By Ashley Garst, C1 Editor
Most don’t want to go to prison for a variety of reasons, least of all the food. But the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco is taking a stab at changing that with a new menu that offers up the same fare (or close enough) to what inmates back in The Rock’s prison days would be munching on.
Part of a traveling exhibit called Alcatraz: Life on the Rock, the menu offers appetizers in the form of salad and clam chowder, your choice of one of four entrees, and then a final dessert course. The entrees include spaghetti, meat loaf, baked halibut and short ribs, all with various sides to fill out a complete meal.
Appetizers were served up on a long, rectangular dish, with clam chowder in a small, metal cup with the word Alcatraz emblazoned on the side. The main course arrived on the same sort of food tray that an inmate would have received, though it’s doubtful that theirs were metal.
Short of comparing them to a home-cooked meal, the food wasn’t all that bad. The meatloaf was wrapped surprisingly in bacon, and the side dishes (which consisted of mashed potatoes, mushrooms, green beans and broccoli with a tiny slice of bread) were all delicious.
And it’s not just because this food is being served up by a deluxe hotel – Alcatraz inmates boasted that the prison offered up some good eats, partly due to the small prison population and also since the cooking was a source of pride for the convict cooks.
One thing that seemed strange was the dessert course, which was bread pudding. The dessert was almost the size of a brick, bigger than the entire entrée’s portions combined! It also came with a scoop of ice cream and a candied banana, both of which presumably weren’t on order for inmates.
If you’d like to give the Hyatt’s cooking a test yourself, both the exhibit and the dining experience run until September 28. A full course is $28 a head; to make reservations, call the Hyatt at 415-788-1234.