All I've heard for years is how wonderful the Hyeholde is, so we decided to try it for Thanksgiving dinner. Now we don't normally expect much from restaurants on holidays because the crush of business means that something will suffer, but even with our expectations lowered, the meal was a HUGE disappointment.
It was a buffet dinner for $39/person. Not bad for such a highly regarded restaurant.
The pros: the restaurant itself is everything everyone else has said about it: charming, warm, inviting and relaxing. The host staff was gracious and welcoming.
The cons: everything else.
The service was non-existent. Neal, our waiter, took our drink order and returned maybe TWICE to see if we were all right. Other staff refilled our water glasses. He told other diners about how the buffet was setup but neglected to tell us. Did we offend him in some fashion? Did I look like his evil cousin? It seemed that he went out of his way to avoid eye-contact with us!
The food was bland and tasteless except for the mashed potatoes and the cranberry relish. Both were very good.
Turkey: dry and bland
Prime Rib: cooked well but very tough
Salmon: undercooked (!!!) and tasteless (frozen?)
Stuffing: like eating wet sawdust
Vegetables: overcooked and limp
Bread: dry and tough
Desserts: dry and tasteless
No flavor to anything.
Did I mention the salad? No. That's because there wasn't any salad. How can you NOT serve some kind of green salad?
The ONLY tasty dish was the acorn squash soup that we received at the meal. From there? Downhill.
Ugh. Triple Ugh.
Also, I know that it's a rustic country french decor, but it all seemed a bit shabby and ill-kept. Tired and dusty.
Definitely not worth the long haul out there.