Bouchon has fallen into ennui. We last ate at Bouchon in 2010 and the food was absolutely divine. Fast forward to October 13, 2013 and the Bartenders don't notice new customers at the bar, the meat in the omelette and crepe are of inferior quality and the beignets are heavy lumps of fried dough.
To start off with, Shane, the bartender, needs some lessons in customer service. I'd been standing at the bar for at least 10 minutes on a Sunday afternoon around 12:30 pm trying to get someones attention so I can buy two Bellinis. I noticed that every time I leaned forward to get a bartenders attention the man to my right would look at me and lean forward trying to get the bartenders attention himself. He and his wife had already not only gotten their coffee, but refills as well while I was standing there waiting. Finally Shane comes over when he notices this guy gesturing at him and asks him what he needs. After the man told Shane what he wanted (more coffee refills), I said "Can I get 2 Bellinis when you get a chance" and Shane says "You're going to have to wait. I can only serve one customer at a time and right now I'm helping this customer". Really? Wow. So then Mr Bartender-Blocker tells me that someone before me waited 45 minutes for a bloody mary and I told him that that's unacceptable and that I would have been helped if he didn't keep leaning in front of me and blocking the bartender from seeing me. I don't think this guy had ever been called out on his shenanigans before, he was totally shocked. So then he starts in on me, totally going off, and after 5 minutes of his manic rant he tells me to quit whining. Um, I'm not the one doing the whining here, dude.
Anyways, Shane comes back and asks me what I need and I tell him two Bellini's please. And he tells me "That will be $27 dollars". Um, ok, I'm dressed perfectly appropriately for a Sunday brunch, why the announcement of how much my drinks will be? Is this standard for this place? Really weird.
Bad service, plus serving someone else when it's my turn, especially on my birthday, equals no tip.
Once we were seated the service from our server was top notch. However, the food is seriously lacking. For $25 I expect my omelette to have prime cuts of steak in it, not tiny diced up pieces of second rate meat. My husbands crepe was topped with crab that tasted fishy and the broccoli tasted like it had been frozen. The beignets are supposed to be soft pillows of melt in your mouth carb heaven and they are heavy lumps that are covered in grease.
Come on, Keller, this restaurant needs a little attitude adjustment and the ingredients need to be higher quality. Considering all of the choices available on the strip, Bouchon is overpriced for second rate quality.