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| - If your taste for great food can be influenced by one particular restaurant then the Palm is it for me. I have been eating at this gastronomic icon before I was even an adult. I've eaten at the Palm in most major cities and had the most magical dinner at the original in NYC. What a great place to start to form a love for incredible food.
Unfortunately, like the mall it's in, it's a glitzy place with no substance (sorry, Caesers).
A friend and I walked in right on time for our reservation and were made to wait after we declined to sit at the bar (the hostess tried to convince us that eating in the bar was an option for reservations even though there were many empty tables - rude). Finally we got a table and from then on the experience got a bit better.
Service here is impeccable. Our water glasses stayed filled, plates were taken away, everyone was very polite and efficient. That is the best part of this restaurant.
The bread basket was delicious, it has several different kinds served with butter. We each ordered steak, that is why we came. I ordered the bone-in ribeye and my friend ordered the filet mignon. We also ordered three sides: mushrooms, mashed potatoes and creamed spinach.
I usually love sides, I think they can be an incredible accompaniment, but these were so bad we didn't even touch them.
The mushrooms were clearly soaked in vinegar. The sharp acrid taste was so overwhelming that the taste of mushrooms was clearly lost. The mashed potatoes had goat cheese mixed in, which I'm not a fan of, but the potatoes were fluffy. I just can't eat goat cheese. Blech. The creamed spinach was overwhelmingly creamy, almost too thin to eat with a fork. The taste was bland as though they had added too much tasteless cream. The spinach taste was also lost.
I ordered my ribeye medium rare and it came out so rare that if it had been cooked any less it would have been raw. The meat was stringy and so fatty that I almost gagged. I ate a few bites and then asked for it to go. What? My dogs love undercooked, overfatty meat!
My friends filet was good, but I refused to taste it. After all this bad food my stomach was starting to hurt. Ugh.
I'm extremely disappointed in the food at this restaurant. It was my first bad experience with the Palm, EVER (in 28 years). I would never go back here. Not for free, not for pay, never.
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