| rev:text
| - This is a $250 review, so bear with me, Brent. ;)
Three stars.. but I like the "Meh" description that two stars invokes.
Our server was not around as much as we would have liked him to be. After we were seated at our table it was quite a few minutes before he came around to take our drink orders. Then another few minutes (normal wait time plus a few extra minutes) before he came back with the drinks.
The menu merely lists each dish with a price. There are no descriptions.
Our server didn't suggest any of the more popular cuts of meat, didn't show us the raw tray. Didn't tell us if the beef is corn- or grass-fed. Didn't suggest any particular salads or sides. He just showed up ready to take the order. In his defense, however, I did have a few questions about the cut of beef I chose and how I might like to have it cooked, and he did seem knowledgable about that, but in my experience with a restaurant with this kind of reputation, he should be offering us recommendations and telling us a little bit about the aging process (dry or wet?) and the cooking methods.
We started with salads. The chopped salad was just that: chopped lettuce, chopped cabbage, shredded cheese, tossed in a bland dressing with light consistency. I had four bites and was done. I would have had more but it was so dark in there I couldn't see well enough to pick out the cheese. The Caesar salad didn't have any actual anchovies on it but had a very strong fishy flavor. Almost too strong.
The bread basket was freaking awesome. Pretzel bread, crisp parmesan crouton bread, and olive bread with huge pieces of olives baked in. I had a hard time putting that down.
The bone-in filet was the best part of my date's meal and my bone-in veal (I know, I know, save me a seat in hell) was amazing. This is a steakhouse, they really know how to cook up a cut of cow. The meat was rich, tender, juicy, and had light crisp carmelization around the edges. It was perfection.
However... everyone on this board has a hard-on over these lobster mashers. The lobster mashed potatoes: I do not know what the big deal is. Here we've got about three cups' worth of mashed potatoes which were heavy on the cream and butter. But on top of that rests a pile of lobster chunks. Maybe 3/4 of a cup worth. Yes, they were good 1 1/2-inch chunks, but even if I mixed up the bowl myself (which I would have to do, as the dish is obviously served this way so you can SEE the quality of the meat you're getting), there is no way I would EVER describe this as "chunks of lobster THROUGHOUT." It could have used some salt or other seasoning. And no, this is not on the menu; I expected it to be about $30, and I was about right.
The lobster mashed potatoes, like the rest of the experience in the restaurant, wasn't bad. I would not describe it as bad. But the constant raving and drooling that many of the reviewers are going on and on about created an expectation for me that this restaurant did not live up to. At these prices (and in some cases LOWER than these prices), you can get more personalized service and better flavor in all of your plates in actual famous restaurants in Los Angeles and New York. I'm not trying to sound all bitched-out and bougie about it, I just feel that I was misled into thinking that things were going to be of a certain caliber in this particular restaurant, and it wasn't. I mean, the bathroom was dirty! There were wads of dirty toilet tissue thrown in the corners of the stall like in the bathroom at a Mexican beach. And the attendant in the bathroom sat in the chair with her friend who was hanging out in there with her and I could hear her proclaim very loudly that she wasn't going to hand out any more towels tonight. What the hell...?
You know who did do an awesome job - the bussers and the servers. Not our table server, who merely takes the order and occasionally brings you a drink... but the actual men who are serving the food itself. There is a grip of people who work at the restaurant who actually bring out the plates of food you ordered and clean them up when you are finished and I doubt they are getting an equal split of the tips from the "main" servers. Those guys were very attentive and working hard.
We did not order dessert. Our disappearing server came by and dropped the dessert menu on the table and walked off, with no mention of even coffee. The dessert menu, by the way, is a small section on a page inside the drink menu. And there are no descriptions of any of the desserts, just names and prices. If I had a question about what one or two of the desserts were, it was irrelevant because our server was nowhere to be found. And being that the salads and side were nothing to write home about, we decided against ordering dessert.
So... overall, I won't be suggesting this spot nor will I be bringing guests of my own here.
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