
Great variety, but only average quality, except for the excellent prime rib. One thing about places like these… is how they expect to keep scrambled eggs fluffy when they make them 3 gallons at a time, and they sit for 30 minutes. That’s why I go to the omelet lady and have her scramble me up 3 eggs lightly. I’m not an omelet fan anyway.
So parking’s no chore… share the same lot as the hotel guests. Not a bad idea to call at least a day prior make reservations.
Café Florian is pretty cool!

Limp sweet potato fries and pale Caesar salad. The French dip is decent but nothing to write home about.

NOTE:
This review is for the Mother’s Day Brunch only. I have absolutely no idea what Café Florian serves for their regular menu.
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I’m a buffet FREAK.
I love gambling in Vegas, but what really excites me for Vegas is the amazing food, including the «best of the best» buffets. It’s a quintessential example of all things American and totally representative of gluttony at its best.
«Welcome to America — enjoy the buffet, eat all you can.»
Having said that, I have discerning taste when it comes to food, and be it a la carte or the grandest buffet restaurant in the world, the food comes first, and it has to taste good, no matter the price. I can forgive not having everything taste amazing, but a sold 50% of the food must be outstanding for me to enjoy any particular buffet and be willing to eat in the precise way one should NEVER eat. Afterall, what is the point of «all you can eat» if there’s nothing you want to eat there, or only a few things are edible? At a mere $ 37pp rate, this was a bargain compared to the two aforementioned buffets (which cost double this rate). Given that this was a champagne brunch for this special day — the cost was outstanding.
For Mother’s Day this year, we headed to Café Florian inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Foster City w/​a group of 8 including children. Due to not having made reservations in advance, my preferred buffets at the Palace Hotel or Ritz Carlton (which I’m told has downgraded their buffet and prices) were not available. Someone from our group had found Café Florian, and we were able to squeeze our large group in for a brunch buffet.
Their Mother’s Day Brunch had a good array of foods. What I liked was their combination of a wide variety of breakfast items, including scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, and an omelette station — and then another section consisting of more typical lunchfare with chicken, fish, and so forth. There was one area with just seafood, which included crab legs, shrimp cocktail and large oysters on the half-​shell. They also had a meat carving station which presented us with turkey and prime rib.
In other words — a grand old feast!
The seating area was odd, to say the least. It was like a typically large conference room, but set up to make do as a dining room. I do value atmopshere and aura for a Sunday Brunch — especially for a special occasion — so Café Florian loses a star here.
I really like the wide array of food items, but I have to say that none of the breakfast or lunchfare tasted particularly good. The scrambled eggs, which I normally devour, were dry and tasteless. The sausage was decent, bacon was bleak. For having fresh lox available — thumbs UP! I am a lox WHORE… and could feast on this, bagels and eggs for the rest of my life without a complaint. I didn’t try the omelette station. I did pick at some of the lunch items, including a barley and ham salad, and they were all «OK» — — nothing impressive on the whole.
I give this restaurant extra points for HAVING raw oysters, crab legs and shrimp available — and plenty of it. I never saw them run out. However, none of the three were what I consider to be «absolutely fresh». Edible, but not quite ideal.
What was impressive was the meat carving station — — BOTH the turkey and prime rib was very good! The au jus sauce was great, the fresh or creamy horseradish were both good, and overall, this was the highlight of the meal.
Service was pretty nice, though rather on the slow side. The old gentleman who was taking care of us forgot about some things, but when he did finally remember (or was reminded), he was very nice about everything. Most champagne brunches offer only one glass of champagne, but Café Florian just kept on refilling our flutes — — and with pretty tasty champagne, at that.
That said — — Café Florian charges nothing for kids under the age of 5, and half price for kids 5 and over. We had two kids under 5 and a 7 year old table at our table, but were still charged for 3 «kids». It took managerial approval for this to get fixed on our bill. (In my opinion, something like this should be clarified PRIOR to bringing the bill over, especially since the only thing to calculate on this bill was how many people were being charged.)
Because they don’t make the 50% cut of «delicious food» for this buffet (I’d estimate it at 25%) and because the atmopshere can’t hold a candle to that of many other hotel buffets, I do have to ding it 2 stars. But to me, a 3-​star rating is some place I’d go to again, if need be, and for having availability on Mother’s Day, providing good service and unlimited champagne, I have to give Café Florian 3 solid stars.
The food? Plenty of it, most not too tasty, but nothing was horrible either. This cost for unlimited turkey carvings. prime rib, shrimp and crab legs is still a bargain if you think about it.
Happy Belated Mother’s Day to the moms out there…

I would give this a place negative star if I could. Had Sunday brunch here. selection was ok. A little sub par in term of value for money. What really killed it for me is the wait staff. So I made a reservation and when I got there, there was no one at the front to greet the guests. The place was not crowded at all. half the tables were empty. Finally a waiter guided us to a table. We asked for hot water along with orange juice. The juice came after a little wait, then we left the table to go get some food. After about 5 minutes later, we return to the table, there was no water. Waited about another 2 minutes to flag down that waiter and he then remembered he needed to bring us water. Finished with the first plate of food and the orange juice. Left the table to get some more food. Came back a few minutes later, the dirty plate was still there and the juice was not re-​filled. I put the plate in the middle and continued to eat. My friend also finished her plate and put it in the middle and went off to get some more food. Our waiter ignored us and served everyone around us. He even gave the check to the table about 2 feet next to us and took their plates away while leaving us with a stack of dirty plates on our table and never re-​filled our drink. I saw the manager walking around doing nothing. I finally got another waitress to get clear our dirty plates. I saw the waitress complain to our waiter that he didn’t do his job. The waiter still did not re-​fill cups and take away plates. I was finally fed up with this jerk and figured that he was a racist idiot since we are the only Asians in his serving area. I finally got the jerk’s attention and told him to get me my bill. While he was returning with my bill, he stopped and went off on another direction to refill glasses for another table. The first time I put «NO SERVICE, NO TIP» on a bill. I wrote to management of the hotel and they gave some lip service but highly doubt they are doing anything about this jerk. Needless to say I am not patronizing this place ever. Unilocal should really allow negative stars or at least zero stars just to really reflect the bad quality of places like this.

The third of the Crowne Plaza restaurants. OK, so I’ve only done breakfast here, but after four or five days of breakfast buffet I am so done. It’s so boring and annoying and really unfairly priced ($ 14 or so per person, and if you want espresso instead of coffee they add $ 4…that’s just ridiculous!!)
At least make my freaking omelet for me, assholes, instead of making me spoon out the lukewarm eggs myself.

Mother’s Day Brunch here made me want to curl up in a corner and go to my happy place. «There’s no place like NOT HERE, there’s no place like NOT HERE.»
Ok, so this was my bad. The Friday before Mother’s Day, there still existed no reservation for me, my mom, The Fiancé, my sister, and her two kids. So I called up Caffee Florian at the Crowne Plaza and they still had room for their brunch buffet: for $ 42 a head! Eek, but ya know, special occassion.
When we walked in, we all agreed, we felt like we were attending some massive conference. We were seated in a huge room full of tables. You then go to the next room, grab a plate, and start stuffing face. We were a bit disgusted. But take this review at face value: I’m not huge for the buffet experience.
I will give them props (and that means a lot coming from a white girl) for not charging for my nephew even though he should have received the kid fare: still 18 bucks. Also, their quality is very nice compared to many buffets I have been to.
All in all, loved the blintzes, the avocado and grapefruit, and the cheezy hashbrowns. But next year, I’M cooking.