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| - For the TL/DR crowd: serious service failure and just over mediocre meals disappointed.
We were in town for the NAB convention and had dined at BurGR, Raku, Yardbird and then dined @ Hell's Kitchen (hereinafter HK). We had reservations for 1945 on a Wednesday. The greeters located the reservation and suggested that they were running 10-20 minutes late. OK -- given the high yelp ratings and crowd in the lobby, we can believe that.
Long story shortened, around 2105, we see a group of 6 that had arrived a half hour later than we had get seated, with one greeter telling the other that "Manny had taken care of it." It did seem that Manny had some rapport with the folks, but the other half was having none if it... got Manny's attention with some active finger waggling and a quick inquiry about failed queuing and, mirabile dictu, got promised a table close to the kitchen (it wasn't, it turned out) and free drinks to try to smooth things over (decent gesture, that's why two stars, not one). Note to reception... never let people see or hear what's really going on... it just stirs the hive and angers the bees.
Wait staff was efficient and attentive, orders were taken and food appeared in a timely fashion thereafter. Some of us opted for the Prix fixe menu. My scallops were thin (I get it -- 5 full sized scallops is more of a main and they take longer to sear, cut 'em in half!). Sadly, that makes them a lot easier to get a bit on the over done side. The flavor was quite good (in the US sense; not the UK pejorative use). My Wellington was big... bigger than it needed to be, but it's temperature profile (not the done-ness) says it was being punched out in a production line and sitting under a heat lamp.
The other half got the pumpkin soup and declared it to be insanely rich. Her meatballs were tasty, but had too much tomato sauce to meat ratio for her taste (N.B.: as a comparison point, she suggests comparing to the "kick-ass meat loaf" at Brenda's Meat & 3 in SF).
We shared some of the sticky pudding dessert and both concluded it was tooth-achingly sweet. All three of these ordered at our table went back half eaten (amongst 6 people)... not a good consumption ratio.
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